ColoRADo

So I have decided to try this blogging thing again, I have nothing to do at work, and it is an easy way to keep all you guys back home updated.

The last time I made a post on this blog it was May of last year and I was in Spain appreciating the amazing life I was living there... Well, a few things have changed since then, so I suppose before talking about what it is actually like out here in Colorado I should explain a tiny bit about how I got here.

After graduating high school in January, I went to visit my brother where he has been living for a year and a half now: a little ski town called Fraser in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.  If you saw any of my Instagram or Facebook posts during that week I am sure you already know how much I fell in love with the mountains.  I always thought I was more of a beach person, but there was something honestly magical about everything being covered in snow and being able to snowboard as much as I wanted.  (Also no one asked me "What are your plans for next year?" and that was really nice.)  While I was on vacation I met one of my brother's friends named Summer, and we hung out a lot when my brother was working.  Returning home was kind of awful, I missed my brother and my new friend and the mountains so much... I was working at a law firm at the time as an office clerk, and the novelty of my new job was wearing off, and I was slowly realizing how unhappy I was just going to school and working a desk job and hanging out with my friends on weekends (obviously I enjoyed hanging out with my friends, but everything just felt so monotonous).  The day before my 18th birthday I was at work and texting Summer, and she said something like "Why don't you just move out here?"  That comment made me think and realize that there was nothing actually tying me to Ukiah.  I had graduated from high school, I was enrolled in classes at Mendocino College but they hadn't started yet, I obviously had my friends and parents, but there really was no reason to stay.  That night I applied for a job at the YMCA where my brother started out when he got here, and within a week I had had a successful phone interview and had officially gotten a job as a craft shop worker.  I put in two weeks notice at my job and within about three weeks of applying for the job out here I was on a 5:45am flight from SFO to Denver.

My first day here was really weird.  My brother got me from the airport, we got lunch and then headed for the mountains.  My job here is super cool, room and board are included, so I live in staff housing.  I found my room (HR was closed it was ridiculous we had to track down a RA and we drove back and forth between admin and staff housing a ton of times), and put my stuff in there, but I didn't start work for a few days so I didn't have any friends so I went to Summer's house and had dinner with her and my brother and spent the night there.  My first full day in Colorado Summer and I went out to a place called Grand Lake which is a huge lake and a tiny town, and it was so cool to see a lake completely frozen over with feet of snow on top of it!! It's been so fun because little things like that are so exciting to me still. (For example it's snowing right now and every time I look outside I can't stop smiling like a maniac.  Also when I snowboard my face actually hurts at the end of the day because I don't stop smiling and laughing like a crazy person the entire day.  I love it here.)  Anyways, Summer dropped me off at the Y, and I ran into my RA Roger who offered to give me a tour of the property.  We drove around for a while and he showed me where I would be working/eating/doing laundry etc.  He introduced me to some of his friends (one of those was Helen, the girl who I have posted like 80 million pictures with since then) and I was no longer a loner!!!! Also real quick Helen appreciation: in three weeks she has become one of my best friends ever, definitely my number one out here at the Y, and it is so nice to have someone who I can be a goof with and know that she will be one right back and even maybe appreciate my goofiness.  Also she likes to snowboard and even though she's way better than me she still takes me with her and waits for me at the bottom.  So yeah she's pretty much the best.

For my first week I actually ended up lifeguarding, which was awesome because I got to work with Helen and our Argentinian friend Dani (and yes, I was practicando mi espanyol con Dani).  One of the many super cool things about working at this place is that there is such a variety of people here from so many different places, including quite a few South Americans.  It has been a lot of fun attempting to understand Peruvian and Argentinian Spanish, and sharing little Spain Spanish (Castillian?) phrases and words with them.  I would say I probably understand about 90% of what they say, but it's been nice realizing that I haven't lost as much of my Spanish as I thought I had (I actually get compliments on my Spanish like whattttt?-- Thank you for that Rotary).  It has also been cool hearing about what other states are like.  Helen is from Wisconsin, my roommate Alison is from Iowa, and my friends Roger and Austin are from Tennessee, which are all places that are very different from Northern California, so it has been fun sharing little tidbits about our home states.  The United States is such a huge country so I don't know why I was so blown away by my discovery of so many subcultures, but I was and I am.  \

So I've already mentioned snowboarding, but oh my goodness.  Being able to do one of my favorite things on a somewhat regular schedule is so amazing and the mountain out here is amazing.  It's so much bigger than anything I have ever been on, and I have improved my skills so much just having been here for a few weeks.  It has been so fun riding with Helen because like I said she is a lot better than me and she pushes me to try new things ( like tree runs, which I found out I love, or terrain parks, which I'm still working on loving).  There is never a bad day out here and I am just absolutely in love.

I have also tried nordic skiing twice now, which I wasn't sure I would like but I actually love it.  When I worked at the pool it was really nice to be able to go do that in the morning and then work the afternoon, but now my work schedule at the craft shop doesn't really allow for that (I have two days off and I spend both of them on the mountain) but it is a lot of fun and I am looking forward to the next time I can go.  Honestly I just love it here so much it doesn't even matter what I am doing I am just always so happy.  Today I had to walk to work and it was snowing and even though it was 8:30 am and I was exhausted I was so happy to be able to simply walk through the snow.

On Wednesday I am snowshoeing up a mountain with a group of seven or eight of my friends which should be interesting-- I have never snowshoed before, and supposedly it's an all day excursion, so wish me luck I suppose.  No matter what I will be with super cool people in a super cool place, so it's going to be a good day no matter what.

I think when I was in Spain I felt the need to talk about how happy I was even when I was really struggling being over there because I felt such a pressure to be having the adventure of a lifetime (which I was, even though it sucked sometimes).  But I really am loving it out here, it's blown me away how comfortable and at home I have felt here from the second day really.  I am a level of happy that I have not felt in a really long time, and I am enjoying every second of everyday here.

I will update this at some point if anything exciting happens!  Other than that just know I am loving my new life out here in Colorado!!

Andorra, Pamplona and Host Family Appreciation

Hi everyone! I'm not sure how long this post will be, I have a bit of free time so I thought I'd update everyone on my last few weeks of my life in Spain.
Last weekend I went on a Rotary weekend to Andorra. For those of you who do not know, Andorra is a tiny tiny country in between Spain and France. I do not know much of their history, essentially they used to be a part of Spain, and then about 200 years ago (do not quote me on that I have no idea when this actually happened) they just kind of said "we're going to be our own country now" and Spain was just like okay have fun with that. It's tiny and when I say tiny I mean like really small. Like the size of my county back in California.
Most of the exchange students from my district went, I believe there were about 20 of us. There was a Rotary conference going on, which we only went to for maybe thirty minutes overall. It was a very beautiful place, and it was a blast to spend the weekend with some of my favorite people. It was our last time all together, and there were plenty of tearful goodbyes. It is so weird to think that there were people there who I may never see again in my life. I hope I do though.
Yesterday, I went to Pamplona with my American friend Izzy. Pamplona is a city about an hour and a half from here. It's very old and very beautiful and is very famous internationally because it is where San Fermin happens. San Fermin is also known as the running of the bulls for those of you who just said "famous yeah right I've never heard of San Fermin." I really enjoyed exploring the city, and I will post pictures on Facebook laterrrrrrr.
Today, I went with my host parents to visit my oldest host sister Sabina in Zaragoza where she is currently studying Economics. It was my first time meeting her and it was a lot of fun. We got Chinese food for lunch (my first Chinese food in nine months) and then we went to drink coffee in an outside bar. After that we went to a tea bar, where I asked my host sister to just recommend something for me, and it was delicious. I'm not sure what it was though haha. After that we went home.
This is where the last part of the title of this blog comes in. I really feel the need to share my extreme appreciation for this host family. Just to start it off, they did not have to host me, they were not obligated in anyway at all. They chose to- something that I will never stop being thankful for. Nothing can be perfect but I can honestly say that I have had a hard time finding an imperfection with my situation here. Today on the ride home I thought long and hard about it and the most negative thing I could think of is that they discuss politics a lot and while having intelligent conversations with them in Spanish does make me feel really smart, it also really tires me out. I think that if the worst thing I can think of about my host family is that their intelligence exhausts me that's probably not too bad of a thing. Today was the first time I'd really done anything with my host parents without my host sister Lucia (she was at home studying) and I feel like I haven't really told you about them enough, they're just really awesome people. My host dad Paco is a really quiet guy, unless we're talking politics. He's always smiling, I don't think I've ever seen him unhappy or mad or anything. He really likes horrible jokes, which is really fun for me. He laughs a lot and it's really contagious. My host mom is very talkative, and very funny as well. She has only been sweet to me and they have both opened their home and brought me and really made me feel like a part of the family.
One thing I really like about my host mom is she is very straight forward. My whole host family corrects me on my Spanish when I say something incorrectly, something I always say thank you for because it really helps so much. She also really makes me feel appreciated. When I started coming out of my shell (I was a bit nervous at first and kind of quiet for the first two days maybe) and making jokes at the lunch table she would tell me that I had a really good sense of humor. When I was skyping my parents she came in to both calls and told me to translate to them that they love having me in their house and that they like my jokes and my attitude. And then today in the car ride home she told me what was probably the nicest thing that anyone has said to me yet here. She told me that I really set the bar high for any other exchange students that come to the town. She said that the fact that I am always eager to learn about the culture and that I am always trying to improve my language skills and that my general attitude towards the experience is exactly what an exchange student should be like in her opinion. It was so so nice to hear because I really have been trying this whole year and no one had called me out on it here. These people I'm living with are just such wonderful humans, and I don't want to think about how difficult it will be to say goodbye in a month. I am in the last stretch of my exchange, I'm terrified, and you all have heard all this already. I don't know how much I'll be updating this just because I'm trying to squeeze every last drop out of this year, so if you don't hear from me for a while don't worry. I'm happy and in good hands, and absolutely loving this experience. Thank you for reading, and thank you for your support.
Zeph :)

Changing families (whattttt?!?)

Sorry I haven't updated for the last couple of weeks, but I've been a bit busy with what I'm sure you've already guessed by the title of this post, switching families. I don't really feel like dwelling on the past, so I'm not really going to get into why I switched, if you know you're probably a Rotarian or my family, but for one reason or another I switched. 

When my old host mom, Olga, told me I would switch two weeks ago today (it feels so much longer away than that, wow), I was shocked, even though I knew it was coming. It just felt really weird to think that I'd be moving out of the house I had lived in for almost eight months, and away from the family who had taken me in and done so much for me. I don't think either of them read my blog, but I have to say I am so extremely grateful for them and everything they did, because the 80% of my exchange that I spent with them was wonderful and I know it would be so different if they had not hosted me. No family is perfect, and no exchange student is perfect. I feel like that's something we forget sometimes, but even the best family will have flaws. 

Although I was sad to leave that family, I am so so happy that I did. I didn't realize how sad it made me feel sometimes just living so far from town where all my friends live. I was jealous of my friends who walked to school, even though they had to walk up a very steep hill to get there (now I hate that hill and wish my old bus would come pick me up, it all just depends on your perspective I suppose). Now I live right in the center of town, about a ten minute walk from school, a block from the Main Street and a five minute walk from my Spanish best friend's house, and I love it. 

I don't only love the placement of my new apartment, I also love my new family. It consists of Rosa (host mom), Paco (host dad), and Lucia (host sister). I also have two older host sisters but I have yet to meet them because one of them is in the University of Zaragoza and the other lives in Madrid, but I will meet the one from Madrid (maybe the one from Zaragoza I get their names mixed up) this Saturday!! My host parents are so sweet, and they've made me feel at home since the first day. They're very relaxed people (unless they're talking about politics) and I've found it very easy to get along with them. My host sister Lucia is a year ahead of me in school, so we have different friends but we still walk to school together (and I've made friends with some of her friends since we started living together). She has a lot of homework right now, because the last trimester of high school here is a big deal, because there's a test in June that covers everything they've learned since the beginning of Junior year that determines what Universities they can go to, as well as what majors they qualify for (it's a very different system here). She studies a lot (right now she's studying) but she comes out of her cave for about thirty minutes for an afternoon snack of toast and chocolate (I join her for that), and for about an hour for dinner. Lucia also spent last year as an exchange student in East Australia (a bit North of Sydney!!) so she's fluent in English (don't worry though, we never speak in English unless she doesn't want her parents to understand something).  She's kind of (really) crazy but she's also super kind and a goofball and we get along really well. The hour and a half she spends outside of her room everyday are my favorite hour and a half of my day. It's really really nice to have a sibling again, I forgot how much I'd missed it. 

Anyways, my last week and a half have just really been getting used to my new family and their schedules. My host parents let me decorate my room how I wanted to so my American flag/ Polaroid pictures/ mini American flags are hung up all over and I love it. I also actually have a desk and shelves in this room so I've set out all of the cards I've received this year on a shelf and put some of my souvenirs up too. It's really nice, it feels a lot more like my room. I've been spending my afternoons hanging out with my host parents when they aren't working, walking around town with friends, and relaxing around my house watching movies and such. 

This past weekend my friend Amelia came to visit (something we'd been trying to plan since before I found out I would for sure be switching). Friday we had off from school, since it was Labor Day in Europe, and also just happened to be Jaca day. So Thursday night everyone went out in Jaca. Amelia, Izzy (the other American in my town) and I decided to go as a group, and our plan was to take the bus on Thursday evening, but we didn't anticipate how full the bus would be, so we ended up getting tapas in a super shabby bar a block from the station waiting for the next bus... We were the only ones in there, it was interesting. We got to Jaca around 11 and ate some pizza for a real dinner (it might seem a bit late, but it's Spain, dinner at 11 is considered early by some people). We found my friends at a park around 12, no one would go to any clubs until one or two. We hung out with them for a while, and then we went for a walk through the park, and ended up sitting on a bench and talking. There is a group of seniors at my school who are hardcore communist people, and one of them found us on the bench and started talking to us (I'd talked to him before he wasn't a stranger or anything), and eventually the whole group came over and started trying to convert us to communism (I know it's not a religion but I'm really bad at Englishing right now so that's what I'm sticking with). It was a very interesting conversation, and some of them were extremely intoxicated which was pretty funny although annoying too. We ended up going to the clubs with them, and we danced for a while, but then the three of us set off to find other people, since we were getting bored. 

We stayed out til seven am, and then walked for about thirty minutes to a barbecue breakfast at the cemetery. At nine am we took the bus home, and Amelia and I slept all day. 

Friday night we did nothing, we cooked ourselves dinner and then watched a movie, and made sure that we stayed in pajamas. On Saturday morning we walked around, got Spanish pastries and just showed her the town. We had lunch and dinner with my host family, and then we went out for a few hours with my host sister. It was really fun! 

On Sunday, Amelia had to leave around 12, and I spent the rest of the day with my host mom and sister since my host dad was in Zaragoza for the day. It was Mother's Day in Spain, and I had bought my host mom a nice springtime scarf and written a nice card, she told me it was really sweet, and I think she really liked the scarf because she has worn it to work the last three days. :) 

Today I didn't have school because the teachers and students were on strike (they do that occasionally) and since I actually understood what they were protesting against (it's a law the government is passing to put government standardized tests in the schools to create a ranking for all public schools in the country, and then give more technology, resources and stuff to the schools with higher rankings, which to me seems ridiculous, and if anything they should give more resources to the schools with lower rankings, to try to improve the schools that need improvement), I went to the demonstration. It was my first time being part of a strike, it was absolutely riveting (it really was fairly boring, there weren't many people there). What we did was the thirty or so of us who were there stood around the government building (really just hanging out with signs) for about an hour. Then for about five minutes, six or seven people stood in front of the group with signs and a megaphone, and explained what the law was and why it was wrong. Then we marched up and down the Main Street chanting. It was interesting, and definitely a good experience, I'm glad I went but honestly I don't feel like it accomplished anything. I think it's very cool that they do strikes like that though, and I wish I could see some in a bigger place where more people would get involved. 

That brings us to now. I feel like sharing my feelings right now, so that whoever you are can understand them, but also so that I can look back and read this and try to connect to past self. And also because I haven't really written about feelings much. And they're important. 

I have less than two months left in Spain. That's really crazy to think about, and really sad to think about too. Time is going by way too fast right now, and I feel like I don't have nearly enough time to see everything I want to see and to experience everything that I want to experience. I'm not ready to go home, the closer it gets to my return date the less and less I miss my family and friends. It's hard to hear everyone talk about how excited they are for the summer, normally that would be me too, but right now the thing I'm dreading the most is July. I'm trying to stay positive and live in the moment, no matter how difficult it is to forget what little time remains, that's what I'm trying to do. I've fallen head over heels in love with the people, culture and food of this beautiful country, and I'm not ready to give up the Spanish lifestyle (or the Spanish siesta). I know I can always come back and visit, but I will never get to live my exchange again and that scares me so so so so much (more so's but I'm too lazy to add them). But as my dad always tells me, carpe diem, seize the day. I'm making the best of my time here, and taking chances on weird experiences, and saying yes to as much as I can. Even though saying goodbye is going to be so so hard (again, more so's), overall I'm just so so (you know the drill) greatful to have had this experience, and I'm glad that those of you who have followed this blog for a while have gotten to experience a bit of it with me. Thanks for reading everyone! 

A months worth of blogs... Ugh...

Just a warning: this is really long. 

Okay! I am going to do this. I put off blogging way too much. The Rolling Stones and Cat Stevens will get me through this. I'm sure of it. 

So the weekend after my absolutely amazing day in Zaragoza (if you're not sure what I'm talking about, see last post), I returned to Zaragoza! This time for a rotary weekend though. The cool thing about this meeting was that it was for the entire district, which reaches from Barcelona (the east coast of the country) to Santander (the west coast of the country) but it's only the top sliver, it doesn't include Madrid. Anyhow, Ethan and I arrived Friday evening when we met the two girls from Santander; Zoli and Gaby. Something really cool about Zoli (other than the fact that she shares her name with a super cool Hungarian ex-exchange student), although she is hosted by an Oregon club (where her mom lives), she spends all of her summers at her dad's house in Mendocino county. Not only in Mendocino county, on Greenfield Ranch. As in she knows Ukiah really well. It was so cool to talk to someone who knows where my favorite restaurants are and who can talk to me about how much I miss cookies from Schat's and actually understand and agree. Oh and Gaby is actually from California as well, just from the South (I think we can all agree that San Diego doesn't measure up to Ukiah)(like obviously). Anyways when Ethan and I arrived to the train station and met up with them, the Rotarians informed us that our friends Ruby (Minnesota) and Helen (Germany-Ohio) (both on exchange in Logroño) would be arriving shortly as well, and that we would wait there twenty minutes, and then all go to the hostel together. We went to the area near the platform they would arrive on, and I called Ruby to tell her where we were. She told me they were just pulling in, so I hung up. We watched their train stop, and the doors open, and lots of people come out but we didn't see them (Helen is a redhead which really pops in crowds in this country). We watched the doors close and the train pull away in confusion. About ten seconds later I got a call from Ruby. She informed us that they had been waiting by the doors but didn't realize that they had to press a button to open them, and by the time they had realized their mistake, it had been too late. I ended up being the one to have to break the news to the Rotarians who were there, that the train had left, and that the next stop was over two hours away. Long story short, we went out for pizza and Rotarians drove to go get them. 

We met up with Ruby and Helen and another student on exchange in Zaragoza named Ismael (San Diego) later on at the hostel, and we all hung out until about one and then went to sleep. 

The next day we were going to plant trees. We got coffee around 10, and the Rotex from my town, the students in Zaragoza and the students on exchange in Pamplona met up with us there. We went to the tree planting place, which I guess is a tradition of exchangers in this district, and the ten (I think ten) of us planted about 75 of the 100 trees before the Catalunya kids finally showed up. The Rotarians told us we could just hang out and that they could finish the job, but it was really windy so we ended up huddling behind a car trying to keep warm before finally realizing helping plant would not only make it go faster but also keep us warm, so we did that instead. 

After we finished, we went out for lunch at a really nice restaurant nearby. It was really really fun to get to spend some time with the Barcelona kids, since we see then the least of everyone (there were people there who I hadn't seen since Halloween). After lunch we had a kind of debate. Rotary split us into three groups. There were those who were supposed to talk about the good things rotary had done, there were those who were supposed to poke holes in their claims and talk about the not so great things rotary had done, and then there was a kind of mediator group, which I'm still not entirely sure what the purpose of was (funnily enough that was my group). It went well for a while, but no one really stuck with their group. It was just a mixture of people from the negative group standing up and saying something they liked that rotary did and then someone from the mediator group saying something not so great about rotary. Also for a good fifteen minutes it was an almost political debate about Catalunya/ some of the kids in Catalunya not being entirely happy being on exchange in Catalunya. It was pretty stressful, because when you wanted to say something, you had to stand up, meaning that the eyes of 23 exchange students, 6 Rotex and 7 Rotarians as well as a few host parents were all focused on you. I definitely think it was helpful though, especially for rotary to hear some of the things we weren't super happy about. 

After the debate, we all went back to the hostel, and then we split into two groups and went off to find food for dinner and to explore a bit of the city. My group almost went to a kebab place, but decided at the last minute it was too sketchy and we chose the Subway next door instead (not very Spanish but c'mon, we miss stuff like Subway). Around 11 we all went back to the hostel. We hung out and played cards in one of the rooms until probably about two, and then went to sleep. 

The next day we got a tour of the city (all of which I'd seen, but it was new for the Catalunya kids), and then we went out for lunch. After lunch all of the exchangers slowly filtered out to return home, and around four Ethan and I got on our bus too :( 

Nothing very exciting happened that week. The following weekend my rotary club came up to Sabi to tour a factory here, so we went out for lunch with them after the not super exciting tour (two weekends with rotary is almost unheard though of so we were grateful). It was definitely nice to see some of the members of our club, although my counselor was MIA. 

The following week was also just muy normal. But then Spring Break started! My mom really wanted to know what Easter is like in Spain, so I figure this will be interesting. For one, they don't call it Spring Break, the translation is "Holy Week". The kids my age really just celebrate by going out a lot to celebrate not having to study, and not many people are very religious, so there's not much super different. One thing though, they're called processions. And they're frightening. Essentially, a group of men put on these dresses all in the same color (mostly black and white but occasionally orange, purple, or red, the colors change depending on what day of the week it is, as in how close to Easter it is), and they wear these mask/hat things over their head and the only thing I can say to truly describe them so that you will understand; they look like the KKK. I will include a photo below. Anyways this large group walks down the street like a parade and are followed by a single drummer. I saw a few seconds of a procession and got scared and left. I tried. My host mom told me the only reason they still do processions is because it's very traditional. 

My Spring Break was actually very busy. On Friday I went to Jaca and tried rock climbing without a harness for the first time with Ethan and Izzy in this gym Izzy goes to. On Saturday night I went out, but not in Sabi, in Jaca. And not with my normal friends, first with Ethan (I got to meet his Spanish friends), and then with some of my friends who are a year ahead of me in school. It was a lot of fun! On Sunday I slept for a while but then I went to Sabi to hang out with my friends. On Monday afternoon I walked around with Izzy for a while and then my friend Jon who's on exchange in Pamplona and from the Lake Tahoe area arrived, he came to spend the week in our beautiful little corner of the Pyrenees. I hung out with him and my friend Lucia for a while and our friend Victoria (she was on exchange in Pennsylvania last year) met up with us a bit later. Izzy went home, and I went to dinner at Victorias house. After dinner we went to a bar with Jon and Lucia for a few hours. We talked about pretty much everything, but ended up discussing US politics, which was when we decided it was time to go home (it was about one am already). I spent the night at Victorias but I went home around eleven because she had a doctors appointment. I was planning to go to Jaca that afternoon with Jon, but he went to a small village where Lucia's family lives instead, so I stayed home with my host mom and in the afternoon hung out with some of my friends in town. 

On Wednesday, we went to Zaragoza (me, Ethan, Lucia and Jon). We first went to the center of the city, and we found a store called Taste of America, where they sell Reeces Peanut Butter Cups and Cherry Coke and Kraft Mac and Cheese. We were in there for a while, and Ethan spent almost 40 euros! 

For lunch, we decided to go to the mall, since they have Taco Bell. We shopped around a bit, and I found Ethan and Jon some nice stuff (have I mentioned that I like guys fashion?), and I found myself a nice pair of jeans on sale for 10 euros! Go Zephyr! 

That night Lucia Jon and I went out to the Tea Shop, and I spent the night at her house. The next morning at nine we met the exchange students from Zaragoza and three more Rotex at the bus stop and left to go hiking. It was a beautiful three hour hike to the top of a mountain, where we ate lunch and rested a bit (I took a mini siesta), and then two and a half hours down. It was a lot of fun! We went to eat tapas in Jaca and then we all went back to our houses to shower and get ready to go out that night. 

When I got to Sabi, we first went to a soccer game (indoor soccer). Then we all went to Victorias house for dinner. We hung out for a while there, it was a lot of fun. That night I slept at Victorias house again. Friday I went to my host grandparents house for a family lunch with my host uncles and my host cousins (who I had never met before). 

On Saturday, I went to Barcelona with my host mom and host aunt. We got there around 10, and at 11 I went to the Sagrada Familia Cathedral with my friend Michael (from New York). It actually worked out perfectly because his mom and brother were visiting from New York, and they had an extra ticket for a tour to see the inside and go into the towers. It was absolutely beautiful, and from the towers you can see all of Barcelona. Then I went to lunch with Michael and his family. It was really nice to spend so,e time with them, they are really cool people. Although it did make me miss my brother and my mom a bit to see Michael with his. 

After lunch I walked with them to the train station, and then I wandered around the center for a bit, and then met up with my host mom and aunt. We had a small dinner and around ten went back to the hotel. Sunday morning I window shopped a bit (it was Easter Sunday so nothing was open), and made conversation with random American tourists. I also got to see the gothic district of the city (really beautiful), the cathedral (also really beautiful), and a bit of the beach (beautiful too). In the afternoon we returned home. 

Monday I spent in Sabi with Izzy and some friends, and in the afternoon I packed for my school trip which would start the next day. 

On Tuesday morning we left for Burgos Spain. It's a really beautiful city. We also went to Atapuerca (the focus of the trip), which is very famous for finding the oldest human remains in all of Europe. It was very interesting to hear about that, and about how that one discovery changed the previous ideas completely of when our ancestors crossed from Africa to Europe. It was all in all a very interesting trip. I'm being vague, but I have a lot of videos of it that will hopefully post on YouTube soon, so you all can see it too. 

We returned on Thursday. On Friday we went to school and then we hung out at night. On Saturday izzy and I walked around, and met up with some other fun people. On Sunday, I went to Huesca with my host mom for my host grandmas birthday lunch. After lunch my host mom and I went to see the movie Mortdecai, which was pretty stupid but that's alright. On Monday I went back to school and this week has gone pretty normally. In about thirty minutes I'm going to go for a run with my host mom (well she's going to walk), so I guess I'll leave you here. Hope your past months have been as fun as mine was! 

Hasta luego! 

The first night in Zaragoza. From left to right: Me, Gaby, Zoli. 

Posing with the famous Pilar Cathedral in Zaragoza. 

Our exchange family. 

Ancient Roman ruins in Zaragoza. 

The tree planting group picture. 

Rock climbing in Jaca.

The streets of Jaca and me. 

 Cool helmets in Atapuerca. 

Burgos and some of my Spanish friends. Clockwise: Me, Laura, Marina, Blanca, Moli and Isabelle. 

 My friend Jorge. 

I'm not sure where my Barcelona pictures are so I'll post them on Facebook when I find them.Thanks for reading! 

A procession by the way.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

This past Saturday was... Interesting... It started off reallllllly fun, and then maybe the universe saw how much fun we were having and decided to throw us off our game.
Me and my friend Izzy (the other American in my school) decided to go shopping Saturday in Zaragoza (It has a really awesome mall)(don't worry mom I didn't buy much, it was more so that Izzy could get new clothes). Anyways, we took the bus there at 9AM, as it takes about two hours by bus to get there and we wanted to have the whole day to explore and shop (the plan was to take the last bus back to Sabi at 7:30). We had an amazing day, we went shopping for a few hours, and then went out to lunch at Taco Bell (which is really special because it almost doesn't exist here). We also got the hang of the tram system, and I was our navigator with my awesome little map of the city. I've been there a few times, and I know a lot about the city (because my host dad knows a lot about the city and much like my real dad will talk foreverrrr). It's a really beautiful place, there's a really beautiful cathedral called Pilar, and a whole plaza dedicated to it. So we spent our time exploring the center from about 3PM to 6:45PM when we started looking for a bus to get back to the station. We got to the stop, and then realized that it did not have service with the bus we needed, and after consulting my map, I realized that the stop we needed was way past the plaza on the other side, probably about a mile away. At this point it was 7, and we had thirty minutes until our bus left the station. We realized we needed to get to the stop, and fast, so we started running. We're both runners, so we wouldn't have had much of a problem with it, if it weren't for the fact that we were fully dressed (with thick coats for the cold) and we had shopping bags (I had the majority of my things in my backpack). It was uncomfortable. While we were running through the plaza, my backpack opened up at the top and all of my stuff started falling out, but of course I didn't notice until we were about 100 meters from where it started falling out. All of my things were scattered on the ground, including my wallet, and all of my new things. We gathered them up and right when we thought we had everything, a woman came running up to us holding a dress I had just bought and my credit card which I guess had fallen out of wallet. I am so so thankful for that woman, I wouldn't have checked through my wallet until we were at least on the bus.
So Izzy and I kept running towards the bus stop, but now I had my backpack clutched to my chest. Which definitely did not help with the discomfort of our activities. We were about a block away from the stop when I realized that the bus was almost there, so we sprinted the last 30 yards (sorry I keep switching between meters and the American measurements). AND WE MADE IT ONTO THE BUS! And we were so so happy, because our bus didn't leave until 7:30 and it was only 7:15, and we were only about 10 minutes from the station! We were so so happy, and although we were 99% positive we wouldn't miss our bus, we did think of other options we had in case we did. When we got to the station, we ran straight to the platform and checked the screens to find out that our bus didn't leave until 7:35 even though online it had said 7:30! We were so excited, so we decided to go buy our tickets at the counter (the previous plan had been to buy them on the bus). When we got to the ticket place and asked for two tickets to Sabi, the woman asked us "tomorrow?". When we said "no, right now" she informed us that the last bus had left at 7:15, and that the screens were indicating that the bus would arrive from Sabi at 7:35. We waited at the platform just hoping that the lady was wrong, but she was right, and we were left in a city two hours from home with no bus to get back on.
I have friends who are on exchange in the city, so I called up my friend Pooja to see if she could have us in her host house for the night, and her host mom was happy to take us. We called our host parents, and her host parents said it was fine as did my host dad (my host mom was just returning from a few days in Madrid). We decided not to make extra trouble for Pooja's host family by eating dinner in the center before taking the bus to her house (that way her host mom wouldn't need to cook for us too). We ate sandwiches at a Spanish chain called Pans & Company which is essentially the Spanish version of McDonalds. They were pretttty gross. We were getting ready to figure out the bus to Pooja's house when my host mom called, and she was very very angry. I was really confused, because I thought we had done everything right. We had stayed calm and figured out a good, safe option, and we had gotten permission from everyone we needed to. Of course I was thinking it was the right thing to do in my USA mind. Because back in California we would've done that and it would've been the good thing to do. However as my host mom explained to me later (her first phone call was just a lot of angry and not a lot of an explination), it is not okay to invite yourself to someone else's house, NOT IN España. Not that it's a polite thing to do in the USA either, but when it's an emergency (such as being stuck in a city overnight) it is a fine thing to do. Here people are reallllly into their houses. It seems that they're always cleaning, and trying to improve their houses so they like to have more of a warning when they're going to have guests. Honestly, Pooja's host mom seemed excited to have us. Her son Guillen is in my Rotary District back in California, and he and I talk a lot because we're both in eachother's area of their country (if that makes sense haha).But my host mom realllly did not want us to intrude and was really quite furious about it, so cultural differences got me again gosh dang it.
 Anyways my host mom told us that what we needed to do was take a bus to Huesca (a city about an hour south of Sabi, and a bus we did not know existed)and that she would come pick us up there. We were still in the center of the city when she told us this, and the bus left at 10:30, and it was 10:00 already (I feel like you probably already know where this is going). So Izzy and I set off to find a bus to the station. We were just getting to a stop where they did have service with our bus, when our bus (number 34) pulled away :( Buses run every 10 minutes there, and we knew we could make it if we got on the next bus so we waited. Another one came very soon after, and we got on, however we were very confused (and stressed from having missed yet another bus) that we got on the bus going the wrong way. We ended up being the last people on the bus, which really confused us because normally lots of people need to get to the bus station. Well it turned out we had made it to the end of the route (the opposite side of the city as the bus station), and we ended up having to pay a second time and go through the entire route :( making us late for a bus we were already running late for. At 10:28 we were still a good 8 minutes from the station so I called my host mom and told her there was no way we were making it on that bus. At that point I figured she would say it's easier if we stay at Pooja's, but instead she informed us that she and my host dad would come get us at the bus station, a 1.5 hour drive for them.
I was really frustrated, because I felt that I had done the right thing, I hadn't stressed myself out, instead I had found a good way to not cause any more issues. My host mom had been angry that I had not asked my host dad to come get us when I first told him that we had missed our first bus, but I was trying to be polite, and that seemed like a lot to ask at almost eight at night. I guess it really wasn't. Izzy could tell that I was not exactly happy with the way things had ended up, and when we got to the bus station and we were waiting alone, we put on the song "Shake it Off" by Taylor Swift (who is a goddess by the way), and had a little dance party (which one of the security guards TOTALLY saw, but ya know, you just gotta shake it off ;) that was a bad joke. Sorry. Anyways that definitely lightened the mood a lot. Honestly I am just so happy Izzy was there with me. If I had been alone it would've been really hard for me to handle what went down. Or I guess it was hard for me, so just a lot harder.
My host parents came to get us, and we drove home, Izzy and I falling asleep in the backseat.
Overall I think it was a good experience. It was exhausting, a little bit scary, but I think I handled it to the best of my ability, and that's all that can really be expected from me. (And of course I apologized and thanked my host parents a million times for coming to get us).
Dear Mom and Dad, please don't let this story stress you out. Obviously if I have people who are willing to drive almost two hours to come get me in the middle of the night I'm being taken care of well. Hopefully I won't have to write about anything similar to this again.
P.S- In case you were wondering, we took 12 buses/ trams that day. And we only missed three.... So three missed out of 15? That's only like 20%... AKA 80% not missed. I'm okay with those stats I think. Thanks for reading this!
Also if you're looking for photos from Carnaval (my last blog post) they're on my Facebook page!
Hasta luego! -Zeph (:

CARNAVAL

THIS DIDN'T POST AND I THOUGHT IT HAD I'M SORRY. I'M CURRENTLY WRITING A NEW POST ABOUT THIS PAST SATURDAy (yeah just the one day) BECAUSE IT WAS CRAZY. ANYWAYS... Here it is....

Trying not to be lame about updating. Failing. Starting off where we left off.

Saturday was Carnaval, a huge party celebrated throughout all of Spain by wearing bright costumes and having parades. And it. Was. Awesome! My group of friends chose to go as superheroes (the girls) and soldiers (the boys). There were also 5 who went as prison inmates. I went with three of my friends as Captain America (of course)! It was a super elaborate process. About two weeks ago we found a design of the costume, and we went to a fabric store. There they measured us and cut the fabric we would need. From there, the fabric went to my host grandma, who sewed my dress! Which was so sweet! Then on Friday night, I went to my friend Andreas house, and we made our shields and masks! So everything except for our shoes was homemade. 

On Saturday, I got up pretty late, and did my hair and makeup at my house. Then I went to my grandparents house to get my costume. Once I had it, I went to my friend Izzy's house. She didn't have a costume since when she came to Spain we all already had our costumes, so she just wore typical American clothes that Spanish people would NEVER wear (pin-striped skinny jeans and a leather jacket). When we were ready we went to the local for dinner. We stayed there until about 12:30am. Then we went to the club we were going dancing in that night. It was very fun! This club is one of my favorites, it's a 16+ club which means it's not just geared towards the really drunk people, there's an upstairs part with a foosball table and a pool table, and we normally hang out up there when we get tired of dancing down below. I stayed there until around 4:30am and then went home. All in all it was a very fun night. 

This past week was Semana Blanca (like ski week in the states). None of my friends were going skiing though, and since it's not really my favorite thing (I prefer snowboarding), I didn't go either. One not so great thing about where I live is that I don't live in town, I live about ten minutes from the actual town, it takes about an hour and a half to walk there, and people here drive so crazily I'm so afraid to bike on the roads (mountain biking though, ayy). Anyways, when my host dad was working those two days, I was alone in the house, with no way of getting to town. I tried to keep busy, I ended up catching up on sleep, and studying Spanish. Ethan and I started taking a Spanish class once a week, which has really helped a lot I think because in day to day life, people normally don't correct our Spanish. As long as they understand us, they don't say anything, which is nice because it helps make us feel more normal, but doesn't help us learn. My host parents and my close friends correct me (because I ask them to), but teachers and other spaniards really don't. Anyways, I had quite a bit of homework to do for my class so I kept busy by working on that, and finishing a project for my English class at school. 

On Wednesday I stayed home in the morning with my host mom, and in the afternoon I went to Jaca for Spanish class (and guess what? I forgot the homework I'd done at home!), and after class Izzy met us and we went ice skating! It was really enjoyable! 

On Thursday, my host mom and I went shopping in a city about two hours away, which was really fun! 

On Friday, my host dad was working and my host mom went to visit her parents in a city about an hour away from where I live, but I stayed up since she had left by the time I woke up. Once again I was alone in my home, with all of my homework done :(. I watched the Spanish news and then some Spanish sitcom which occasionally I find funny. I prepared dinner for myself (just some salad and cheese) and tried to go to bed early. 

Today (Saturday), Ethan, Olga (my host mom), Ethan's host mom and I travelled to a place near Zaragoza to meet up with other Rotary students and Rotarians and go watch birds at this lake and stuff (there really wasn't much more to it) (it was pretty boring) (but we were ok with it because whenever exchange students get together it's fun). It was a really fun day! 

Sunday I slept and watched movies with my host mom and Monday I started school again :( 

On Friday, I went out with my friends, which was really fun. On Saturday I hung out with Ethan, we walked around Jaca, and ate reallllly gross pizza. Pizza that was so gross it made me miss Little Caesars. On Sunday I slept and watched movies and spent time with my host mom (I think I do that every Sunday haha). 

I went to school Monday and Tuesday, and today I felt really sick so I stayed home. And here I am writing.  That's it. Hopefully I'll update soon! But with me who really knows. Hasta luego! (: P.S the pictures are all just from the adventure with the other exchangers. The first picture is a creepy giraffe playground my friend Izzy and I found in our town.

The Halfway Mark

Oh my gosh! Zephyr is updating almost on time! You must be dreaming! 

It's been about three weeks since my last post (actually less than three weeks, so boom!), and a lot has happened so I decided to make a post about everything that has happened since my birthday, leading up to today (nothing exciting has happened today, by the way, so don't get super excited for the end of this post thinking that I'm going to hit you with a curve ball and be all like "Oh and today I found out I passed my Spanish Language class", because c'mon guys, let's be realistic. 

Anyways, the weekend after my birthday, my friends Pooja (India) and Amelia (Minnesota) came up to visit me, since Amelia and I are birthday twins (but she's a year older). They arrived Friday evening, so we hung out with my friends for a bit, and then since Amelia had just turned 18, we went to a casino (they carded all of us, and I was the only one under 18 so they just told me to not touch anything), Amelia played a slot machine, lost 20 cents, and then we left. Then she bought a lottery ticket, didn't win anything there either, all in all, quite anticlimactic. 

On Saturday, we had lunch with my host parents (paella, yum yum), and then went to Jaca to see Ethan. We showed them the cool stuff around the city, and then we went out for tapas. Jaca has this amazing potato tapa. It's so good, it's like garlic and oil and I really don't know what else but it's so so so good, and so we ate way too many orders of that. We wanted to go dancing, but our stomachs all kind of hurt from the potatoes, and also all of the clubs were completely full, so we only stayed out until about 2:30. My host mom came to get us, we went home and slept for a very long time. The next day we had lunch with my host parents, and then Ethan came over to spend our last afternoon with the Zaragoza girls. Ethan was having a really bad day, and was feeling really homesick. I felt really really sad for him, but it was nice to have the other exchangers there too, because we had a little home reminiscing session all together. It kind of makes things better and worse at the same time to talk about the things you miss. It's nice though, it makes you feel like you're not quite so far away from home. 

Amelia and Pooja left that evening, and Ethan and I walked around Sabi for about an hour, waiting for his bus home. We had a really intense philosophical conversation about the way the brain works and life in general and afterlife and reincarnation (Pooja is Hindu, and we had learned a lot about her religion over the weekend), and about just really random things. It's funny though, because probably 10% of the conversation was just us pausing to search for the words in English and I included Spanish words more times than I could count. Ughhhh English is getting very difficult to speak and write. I suppose that's a good thing though. 

The week passed, nothing too exciting happened. Classes are getting more interesting now that I understand them, and philosophy is now one of my favorite classes! English class is getting difficult for me, it's getting harder and harder to remember my own language, which is a completely weird feeling! 

The Friday of that week, I didn't go to school, and instead Ethan and I went down to Huesca for the day of the peace. There was a ceremony, and Ethan and I had to speak a bit. In a successful attempt to be funny, Ethan started talking about the weird food here, especially "caracoles" (snails) and murcilla (I actually don't know how to spell that, but it's a dish made entirely of rice and pig blood). Throughout the day the Rotarians all called him Caracol, which was pretty enjoyable. 

After the ceremony, we went to this super big cathedral for a tour. Because of our blazers and the fact that we are foreign, we got a behind the scenes tour! We go to go up to the roof of the cathedral where you could see the whole city, and we got to go to where the priests prepare sermons and see some super old books that were all in Latin. We saw the oldest music book in all of Spain, and some Latin carvings that date back to the 10th century! It was really cool! 

After the cathedral we had lunch with rotary, and then Ethan and I explored a bit on our own. We went shopping, and I found these super rad pants on sale for only 8 euros! It was really exciting! 

We went home that night, and I had a pizza night with my friends! It started snowing super heavily where I live, and when we were going home around midnight, we almost couldn't make it to our house! It was crazy! My friends weren't super excited, and they all laughed when I went outside and started jumping around in it. 

My host dad worked most of the weekend, so my host mom and I just kind of got lazy and watched movies all weekend. It was nice though, to just rest, sometimes it's hard to remember to take a break when everything is just so exciting all the time! 

On Monday, a new American came to my school! She's here with a different program, and for only five months. She's really nice, and we spent a lot of time together throughout the week. I've been helping her learn Spanish, and amazing myself by how much I've learned. I actually explained the subjunctive tense to her, which is a concept I was struggling with just a couple of months ago! I was really proud of myself. On Friday, we went out for tapas with my friends, which was really fun! 

Yesterday, Izzy (the new American) and I went to Jaca to see Ethan. I showed Izzy the city, and then we met up with Ethan and walked around. It's really snowy there too, and we were frozen by the time it was time to come home. 

I watched a movie with my host mom last night, it was actually really interesting. It was about ETA, a terrorist group that existed in Basque Country mostly before the dictatorship ended. I learned a lot about the culture of the country under Franco, and it was very interesting! 

This morning I woke up, and my host mom had left for Huesca to see her parents and my host dad had gone to work. I ate lunch alone, and decide to write this. So yeah. 

This past week, I passed the halfway mark of my exchange. For me, that is absolutely terrifying, because it makes me acknowledge the fact that I don't get to live here forever, and that this life I've worked so hard to build over the past five months? I have to say goodbye to it, forever. Because even if I come back to visit this beautiful area I've learned to call home, it won't be exchange, I won't be living with my host parents, going to school, I'll never have the opportunity to experience this again, and I really don't think that I'm okay with that. I'm not ready for the heartbreak I know I'll feel when I say goodbye in July, and I wish there was a way to live in both California and Spain so that I could avoid the pain I know I'll feel. 

Enough depressing stuff though... I'm just going to make the best out of the limited days I have left (143 days, to be exact)(probably seems like a long time to you. It's really not). 

Sorry guys this was supposed to post yesterday but the upload failed. Today was interesting, I woke up at four AM, and my mind was convinced that it was seven. I got up around 4:30 and started getting ready for school, and the more I woke up, I started realizing it was still dark outside and something wasn't right. When I realized my mistake, I laid back down thinking I wouldn't fall asleep, but I did. At almost 8 (the time I have to leave for school), my host mom came in and woke me up (I guess I turned my alarm off in my four AM half-asleep state). She had to leave for work at 8, and my host dad had already left for work, so I ended up not being able to go to school since no one could take me. It was nice to get a couple more hours of sleep, but I kind of wanted to go to school and I was a bit bummed. Anyways, here are some pictures of the last couple of weeks: 

 

My three loves: Amelia, Pooja, and Spain. 

We did a lot of balancing on things for some reason.

It was raining and the wind was pretty intense, but it was super fun and really beautiful. 

My absolutely lovely amigas. Fun fact, "migas" in Spanish means crumbs. Clearly a very important word to know. You're welcome. 

 I tried to make a snowman. I thought I did a good job... My Spanish friends told me that the little kids make better snowmen than mine. Whatever :( I think he's cute.