Vida en España: The first day of school, and then the Weekend!

Firstly- I need to apologize in advance- I am extremely lucky to be placed with such an active family, but it makes it very difficult to find time to write blog posts. I never have a dull moment, and it's wonderful, but I won't be able to update often.

Well, this is it folks. I am now officially attending a Spanish school.

My first day because when I woke up at 7:15 am, (The time I used to have to leave my house in the United States!) with a bit of a sickness. I had a sore throat and headache. :( I imagine its pretty common for exchange students to get a little bit sick within the first week of their exchange, only becuase your trying so hard to understand and fit in with the culture and language. It's exhausting. But anyways, I didn't tell my Mama I wasn't feeling so good because here they take things like that VERY SERIOUSLY. For example, a few days ago when my sister had a headache my Mama insisted that they find a doctor to get her to that day. My Mama even said herself something along the lines of, "When Americans gets sick, they say ""Oh all I need is a little sleep and some vitamins,"" but here, we always go to the doctor." Since I knew a trip to the doctor was not necessary I figured it would be a better idea to just drink extra water on that day, and I ended up fine. I ate breakfast with my sister Maria at 7:45 am, (my favorite- a kiwi with a light type of cake called biscouto and whole milk) and then we had to leave.

School was school. I don't think it could possibly be fun in any country. I really like the way classes are structured in Spain though. Firstly, school doesn't even begin until 8:30 which is genius.We have 3 classes in the morning- that are probably about 50 minutes long each. Then we have recreo which is like a little "recess" for 30 minutes. The awesome thing is that WE CAN LEAVE. We can walk to anywhere we want, I usually go to a little store nearby with my Spanish friends where we buy something light to eat. It's wonderful to be able to walk outside and breathe some fresh air. After recreo, we have 3 more classes. What I really like is that everyday I have different classes. So the night before, I check my schedule and I only need to take the books for the 6 classes I have the next day. It's nice that I don't have to be lugging around huge books everyday for 9 different classes like I do in the United States.

As far as the actual material in school, it's not hard. At all. It might be because we are just at the beginning of the year, but besides Lengua Castillano (Spanish Literature) and Química y Física which are practically impossible, we are learning pretty basic things that I have already learned. The problem is just that I can't understand the teacher or the books. During classes, I usually don't even try to listen to the teachers because they ramble on forever in Spanish and I find it more productive to go through my books, translating words that I don't know. And then just writing in the English word right by the Spanish word so I can study straight from my books. I take notes in our books too- it's convenient to have everything in one place like that. Especially because here, the have 2 or 3 big exams every trimester, and that's it. No little quizzes or homework to make up points!
Making friends also wasn't very hard, as just the fact that I'm an American was enough for everybody to be interested in me. Hopefully as I learn more I'll be able to make some real friends, as right now I feel like I just have a lot of acquaintances. The fact that I can barely talk makes it a little harder, haha. I got alot of questions about what TV shows I like and what music I listen to. The girls were also very interested in if prom and homecoming were real things and when I said yes, we do have them, they were like "ahhh, como en las peliculas!" (like the movies) It was adorable.

Yummy Pizza

After I finished school on Friday at 2:15, (Awesome!!) Maria and I went to my abuela's house where we ate had lunch with my brother and cousin. We all have lunch together every Friday. Then, Friday night, we went out to a "bar" (that's what they call it, it's more like outdoor tables were you order water or sodas) with Maria's friends. After, my sister made a pizza (and wow- the Spanish make really good pizza!) for us since my Mama was out with her friends.

On Saturday, we had a very full day. First, we (my family and I) went to the mountains in Galicia (a part of Spain, but where they speak their own language) where we spent a good 2 hours picking blackberries. It was fun, but also really long and hot- and all the thorns on the blackberry bushes weren't appreciated. But we used them to make a really delicious marmalade, so I'd say it was worth it. We then went to my abuela's house for lunch. In the evening, we met up with a huge group of family friends once again in Galicia, and we had ice cream and tapas. (Kind of like appetizers)

The first time I saw pilgrims! Walking the Camino de Santiago!

On Sunday, we did more things with family friends. We spent the whole day with two other families, exploring and visiting an old castle, and ancient pueblos and villages. (My family told me that two centuries ago, the castle was used for pilgrims on their journey on the Camino de Santiago to sleep in overnight. It was cool.)

View of the Castle


My brother, sister, and I. We are sitting on the Castle!

With my Spanish mom and sister :)

Castle

A pretty view from the Castle

On the walk up to the Castle

Cute little homes and stores

The funniest statue, even though I still don't understand what it's supposed to be.

Cute little town

There was only one scary experience- while we were enjoying our drinks outdoors, (I had a Fanta) my brother was using a knife to sharpen a stick to a point. (Yes, he's only 11, but here an 11 year old with a knife isn't considered dangerous at all.) Suddenly, he was screaming and running towards us clutching his fingers. It didn't turn out to be a serious injury, but he had cut pretty deep into his thumb and there was a lot of blood. Once it was all wrapped and bandaged though, he was okay. We ate lunch at a that same Spanish Restaurant that we had been enjoying our drinks outside of. I had some kind of meat that I could never explain with delicious homemade french fries, but both my mother and sister had cold partridge (the bird). I tried it, just because my Mama insisted, but it wasn't very tasty. After lunch, we did more walking around the town- it was cute, very small and antiqued. I took a lot of "artsy" pictures that day, I guess I was just feeling artistic, but I will include the photos here also.