WOW OH WOW

Oh my goodness gracious...

I don't even know how long its been since I have blogged...3 months maybe?

I am a terrible blogger, wow super sorry I have been very very busy these past months especially around Christmas. I guess I didn't really find those events that exciting since I am so used to them that my mind juices weren't flowing. But I plan to continue this blog for my last few months here and back in America as well. 

I know that I don't have any "fans" here, but if you could please give me suggestions that would help me so much. It makes it a lot easier to hear it from someone else if I can't think of anything. 

And I know, I'm in Spain! I travel! I'm 15! 
It's ridiculous that I haven't blogged more, but I have millions of journals that I have recorded my travels on and I just haven't gotten around to my computer, given the fact that it is a bit inconvenient. 

Anyway, keep in touch, I'll be posting a heck of a lot more now that I have my new camera. :)

Love you guys! 


Grace 

Spain Vlog #1: Way Back When

I have been absent lately & I've already been here for a month and a week!

Hello everyone!

To whoever is keeping up with this blog, sorry that I haven't been keeping up with my posts. If you didn't know, learning school in Spanish for a 15 year old is really quite challenging.  I have been really busy with trying to understand school and am trying to fill my head with more and more Spanish everyday. 

Let me give you a recap of what has happened: 

Nothing interesting really occurred while I was not posting my blogs, which is the main reason why I did not publish any at all. 

But this past weekend/week was utterly fantastic. 

On Friday I had fútbol practice, and man was that a fun time. The practice was not as strict and technical as it usually is. Don't get me wrong, I love how dedicated my teammates are and how serious they take their time spent on the field. That coming Sunday I was going to be able to play with the team, but unfortunately, my registration was not fully approved and I was not in the possession of a game uniform, only a practice one. As you can guess, I was not able to play on Sunday in Granada. But the 6 1/2 hour ride there was some of the most fun I've had the whole time I've been here.

On Saturday, I was not planning to go out anywhere because most, if not all, of my friends live in a different town. The town isn't far away at all, but it is too much of a hassle to get to Don Benito and back for one night. You may be thinking, why didn't they spend the night or why don't you spend the night? In America that may be a very common thing to resort to, but nobody -unless they are a very very close friend- ever spends the night or "sleeps over". So, instead of just staying in and being my boring self, I went along with Marinas friends. I thought that it wasn't going to be fun hanging out with a bunch of 13 year olds, but there were multiple people my age that I became friends with that night. We danced, roamed, bought candy and pizza, and even stopped to watch the fashion show that was in my town. 

Yeah, Don Benito had a fashion show in the middle of the town. How cool is that? Although I was not able to get that close, it was really cool to witness. They had the red carpet, and the reserved chairs, and the tents and the whole 9 yards. Don Benito was decked out. 

After the weekend was over, some how, I developed a very fast growing cold. Over a day in a half I was coughing and blowing my nose and everything else that comes along with a cold, besides a fever. And thank the heaven that I didn't catch a fever. Missing even a day of school leaves me lost for the next few days. I know, it seems like I'm over exaggerating, but It's the truth. 

The week went pretty fast. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are done and over with. That leaves us with today, Thursday. Today I had an Alegebra 2 exam. Let me just update you with this information...I am really bad at math. And learning Alegebra 2 in Spanish takes my math brain to a whole new level. In the begining I caught on pretty quickly to what kind of operations we were learning. But then it just went downhill from there. And when I say down hill fast, I mean Double Black Diamond Ski Slope fast.

(not my picture)

  

Instead of sticking with easy, comprehendible math, we dove in to fractions and negatives and exponents and parenthesis upon parenthesis upon parenthesis. I was so confused to the point where it would be humanly impossible to be any more confused than I was. During class I was simply copying down every mathematical thing that was either being written on the board in scratchy white chalk or spewed out of my professors mouth. In case you were wondering, every word that he was speaking was Spanish. Yes, you're correct, he doesn't speak any English, and neither does anyone that is is my class. Oh joy. A boy that it is my friend, however, decided to write a letter to my little host sister asking if he could come over to our house to help me study for the math exam that occurred on Thursday. With a yes from my host mother, he arrived at our house at 8:25pm and we started working out the problems step-by-step with my host sister translating. At the end of the study session, I had successfully regained the knowledge I had forgot about and understood 3 out of the 5 sections. Because it was so late and we both had to attend school today, we had to end it there. Even though I understood most of it, I still was lost on sections 4 and 5. I tried my best to self-learn them but as you might of well guessed, it didn't work out very well. I finished the test today, know that I didn't do well, even after all of the studying. But, I am not that upset about it for multiple reasons. Reason one being that most of the class did not understand either, resin two being that math has always been my worst subject in school, reason three being that I am trying to learn difficult math in a different language just by looking off examples on the board. Do you want to know what was really interesting? I will tell you even if you don't want to know. In America, most teachers make you use pencils, especially in math. They normally have you use this incase you make a mistake and they do not want you scatching it out. 

Here in Spain, it is mandatory to use a pen on all tests and notes, even math! I was very nervous because I did not own white-out incase I wrote the incorrect answer. Another thing that baffled me is that we get to use a calculator for every test, we don't even have to show our work for some problems. In America, even if it is a small problem we are still forced to do the work or suffer the consequences of missing points. So that aspect of test taking, I like very much. 

That concludes my blog post and brings us to today ( Saturday because Friday was not exciting) and now it is exactly 2:23 in the afternoon. I still have my cold. The doctors said it is allergies mixed with a common cold, so I am just taking medicine and waiting for it to go away. 

Hopefully I won't be sick when I update again.  

Till next time. 

Grace 😜

Hostel Havoc.

Hola from another day in Spain! 

This weekend was a very interesting one. What I was told I would be doing by my host mother, was completely different from what I already did this weekend. 

First of all, we have 4 trips this year for AFS students in our area. (Mainly orientations). This weekend we were to go to the mountains and hike. The funny thing is, is that my host mother told me all I needed was a backpack and some sports clothes. Well, I was completely un-prepared for the activities we would be participating in. First of all, where I am placed in Spain (Don Benito), it is very very warm and so pants and sweatshirts are rarely needed till December. But where we are now in the mountains, it is FREEZING cold. I however, wasn't aware of that and neither was my host mother. So, I had to borrow pants and sweaters from another family for the trip and leave everything else at another home in Madrid. 

I thought to myself, well great, I'm going to be freezing cold, and I don't have enough clothing, and my shoes are going to get ruined. And everything happend except my shoes, and you know what, it was great. 

The moment we got on the bus to come to the mountains, I was extatic. My friend Nadia from Finland was there as well and her two other friends Ella and Kaisu that I became pretty close with this weekend. They speak Finnish and English and are a blast to be around. Not only are they hilarious, but they're laid back and loving. It was a very fun time with them. Even by the end of the day, they were calling me a Finnish girl.

These are pictures of our hike in 

(Left to right: Kaisu, Me, Ella, Nadia)

2 baby cows! :) 

Torro (bull) tearing down and eating a tree. 

Artsy Nadia. 

Having great friends here almost makes the fact that we're staying in a nasty hostel with stains on the walls of our bedroom, no running water for the shower, no heat, gross sheets, yellow water in the sinks, inedible food, and boring but hilarious activities, disappear and not seem as bad as it really is. 

Our nasty but fun hostel ( it's true) Our volunteer said it was a negative 1 star. 

Mine and Nadia's bunk. (LOL she decided to sleep the opposite way because there was a gross stain near her head.)

Kaisu and Ella's bunk. 

This trip has made me realize that I can make do with what I have and not to dwell on what I don't. I just need to live in the here and now and stop worrying about what the future will bring me. It's made me think of how small my problems are compared to others. Why complain when there's nothing to complain about? It's stupid. 

(Sorry about my complaining mom) 

Day 2: Sunday Funday 

Today we woke up earlier than usual, but it was a bearable time...8:50. Although, I did have to wear some clothes I did the day before, no one even cared. 

We started off with breakfast, which if you were wondering, it was pretty decent. We FINALLY got coffe and that was mine and Nadia's highlight of the morning. 

After breakfast, we needed to quickly return to our rooms and strip the sheets/pack our bags ect. We knew that we had some activities planned and most of the group was not looking forward to it, especially us Finnish girls. (Ha ha) 

We played a few games and had to make up a skit with a situation that we were given by the volunteers. Even though it wasn't as funny as before, we still managed a few laughs, especially in the skit where the girls had to act drunk. 

We made our way outside of the hostel and were asked questions and rules by the volunteers and had to answer yes, no, or it depends on the situation. If we had our own questions to ask, we got them answered and it was quite helpful. 

Near the end, everyone was a bit tired and super hungry, so my close friends and family all know I can get a little loopy. 

Let's just say, some answers I gave were funny and extreme; they laughed so it's fine. 

After lunch and another activity, we were supposed to walk and explore a monastary, but the tour would have been too long. Instead, we all took a little walk to this Chocolate Cafe. I'm not going to lie, I bought 15€ worth if chocolate. And just in case you didn't know, that's a cheap price so I got a pretty good amount of chocolate. YUMMMM.

After math of the Chocolate Cafe: 

 

We had some time to kill until the bus arrived, so we sat around and talked.  Later on, we decided that we had enough time to get cafe con leche. 

Let me give you the run down. 

The waitress set the coffee on the table, I put sugar in and took 2 sips of it's deliciousness...

"NADIA, GRACE, GIRLS LETS GO!" 

-me "Are you serious."

-Nadia "I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to stay here. We're going to have to wait for like 10 minutes."

-Me "Come on let's go"

-Nadia "Fine"

We literally had to try to chug the coffee, leave money on the table and run. 

When we grabbed our bags and walked to the bus, we weren't boarding for another 10 minutes, Nadia's prediction was correct. 

We took the opportunity and ran back to finish our coffee's that were luckily still untouched on the table. YAY. We finished and made our way back slowly, we ended up waiting another half an hour. 

Pissed off Nadia after we left our unfinished coffee stranded at the table:

Whatever. 

Finally we boarded the bus for Madrid and that's where I currently am finishing this story. 

Overall, this had been a trip of little changes for me. Thanks AFS, I never realized these things until now. 

Til next time. 

Hasta Luego...

Grace 

Adventuring in Cáceres!

IM SO SORRY I HAVENT POSTED IN FOREVER! ( I have school) 

So first of all, I'm slightly pissed off because I already wrote this and then Blogger deleted it. (Thanks for nothing)

And as you all well know, that means I need to re-type it and I don't really remember what I said. (But believe me it was good.) I'll try and make it as similar as possible so here it goes...Take #2

Today started off as a regular day for the whole family. I got up, had breakfast, hygiened it up, (I know it's not a word) got dressed blah blah blah. 

Later on after lunch (3:00pm) my host mother and father told Marina and I that we were going to visit the one and only Cáceres.

On our way, we needed to stop for food. So we decided on this restaurant that served traditional Spanish food. Being an American and all, I had no idea what the menu said. My host mother was a doll and told me she ordered fish, and I love fish. 

I was happy to have something that I would like. But once the fish arrived, I was baffled as to what type of fish it was. So, I asked my host mother and she replied...'The baby of whales'. And so I let that sink in. IM CONSUMING BABY WHALE?! Then I looked at my host father  completely confused and he replied to my reaction with...'No. No whale. Shark. Baby shark.' 

Although this made me feel a bit better about it, this was still my first time consuming shark. I didn't want to like it, but man it was delicious. And when I say delicious, I mean it doesn't even do it justice. It was amazing, so I'm sorry (but I'm really not) sharky, I had to eat you. You were just too dang good to not eat. Thanks for the meal.

After we finished up our food, we needed to by a Spanish SIM card for my iPhone. Convienently, there was a mall only a few minutes outside of Cáceres. We all walked inside from the parking garage and I about had a conniption. In our malls, we have escalators that you stand on and it turns into stairs. Well, just imagine a 'people mover' in an airport, but on an incline. That's what we had to balance on to get from floor to floor. And it was really really really hard. Eventually, we bought a SIM card and everything was fine and dandy. 

 Finally, we arrived in Cáceres, Spain. Cáceres has some of the oldest ruins and roads in all of Spain. We visited so many cool places in the city. It doesn't seem that big from the outside, but it is huuuuuuge. We walked around and even got to go into a museum. (You don't even have to pay for it here!) The things they had recovered from Spain long long ago were amazing. What was really extraordinary to me though, was that they had this room underneath the museum ruins that held 1-2ft of water. That water was historical water because it was found like that. That water is thousands of years old. It was a really cool thing to see, because never have I ever experienced that in the US. When you spend time in Cáceres, you don't just explore the ancient things, you feel them. What I mean by feel, is that you get the vibe of how old the city actually is. It's a unique feeling that I myself cannot describe. All in all, if you are ever over in Europe (preferably Spain), take some time out and pay a visit, I know you won't regret one minute. 

That glass star up there, when the sun is at the right angle, makes a beautiful shadow! 

Free museum! 

The ancient Spanish water 

This one is for my mom. Because she loves red doors and vines. 

Pictures of Marina (host sister), Emi (host mom) and I

You touch the holy feet of the saint. That's why it is gold!

Lastly we finished off with a chocolate croissant!