Pictures and Processions

 On Sunday we went to Zaragoza, but Santi and I went a little further, Teruel to be specific. There were motorcycle races at the track there, and I figured, why not?

 It was actually pretty cool, and a little different from watching race cars.

Yesterday, Grace's and my host families took us to Jaca to see the procesion there. That was an amazing cultural experience. Though I found the masks to be a bit intimidating, it was nothing compared to the noise. The sounds of the drums were deafening!

 If you look carefully, you can see all of the people playing drums. Even those kids are part of the procession; playing drums, too.

 I cannot tell you how amazing these floats are, and they are all carried by people. The ones in Jaca are small compared to the ones in larger cities, and each one of these "small" floats takes 24 people to lift!

 The previous float was of Jesus carrying his cross. This one is of the Virgin Mary.

Just to demonstrate how heavy these floats actually are, here's a little video...

Another great thing about this time of year is the candy shops! This carousel is absolutely amazing, and entirely chocolate!!!

I even got to try one of the chocolate eggs! Totally worth the exchange weight.

Easter Updates

Dear Readers,

Yes, I haven't made a post in a while, I am well aware. Truthfully, I cannot blame my laziness on any particular thing, but on many little (or big) things that have kept distracting me from writing. For the moment, let's just call this conglomeration of things "Life".

Fortunately, now that it's Semana Santa and I am officially on vacation until the 23rd, I figured there was no better time to catch you all back up.

First of all, I have gotten extremely lazy when it comes to taking pictures, so I'm working on fixing that habit. Sorry guys, distance has made me forget how much you all love seeing pictures about my life, even the things that have become every day for me.

I will have many opportunities to take some hopefully amazing pictures this weekend. Santi is taking me to see a motor bike race in Zaragoza on Sunday. Also, one of the biggest of the processiones is in Zaragoza, so I'm hoping to get to see that, too. The processions are those things like parades, but with large floats telling the story of the Crucifixion. Some of you know what I'm talking about, but I'll just have to post some pictures for the rest of you.

I'm not sure if we have any other plans for vacation. More news to come as the story develops.

Yesterday was fun because everyone at school was in a fantastic mood since it was the last day of class before break. Santi also took us to see an ice hockey game. The second division final match between Spain and New Zealand. Originally, Santi had bought tickets for himself and the three of us exchange students, but Alex had other plans. Her actual mom came to see for break, so by the time I had woken up yesterday, Alex was already on a bus to Barcelona. If I'm not mistaken, they are currently in Mallorca. Anyways, since Alex was busy, I invited Maria. Remember Maria? She's my neighbor who is in theater group with me. We all went to see Paranormal Activity way back when. I invited her, which was cool because she had never been to see an ice hockey game before. It was even better that Spain crushed New Zealand 6-2! "Campeones!!!" ...(champions)....

Not to be a downer, but there are some rather big things that I have to announce about my future. As some of you may remember, I had planned to double major in Music Theater and Spanish in college. In order to study Music Theater I had to audition to get into the music program. Well...I wasn't accepted. I suppose that's the root of my late depression. I don't mean it like how you think. I've accepted the fact that I didn't get in, but the hardest part is trying to rebuild my future plans. It wasn't until I found out this news that I realized that all of my future career plans had been counting on me getting into this program. To top it off, it also hit me the other day that after Semana Santa I have a month more of school (I get out early because of the University placement exams). After that I have Eurotour, and then about a week to pack before I leave. Honestly, I really don't want to leave.

To sum it all up, I don't want to leave Spain, and I am now only majoring in Spainsh, and I'm still figuring out what I want to do with that. I've ruled out being a teacher, for the most part. Not that I don't think teaching is a great career, it's that I've tried it. I taught Sunday School at my church for three years, and an hour and a half once a week was often too much for me. Babysitting is different from teaching. That's a whole other breed of child care. Still, if I can barely stand reading aloud a bible lesson and trying to stop six screaming kids from throwing crayons for an hour, I have no idea how kindergarten teachers can do that for seven hours five days a week with even more kids. As much as I don't want to be just like my mom, I don't think she realizes how much I actually admire her, especially for her patience. I honestly don't know how she does it.

Speaking of my mom, we had the most wonderful conversation the other day. For the first time since we found out the news about the music program, we talked about everything but my majors. After we were done talking, my mom passed me on to Ana, the exchange student living in my place. Ana's wonderful, and we have a special understanding of each other. I think it has to do with the fact that we are both exchange students. All of the things that my mom doesn't understand (like how much money we spend on food) are never lost on Ana. It's the sort of relationship that's like, "You're an exchange student. I'm an exchange student. I get you!" Other than that, Ana is naturally nice and funny and understanding.

Back on topic, my mom handed me over to Ana and made us have a conversation in Spanish. She's tried to get me to speak Spanish to her, but I find that difficult because my mom speaks absolutely no Spanish. Even if I start speaking, the conversation never lasts long because she can't understand a word of what I'm saying, let alone reply. I guess that's the point of her getting Ana to speak to me in Spanish; to actually hear me speak it, even thought my mom doesn't understand a word. Anyways, Ana and I talked about school, food, friends, and the fact that neither one of us want to go back to our own countries. I'd be really cool with her living in my room for another year if I could figure out a way to stay here.

After our talk, my non-Spanish speaking sisters stepped in. We mostly talked about television shows. They are both really into Supernatural, which I am in the slow process of actually watching. I've only seen a few episodes, and I genuinely like it, a lot, but I have nine seasons to catch up on, and no netflix to help me.

I should also mention my cousin, Xia. She, like many people, lives just down the street from me. She likes to come over a lot and play. I love having an overly energetic, cartoon addict, 10 year old to do crazy things with, like talk in weird voices, or dance around the kitchen. She's a lot of fun, but it's a good thing I have a lot of energy, too. I received a package in the mail recently from my parents full of my favorite Easter candies! I'm definitely planning on sharing some with her, just not too much.

On a slightly duller note, the weather has been absolutely perfect and Spring-like for the past week. I hope it stays that way for break. I need to invest in some sunscreen soon, or the skin might slowly burn off my face. I love the sun...but my skin doesn't!

200 Trees

I played iPod roulette today on the bus ride back from Zaragoza. "iPod roulette" is a game that I made up where you put all of the songs on your iPod on shuffle and see what you get. It's interesting for me because I haven't gotten rid of any of the songs I put on my iPod, ever. I still have CD's that I downloaded in 6th grade that I don't even like anymore. Occasionally I run into a song that I forgot I had downloaded and I end up really liking it.

Anyways, the reason why I was in Zaragoza this weekend was because Rotary Zaragoza invited us to another event. This week we planted 200 trees on a nature reserve. Our planting crew consisted of Alex, Grace, Jen, Cheyenne, Sergio (who is Cheyenne's host brother), Cheyenne's host parents, Alex's host parents, and three Rotarians. I teamed up with Sergio to tackle a designated tree-planting row. I actually ended up doing more of the physical labor because, no offense to Sergio, but he's twelve years old and not exactly muscular. Since I have had past experience with wielding large gardening tools, I found digging holes in the ground easier than Sergio found it, since he has never planted a vegetable garden. Honestly, at the end of the day, despite having a splinter in my palm that refused to come out, I was quite content to plant things and get my hands dirty. Besides, Sergio was an entertaining partner as he kept defending his inability to dig a hole in the ground because it was "village work", dancing like a chicken, and naming the trees that we planted. Sergio knows a lot of random words in English so a few of the names that he chose were Steve, Dick, and Condom.\

After laboring in the gorgeous spring-like weather that had persisted for the entirety of this week, we all ate at a nice restaurant and headed back to Zaragoza. Originally, us Sabi exchange students were supposed to split up and sleep at separate Rotarian's houses. However, after a bit of convincing by Cheyenne's host mom, we were given permission to all stay at her house. This plan worked out better for us because it gave us a chance to hang out around the city that night.

Since my host parents were in Zaragoza this weekend with Carmen's parents again, I had to spend Friday night away from home as well. We had a sleepover at Alex's place.

I have also had a head cold since Thursday, and I had a test in Philosophy on Friday. I am not looking forward to getting that test back.

Also, on Friday I had the pleasure of meeting Grace's actual parents. They had been in Monaco for a week for business purposes, but came to Sabi on Friday to check out the town. We all had lunch at what is now Grace's house, which was a very traditional Spanish meal (gazpacho, paella, etc.). Honestly, the whole thing was a bit bizarre because us exchange students had to keep translating for our parents and host parents. The thing is, we could understand what everyone was saying, but we kept forgetting that not everyone else could.

Jumping to this afternoon, Disney's Frozen was finally playing at the movie theater here, so Grace and I, because we absolutely adore Frozen, went to see it. I was so glad to finally see the movie in Spanish since I had only ever watched it in English. Now I am in the process of memorizing "Let it Go" in my second language.

Now that I'm finally back home, I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed. Unfortunately, tomorrow is Monday, which means that I have to wake up early and face that Philosophy grade.

Semana Blanca

You, my lovely, observant readers may have realized that I did not post anything for last week. Truthfully, it wasn't that I didn't have the time, it was just that I was too lazy to write last week. I hope this post makes up for that.

Starting with last week, Alex's counselor from Rotary was visiting the city of Pamplona for her vacation. She kindly invited us to come visit her so she could show us around the city. On Wednesday, us exchange students hopped on a bus and did just that. We spent the entirety of Wednesday walking around Pamplona, slept in the apartment Alex's counselor was staying in, and explored a bit more Thursday morning before getting back on the bus after lunch.

This picture below is the gateway of the original Roman walls into Pamplona. Cool!

This was probably the coolest bridge ever, as lame as that sounds. You can see how it zig-zags in the background.

Wednesday night we had some time to hit the shopping center in Pamplona. Normally, I get sick of shopping faster than most, but once I discovered that the shopping center had a pet shop, I didn't want to leave. I didn't realize how much I missed visiting pet stores until we walked past the window display where little fish were swimming in a tank. My reaction was basically, "OMG! FISHIES!" and the next thing I remember is having my nose pressed up against the glass like a five-year-old while everyone else snickered at me. Anyways, the pet shop was really cool. They had a bunch of baby hamsters and several colorful birds for sale. There was also an amazing bearded dragon which I was very tempted to hold, but I restrained myself. I suppose I'm not usually this crazy in pet shops, but in my defense, I haven't been to one all year.

Another highlight of going shopping was that I finally found a pair of (drum-roll, please) pink sunglasses! That's right, I finally have a replacement for my favorite pink sunglasses that broke ages ago during orientation!

That same weekend, Rotary invited us to go to a nature reserve and see some lovely cranes during migration season. A lot of the birds from northern Europe migrate to the Iberian Peninsula for winter, and this lake is one of the few nature reserves in existence for these migrating flocks.

Unfortunately, we couldn't get very close to the birds, so I could only take pictures of the beautiful views.

There were also some neat castle ruins that we got to play on.

This week is "Semana Blanca" which means "White Week". Basically, because we live so close to the ski resorts in the mountains, our school takes off for a week and travels to the resorts for a ski trip. You are not obliged to go, and I didn't sign up for the trip, so I stayed home while Alex, Grace, and our Spanish friend, Maria, went north to learn how to snowboard. I suppose it was better for me, anyways, because I don't actually know how to ski, and I think my balance problems would make for a painful downhill experience. Because of this, I spent a majority of this week singing show-tunes and painting a large barrel that Santiago had in the garage. He asked me if I wanted to paint it, and I decided that I had enough free time this week to give it a shot. This (as of Friday morning) is what I have so far.

I tried to paint symbols or things that symbolized this year as well as my personality. For anyone who can't read the quote, it says "Some people live more in 20 years than others do in 80. It's not the time that matters, it's the person". It may just be my most favorite quote ever. As of right now, I still have a ways to go, but a majority of it is painted.

As much as I would love to have the barrel almost entirely painted by the end of this weekend, I cannot. We are heading to Zaragoza tonight because Carmen's (my host mom) dad had a heart attack. Carmen has been in Zaragoza all week, and Santi and I are driving down to see everyone today. He seems to be doing better, though, because he is back at home now. Unfortunately, from how Santi put it, my host grandparents don't have wifi, so I have decided to post this before we leave, just in case I don't have the time in Zaragoza.

Have a wonderful weekend!

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.