After the packed weekend, we started the week of school off by getting a whopping 4 and a half hours of sleep. Monday brought about new experiences, including falling asleep while standing, falling asleep while eating and falling asleep while reading. I have been spending most of my time in the kitchen watching El Internado, a teenage soap, and La Ruleta de la Suerte (Wheel of Fortune). If I'm not in the 6x6 kitchen, I am in Silvia's room helping her with English homework, or I'm in my room, staring off into space.
At school, Silvia takes lots of classes. Math, Biology, Language, English, Social Studies, Ethics, Latin, Health, Religion, French and Gym. We have seven classes a day. All in Spanish. All week. So India and I opted out of three, mine being Latin, French and Biology, and now we go to the library to work on Chemistry and English. It's so hard to focus when every single person in the library is staring at the two Americans. We are greeted in the hallway every day by a boy singing the National Anthem, and it is extremely entertaining being the odd ones out. But in the library, our only opportunity to work during the school day, it gets old.
During Math class today, the teacher tried to convince me that I should be doing the math homework, even though I cannot understand a thing he teaches, and for the past few days he has told me to read during class instead of take notes. hmmm. In English class, I am the second teacher and I get to talk about things in the United States in front of the class. Yesterday I accidently told everyone that in New York, if you drive too fast then you go to jail. Whoops. But their reactions were priceless. On the highways here, you are allowed to drive the equivalent of 90 mph! Most of the boys are very rude to the teachers, who they are permitted to call by their first names. In language class, we have the strictest woman teaching us. The same boy who sits alone in the back and smokes outside during recess has been kicked out of class three times in a row. The teacher has a thing against all of the boys and makes at least two of them leave the class per day. I don't see it as a punishment, considering they get to go to the library or go outside and play Futbol.
Speaking of Futbol, tomorrow I have two hours of gym in the morning! We run outside for twenty minutes, and then play Futbol in el gimnasio. After I told everyone that I play soccer at home, some of them actually want me one their teams! This is a huge change from elementary school, being the last one picked for kickball. Well tomorrow there is going to be much disappointment when everyone discovers my lack of skill. As India said, this is when I wish I could play like Erin Myers (shout-out).
My general sleeping habits during the school week at home are, go to bed at 10:30 (11:00 at the latest), and wake up at 6:35. Well here I am running on a whole new schedule. I get home from school at 4:30 and go right to the kitchen to get a snack. Since I've been here, I am constantly hungry even though I eat about 6 smaller meals a day. Then I go to Silvia's room to harass her and teach her English slang. Then I go to my room and try to organize myself, but to no avail. Then Silvia yells for me to pack my bag for the gym. I guess it's a good thing we work out every day considering how much I have been eating. I pack and we go to the gym. When we get home 2 hours later, we eat dinner. Then I watch some television with the family, and then I go the Silvia's room to hang out. Then I go to my room and do homework and talk to some people who speak English on my computer. Then I go out of my room to see Silvia again and then we watch a tv show before bed. I don't know how, but bedtime always ends up being at around 12:30 or 1:00. Then I wake up at 7:20 and do it all over again!
Normally, the gym is really fun. We run for 20-30 minutes of the treadmill or elliptical and then do the other machines. Today however, Claudia and Silvia thought it would be fun to do a step class. First of all, it was taught by a very happy, flamboyant guy who claimed he was from Rochester, although he didn't speak English fluently. He was very nice to us, but in the beginning of the class he told us that the first time, we wouldn't be very good. We laughed considering we were in a class filled with about 15 old people. Well, it was the worst HOUR AND A HALF that I have ever had to dance through. On top of it all, I had to go to the bathroom really badly and I was dying of thirst. Bad bad bad. It was actually impossible to keep up with the choreography. I'm amazing I made it through unscathed.
Today for dinner we had the same deep-fried mystery meat that I am actually starting to enjoy, and french fries. I have noticed, that almost everything in Zaragoza is eaten without silverware. Meat and vegetable and fruits, you can always use your hands, but for french fries they use forks! Of all things, it's a finger food for goodness sakes! Also, people here must have really sharp teeth to be able to eat all the tough smoked ham, sausages and what not. I can't do it! Along with that, their taste buds must be dead from all of the extremely sweet things they eat and drink! I have been drinking Pina and Uva juice-boxes, and I actually die of sugar over-dose every time I take a sip.
But I am really enjoying every thing I do in Spain, including step classes, discotecas, singing Party in the USA for a group of strangers and doing watching Spanish soaps.
But now it's time for me to go do my deberes! A new word for homework. Tarea is not in their dictionary and it makes things very confusing!
pues... tata for now
Besicos
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Wiki Wiki
Yesterday I woke up a wonderful three hours later than the morning before. This appears to be a universal custom, waking up late on weekends. After savoring the sleep in for a extra few minutes, I abandoned the lazy attitude and started to get ready for the day. Claudia had been invited to a birthday party and it started at 2:30 in the afternoon. Claudia suggested we go to the mall because she wanted a new outfit. I agreed with her suggestion and we set out for the mall at 12:00.
We hopped from floor to floor and store to store Claudia ended up with more than just a new outfit and I ended up with less than a heavy wallet. After our seventh store Claudia looked at her watch and nearly screamed when she saw it was 2:00 p.m. We had thirty minutes to run home, change our clothes, straighten hair (claudia) and run to the pizzeria. The running was excluded from the plan, so we arrived at the pizzeria an hour later. It was a double birthday party for two girls in our class and everyone got very dressed up. There were about 22 girls in total and we all squeezed into the restuarant for pizza. Maddie, two girls from our class (Marta and Carlotta), and I shared the cheese only pizza. The rest of the girls had ham pizza I am pretty sure.
After we were done eating, the girls gave presents and took pictures to and with the birthday girls. After we were done eating and talking we walked across the street to the bus station and headed towards the Pilar to go to a discoteca. The bus was crowded with kids under the age of 18 and filled with energy. We got off and walked to a discoteca called Sala 976, we paid an entrance fee and each got a stamp so we could enter. It was drug free place only for teens under eighteen. There were flashing lights that gave off an illusion that everyone was doing the robot. Blaring music that shook your bones blasted out of the stereos. Every so often fog would blow out of a pipe above us. (Maddie and I thought this was the coolest thing about the discoteca) The music was mainly a mixture of popular american songs with a spanish salsa base added to them. A popular song was called Wiki Wiki, If you want to listen to what some of their music sounds like you can click this link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8rOwk9SEnI . When this song comes on they all yell and get very excited.
As the night went on more people arrived to dance at Sala 976. There was a drink that was free with the admission ticket that was called el semaforo. It is spanish for stop light, it is called this because the drink has three different liquids in it, one red, one yellow, and one green. It was very sour but we were so thirsty we couldn't complain. We danced for about two hours and a half, and Silvia's parents gave Claudia and I a ride home. I was so tired from the long night, but we still had dinner to eat when we got home. We ate dinner at around 10:25 p.m. a big difference than what would have happened in back in the United States. Overall I thought the night was very fun and I can't wait to see what happens next weekend!
We hopped from floor to floor and store to store Claudia ended up with more than just a new outfit and I ended up with less than a heavy wallet. After our seventh store Claudia looked at her watch and nearly screamed when she saw it was 2:00 p.m. We had thirty minutes to run home, change our clothes, straighten hair (claudia) and run to the pizzeria. The running was excluded from the plan, so we arrived at the pizzeria an hour later. It was a double birthday party for two girls in our class and everyone got very dressed up. There were about 22 girls in total and we all squeezed into the restuarant for pizza. Maddie, two girls from our class (Marta and Carlotta), and I shared the cheese only pizza. The rest of the girls had ham pizza I am pretty sure.
After we were done eating, the girls gave presents and took pictures to and with the birthday girls. After we were done eating and talking we walked across the street to the bus station and headed towards the Pilar to go to a discoteca. The bus was crowded with kids under the age of 18 and filled with energy. We got off and walked to a discoteca called Sala 976, we paid an entrance fee and each got a stamp so we could enter. It was drug free place only for teens under eighteen. There were flashing lights that gave off an illusion that everyone was doing the robot. Blaring music that shook your bones blasted out of the stereos. Every so often fog would blow out of a pipe above us. (Maddie and I thought this was the coolest thing about the discoteca) The music was mainly a mixture of popular american songs with a spanish salsa base added to them. A popular song was called Wiki Wiki, If you want to listen to what some of their music sounds like you can click this link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8rOwk9SEnI . When this song comes on they all yell and get very excited.
As the night went on more people arrived to dance at Sala 976. There was a drink that was free with the admission ticket that was called el semaforo. It is spanish for stop light, it is called this because the drink has three different liquids in it, one red, one yellow, and one green. It was very sour but we were so thirsty we couldn't complain. We danced for about two hours and a half, and Silvia's parents gave Claudia and I a ride home. I was so tired from the long night, but we still had dinner to eat when we got home. We ate dinner at around 10:25 p.m. a big difference than what would have happened in back in the United States. Overall I thought the night was very fun and I can't wait to see what happens next weekend!
Friday, January 8, 2010
a few more things...
Well, today I had to describe my favorite fruit, animal and sport to my family because they had never heard of them. The only sport that people play here is Futbol (soccer). For boys, if you don't like soccer, you don't have friends. Girls on the other hand, are not expected to be good at anything involving physical activity so they prefer to sit and watch.
I showed Silvia and her mom a picture of a lacrosse player and told them how it is played. They were AMAZED. Then I showed them pictures of blueberries. In Zaragoza, they only eat berries in jam. They had no idea what blueberries, rasberries and blackberries were! I told them that my favorite fruit was little and blue and they died laughing. Apparently they had never even thought that blue fruits existed. I showed them pictures and they had really never seen them before!
Next I showed a picture of an otter, my favorite animal. Silvia responded with the frequently used Zaragozan term, "Que mahico!" It means "How cute!"
Another interesting thing happened today... India and I have been going to the gym to get in shape for lacrosse and crew. In Zaragoza, nobody speaks English very well and we like to use that to our advantage. We can talk about whatever we want and whoever we want as long as we talk fast! It's so fun! But in the gym today, a guy walked past who looked around twenty, and heard us talking. He back-pedaled to where we were standing and said, "YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?!" He told us that he was studying abroad in Spain for a year and he doesn't speak any Spanish! He lives in Colorado and we got to talk about American things! It was so fun to talk to someone who understood our accents!
Well tomorrow is Saturday, which means pizza and discotechas! India and I plan on showing everyone how to do the Thriller dance. When we asked what we should wear for the party, everyone said, "guapa." So all we know is that we have to look pretty... it is hard to look pretty when you have to wear a down coat everywhere and you can't really pull off the leggings look like Claudia and Silvia. Well I guess I'll have to plan tomorrow, I am seriously sleep deprived at the moment.
I showed Silvia and her mom a picture of a lacrosse player and told them how it is played. They were AMAZED. Then I showed them pictures of blueberries. In Zaragoza, they only eat berries in jam. They had no idea what blueberries, rasberries and blackberries were! I told them that my favorite fruit was little and blue and they died laughing. Apparently they had never even thought that blue fruits existed. I showed them pictures and they had really never seen them before!
Next I showed a picture of an otter, my favorite animal. Silvia responded with the frequently used Zaragozan term, "Que mahico!" It means "How cute!"
Another interesting thing happened today... India and I have been going to the gym to get in shape for lacrosse and crew. In Zaragoza, nobody speaks English very well and we like to use that to our advantage. We can talk about whatever we want and whoever we want as long as we talk fast! It's so fun! But in the gym today, a guy walked past who looked around twenty, and heard us talking. He back-pedaled to where we were standing and said, "YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?!" He told us that he was studying abroad in Spain for a year and he doesn't speak any Spanish! He lives in Colorado and we got to talk about American things! It was so fun to talk to someone who understood our accents!
Well tomorrow is Saturday, which means pizza and discotechas! India and I plan on showing everyone how to do the Thriller dance. When we asked what we should wear for the party, everyone said, "guapa." So all we know is that we have to look pretty... it is hard to look pretty when you have to wear a down coat everywhere and you can't really pull off the leggings look like Claudia and Silvia. Well I guess I'll have to plan tomorrow, I am seriously sleep deprived at the moment.
The Spanish Countryside
Thursday, January 7, 2010
So much to say
I am home for lunch after my first day of school! I am having so much fun but it is so tiring and sort of lonely too. It takes a ridiculous amount of focus to always be translating from English to Spanish in my head. I realized recently though, that I have started to think in Spanish and translate into English! It's so weird.
Yesterday was Los Reyes Magos, a holiday like Christmas that is dedicated to the Three Kings at Jesus' birth. I woke up at 12:30 in the afternoon and Marimar, my AMAZING host mom gave me an I LOVE ZARAGOZA sweatshirt. It's so cute. The night before the holiday, my first day in Zaragoza, I went to the parade and it was so cold! Even though the temperatures are the same here and in Connecticut, it is so damp here that everything feels colder!
Last night I was so nervous for school, and on top of that I was feeling a little woozy from the fried pig skins, pickled asparagus, deep fried mystery meat, seafood paella and a multitude of other interesting foods. I have never seen anyone eat as much as the Spaniards. More than once I have been asked why Americans are so fat, a common stereotype here in Spain... but I have to tell them in my broken Spanish that unlike Spaniards, most Americans prefer one or two course meals. Here in Spain my meals consist of a huge appetizer of ham, eggs, mayo and deep fried mashed potato and bacon nuggets. Then comes the main course of deep fried meat with butter-dipped fries and peppers. Next comes snacks like toast and candy. Then comes dessert, lemon whipped cream, sugared bread with whipped cream, or chocolate with whipped cream. There is not a lot of variety. Oh and after that we go home and eat melon. No wonder they think I don't eat enough! The main dish here is ham. Smoked ham is in everything! In my kitchen here, there is an entire leg of a pig that they take shavings of ham from. It's pretty cool actually... I am slowly adjusting to the different food choices, and luckily Silvia is a picky eater too, so it all works out.
The first half of school was ridiculously boring, but entertaining in between classes. All of the boys have been looking forward to two new female additions to the grade, and I was informed by Sergio, my desk mate, that I am a new "fish in the sea." Well India is really a major topic of discussion... the boys like to reach over and pull her hair. They tell her she is Bob Marley and she is commonly referred to as Tarzan.
In ethics class, the teacher is so funny and likes to speak in English for me. In the beginning of the class, I was able to follow what he was saying, unlike biology and Latin, but towards the end I couldn't focus anymore. I hope that eventually I will start to understand more in class.
I got invited to my first birthday party in Spain! I get to go out with all of Silvia's friends this weekend for a birthday party. Luckily, India is coming too so we can stick together while we are thoroughly immersed into the social lives of Zaragozans. I think we're going to a discotecha for the party... so that should be interesting.
All of the girls ask if I know famous people since I live near New York. I like to tell them I do... but they never believe me. The boys tell me that they are famous Futbol players. Manzano introduced himself to me as Cristiano Ronoldo, and Sergio asked me if I knew Obama. Everyone is so funny and social and they all want to know about the U.S. They sing Fiesta en los Estados Unidos (Party in the U.S.A), and ask who has the best American accent. It's so much fun!
I'm off to school again for History class and English! Yayayya English class finally! I met the teacher and she doesn't speak very much English, but some of the students do and it will be fun to see how much they know. It is SUCH a hard language to learn. I was trying to help Silvia with simple fill in the blank English homework and I could barely do it. Nothing makes sense in the English language.
Pues... Adios!
Yesterday was Los Reyes Magos, a holiday like Christmas that is dedicated to the Three Kings at Jesus' birth. I woke up at 12:30 in the afternoon and Marimar, my AMAZING host mom gave me an I LOVE ZARAGOZA sweatshirt. It's so cute. The night before the holiday, my first day in Zaragoza, I went to the parade and it was so cold! Even though the temperatures are the same here and in Connecticut, it is so damp here that everything feels colder!
Last night I was so nervous for school, and on top of that I was feeling a little woozy from the fried pig skins, pickled asparagus, deep fried mystery meat, seafood paella and a multitude of other interesting foods. I have never seen anyone eat as much as the Spaniards. More than once I have been asked why Americans are so fat, a common stereotype here in Spain... but I have to tell them in my broken Spanish that unlike Spaniards, most Americans prefer one or two course meals. Here in Spain my meals consist of a huge appetizer of ham, eggs, mayo and deep fried mashed potato and bacon nuggets. Then comes the main course of deep fried meat with butter-dipped fries and peppers. Next comes snacks like toast and candy. Then comes dessert, lemon whipped cream, sugared bread with whipped cream, or chocolate with whipped cream. There is not a lot of variety. Oh and after that we go home and eat melon. No wonder they think I don't eat enough! The main dish here is ham. Smoked ham is in everything! In my kitchen here, there is an entire leg of a pig that they take shavings of ham from. It's pretty cool actually... I am slowly adjusting to the different food choices, and luckily Silvia is a picky eater too, so it all works out.
The first half of school was ridiculously boring, but entertaining in between classes. All of the boys have been looking forward to two new female additions to the grade, and I was informed by Sergio, my desk mate, that I am a new "fish in the sea." Well India is really a major topic of discussion... the boys like to reach over and pull her hair. They tell her she is Bob Marley and she is commonly referred to as Tarzan.
In ethics class, the teacher is so funny and likes to speak in English for me. In the beginning of the class, I was able to follow what he was saying, unlike biology and Latin, but towards the end I couldn't focus anymore. I hope that eventually I will start to understand more in class.
I got invited to my first birthday party in Spain! I get to go out with all of Silvia's friends this weekend for a birthday party. Luckily, India is coming too so we can stick together while we are thoroughly immersed into the social lives of Zaragozans. I think we're going to a discotecha for the party... so that should be interesting.
All of the girls ask if I know famous people since I live near New York. I like to tell them I do... but they never believe me. The boys tell me that they are famous Futbol players. Manzano introduced himself to me as Cristiano Ronoldo, and Sergio asked me if I knew Obama. Everyone is so funny and social and they all want to know about the U.S. They sing Fiesta en los Estados Unidos (Party in the U.S.A), and ask who has the best American accent. It's so much fun!
I'm off to school again for History class and English! Yayayya English class finally! I met the teacher and she doesn't speak very much English, but some of the students do and it will be fun to see how much they know. It is SUCH a hard language to learn. I was trying to help Silvia with simple fill in the blank English homework and I could barely do it. Nothing makes sense in the English language.
Pues... Adios!
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