Great Weekend:)

This weekend was the best yet! Friday my friend Taylor, the other exchange student from China, brought me and Andrea out to meet a few of his friends. They were very nice, and we had a lot of fun. Taylor’s best friend in Spain knows English very well, so I would try to speak in Spanish but everyone ended up speaking mostly in English. I don’t like when people speak to me in English because I want to practice Spanish. When people just speak to me in English without trying Spanish, I sometimes tell them to speak Spanish, but then I am embarrassed when I don’t understand. Most people speak to me in Spanish first though, then if I don’t understand they will explain it in English. I like when people do that more. When I hung out with Taylor and his friends, I took the bus for the first time by myself! On the way there Sonia had to go to Basketball so she helped us get there (it was very easy). On the way home Andrea and I were a little nervous. Paty, my other host sister, was texting me reminders about the bus. One text Andrea and I thought was just information we already knew, but eventually asked Taylor to make sure we translated correctly. We didn’t. The text was telling us to press a button on the bus when we needed to get off. Andrea and I didn’t know this so thank god we asked Taylor! He explained that one of his first nights out he took the bus home and didn’t know that and long story short it was a really really bad experience for him! So I am happy that didn’t happen to us. 

Saturday I went to a surprise party for my friend Laura. I was really excited to be hanging out with only Spanish people, but I was also soooooo nervous all day! My spanish is getting better, but it is still a struggle for me to communicate and understand. At first I felt a little awkward because I had no idea what anyone was talking about, and therefore couldn’t contribute to any conversations. Eventually everyone was including me and helping me understand. I met a girl Clara at the party who I really like, but she doesn’t go to my school. She was very nice, and we had a lot of fun talking, dancing, and taking pictures! It was hard not being able to be my usual self at the party because of my Spanish, but overall I still had a lot of fun with everyone!

Sunday, Andrea and I went shopping! I brought a small amount of clothes so I could buy a lot of clothes here. Because of when our host parents could drop us off and pick us up we were there for a longgggg time. We didn’t mind though:) When we were there I realized it was near the town my friend Emilio lived. Emilio was an exchange student from Spain at my high school last year that I was friends with. I wanted to meet up with Emilio, but unfortunately he was really busy. We planned on hanging out soon though, which I am very excited for! I am hoping when we hang out I will be able to speak with him only in Spanish. 

School today was veryyyy boring because I was extremely tired from skyping my mom late last night. School is hard enough to pay attention in the U.S. when I understand the language and wayyy harder here because I barely understand what the teachers are saying! I finally performed my song for my English class though. We sang the cup song for our English song. For our Spanish song, we ended up singing the song Vamos a la Playa (several of us exchange students loved singing this song all the time in Barcelona). It was a pretty easy song to sing since part of it was in English. Andrea and I added some choreography which everyone thought was hilarious. Even though our voices were HORRIBLE the teacher loved our performance and gave us a 10 (grades here are 1-10, they don’t have A’s, B’s, etc.) We also had to record it, and later edit the video by adding cool effects, so maybe I will put it up on my blog when I finish. It’s pretty embarrassing though so I’m not sure!

p.s. To any of my English teacher’s that are reading this, I originally was trying to have good grammar and follow all the rules I have learned while writing these blog posts. I got too tired of paying attention to those detals. Please don’t be disappointed with my several grammatical errors I made or will make:) hahahah

Me, Clara, Pablo, and Julio at the surprise party:)

School and Food Differences

This week I met the other exchange student in the grade above me named Taylor. He is from China, but lived in Hawaii for awhile so is fluent in English. During break I went to the pastry shop by my school with him. He was very nice, and told me he wanted me to come hang out and meet his friends! He also told me he was only supposed to stay for the first semester, but loved Spain so much he is staying for the second! I am still working on feeling completely settled and comfortable. I don’t think this will happen until I can converse more easily though. I can tell my ability to understand and speak is getting better, but I still have awhile to go to reach where I want to be. I thought dancing here was non existent, but I finally met a girl that dances! She is very nice and told me where she danced. I think I might try and take some ballet and modern classes there. I am a little nervous to try and take classes though because of my lack Spanish, but I know it will actually help my Spanish and help me meet more people. I think I will go and watch a class first though, just to see what it’s like.

I am understanding more in Chemistry and Math because what they learn is the same in the U.S. I have realized though they teach things differently. In math I go crazy because the teacher NEVER factors any equation(which is faster) and instead goes straight to the quadratic formula. In my school in the U.S. we use the quadratic formula only when it can’t be factored or has larger numbers that would take a while to figure out how it factors. Also in Chemistry we are doing Lewis structures. The teacher always goes through all these steps I think are unnecessary, but the way I learned involves very few steps and is much faster. A concept I haven’t figured out in school is substitute teachers. I think when a teacher isn’t here they just don’t have class and instead it’s a free period. The other day my Chem teacher didn’t come to class, but I saw him in another class earlier and at lunch after. This confused me. 2 other different things I’ve noticed in school is all notebooks are graph paper, and I think notecards are barely used for studying. I wanted notecards to study Spanish and we went to a lot of different stores before finally finding these odd large ones that were lined on both sides. 

Today during lunch the gym teacher sat at a table with us because the teacher’s table was full. We ended up staying in the cafeteria the whole lunch talking with him. He spoke to us in English to practice, and we spoke back in Spanish. We discovered most sports in Spain are played through outside clubs and not through the schools. When I told him my school has a bowling team, he laughed and said “Typical americans” which I thought was pretty funny (my friend John on the bowling team wasn't so happy when I told him that comment though hehe). Also, sports in college isn’t like the U.S. you can play sports in college, but college sports aren’t very popular and shown on TV like in the U.S. There’s no such thing as scholarships for athletes to play at a college either. The gym teacher then told us about his opinions of the U.S. when he went to Orlando when he was younger. He explained how he thought it was cool that you could wear anything anywhere and no one cared. He said there were also more fat people and they didn’t seem embarrassed of their clothing, like when they wear tight clothes and short shorts. I thought this was hilarious! 

FOOD!!!! So I haven’t talked much about meals here. Breakfast is much smaller, and eggs are NOT a breakfast food here! Lunch is the largest meal of the day and is eaten around 2 or 3. Dinner is eaten veryyyyy late. We typically eat dinner around 9:30. When we eat dinner at my house here, we all eat dinner together every night. After dinner, we almost always have some type of dessert. I have discovered fruit is considered a dessert here. Dinner is longer too, for we spend a lot of time talking about our day and usually wait for everyone to finish eating before we leave the table. When we have hamburgers for dinner we use toast instead of buns, and sometimes use one piece of toast on the bottom and pile everything on top. If they use it like a bun, on the top and bottom, they cut it with a knife. I still eat mine with my hands though. Pancakes(my favorite food) are non existent here, but my family has maple syrup, which their exchange student last year gave them, so one day they said we will make pancakes, eggs, toast, and bacon, a “typical american breakfast”:) Since dinner is later everyone stays up later too, I think I am always the first one to go to sleep. Dinner may last until 10:30-11 so I usually go to sleep right after dinner even though I wake up much later for school (8 but in the U.S. I woke up at 6:45). 

After some complications I am officially going to Cadiz for Carnival! I am sooooooo excited, and also excited to see my friend Nirmala:) The weekend after Cadiz  I go to Paris, and it seems like almost everyone in my grade is also going!

2 Weeks Down

Week 2 is complete! This week of school was still pretty difficult, but it keeps getting easier. Chemistry has been so confusing (it’s confusing in English). Last week my teacher gave me a book and had me study the chapter on Ionic and Covalent Bonds. I figured he was just giving me the easy stuff to start with in order for me to build up to what they were doing. I was wrong, for Friday he began teaching this chapter. I think I had a huge grin on my face the whole class because I understood what he was teaching. When he started doing Lewis structures examples I was already a pro, and I think the class was actually confused! (Emelia if you’re reading this, I kept thinking how much I wanted to give you a high five for understanding, also I hope chemistry without me is going good:) ) I also am now officially going to Paris with the Primero Bachillerato grade in March! I am hoping through this trip I will be able to become closer with the students in my grade. Andrea, Claire and I are also planning on going to Cadiz for a weekend in March to see some of our friends and attend Carnaval! Carnaval in Cadiz is a pretty big deal I guess. 

I have become pretty good friends with the students in the grade below me. I went to dinner with a ton of them for Valentine’s day on Friday. It was a lot of fun. I have really clicked with a girl named Iris (who in my opinion looks just like Lily Collins, an actress in the Blind Side). She is very sweet and funny and we said we are going to go shopping sometime soon! I brought a small amount of clothes so I could have room to shop and bring back more. Also, a girl named Paula and I bonded over our mutual love for Joseph Gordon-Levitt at dinner. I was wearing my Tiffany & Co. heart earrings my best friend Logan gave me before I left for Spain, and when Paula saw them she explained how she loved the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s but never knew Tiffany’s actually existed! I was so excited to hear this because I also love Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Audrey Hepburn:) Overall, it was a great dinner!

My technical drawing teacher saw my sketchbook and was very impressed with my artistic skills. I also couldn’t understand the technical drawing stuff at all, so now my drawing teacher gives me artistic drawing assignments instead, which I really like! I really like my drawing class. There are two boys that sit next to me that are very funny and nice. I talk a lot with Patrick who I discovered wants to go to college at the University of Chicago! He told me his favorite movie is Never Back Down, and when I told him I met Sean Faris from the movie Never Back Down on a movie set my cousin worked on he was shocked and didn’t believe me. Even after I showed him the picture he kept exclaiming “No te creo!” (I don’t believe you). He also invited me to Madrid next weekend with his friends, which I am very excited about because 1. I haven’t gone to Madrid yet 2. He mentioned something about Starbucks (I miss getting drinks at my dads coffee shop every day and starbucks is very similar) and 2. This means I am actually making friends my age hehe:)

Last night my host family and I went to the mall to get some things I needed. It was a hugeeee mall and had so many stores that I can’t wait to eventually go through and shop in. One funny thing I noticed in stores is that all shirts with writing are in English! I don’t think I saw one shirt with a phrase or words in Spanish. We also went into a store which had a whole section with shirts that had U.S. colleges on them! I laughed and had to take a picture. After shopping we went to eat at Pizza Hut, which was kinda nice to get some American food I am used to eating at home.  

 Everyone after dinner!

Iris and I:)

 Claire, Me, and Andrea in our Uniforms

 Our gym uniforms

The view of the mountains in my town

The shirts with U.S. colleges that made me laugh

2nd Week of School

So today was a pretty funny day. In English class we all have to get in groups and sing a song. Everyone is singing songs in English, but Claire, Andrea and I have to sing one in Spanish and English. We listened to the songs everyone picked which included Demons by Imagine Dragons, Imagine by John Lennon, Let it Be by the Beatles, and The Story of My Life by One Direction. Manny, the teacher, was giving everyone tips on how to pronounce sounds that aren't in the Spanish language. One is the "w" sound. His example was wood. We discovered that some people would actually make a "g" sound so it would actually sound more like "good". For our English song one of the Spanish girls suggested "What Does the Fox Say". I loved this idea! I thought it would be hilarious and we could've done the dance they do in the video to make it even funnier. Everyone around me agreed it would be funny, but Claire and Andrea hate the song and think it's annoying so were not doing it:( We ended class by playing Just Dance, which was awesome!

In the library I saw my little friends, and met more of their friends. All the little girls played with Andrea and I's hair almost the whole period. I loveeee when people play with my hair, so I didn't mind at all:) The funniest part of the day was in lunch. I've noticed a little the past week that when we take our trays up when we're done the teacher's will occasionally tell people to go back and eat more. The teacher in charge today took this VERY VERY seriously. She first came up to me when I sat down and told me I HAD to get a piece of fruit to eat even though I didn't want one. Whenever a student got up the teacher would check if they ate all of their food, and if they didn't they were sent back to their table to finish. You literally could not have any food left on your plate (The amount of food we get is wayyy more than the lunches my school serves in the US). One student snuck past her and she actually ran across the cafeteria to check and make sure they ate all their food, it was ridiculous! I was able to run and sneak past her though. I was cracking up the whole lunch as everyone tried to spread their food around and hide it under the plates. I just think this rule is stupid because why should you have to eat all the food if you don't like it or if you are full?

Anyways, the grade I spend most of the day in is Primero Bachillerato, which equivalent to 11th grade in the US. In March, Primero Bachillerato is taking a school trip to Paris! So as of now, I am pretty sure Claire, Andrea and I are going to go. I love Paris, so I am very excited!

One Week Down

Well, it's been a week since I arrived at my host family's house. This week has been very good at times, and also very bad. I feel like each day my spanish gets a little bit better. I still can't understand a lot and always are asking people to repeat and talk slower. This really frustrates me, for I just want to reach the point where it all just clicks (I still have awhile until then though).

I finally got my uniform so I won't stick out even more than I already do. My main focus in school is to just learn the language for now. One of the best parts of this week was with these three little 9 years old girls. They kept walking past Claire and I's classes to look at us. Finally, one day in the lunch line we saw them whispering and looking at us. They finally ran up and started talking to us. It was adorable! They always come up to us in the lunch line now to talk to us, and whenever they leave they always give us a kiss on the cheek. I love seeing them in school, for they always smile really big and get so excited. They've even tried to set up play dates with us to meet them in the library during break. Unfortunately though, our break times are not at the same.

This weekend I went to Claire's house to work on our song for English class. All the students have to sing a song in English, but we have to sing ours in Spanish. We chose the song Vivir Mi Vida by Marc Anthony. After, we watched some of the olympics with her host family, and then hung out and talked with her host brother Javi for awhile. Javi, Claire, and I had a lot of fun just hanging out and talking (mostly in spanish) together. Claire and I then went to see American Hustle. Javi couldn't come because he had to study. When he told us this, Claire put an "L" on our forehead jokingly making fun of him, but him and his little brother Dani had no idea what that meant! We thought it was funny, but we explained to them making and L on your forehead signifies someone is a loser. Anyways, American Hustle was in Spanish, therefore we barely understood what the movie was even about. I still thought it was good though, mostly because I loved all the actors in it, especially Jennifer Lawrence!

My host family has been very nice! They have made me feel very welcome into their home. My host dad knows I like the show Doctor Who and found when it will be on TV so I can watch it in Spanish, which made me very happy. I also showed my host sister Sonia the game flappy bird, and now the whole family plays it!

Day 2 of School

Second day of school was not so bad. I made more friends and talked to people in each class. I discovered my talking is probably better than my understanding of people talking. I am almost never scared to talk, for if I mess up we all laugh about it and its not a big deal. Sonia and my host mom have been extremely helpful when I don't know a word. I appreciate how patient they are with me. I REALLY struggle with names though. When I see the name written it is easy, but when the students tell me verbally I struggle. For example one boy's name is Angel but in Spain it is pronounced Ahn-Hell (I think). Students are in the same group of people all day, and mostly stay in the same class all day so it is kinda like a homeroom. Since I go to classes in different grades and groups I just go to Sonia's homeroom during break and when we finish lunch. Today in the homeroom I showed everyone how I can solve a rubik's cube. It started with a small group watching and by the end a huge group was gathered around, and they all were very impressed when I did it! I knew bringing my rubik's cube would come in handy! I also had my technical drawing class today, which I still am not sure what we do for technical drawing, but I think it is somewhat similar to what I did in my Honors Geometry class freshman year. In Honors Geometry we constructed different shapes using a compass and a ruler to create shapes with specific lengths and angles.

First Day of School

Today was my first day of school. For about the first half of the day Claire, Andrea, and I worked on making our schedule. It was extremely complicating. Our principal printed out a sheet with what classes we could take each period. In this school there are 2 groups for each grade, each group stays together and they stay in the same class for most classes and the teachers change. Since we are exchange students and don't need the same requirements we have the option to do different classes in different grades. Each day is a different schedule which is very different from my school. Classes started out great with my Public Speaking English class. This class was very talkative ( in Spanish not English) and the teacher usually replied to them in English. The students were very nice! I was very excited when I told the teacher my name and he said in Spanish it is Camilla not Camille, so in SPANISH I explained that in my Spanish and Italian classes at my school in the US my name is Camilla too. The class was impressed with my Spanish (it wasn't hard to say though). The teacher told me I did good and was impressed I spoke right away, for most of the time students speaking another language are very shy and scared to talk (this compliment was the highlight of my school day). I then went to the computer lab with Andrea for our free period. After we had lunch. At this school you can't bring your own lunch you must buy it at the school, but you can go home for lunch or go out to eat. When people are done with lunch they hang out in a classroom. Here I spoke with several new friends who were very helpful with Spanish and we all laughed a lot since Andrea, Claire, and I didn't know much. After was philosophy, which was horrible. I literally had no idea what the teacher said the whole class. I finished the day with P.E., Which Claire, Andrea, and I all have together. We played volleyball, which was fun. One big difference I noticed in my Spain school is they call their teachers by their first name. 

After school I had toast with Nutella and then I went with Sonia to basketball practice. We took the bus and it made me happy to see how easy it is. Hopefully I will eventually be able to take the bus on my own. Once we got to our stop though, it was a REALLY long walk (I'm writing this during her practice). For now the whole Spanish thing is very overwhelming at times, and extremely frustrating when I don't understand. I feel bad that everyone has to keep explaining what different words mean. I keep reminding myself though, that I will eventually laugh at how oblivious I am to everything with my small knowledge of Spanish now.

Here is my schedule. All classes that comp are circled are basically a study hall, so I can go to the computer lab or library. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have nothing after lunch so I can go home or stay at school! The A's and B's mean which group I'm for the Bachillerato 1 grade, I think the ones without letters are classes in another grade.

Meeting My Family

Today the people going to Madrid woke up early to take the train. It was a 2 hour and 45 minute train ride, but it felt like forever. I couldn't eat this morning because I was so nervous. When we arrived in Madrid we all were extremely excited and nervous. My host mom, host dad, and host sister Sonia(age 15) picked me up at the train station. The car ride to their home was hard, for they talked to me a lot in Spanish and I replied to a majority of things with "Sí" because I had no idea what they were saying. I could get some phrases out though. The whole way to their house we had a beautiful view of the mountain range called Sierra de Guadarrama. It will be nice to see mountains all the time.

When we arrived at their house, 40 minutes outside of Madrid, I met my other host siblings Ignacio (age 9), Patricia(age 17), and Pablo (age 22). They were very nice and greeted me with kisses on the cheek. I'm not sure if it is all of Spain, but at their home they do not take their shoes off in the house. My host mom showed me to my room. In my room is a framed Jersey signed by Cristiano Ronaldo, a player on the Real Madrid fútbol(soccer) team! My family are fans of the Real Madrid Fútbol team, especially Ignacio. Ignacio and Sonia taught me how to play the game FIFA, which I either was good at, or they were letting me do good because they felt bad. I usually don't know what Ignacio is saying but he has been making me laugh all day, it seems like he is a goofy kid.

We had lunch around 3 pm (a normal time here in Spain). I was extremely overwhelmed with not understanding anything but at lunch they all helped me understand and I wrote down SEVERAL spanish words on my phone with the English translation. Even though I don't know what they are saying, I can tell they are very funny.

They have siesta(nap) after lunch, but only the parents. The children can too, but they choose not to. They typically only do it on the weekends since they work and go to school during the week (my host dad has siesta everyday though). After siesta I am going with my host parents to figure out my phone situation. My plan was to have my iPhone to communicate with people in the US through apps like Viber, which need wifi. Then, I was going to get a small pay as you go phone for friends in Spain, but trying to communicate my plans in Spanish was a struggle and I am not sure they understood. Tomorrow will be my first day of school, so I am extremely nervous about that!

Barcelona

So today was our last day in Barcelona, but tomorrow we meet our host families :) Barcelona has been pretty fun, but I have been so anxious to leave so I can meet my host family. When we arrived in Barcelona a group of students from several different countries joined our group. It’s been pretty interesting talking to everyone and seeing how similar and different our live back at home are. I love talking to everyone that has cool accents too, especially the kids from New Zealand and Australia. It’s been pretty fun to get to know everyone, but it’s sad we all will be going to different areas of Spain tomorrow and won’t get to see each other :(

As we have been touring Barcelona we will sometimes make an attempt to speak in Spanish. Yesterday we went to Starbucks and I was SOOO excited to make my first attempt at speaking Spanish. I spoke so well when I ordered..... then the barista asked me something back in Spanish and I had no idea what she said! When I told my brother Jake about this he told me “When in doubt just say taco!” I’m not sure if thats going to help me though. The same thing happened when I ordered churros with chocolate today, but I had my first churros in Spain were DELICIOUS! In Spain instead of churros with sugar and cinnamon they usually have churros with just sugar and you dip it in hot chocolate. They told us we could drink the hot chocolate, but it had more of a chocolate syrup thickness so it was weird to drink some of it. Below I will add some pictures of the different places in Barcelona we went. I was sad we did’nt have much time to tour, but what I did see was beautiful. We went to La Sagrada Familia which was beautiful!Probably the funniest moment of the trip happened at La Sagrada Familia where we witnessed a group take their clothes off in front of it for a picture! We started talking to them and discovered they are a rowing team from London and were doing a scavenger hunt. One thing on the scavenger hunt was to make a human pyramid, which I got to be apart of!

So tomorrow this stops being a trip and actually becomes my life for awhile. I’m excited, but also nervous. The first few weeks will be especially hard because of my lack of Spanish. I am going to try not to communicate with friends and family often so I don’t get home sick and also so I can avoid using English as much as possible. In my last blog post I mentioned I was going to the same school as a girl named Andrea. We discovered that our host sisters are best friends, so we will probably hang out a lot. We decided that we are going to try extremely hard to not communicate in English when we are together though. 

Casa Batlló

 MY FIRST CHURROS IN SPAIN :) :)

 A bull fighting stadium (bullfighting is now illegal in this area and is now a shopping mall)

La Sagrada Familia

Our pyramid with the London rowing team

A church at the top of a mountain and the view from the top

Madalene, Me, Nirmala, Claire, and Andrea