the grand finale

Hello my wonderful readers!

I am so sorry for the delay in my posts, so much has been happening between my last few days in Zaragoza, my flight and dropping my sister at college! There is so much that I wish I could tell you, but I cannot put the words together.

My final days in Zaragoza were joyful and tearful, and my last day was filled with knowing glances from Silvia, my family and my friends. On Saturday, we had a small get together so that I could say goodbye to all of my new friends and to the city of Zaragoza. I was devastated that I would not get to say goodbye to my two of my best friends from school, Laura (the 18 year old from the picture), and Sergio, who sat in front of me in class. They had already made plans for the night. We went out to the Discoteca, Sala Green, and India and I spent the night talking and dancing with about ten of our closest friends from school. I had a Semaforo, the delicious smoothie-ish drink that I will miss terribly, and Laura called me while we were there. I ran to the bathroom to talk to her and she was sobbing! She said that she was never going to see me again and that her dream of visiting New York would never come true. While this was happening, a group of boys came into the girls' bathroom to listen to my American accent and I could hardly understand Laura over their shouts of "Hello American!"

At the same time that the boys were yelling and Laura was crying, a random girl came out from the bathroom stall next to me and started crying on my shoulder about how much she would miss me... I had never met her in my life. While I had a crying stranger on my shoulder, yelling boys and a crying friend on the phone, a group of my friends who were leaving came to say goodbye. Bea, one of my good friends and classmates started crying too and I gave out lots of hugs and kisses while Laura waited on the phone and stranger-girl continued to wipe her tears on my shirt.

Well after that stressful experience, I said goodbye and cried with the girls outside of the disco and then we went to the Gran Casa mall to get dinner. Luckily, Bea came with India, Claudia, Silvia and I so I had a little more time before I had to say goodbye to her. On our way to Mcdonald's in the mall, I saw lots of classmates who I got to say goodbye to, and when we walked into Mcdonald's, I saw Sergio! I got to say goodbye to him and then sit down for dinner with Laura as the only person I longed to see before I left. As we ate, we cried a little and India and I talked. When I turned around, Laura was walking in with Susannah behind her. They planned to surprise visit me after I got off the phone with Laura, and we had twenty minutes to hug and cry and talk about our time together! Everything worked out perfectly and I got to say goodbye to all of my favorite people.

After dinner, I got a series of running hugs from Claudia and India as we attempted to part our separate ways. When Silvia and I got home, we had a slumber party in my room and talked and hugged. My bags were packed and STUFFED full of clothes and I was as prepared as I would ever be for a 6:00 wake up call and an 8 hour flight.

The airport was stressful but I miraculously made my flight in the nick of time despite the directional section of brain having been inactive for most of my life. It's true, I've been going to the same school for six years and I still couldn't tell you how to get to it, but apparently I can find my way to Gate 74 in the Madrid airport. I had said goodbye to my incredible host mom back at home, and now I teared up hugging Silvia, Laura and Mariano, my host dad who drove me to Madrid.

After the eight hour flight and my reunion with the fam and the dog, I realized how many things have changed. Not only to I accidentally go in to give kisses on the cheeks, but my pickiness when it comes to foods has almost gone away. One of my first meals at home was a grilled mushroom! Now that is a big step for me. I use the Spanish phrase, "Ay Bah," when I drop things and I even find enjoyment in the fact that I gained 8 pounds eating ham and deep fried foods in Spain! My ear hurts when I sleep from when India and I got our cartilages pierced, and sometimes I sing Nelly Furtado's, "Manos Al Aire" around the house.

The biggest change though, is that I now have a group of over 100 friends and family member in Zaragoza who would be ready at anytime, to take me into their homes and raise me like a daughter. I can only hope that a little bit of the kindness and generosity that can be found in every resident of Zaragoza rubbed off on me. I am so blessed to have a second home with my sister Silvia and my mom Marimar, who said that whenever I need it, there is a space at the table for me. The transition has been hard, but I can think back and be grateful for my amazing experiences that I will take with me for the rest of my life.

And I can't wait to go back and visit!!!
Besicos...
Maddie

English

Wow! I am so sorry for the time that I was not writing! I'm in school again, so I can' not say much. But I want to tell you about some of the things that have happened in my days without Maddie. also I apologize to anyone who did not understand my post yesterday, (Lindsey Alpeter) I have translated it for everyone to see.

Sunday: A very sad day. Claudia, Silvia, and I cried a lot because maddie has gone to new york in the morning. Claudia and I were at home all day crying, doing homework, eating, and listening to music. At night we played Wii Sport with the little sister. They were all astounded by my amazing skills and find it very hard to believe that in real life... I can't play tenis. But after the dinner was when the real crying begins. After dinner, the mother received a call by telephone, a neighbor and friend died that morning . He had been suffering from cancer for some months, he was only 16 years old. He was one of Claudia's best friends, she cried all night. It was a sad night at my spanish home and I found it very difficult to fall asleep.

Monday: We woke up and got ready for school like a normal day. In fact, it wasn't, was my first day without Maddie at school and one of the best friends of Claudia had died the previous night. Claudia does not speak in school, and if someone were to ask "Whats wrong?" she began to cry. For the first time during my stay, we went home to eat lunch. And at home there was even more sadness. That night, when Claudia and her parents went to the wake of the boy,Lucia and I were home for two hours. Lucia, who is a big fan of Hannah Montana, asked if I could show her the popular Hannah Montana dance, the "Hoedown Throwdown". These few minutes of laughing and dancing was my favorite part of the day.

Tuesday: The biology teacher was sick and so we got to wake up an hour later. Tuesday was the birthday of our friend Laura, she turned 18! In Spain that means you are an adult. You can do anything. For lunch we ate in the dining room and I got to talk with my friends during lunch. During recess the kids asked me what are the coolest rap singer and songs were in the U.S. I didn't know the coolest, but I showed him some Eminem and he was pretty satisfied... he was still thinking that 50 Cent was most popular before I showed him some music. After recess I gave the gifts that maddie and I bought to Laura. She started to cry a little bit and said she will miss us. After school we went to the Bread Store to buy Palmera, a sweetish bread. I think they are called 'elephant ears' in English ... it was fantastic! Tuesday was a much happier day than Monday.

Wensday: This was not included in Yesterdays post because it was wensday yesterday! We got to wake up early again because every wensday school starts at 9:05. It was a very fun and happy school day. The teachers didn't kick too many kids out of class, there were not too many tears, everyone played soccer at recess... hmm correction, Everyboy played soccer at recess. There was one difference, yesterday, the library was locked last period so I decided to go to french class. French is when Silvia and Claudia's classes combine in this one huge room. It was so much fun, they know less french than english so half the time the kids in the class would look at me and whisper that they liked english so much better. I wish I had gone to more than one french class this entire time, It was really fun and I'm sad that my first class had to be my last. After school Claudia, Silvia, Isabella( silvia's best friend), and I went to hipercore to buy spanish treats and goodies to bring back to the U.S. Although that was very fun I had more fun playing hide and seek in the grocery aisles and tickling Claudia and Isabella with Silvia. Wensday night I started packing, it is the worst task and yet it has to be done.

I feel my stay here getting shorter and shorter and it makes me so sad to think of how much I will miss my friends and school here.

till next time,

Besos India

sin Maddie

Vaya, Lo siento muchisimo por el tiempo que no estaba escribiendo! Estoy en escuela ahora, entonces no puedo hablar mucho. Pero quiero decir un poco de que ha pasado en mis dias sin Maddie.

Domingo: Un dia muy triste. Claudia, Silvia, y yo lloramos mucho porque maddie ha ido a nueva york en la mañana. Claudia y yo quedamos en casa todo el dia llorando, haciendo tarea, comiendo, y escuchando musica. En la noche jugamos Wii Sport con la hermanita. Pero, después de la cena fue cuando el llanto real empieza. Después de la cena la madre recibio un llamada por telephono, un vecino y amigo murio ese dia por la mañana.Él había estado sufriendo de cáncer por unos meses, solo tenia 16 años. El fue uno de los mejores amigos de Claudia, lloró todo la noche. Fue una noche triste en mi casa, español, y me pareció muy difícil conciliar el sueño.

Lunes: Nos despertamos y nos preparamos para la escuela como si fuera un día normal. En realidad, no era, era mi primer día sin Maddie en la escuela y uno de los mejores amigos de Claudia había muerto la noche anterior. En escuela Claudia no habla, y si alguien pregunta "Que pasa" ella empiezaba a llorar. Por el primero vez comemos en casa para comida. Y en casa había mas tristeza y muchos abrazos. El lunes por la noche, cuando claudia y sus padres iban a la estela del niño. Lucia y yo quedamos y casa por dos horas. Lucia, que es un gran fan de Hannah Montana, pregunatame si puedo eseñarte el baile de "Hoedown Throwdown". Estos poco minutos de reindo y bailando fue mi favorito parte del dia.

Martes: El profesor de biologia estaba enferma y por eso despertamos mas tarde. El martes fue el cumpleaños de nuestra amiga Laura. Se cumple 18 años, en España es un adulto. Se puede hacer todo. Comemos en el comedor y yo hable con mis amigos durante comida. Durante recreo los chicos me preguntaron cuales son los conciones mas chulos de rap. Despues de recreo me dio los regalos que maddie y yo compramos a Laura. Ella empieza a llorar, dice que ella va a echar de menos a nosotras. Despues de escuela fuimos a la paneria para comprar Panuelos, un pan dulce.Pienso que se llaman 'elephant ears' en ingles... pues fue rico! Martes fue mucho mas feliz que lunes.

English equivalent

Hey all,

Sorry about my blog being in all spanish yesterday, I was so tired to write in English. I'm just going to sum up what I said, I'm not writing the equivalent in length. Yesterday was a day maddie and I have been anticipating with joy and dread. We were excited to wear our uniforms but that also meant Maddie's final day at school...However we went to school wearing our school skirts and two white shirts and black stockings, I have to say, we made quite a scene ahahha. The girls all loved our uniform because they think ours is much nicer than theirs. They used to have to wear a long grey skirt lower than their knees and a dark sweater over their shirts and they can only wear dark blue shoes. The boys did not really understand why we were wearing the uniform but they thought it was funny more than anything else. Sergio told both of us that he thought our skirts were very ugly, while garci commented that we would get in trouble because they were too short. I never would have thought that our skirts were short, but one teacher who did not know that it was our uniform almost got mad at us because girls are not allowed to wear skirts.



Break was madness. Maddie brought her camera and we ended up taking more than 400 photos. It was so crazy, fun and sad. We would start by taking a photo with just three girls and then millions of people would jump in and before we knew it, we had more than a hundred people per photo. I loved taking photos with all of the people who I had met over the past few weeks. It made me very sad to see all of the photos afterwards because I knew that half of the people who were in them I would never see again...

I am not remembering what I said yesterday very well but I do remember telling one story, a story about a visit to the library. Yesterday I went to the library to do some work while maddie was still in one of her classes. Moto, Golem and their little crew also were there. They sat at the same exact table as me for the whole free and stared at me. It was very very awkward for me because I would be trying to read a book and I would get that uneasy(ish) feeling of someone watching me. Whenever I looked up, Moto's grinning face greeted my confused one from a very close distance. It is very hard to concentrate when you have someone staring at you from a very close distance, I had to pinch myself to keep from laughing.

Again, I ended up writing very late at night and as a result I end quickly and in a very tired state. I will talk to you all either tomorow or the next day about maddies FInal day (depending on how tired I am). However for now, I leave with a swift goodbye and kisses on both cheeks!
India
p.s. I had asked in the last post whether or not it was still wierd to kiss on both cheeks in the U.S. because I have gotten so used to that custom I don't want to stop!
p.p.s. If my english is horrible, please excuse me... I fear I am forgetting how to speak correctly...

Sadness

Hoy fue el final dia de escuela para maddie, que triste!!! fue una dia muy interesante y divertido! Maddie y yo hamos estado planeando lo que ibamos a llevar para todo la semana. Y esta manana yo llevaba mi uniforme de los estados unidos al colle. Todas las chicas tienen mucha celos porque nuestro uniforme es mas bonita que vosotras. Ellas llevaban una falda muy larga y gris... es un poco aburrida. Los chicos piesaban que nuestro uniforme es muy fea y graciousa, pero ese no importa nada a nosotras jaja. En almuerza maddie llevaba su camera y habia un fiesta con nuestro grado. Cada persona queire estar en un foto, tenemos fotos con mas de cien personas. Los chicos estan fascinados con la camera de maddie y muchos quitanlo para sacar fotos... ahora tenemos mas de 400 fotos, es loco.

En uno de mis tiempos libre yo fui a la biblioteca para estudiar sola. Pero con Moto y Golem, nada es sola... Los dos sentaban a la misma mesa de yo para una hora. Y para la hora Golem y uno de sus amigos estaban reindo de mis 'stickers' en mi ordenador en uno de mis lados. Y por el otro lado Moto estaba mirandome fijamente. Era muy incomodo porque era, literalmente, menos de un pie de mi cara. Fue muy dificil para concentrar...

Despues de escuela fui a la casa de Silvia con Maddie para pasar tiempo. Nosotras sacamos fotos y empezamos a poner fotos en tuenti ( spanish version of Facebook). Despues fuimos al grancasa para hablar y pasar tiempo con claudia. Comemos una merienda aya y mas tarde sacamos... MAs fotos jajaja.

Hoy me di cuenta de lo mucho que voy a echar de menos espana y los personas de zaragoza... casi lloraba hoy y ni siquiera soy la que está dejando de esta fin de semana. Me encanta este escuela yo voy a echar de menos muchisimo...

pues, besicos para la noche, es la una necesito dormir jaja.

adios, India

p.s. ¿Alguien puede decirme si los besos en las mejillas es aún raro en los EE.UU.? porque creo que estoy camino a utilizar para que se detenga

Group Picture

From top left: Claudia, Silvia, Alberto (Garcy), Sergio, Alvaro, Carlos (Charlie), Bea, Marin, Diego, Andrea, Maddie, India,  Julia

sleeping street performers in Barcelona!