My Adventures: April 2015

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!