School, life, and Spain.

Hola!Being in Spain everyday feels so unreal. Each day i wake up and am in aw at what I see. Let me tell you my typical day in Spain. Wake up at 8:00am and get in the shower and get ready for my day. Then my host mom, named Clara which I just barley learned her name, has breakfast ready for me. Usually the same thing, bread and cereal, with coffee or what not. Then I say chao to my host mom as she tells me to have a good day and then I'm off. Off down the road of this new city, everyday an adventure. As I'm walking down the street I see many things. I walk by a lot of stores and shops of every kind. Full of shoes, flowers, meat, clothes, bags, toys, and yes even comics. I also walk by this little house cottage thing which was built during the 1100s. How crazy is it that I walk by such a historic building and live in such a historic country that I've only read about in books. It's still mind bottling to me. Anyways I cross a couple streets and meet Liv, Becca, Douk, and Elli every morning before class. We have a couple chats about the previous night and then go to class. Liv, Elli, Becca and I are all in the same class. First up class with María. Yes María like west side story. And yes, like I she loves that movie! I asked....anywho, my class is so fun! She keeps things interesting because of many different reasons. Firstly she teaches with her hands, face, body language and voice. Second she brings students lives into her lessons, like how many siblings or things like that. Third she speaks a little English and when she does she has a British accent!!!!! Sooooo awesome! It's so funny that if you'd like I'll tell you how she sounds when I get back in the states. After she leaves we have our conversation class with coacha...at least I think that's her name lol. She basically talks about whatever I decided. Kind of throws me off sometimes but I like her a lot! It's hard to learn Spanish from someone who only speaks Spanish but I can feel my Spanish get a lot better. Then after school we have a HUGE lunch. This is at about 2pm. Lunch changes from day to day but nonetheless very big. Today was the first lunch that worried me. It was a normal salad with raw fish on it. Like totally raw. I ate it though and it was really really good! Anywho after lunch I usually go explore the city with my friends. We sometimes just walk around and explore or go shopping or anything really. A couple day ago we went on a tour with everyone from the program. It was awesome! We went into a cathedral which was beyond beautiful. It was amazing to see all of the history behind everything. After we walked around the city more and went to a very old university in Oviedo. Soooo awesome. Looked like it was from Harry potter, no joke. After all the excitement of the day you have dinner, at this time it's about 9 or 10 at night. We eat, usually something small, but I'm ok with it because lunch is so big. After dinner I usually do my homework or go out again. Last night was an interesting one. We had a party called " Una espicha". This party is special for many reasons. Their is tons of music played with a special flute like instrument that has a bag, and drums. Then their is a ton of socializing and food. And no sitting. Sitting is rude at an espicha. The food, for the most part was good. Tons of Spanish Tortillas, fish, bread cheese, calamari, and much much more. Then their was some awesome dessert that was like a crepe without filling but better. Wait...were missing a super important part of an espicha. Sidra. Sudra is an alcoholic beverage that taste like cider. It is kept in these huge barrel and when they pour it, they hold the cup far away from the barrel and it kind of fountains in. You have to drink sidra as soon as you get it because it's best that way and gets nasty if you let it sit there. This was all quite the experience and a lot of people had way too much fun with the sidra. Sidra is very strong so they said not to mix it with the wine. Some people don't listen so things got a little crazy. People were singing and dancing and overall was a very good atmosphere. But after the party I went straight home and went to bed because I had class the next day. Overall Spain is a very fun place, and is oh so beautiful. I am blessed to be here and want to tale advantage of every opportunity. I just wanna let my family and friends know that I miss them and love them, and wish they were here to experience this with me. It's dinner time now, so I better go! Chao!

Mi casa nueva

Hey everyone,I am in the beautiful city of Oviedo. The town is so pretty. It is probably the cleanest town I've seen in Spain and I can't explain to you how nice everyone is here. So story of last night, my first night in Madrid. So we drove 5 to 6 hours from Madrid to Spain. The bus ride was amazing. Listening to music and looking out the window was awesome. Oviedo has by far the prettiest mountains I have ever seen. It is sooo green. When we got to Oviedo and I stepped off the bus, I instantly became very nervous of what was coming. My new family. I was sooo nervous walking to the school because I had no idea what to expect. I even thought of going to get a tattoo so I would take my mind off the worry of my new family. But we still have a lot of time in Spain...so we'll see haha. I bet my mom is so happy reading that. So anyways we walk into the school and you can feel the nervousness from everyone in that room. One by one everyone was leaving with their new families. I, of course with my luck, was the last one to be picked up. With every person that walked in I thought, is that my family in Spain? So finally this lady walks in and she looks very nice. Is this my mother in Spain? And no, no it wasn't. It was my new sister in Spain. My mother was in Madrid and was coming later that day. So we walked and I find out that my new sister, whose name is barbara, spoke a little English, but not much. She was super nice though and we talked a lot about Adele and Amy winehouse. And she loves rock music. The music in Spain is mostly American music, it's a little odd but kind of cool. Anyways we have dinner, which was rice with tomato sauce, with a fried egg on top and bread. The strawberries for dessert. It was pretty good. and I instantly started studying Spanish. Barbara needed to go home so I was left home alone for about an hour. Then juego, my new brother who also lives in an apartment with my sister up a few floors, came in. He is nearly fluent in English, and seemed really nice. Then he too leaves and I'm alone for one more hour when my mother and sister walk in. She is such a nice lady, but at first I feel like she thinks I'm stupid lol. Anyways after a while we go to bed. I set my alarm but it didn't go off which worried me but my mother woke me up. We eat breakfast it's bread coffee and cereal. Then she takes me to school and I tried my best to look at street signs so I could find my way back. School was great my first teacher was really nice and helpful and I think I could learn a lot from her. After I come home and eat lunch. Lunch is pretty big here so I made sure to come. Finding my way home I thought would be hard but I did it. For lunch I had this meat, I think was pork, potatoes and green soup lol. And of course bread. Then we had yogurt for dessert. After I gave her the salt water taffy and she was very excited. Then we talked for a while and I told her that I have been studying Spanish for two semesters and she said I was very intelligent and was learning quickly. This made me happy. They have a dog here named Tina and I love her already she is sooo cute. Well I need to get going. For those of you who already read this im vey sorry. Im adding a little more. So after i wrote what you see above, I went to meet my friends Douk, Becca and Liv. They are for sure my best friends here. We had so many adventures together. First of all, who knew that finding cheap evryday products would be so hard! We ended up going to three stores Just to find these at a decent price. It was a lot harder than you'd imagine. And watch out, because if you leave the store empty handed they will assume you are stealing, especially if your blonde or speak English lol. First, we went and found eachothers houses and mapped out where to meet so we could walk to school together. Which gave us the chance to see the city and really find ourselves if that makes any sense. Walking around the city you find many strange things, for instane we found this huge statue that looks like a butt. We call it the butt ststue. We decided to take pictures with the statue when all of the sudden we see this man who is walking away from us but has his head turned and we all have no idea what was going on. He looked at us for what felt like ages and he wouldnt stop. Talk about a creepo'! Then we went to the mall......holy wow!!!!! The mall is huge and doesn't look like it belongs in Oviedo because it looks so modern. And it is so big! The biggest mall i have ever been too, and were going back tomorrow which will be loads of fun but i hope i wont spend a lot of money. After we had to say our goodbyes and go back home. When i got home my mom had dinner ready. Tortillas and salad with fruit. I know what your thinking....tortillas in Spain??? What????? These arent the same thing. No. No they are not. They are like potatos and bread like things but they are very, very good. Probably the best thing ive eaten in spain somgar. Anyways i have to go get some shut eye, hasta luego, Adios!

Madrid

So I want to start out with my crazy journey to Spain. I wake up on wednesday and get ready to go. Of course I had to check my packing list about 19 times until I was actually convinced I had everything. So I go downstairs and look at the clock, it was 6:30am..so....i wasn't going to the airport until 7:30am. So after saying goodbye to my sister, I I went to the kitchen and attempted to eat some cereal...yep didn't happen. I was far too nervous to eat. So many firsts. First time on a plane, first time in another country, and first time past those awful people at the airport called security. Anyways my brother and sister-in-law show up to take me to the airport, so I firstly go say adios to them. I had to wake them up and tell them I was leaving. They were a little too tired to care. Lol. Said goodbye to my mom and was out the door. I just kept thinking about whether this all was truly happening and it was. The drive to the airport seemed like ages. My brother and his wife giving me some awesome advice on flying. I felt as if I was going into the hunger games...lol jk, or am I? Anyways I get to the airport and get to my gate. Cake. Similar decide to go explore the airport, and try and find a beverage. As I'm going down the escalator I start looking for my ticket and can't find it. After panicking looking for it, it was nowhere to be found. I look up to go find it and see Melinda, one of the girls I was going to Madrid with. We walk up to the gate together and I finally find my ticket. Then we meet Danielle, another girl going to madrid, and get on the plane. I get on the plane and sit next to this girl, who told me her name I just can't spell it. She was in America going to school and was heading home to Mongolia. She was so terrified of airplanes. When it was time to take off she starts hyperventilating and I had no idea what to do, because this was my first flight ever. So we take off and I was totally fine. Flying was fun and not too bad on my stomach. We get off the plane and quickly find a place to go. We sit down and guess what...NO WIFI! Did I mention this was a 6 hour layover at LAX. So we spent most of our time inside but did make it outside and saw the most unusual building. So we took a lot of pictures of it and went back inside. During these 6 hours we probably talked about everything. Favorite color, politics, Obama. Elections, marriage, school, majors, the list really does go on and on. Finally it's time to go...oh wait the plane was having maintinence issues, and we were delayed about an hour or so. On this plane I sat next to a girl who was originally from Russia but was currently living in California. She was going to explore Europe. Behind me was a man and a women who never stopped talking. NEVER. Across from me was an old man who kept hitting on the girls next to him, but they didn't seem to mind much. The plane had no tv or anything. The only tv they had was for communication. The food was okay. It was sort of a prep for Spain I think. I get to Spain and get on the metro and find y way to the area of my hostel pretty easily. I see the sign and walk over to it with no clue how to get there. I hit the button and go inside. I look up and see a beautiful staircase and start to go up looking for or that said hostel luz. Looking around, I saw nothing, no sign. Going up and down the stairs about 5 times I asked a women in spanish. ¿Donde esta hostel luz? She had no idea where this place was but was really nice. Finally I reach a lady who just so happens to be the counter lady at hostel luz. We go inside and I am trying to communicate to this lady in spanish that I'm with Douk, my roomie in Madrid and I need to get into the room. so I think that she thought that I needed my own room so she was going to give me my own room when Becca, Liv, and Douk come to the rescue. Then after we got over the excitement of everything we went to lunch and walked around. We took lots of pictures and had lots of fun. Then we went home and went to bed. The next day we got up early and we went to a museum called prado, here we saw lots of different historical art. This art museum was huge, and I learned that back then men would pose in paintings with dogs to show that they were looking for a women. Next we went to Reina de Sofia, which is a modern art museum. We saw tons of different art and types of art. Some were videos, some sculptures and some just sketches. But the best part was they had some work by Picasso ,which was just the cherry on top of the Sunday. Then after lots of walking around we went to this local market. We went before but didn't get anything. But that night we did and it was amazing. It had such a different feel that you would never find in America. Then we come to today, sorry tis is so long lol. Today we went to toledo which is an hour and a half from where we were at. Toledo was so pretty words can't describe how much I loved it. Then we went inside an old cathedral which was just amazing. Then after we went to the royal palace. Wow. This was amazingly awesome. So much to see, and so many rooms. It's crazy how the weaalthy lived back then. As food the food here, you rarely see people eat unless it's lunchtime. Other than that their is a lot of drinking. Like they put alcohol in coffee and juice and stuff. So crazy. The food is pretty good here but I think I'm playing it too safe.im going to start trying some new foods.

Before I go...

Hey everyone! This is the blog I am going to be using while I'm in Spain! This will give you a chance to see what I am up to, so I'll be posting experiences and pictures of my Journey in Spain. Today is the day before i leave for Spain. I am really nervous about not being able to understand the people in Spain with their accents and with their different form of conjugation. However I am really excited for all the new adventures to be had in Spain. I think Spain will be a very beautiful place because that is what everyone who has been there has told me. I am not too nervous about the host family situation, i am just nervous about not being able to communicate with them as well as I want to. I am excited for the new town, new place type of thing. When i travel, i usually like to just get lost in the city and find my way back on my own. It really helps me to not only find things, but I get to explore the new city. From this experience I hope to gain more knowledge about the Spanish Culture, and learn more Spanish!