La Dama Boba

I had to wait a lot longer to post this than I had initially planned, but it took me this long to finally get to a computer.

My new host parents took me to Huesca where Santiago´s parents live to have lunch with them. It was a bit of a special meal because this was the first time I got to meet Santi´s parents in person. What I didn´t realize was that this visit would last from before lunch (about 2:00 p.m.) until into the night. It´s currently 7:00 as I type this on my new host grandparent´s tiny little laptop (basically it´s one of those pesky netbooks they sometimes have us use at school back home, for the benefit of those who know what I´m talking about). Either way, I´m glad to finally have the internet access because considering the fact that my host parents and grandparents just went to church, I have a feeling I´m still going to be here for a while.

I´m currently having a hard time reacounting everything that I did this week. I think it has to do with the fact that I didn´t sleep very well last night. You see, my first host family went to Zaragoza for the weekend, so my previous host family, because of the fact that they are such good friends of theirs, took their dog, Nala, for the weekend. Since I spent several months living in the same house as Nala, she still considers me a member of her pack. She did not leave my side for the entirety of Saturday, and continued to follow me around this morning. That itself wasn´t a problem because I love Nala, and she basically just chilled out underneath my desk most of the day. However, last night Nala still refused to leave my bedroom. I even left my door open (which is asking for trouble in the form of my current family´s dog, Leo, who likes to eat out of my trash) so she could go down to the kitchen where we had put her bed, but she refused to leave my room. I wouldn´t have been bothered by this if Nala hadn´t spent most of the night pacing around my room or growling every time Leo passed by. Despite the fact that I took a nap this afternoon, I´m still a little hazy.

This Friday Alex and I had theater practice. We´re doing a play called "La Dama Boba". From what I know, it´s a very famous play that was written in either the 15th or 16th century by a very famous Spanish writer. The entire play is written in verse, so the best I can do is compare it to Shakespeare. Alex and I were given the very small roles in the play of the teachers. I´m not complaining because it means that I get to have just as much fun watching the play as being on stage, and I don´t have paragraphs of difficult lines to memorize.

Last night the theater group got together again, and we went to Jaca where a traveling theater group was performing the same play that we are practicing. The group had a very interesting take on it, making it feel like something that you would see performed by a traveling company back in the 1930´s or 40´s. It´s sort of a difficult thing for me to explain, so I´ll just say that you had to be there to understand the brilliance of what this group had done to a classic "Spanish Shakespeare" play. I doubt anyone in the audience didn´t laugh at least once. Anyways, afte the play we got to meet the cast and talk to them about the performance. It was wonderful and very interesting, but we didn´t get home until late that night (midnight).

I could continue to talk about the homework and tests I had to take this week, but I shant bore you with those details.

OLYMPICS!!!

Except for the very unlikely chance that you live under a rock (a fact I highly doubt if you are reading this post) the Sochi Winter Olympic Games started this weekend. The winter Olympics aren't very big in Spain this year because there aren't many Spanish athletes involved in winter sports. However, if the game is soccer, you can bet the whole country will be watching. Still, this fact doesn't keep me from being glued to the television when all of the skating, skiing, snowboarding, and hockey events are on.

What's fun about the Olympics for me back in the States is that, especially in the winter when we can't really do much, it's the only time where we all sit and watch sports as a family. Normally we don't watch a lot of sports. My dad and grandpa follow college basketball, and we keep up during football season. My sisters and I sometimes turn on a tennis match when none of our shows are on, but we generally don't watch a lot of sports; at least compared to some. The Olympics have always been the exception to that, and I love it! It doesn't even matter if my home country is anywhere close to winning or not. I'm the sort of person who will be like "Oh! Japan is doing well. Go Japan!" or sit there absolutely amazed by a couple of figure skaters and not even caring that they are the rival team from Russia. I just have so much fun watching.

On Friday I had a test in philosophy. Most of my classes I do okay in now, but I must admit that I'm pretty confident in my ability to fail every test in philosophy. Lucky for me, the teacher is nice and just gives me "sufficiente" on everything.

Yesterday Alex, Grace, and I went with one of our friends, Maria, to see Paranormal Activity. Alex is the kind of person who doesn't get freaked out by those sorts of movies. Maria and Grace, on the other hand were clutching Alex the whole time. Honestly, I was mildly bored by the movie. No offense to anyone who loves Paranormal Activity, but I just found it too typical of a scary movie and very predictable. However, there was one group of girls sitting in front of us who were even more scared than Grace and Maria. They were fun to watch. I also enjoyed listening to the commentary of a teenage boy sitting behind me with his girlfriend. He basically narrated the movie out loud in Spanish. As we left the movie, my stomach decided that the popcorn wasn't sitting to well and I promptly threw up into an empty popcorn container. Surprisingly enough, I wasn't as concerned about that as I probably should have been, but I think I was just glad to finally know why I wasn't feeling too great during the last half hour of the movie. Anyways, we had a sleepover at what used to be my house but is now Grace's house because not only was she still freaked out by the movie, but we decided it would be fun.

Jump to today where I slept in, went hiking this afternoon, and now have to try and write an essay for my college before bed.

Enjoy the Games!

Everybody's Birthday!

You know how you have several weeks where absolutely nothing interesting in the slightest happens? Then suddenly, the next week, everything happens? That week was this week.

The week kicked off with Alex's birthday. My host family went over to her house after dinner to wish her a happy birthday and enjoy some delicious cake. Tuesday was my host mom's birthday so we went out for tapas for dinner so she didn't have to cook. Wednesday was Jen's birthday, and Friday was Grace's birthday. For Grace's birthday, us exchange students and the girls from school gathered at her house where we goofed around and ate an American style birthday cake. Alex, Grace, and I wanted to head over to Zaragoza this weekend and celebrate Jen's birthday too, but this weekend we were all changing host families. In short, we were just too busy packing and moving houses to make something work.

Earlier this week I also filmed my audition in order to get into the music program at my college. For anyone that's curious, you can watch it here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tZNUWBQNhE

Also, on Thursday Alex, Grace, and I had to go to Huesca for a Rotary thing. It was El Dia del Paz (The Day of Peace). Basically, we had to stand in front of a monument while people gave speeches and a school choir sang a lovely song about world peace. Grace even gave a short speech about her exchange year. After that we went out to lunch with our Rotary counselors and stopped by some shops before heading back to the bus station and buying our tickets back to Sabi.

This weekend, like I mentioned above, we had to switch host families. Everyone agreed it was sort of pointless because the three of us were just switching among our current host families. I had to move into Alex's house, so I basically moved 30 yards down the street. Grace moved into my house and I helped her unpack because Alex's host family had gone to Zaragoza for the day. This is one of the reasons I haven't been able to write this post until now. The other reason was that throughout this week I have become progressively more ill. By the time Sunday (moving day) had rolled around I was very feverish and achy. I was far too exhausted to unpack last night, or finish a blog post.

I apologize if parts of this post are poorly constructed because I'm too tired to edit. I skipped school today, slept all morning between hacking fits, and didn't really start moving around until 5 in the afternoon. I hope I'm better by tomorrow, but I'm not looking forward to unpacking.

I Have Too Many Things

I don't know why, but ever since I've come here all of my things seem to keep breaking.

First it was my watch. The battery died within the first month I was here. Then the chain on my favorite necklace broke. The cell phone I was given here is several years old and barely holds a charge. Now the back is falling off to the point where I have to tape it together. It's a good thing the original owner of the phone doesn't want it back. My sneakers look fine, but I only used them to play tennis back in the States so the bottoms are so worn out now that I'm not sure they will make it until EuroTour. My boots are even worse off, falling apart at the seams. I'm pretty sure my purse is almost done for. Also, I might just ditch half of the clothes that I brought here because they are all starting to fall apart, too.

Not to mention the fact that people here keep giving me jewelry as gifts when what I really want is peanut butter and scholarship money. Not that I'm complaining about getting nice things as gifts. I just need the scholarship money more.

Luckily, my host mom is very willing to take me clothes shopping. In fact, we went to Huesca yesterday to buy me new boots. I like these ones a lot more than my old ones anyways. The thing is, this is the time of year that everything is on sale here in Spain. Though I would have paid for the boots myself, my host mom insisted they were a late Reyes Magos present. I'll find a way to pay them back later.

Jaca, Tapas, and Expectations

Back to school, again. Ugh! Life was so much easier when I didn't have to wake up before sunrise.

Anyways, things have wound down after the holiday season, which means that everything is pretty much back to normal around here. I've also been a bit sick lately, so I'm sorry if I end up rambling. I still can't quite think straight.

School started back up on Tuesday, so I (unlike everyone in Wisconsin) had to wake up early and head over to school. Nothing much interesting happened this past week in terms of school, but I do have to present a Power Point some time either this week or next week about the geography of Wisconsin.

Friday night I just hung around the house and sketched. Saturday was a bit more interesting. I went to the first theater group meeting since before the holidays. We read aloud scripts this week. I was only given smaller parts, but I didn't mind because I tend to get caught up on strange words when I'm reading aloud in Spanish. Anyways, they were very fun to do. That afternoon Alex, Grace and I headed over to Jaca to hang out. Grace took the opportunity to talk about the fact that she was disappointed that she hadn't really made a close Spanish friend yet. It turns out Alex was disappointed about the same thing. I found that I wasn't quite sure what they were talking about. I guess that coming in to this experience I had never actually expected to make close friends, even though I would have liked to. I mean, of course I wanted to make friends, but I wasn't expecting to meet someone where four months later I could call up my host parents and say "Hey, I'm headed over to so-and-so's house after school. I'll be back by dinner". The kind of friend where I feel more comfortable at their house than at my own.

After all of that, the three of us went back to Sabi in time to catch the last half hour of a soccer game. Soccer is, as many of you know, a big sport in Spain, so that night we had Alex's host parents and some family friends over at our house to watch the game before dinner. We ate tapas, including some of the meat that my parents ordered from my relatives in Austria (they own a company).

Today I hung around the house again. I finished my project for Geography and watched Ender's Game in Spanish. The movie was very fascinating. I should really pick up the book (or, at least, I would if I wasn't trying to improve my Spanish).

See you all next week.

Here Are Those Pictures I Promised

I Apologize For My Lateness

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.