This weekend was nice, but pretty strange too. As I mentioned in my last post, I went to Madrid for a Rotary orientation. On Friday, I had to wake up super early in the morning to catch a bus with a Rotex from my town named Victoria, and an American boy named Ethan from a nearby town. It was really weird, because the moment we got on the bus, we all started speaking English. I almost forgot what it felt like to understand everything in a conversation. We took a bus to Zaragoza, which took about 2 hours, and there we met up with more exchange students, including a boy from California. When I found out where he was from I freakedddd out. Even if he is from SoCal. In Zaragoza, I also met a boy from Japan, which I thought was the coolest thing. In our group of inbounds, about 90% are from the U.S, so foreign people (I guess we're all foreign but you get what I mean), are rare and exciting. When we got on the bus that would take us from Zaragoza to Madrid, there were already quite a few exchange students on it from the Barcelona area. Of course I managed to embarrass myself because I thought that the two boys sitting behind me were Spanish so I started trying to be friendly and introduce myself and such and then proceeded to ask them if they spoke English, to which one of them replied "I'm from New York." Whooooops. They were really cool though, and I talked to them pretty much the entire bus ride.
The place that we were staying in was a little bit outside of Madrid, and it had Cabins and a dining hall and a swimming pool and a sports field. And that was pretty much it. I really wanted to see the city of Madrid, but we didn't get to. It was a bummer. On Friday when we arrived, we all met each other, and then played name games and tried to get to know each other. This girl I met there, named Reagan and I realllllly wanted to go swimming the first night, so we put on our bikinis and our idea was that once we were in the water the worst they could do was ask us to get out. Too bad we only made it to the pool deck before some Rotex came over and told us that we couldn't swim or else they would get in trouble with Rotary. We thought we'd be making the walk of shame back to camp in our dry bathing suits, but instead we got applause and multiple high fives for trying.
On Saturday, we had a lot of meetings, explaining the rules of exchange, the Euro Trip, and more. They were fairly boring, and mostly things I'd heard before, and I was really tired, so I almost fell asleep a couple of times. After the meetings, we went outside to take the cliche flag group picture, but with over 100 exchange students, it didn't work too well. That afternoon, after the meetings around 4, the pool was going to be open. I went back to my cabin, and I lied down in my bed, and was trying to make the decision of whether I should take a nap, or go swimming. My subconscious made the decision for me when I quickly fell asleep. When I woke up, I checked my watch and it was almost 7. I knew that the pool was going to be open until 6, but also I did not hear anyone talking outside of my cabin, so I was pretty confused. I put myself together, and left my cabin, to find out that there was no one in the center hang out area, no one in the dining hall, pool, or bathroom. It was almost like a zombie apacolypse and I was really confused as to how over 100 exchange students and 20 or so Rotex had just disappeared into thin air. After walking around for a bit, I saw a girl I recognized walk into the bathroom. I hung out in the middle area and once she came out I found out that everyone had gone down to the sports field (which up until this moment, I had no idea existed). The group had been split into a few teams, and they were playing games to gain points for their teams. I was still really tired, and wasn't really in the mood to play games, so I sat down with a Belgian boy named Hugo who had hurt his foot in a game of fútbol. We talked for a while, just about our lives at home and our lives in Spain, and so on. Eventually, the group split off to create skits, and we were invited to join group 5 (the team that will go down in history). We created a pretty fun skit about the differences between what we expected Spain to be like and what it is actually like. Of course we exaggerated quite a bit, but I suppose it's a good way to explain to you guys some of the things that are pretty different here.
We started out with greetings. Literally with everyone, when you meet them for the first time, when you see a friend again, you kiss them on the cheeks. I kind of knew that this was a thing before coming, but I thought it was going to be more when I met like an elderly person, not when I met people my own age. It was funny to hear from the Rotex about their experiences getting off the plane in the United States, trying to kiss their host parents on the cheeks, and having them get really confused.
We talked about the food, and about how a lot of people were expecting Mexican food, but instead were greeted by lots of seafood and vegetables. We talked about the timing of our days, and how eating dimmer at 10 or 11 is a normal occurrence. And we ended it with siesta, and how our expectation was pretty much the same as the reality. It was was completely in Spanish, and our team won!! It was really exciting, but we didn't get a prize like we were supposed to :( instead, all of us had a dance party inside of the dining hall. The issue was that the music wasn't loud at all, and there wasn't much space, so it got boring quickly. Hugo's foot was still hurt, so I helped him get outside. Once we got outside, we could tell that something was wrong, because there was a large group of Rotex and exchange students looking fairly frightened by the door. What had happened was a crazy, shirtless, drunk man had wandered into camp, in fact many of us had seen him even four hours earlier, but had just assumed he worked there. He was trying to get into the dining hall, so some Rotex were calling the police and some of the other exchange students and I went to a nearby tent area with tables. The Rotex got rid of him fairly quickly, and many more exchange students left the dance and came to where we were sitting. We played cards and just hung out and talked until it was time to go to bed.
On Sunday, we left fairly early, and the large group of students going to Zaragoza hung out in a Madrid McDonalds for a few hours waiting for our bus. There really weren't any major highlights from my 7 hour bus ride, but when I got home, it was hailing and there was lightening, so that was interesting. Yesterday in the morning I had to go to school, but that was okay because I got to see my friends again, and finally meet Blanca. Blanca is my host sister (who is also on exchange in Colorado)'s best friend. She has been in Africa for the last few weeks so she was not here when I arrived, but we have been talking on social media for a couple of months now, so it was great to actually meet her. She also told me that she has been keeping up with my blog, which is so awesome to hear because I know that it can't be easy to read something which is not only in another language, but also in vernacular language which is not common to here since they study English from England, and not from Californian teenage girls. And yet she still reads it (: At school we got our schedules, and I don't understand mine at all, but that's okay because my friends will tell me where I need to be. After our little thing at school, I went home. My host dad had to go to work, and my host mom was at a meeting, so I was home alone for the first time since I got here. I took that time to unpack my things, hang up my American flag, and relax a bit. It was actually really nice. When my host mom got home, we had artichokes with ham, and turkey with bell peppers. It was delicious. During siesta, we were watching The Big Bang Theory which is one of my favorite shows in the U.S, except we were watching it in Spanish, so I didn't get it. Before my host mom fell asleep, she changed it to English for me. It was really nice to just relax, and watch a little bit of American television.
After siesta, my host mom took me into town to hang out with my friends. We went to a little bar, and I tried what was pretty much an icee, but in a fancy glass. It was really yummy. Afterwards we walked around a bit, and around nine, I went to Blanca's house for dinner. Her mom prepared rice with vegetables, salad, and some sausage-type-maybe-thing. It was all really good, and her parents are super nice. After dinner, we went back to the bar place with some more friends and one of our friends' dog. I got another fancy icee. It was yummy all over again. We hung out for a while there, just talking and such, and then my host dad came and got me around 12. Which here is a perfectly normal time for a teenager to be out on the town with her friends at. It's strange. I got home, and like I said before, I fell asleep super quickly. This morning, my host mom was at work, and my host dad was on a bike ride, so I was home alone again, this time for a couple of hours. When I woke up, I went for a run. I figured out a nice trail that goes along the road next to my house, straight up a hill. I ran until there wasn't a trail anymore, and then I turned around and ran back down to my house. It was absolutely stunning, and I think I will run this trail often. When I got home, I noticed that someone (not sure if it was my host dad or host mom), had put out breakfast ingredients, including a couple of chocolate pastries. They were delicious. After breakfast, I took a shower, and then relaxed and blogged, and here I am now. My host mom is home, and preparing lunch, so I think I'll go see if I can help.
Overall, it was a pretty good first weekend in Spain, and a wonderful first week in Spain, and I am so so happy here. Depending on my afternoon today, I may blog tonight, but most likely I won't blog again until tomorrow.
Hasta luego, Zeph
Ugh okay my pictures are being stupid. Here's what they are:
#1 Amigo de nueva York
#2 Amiga de Florida
#3 Hugo de Belgium
#4 Rotex from Pamploma who went to Cali
#6/7 Rotex Yago and Rotex Victoria
#8 McDonalds Group
#9 Cali Crew
#10 Barcelona Rotex
#11 TEAM FIVE!!
#12 My room completely set up
#13 Alicia (una Amiga)
#14 the group
#15 self explanatory
#16 My run this morning
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