Granada

Hello!
A couple of weeks ago I had one of the most fun, albeit a bit stressful, weekend trips with AFS.
I "skipped" school friday, in order to get to the airport on time, where I met some 20 other kids who are staying all around Catalonia. After an uneventful flight, we landed in the tiny tiny Granada airport and headed into the city.
The hostel we stayed at was adorable, three floors with a sort of courtyard/balcony deal going on so the whole thing felt very open. It also had some strange decals of flowers and butterflies and that sort of thing, but who are we to judge?
The first night was the most fun. The kids from the Madrid group had not yet arrived so we were still a smallish group. Now, the thing about Granada is that it was originally an arab city, and so it's streets are crazily twisted and awesome, so as we went up these streets that wouldn't fit even two people across and these staircases that wind their way up and up and up, we (I) mostly got the sensation that should I get lost from the group I would have no idea how to get back to the hostel. Anyways, we finally got out of the labyrinth-y streets and into a courtyard where, as soon as you turn around you get a breathtaking view of the Alhambra. I mean, stunning. It was night already when we got there, so the whole city was lit and towering above it was the, also lit Alhambra. Gorgeous. As if it could get even more magical, we ate at a restaurant that had that same view, which made us feel like we were dining on top of the world. Paella, clams, sangria, nothing could have made the night more typically spanish, and I loved it.
Here is a picture (from the internet, I didn't take any really cool ones) of the view from the "Mirador"

The next day, we visited some cathedrals, then climbed the hill to see the actual Alhambra up close and personal. It was all very cool, and Granada is a beautiful city, but nothing quite topped the first night.
The only thing that came close was the last day. We had free time all morning, met up for lunch, and then had more free time in the afternoon. Now, after some AFS drama, I was pretty ready to just be alone, relax, and walk around, so that's exactly what I did. I went down alley after alley after alley and went into tiny little shop after tiny little shop, just enjoying the city. My favorite shop was a little coffee and tea shop which I found after maybe five different turn down increasinly sketchy alleys. The store barely held it's three rickety tables and small bar, but it smelled delicious and I decided to stay. The lady behind the counter was very nice, and I ended up getting my cafe con leche for only one euro because we had had such a neat time talking.
Anyways, it was, overall, a very fun weekend, one of the many that will make it very hard to say good bye to this country I have fallen so deeply in love with (although I am definately looking forward to seeing you all in the U.S.A.!)
Much love from Catalonia.

Madrid

This weekend I went to Madrid with 11 other students placed in Catalonia.
As I really have not learned as much spanish as I have Catalan, I was a little apprehensive about the trip, but I really didn't need to worry.
After my semi-early morning bus to the neighboring town where I would meet my friend's mom who was taking us both to the airport, I lounged at a tea place which bragged 50 varieties of tea! for a couple of hours. We made it easily through security, and even had time at our gate to buy really crappy pasta (yay for airport food!).
Once in Madrid we went to the Prado art museum. Now I'm all for art. I don't, like many people my age, die of boredom in every museum I got to, nor do I get too uncomfortable with the near-silence and slow walk of the people who frequent museums.
But this museum was dense. I'm not sure that that is actually a word one would use to describe a museum, but that's what it felt like. I was pretty sure that if I saw one more painting of some half-naked people posing in unrealistic positions, I was gonna die of boredom.
After that experience was over, we went to our weekend host families' houses. I was with one other girl in my house, as well as the turkish exchange student who was staying with them for the whole year. They were awesome! They had only one kid, and three exchange students, and both of the parents were super duper nice. After dinner (a traditional turkish dish) we put on disco lights and cleared the table while listening to jazz.
The next morning, breakfast was bright and early and consisted of churros, which are deeeeeelicious! Then with AFS we took a walking tour of Madrid, which landed us in the end at sort of the Central Park of Madrid. In the middle, there is a small lake, where you can rent boats and so we did, and it felt quite pointless to row in circles, so we made a three-boat chain and just hung out and chatted on the water.
After this the day got interesting.
So now it's like 6:00pm, and we, as a group decide we would love to have dinner altogether in the centre of Madrid. The first problem with this was that our host families had made us dinner because the original plan was that we would be going home both nights for dinner. This could be fixed with a couple of phone calls, if only we had our host families' numbers, which no one did. So we, well they, decided to just skip dinner at our host families' house and apologize. The poor volunteer could not keep a group of 12 teenagers on the right track. The second problem was that we all wanted to go to different places for dinner. This is where this whole thing really got bad because people decided that instead of having a normal conversation about this, they would just leave to where they wanted to go. So one group went back to the park, another went to go shopping, and there were 7 of us left wondering what the hec had happened. One pair started to leave, and since the girl of the pair had the phone number of my "host brother" who was the only way I was going to get home since I had no idea where I lived, I needed to follow her, and she would not slow down enough to tell anyone where I was going. Another girl was having a panic attack since no one knew where anyone was, so the poor volunteer was stuck with her.
Anyways, you get the picture, it was chaos.
I ended up having a really great time, that kind of craziness is fun once in a while (although exhausting).
Sunday was much calmer, we visited a much cooler art museum, and then had the whole afternoon to ourselves. Thankfully, we (my group of friends and I) just holed up in a Starbucks and waited vainly for the rain storm to pass, because we were all pooped from the exhaustion of the night before.
The flight home was uneventful, although very very late, I ended going to sleep at about 3:30am.

Thank you for bearing through that long, not-very-eloquent post, remember I'm running on very few hours of sleep.
I hope you are having a lovely conclusion to your month of April!

A Day in The Life

8:00am -- Get up for school. Usually I am woken up by my little host brothers' screaming, but occasionally I am actually able to sleep until my alarm goes off.

8:30am -- Breakfast. Homemade toast, jam, noodle soup, chocolate, and soy milk are staples here.

9:00am -- Start school. I understand just about everything in my classes now, my current challenge is paying attention. My schedule changes daily, although I have roughly the same classmates for every class.

11:45am -- Break. We get a twenty-five minute break where we are allowed (read: forced) to go to the courtyard, even when it is super-duper cold outside.

2:00pm -- Lunch. Everyone goes home as classes let out for lunch, I'm lucky enough to live reeeeeally close to the school, so my walk home is short. Some people have to walk nearly 20 minutes to home and back, which really eats up your lunch hour. My host family and I normally have coucous or rice with vegetables, and, depending on the day, meat or fish.

3:10pm -- Return to school. Afternoon classes start, but only on a couple of days of the week. On Wednesdays, I come to the school to give conversational english classes.

5:00pm -- Freedom! This time we really are done. With school, that is. Quiet evenings are a rarity in my life here.

6:00pm-9:00pm -- Music lessons (piano or drums) or hanging out with friends. If I end up at home, I am usually downstairs chatting with the endless stream of people that come through my busy host home.

9:00pm -- Dinner. Everyone gets home by nine o'clock for dinner (except on Fridays and Saturdays, when everyone has things going on). Dinner is usually pretty similar to lunch, or includes pasta and sauce. Everything is very mediterranean and includes a BUNCH of olive oil.

11:00pm -- Time for bed. I consider it a good day if I am in bed by 11:00, and by that I mean that I normally don't get to sleep until 12:00 or later, but don't worry, I don't have anywhere to be tomorrow until 9:00am!

I don't have a title for this.

Hey guys!

I want to start with the concrete, actual stories before getting into the varying speed of time, so here goes.

This past Wednesday, we got a snow day! I, of course found out about this at a dreadfully early 7:00am (since I normally get up at around 8:15am here, that feels waaay too early) when I heard the gasps (yes, literally gasps) from my host sisters' room. By 7:30am (again, this is reaaaly early) I was out the door in inadequate snow boots and ruffled hair. I hung out with one group of friends until the started walking to the edges of town, where the hills are way to steep to walk on with shoes that don't stop slipping, and then I found a different group of friends who were (thankfully) being lazier. So I want with them and we watched some shows (turns out day-time TV isn't better here in Spain than it is across the pond), and then we all sort of drifted off to our respective houses. Unfortunately, that was the end of snow-day excursions for me, I fell really ill that afternoon, and am indeed still recovering. 

Another funny story, though this is more of a generic representation of a conversation that has happened a bunch of different times with various boys in my class.

Them (to someone near by): Ask her if she knows how to say "spoon" in English.

Me: Spoon.

Them (still to the someone near by): She understands Catalan?

Me and the someone near by: Yeah. Duh. Catch up. 

The underlined text is in Catalan.

So that happens with more frequency than one might expect, but it doesn't bug me. It would be way worse if they thought I spoke more than I did (which happens to some of my fellow AFSers here in Catalonia).

So now on to the varying speeds of time.

Picture this: You are sitting in catalan class (where the teacher hasn't even bothered to learn your name, and clearly has no intention of giving you a grade or work in the class) watching the seconds tick by and you are thinking to yourself how it would be a miracle if this class ended before you are fifty. 

So this is a fairly common situation I find myself in, although just in Catalan class, the other are far more interesting, and here, I see time passing slowly, like molasses in January.

This view of time is pretty common, though sometimes of the scale of "this week" or "this year abroad" but it is all the same basic view of time. 

The other way that time moves is fast, like out-of-control skis sliding unimpeded down the slopes. This can happen on the scale of "this year abroad" or "before i leave for college" or "my life" (though strangely I never have this problem in Catalan class).

The cool thing about this is that officially, its an optical illusion, since seconds don't ever actually take longer than other ones. But take away the human concept of time, and you are left with just your perception of things. A year can fly by and feel a short as a really dragged on Catalan class.

So that's my take on that. 

Hope you guys are having a good start to the month of February, and I will post again when I have more fun stuff to tell you guys!

The Halfway Mark

I MADE IT!! 

Well, I half made it. And that means a pie celebration! There is a bit of a debate about what kind I should make: pecan or apple, and so the compromise that they came up with (without, of course, consulting me) was that I would just make two pies. :)

Since my life has been pretty uneventful, I have only two things to recount (and they're both theater-y).

The first was last Wednesday. I went with my school to Barcelona to see "Mar i Cel". I'm not sure it plays in English, but for anyone out there who speaks Catalan, PLEASE do yourself a favor and see it. It is truly amazing. One of the most impressive things about the play is the ginormous boat that it takes place on, which has ropes from which they do acrobatics and even a compartment underneath, where they hold prisoners. Now, let me tell you, if this is impressive from the audience, it was even more impressive when they let us (just my school) go up on stage and climb on it. It was AWESOME!

The other theater thing was this past Wednesday, and it was hilarious! It was here in my town, so the theater was tiny, but it was in English! The two actors were actually british, and were delighted to here about my exchange. The beginning was a bit boring, their movements were highly over exaggerated to compensate for the mediocre english level here. But then, they started picking people from the audience, and when you see the quietest kid in the class playing a "sexy waiter" it's definitely worth the two euros we paid.

That's kind of it, just one more thing to show y'all.

I got my hair cut!

(Sorry for the bad photo, I'm not photogenic.)

Baby It's Cold Outside

Let me begin by apologizing for the tardiness and even more for leaving things on such a sour note.
Things have, however, been looking up and since my last post I have been great!
First, immediately after the last post came a very fun couple of days where we went to a few different Christmas markets. We loaded up the trailer with four kids (myself included), two parents, some bread and cheese, and two iPods full of music, and we embarked on the journey to a town called Vic. This sounds probably more dramatic than it actually was but confined spaces and this family are not always the best of friends. But this time (and I'm not a big believer in miracles so I will put it down to the Christmas spirit) no one yelled. No one. For more than 24 hours. Anyways, the Christmas markets were, well, Christmas-y, and we had fun wandering around the decked-out streets, tasting all of the free stuff possible.
A couple of weeks later, I had one of the best excursions since I've been here. I went with my school to a football (soccer) game in Barcelona. From the fact that we won 8-1 (I think, I can't really remember), to eating popcorn under a really warm blanket with my friends, to climbing to the very highest point where we could see the whole stadium, the night was just really magical.
Until the next day. We had gotten back at two o'clock in the morning and school was not waiting for anyone (not even the 80% of the student body who were zombies after only sleeping a couple of hours). However, even the sleepiness of the day after couldn't mar the happiness of the previousness evening.
Next up on the list of fun December things is the scavenger hunt/intercultural lunch that we did with AFS in Barcelona. We all met up and split up into groups. They then gave us little clues as to where we had to go to get the next clue. Unfortunately, like most AFS things they sort of lacked organization, and while we ended up seeing a lot of Barcelona and having fun, there was a pronounced lack of motivation towards the end. The lunch was amazing though. Every kid and some families brought a dish that they like from their home country. I brought chocolate chip cookies and biscuits, both of which were gobbled up pretty fast.
After that came Christmas Eve and an awesome (albeit very strange) celebration. Here goes. It starts a couple of weeks before Christmas when the log (called the tió) comes to the door. We then put it in the hallway and every night the little kids put a bowl of food for it to eat over night. It's not a picky eater, anything from the typical apple to popcorn to really whatever works just fine. Then, when the log is finally full and ready to poop (which happens on Christmas Eve) the actual celebration begins. The kids are sent to the kitchen to pray and sing Christmas carols (if they don't do this, they won't get presents), and then when the adults call us back into the living room, we begin to beat the logs with sticks and sing a song. The lyrics are not very poetic, they consist mostly of commanding the log to poop adequate presents and threatening it with an even worse beating if it doesn't. Happy Christmas. But anyways, when the singing is done we open what can only be called a butt hatch and lo and behold, a great pile of presents come out! It is truly as strange as it sounds and I spent the vast majority of the night laughing my head off, but I suppose that's a good thing.
Christmas day is really only a day to recover from the excess of candy eaten the night before (a bit like November 1st in the U.S.).
The next noteworthy event was "cap d'any" or New Year's Eve. Now, one of the most obvious cultural differences between here and there becomes apparent on nights like this where there is an abundance of parties. That is that teenagers (about 15 years and older) have curfews of between 3:00am and 5:00am. It is basically unheard of to leave earlier than that and I when I finally ended up on the walk home with some of my friends who live nearby, we were also joined by parents, and even grandparents who were just coming home from their respective gatherings. What? If you walk outside in the suburbs at 3:30am (even on New Year's Eve) you are most certainly not going to see you 75 year old neighbor walking home. But anyways, welcome to Catalonia!
I actually had a really good time, people are really happy around here, especially on party nights. :)
The next and final fun thing to happen before the dreaded return to school was the 5th of January, the day/night of the Kings.
The procession starts at nightfall, the streets full of eager children and parents. You hear in the distance loud, regal music, and slowly three carriages come into view. Perched on each one is one of the three kings. The kings throw candy to the audience (which kind of hurts if it hits you on the head) and you can hardly walk because there are children crawling everywhere to get the fallen candy. This year, there was a slight snafoo involving the size of the carriage and an archway they had to get through, but in the end they all squeezed through. Then, once in the main square of the town, the kings make a speech and throw some more candy before everyone goes home. But wait! There's more! Once we are all home, a king personally comes to each house bringing gifts! I got a very cool watch, and a bunch of rubik's cubes (for my sister and I to share). They also brought me and my two host sisters matching scarves (beautiful).
That's about it as far as celebrations, I want to reiterate that I am NOT having a terrible time here, the problem is that the urge to write comes mostly on bad days, so unfortunately you guys here more about that then the good. This isn't a very good excuse, but there you have it.
Thank you guys for bearing with me and I hope you all had a really awesome holiday season!!!

P.S. The title is very true here, it is usually in the 30s (farenheit) not counting windchill. The problem is that there is no precipitation so it doesn't snow...

HoneyNut Cheerios

You may be wondering how exactly I came to be wandering around this tiny town alone, crying and eating HoneyNut Cheerios out of the box at 9:00pm on a Saturday, but then again, so was I.
I guess this story starts with Thanksgiving. After chatting with my family on the actual day of, which was hard enough in and of itself, I then made a sort of spanish-rendition of Thanksgiving dinner for my host family on Saturday. Apart from making me appreciate the work that the adults in my family do every year to make that happen, it was a pretty hard day in my life here abroad. Every detail that was different seemed to scream at me that I am all alone, a world away from everything I love. So, even though the dinner itself was pretty successful, it made for a less-than-joyful start to what would become an ever-worsening week.
The next blow came on my Dad's birthday. It was the first time in my life that I hadn't been able to be with him for his birthday, which was so very much harder than I had expected. I missed burning chocolate chip cookies for him, I missed the feeling of Christmas season officially getting here that his birthday always brings, and I missed my Dad, and everything that makes him the best dad anyone could ask for.
Before I could have a moment to breathe, of course, I had a piano recital to deal with, and all of the stress that goes along with that. Now, I'm not exactly a new-comer to the whole piano-recital thing, but somehow having to play in a whole different setting, while knowing half the audience is a little bit more stressful than I had anticipated. I did do OK, even though my fingers shook for a good fifteen minutes after I stopped playing.
This brings us to Saturday.
I started off pretty good, standing outside for 4 hours (in 3-degrees- celsius weather) with my class selling pastries at a Christmas market in the town's main square, and hanging laundry out to dry once I got home. After my fingers and toes finally warmed up, I spent the afternoon in a sort of cold-induced limbo, where going outside seems unthinkable, but the house just seems to shrink and shrink and shrink until it feels unbearably small.
I'm not sure exactly sure what triggered my sizable mental breakdown, whether it was the violent outburst of screaming coming from one of the little boys' rooms, my host sister and I's misunderstanding, or a combination of the two, but I suddenly felt the very panicky need to get out.
So I did.
I wrapped myself up in a couple of jackets, a couple of pairs of socks, and a couple more scarves, and I went for a walk. I took some random turns until I finally got myself lost on the hilly cobblestone streets and then set out to find my way home. On the way, I came across the church, which was still holding mass, a really quiet little square where someone had put up cute little Christmas lights, and a creepy statue, which I'm quite confident will still be giving me nightmares twenty years from now. When I finally got back to a street I really recognized, I headed over to the grocery store and found (to my great delight) that there was one last, lonely box of HoneyNutCheerios standing in the cereal isle.
I of course grabbed it at once, and headed back out into the cold air, and began eating them right there. I'm pretty sure I looked like a crazy person, and almost definitely somebody I know saw me, but at that moment, with Fall Out Boy's song Sugar, We're Going Down Swinging playing a little too loud in my ears, I could not care less.