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 I do not know much of their history, essentially they used to be a part of Spain, and then about 200 years ago (do not quote me on that I have no idea when this actually happened) they just kind of said "we're going to be our own country now" and Spain was just like okay have fun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 :)
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