I wish I could have had the time to do this earlier, mainly because it's currently 1:30 a.m. Spain time, but I've been running around all day. Fortunately, tomorrow is "Los Reyes Magos" which is a fiesta all throughout Spain celebrating the day that the Magi came to give Jesus Christ gifts. This is normally the time that most children receive gifts in Spain instead of on Christmas Day. However, I'm not looking forward to going back to school on Tuesday, especially because, though my Spanish has improved exponentially since I first came here, I still don't understand Philosophy.
If I'm going to be entirely honest here, I didn't enjoy Christmas that much. I only spent it with my host parents, host brother, my host grandma, and great aunt and uncle here. Basically we just had dinner at our house on Christmas Eve and then went to my aunt and uncle's house for lunch Christmas Day. As good as the food was, no one really celebrates Christmas like they do other holidays here. Still, in true American fashion, I gave my host family their gifts on Christmas morning. My host brother seems to like the Milwaukee Brewers jersey I gave him (despite the fact that he plays Basketball) because he packed it with his other clothes for when he goes back to the University in Zaragoza. My host dad is really into the books about Wisconsin that I gave my host parents. Because the books are in English he works through them slowly, but he is now prone to speaking aloud random facts about my home state that I may or may not have known.
Though Christmas was fine I do have to say that I enjoyed New Years Eve/Day a lot more. We spent New Years Eve at my host mom's mothers house in Zaragoza. The entirety of my host mom's family showed up. After dinner we Skyped my host sister on exchange in Pennsylvania. Victoria got her entire host family together and we all did the countdown to midnight with twelve grapes, in true Spanish fashion. For those who have never heard of this tradition, in Spain on New Years, everyone is given twelve grapes, one for each time the clock chimes at midnight. The idea is to eat one grape every time the clock chimes, and if you finish your grapes by midnight it's considered good fortune for the year. I successfully ate my grapes. After that, my older host cousins went off to fiestas and the rest of the family stayed at my grandmother's house where we sang songs for the rest of the night. Some of them where more traditional Spanish songs, but others were American oldies (YMCA; New York, New York) and others were a little more modern (Macklemore). Because my whole family is aware of the fact that I have an audition in order to get into the music program at the college I'm attending back in the States, they had me sing one of my audition songs. Most of them had never heard me sing before and were apparently impressed (despite the fact that I was a bit off key on account of a head cold).
Of course, with the holidays comes homesickness because of missing my family and all of our traditions. Also, being from Wisconsin, missing the snow. However, I got my longing for snow satisfied because today my host dad drove all of us (Alex, Grace, Jen who was visiting from Zaragoza this weekend, and me) up to the mountains on the French border where the snow is several feet deep and perfect for making snowmen. Jen is from Florida and absolutely loves snow because she never gets to see it where she lives. Though she has been skiing in Colorado, she told me she never had time to make a snowman while she was there, so we made sure to make a massive one taller than any of us. Grace was impressed at how fast I can roll snowballs to snowman size. Hey, I'm from Wisconsin. I got this. I would post pictures, but they are on my phone which is currently dead (again). I'll be sure to do it tomorrow.
After that adventure we went back to Sabi for lunch and then my host family had to take Manuel and Jen back to Zaragoza. We stayed there for the "Reyes Magos" parade, mainly because we couldn't leave until the crowds had cleared out of the main street. It was a small parade but with the equivalent excitement of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. When the "Reyes" came past on their floats all the little kids sitting on their parents' shoulders went absolutely wild. Imagine hundreds of small children screaming "DIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOSSSSSS MMIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOO!!!!" like a pack of animals. After the streets cleared out we drove home and ate dinner. Then I went out for tea with Grace and Alex where we discussed many things, but mostly interesting family stories. Now I'm making a blog post at two in the morning. I swear to God this is absolutely normal.
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