San Sebastian and the Long Weekend

It's Sunday, and good news, tomorrow is a fiesta so no school! Counting the fiesta on Friday this will be a four day weekend! It totally makes up for missing two days off for Thanksgiving.

Anyways, late last night we got back from San Sebastian. I have provided a map for reference.

You can find San Sebastian just north of Pamplona on the map, right on the coast. Sabi is located in the middle of the area labeled Pyrenees. The drive was a few hours, but well worth it! It's absolutely gorgeous there. We spent most of Friday just walking around the coast and enjoying the views.

We also spent some time exploring the city...

I wonder if the food is good?

And just ahead you can see France!

I should also add that, since San Sebastian is in Basque country they don't speak Castillan Spanish...

Basque on top and Castillan on the bottom. It's another one of those places like Barcelona. For the record, I can't understand Basque, and neither can most people not from Basque country.

My host family went with Alex's host family. We met Alex's host cousin, Alex, and his parents in San Sebastian. One of Alex's friends, Laura, and her parents had come with them, too. On Friday night we all hung out at a bar, parents at one table and kids at another. After getting over the awkwardness of not being exactly sure what to say or talk about to each other, the four of us (Alex, Alex, Laura, and I) ended up asking each other what different words were in Spanish/English. As we were leaving the bar I thought for the first time, "I don't want to go." And I meant it. For the first time since I came here I genuinely felt comfortable, like I belonged despite the fact that I look hopelessly American. It was all a bit strange, but either way I still dread going through the "Return Policy" paper work for the travel agency.

So, I get to sleep in tomorrow, and then on Saturday I'm going on a trip with my class to Madrid! Just a reminder, I will not be coming back until late on Monday of that week, so my blog will not be updated. However, many more pictures to come!

The Holidays are Coming

Hectic Holiday Update:  Next weekend is a holiday here so we are traveling somewhere for the weekend. I don't remember where or for how long. Also, the weekend after that I'm taking a school trip to Madrid with my class. We will be gone for the entirety of Sunday and are not returning until late on Monday. This is an apology to all who read this blog on a weekly basis. I may or may not get around to updating these two weeks. If I do the updates will probably be at odd times. Thank you for understanding!

Anyways, Thanksgiving...

Well, Happy Thanksgiving to all in the States! I hope you ate a lot of really great food and that the turkey wasn't too dry! We had our own Thanksgiving of sorts here. Alex, Grace and I traveled to Zaragoza this weekend and stayed at Jen's house. Jen is the one Rotary exchange student living in Zaragoza, but there are many others from different programs that live there as well. Jen invited the other exchange students she had met in Zaragoza to the Thanksgiving feast at her house. It mostly consisted of Americans, but two of Jen's Spanish friends from school, the rebound Rotary exchange student who lives a block away from Jen's house, and two other exchange students (a girl from Finland and a boy from Australia) came. It was a learning experience for all. Everyone who was unfamiliar with American Thanksgiving customs got to enjoy a homemade Thanksgiving meal and everyone else found out that Spanish people really love cornbread and pumpkin pie. (By the way mom, thanks for the pumpkin cheesecake recipe. Everyone, and I mean everyone, loves it.)

On a side note, my host sister, Victoria, got to eat an authentic Thanksgiving dinner in the U.S. and, for the record, she loves pumpkin pie too.

Anyways, that was Friday night. The rest of the weekend consisted of exploring Zaragoza and hitting the shops. I only bought one shirt, but Grace, Alex, and Jen bought so much more than me. Grace and Jen are both addicted to clothes. I'll just leave it at that.

This morning we had to take the bus home from Zaragoza. I don't really enjoy riding the bus to Sabi because it takes less time by car, but in the end it doesn't really matter because we all fall asleep no matter what mode of transportation we use. Anyone who has known an exchange student or several exchange students might have noticed one thing I certainly have. A lot of exchange students tend to fall asleep on car rides. I never understood why, but I can say now that we just can't help it. We are secretly that tired all the time.