First week of June

On Friday, I went to Raquel´s graduation ceremony. It was similar to how an 8^th grade graduation would go, although in comparison of her grade to the American schooling system, she is a sophomore. So the ceremonies are similar to the ones in the US except I think ours are more of a show or performance. After, I went to a dinner with some friends while my host sister´s class did a group dinner at their school. Later, we all met up and went to the fiesta to celebrate.

On Saturday, Sergio and I had a dinner with some friends at our house, then we went out and met with up with more friends for the night.

It was super fun weekend, although I was very tired. It doesn’t matter though because I have time to sleep when I return to the States.

A few weeks ago I learned how to make the two very typical Spanish dishes: la Paella y la Tortilla Patata. I am very excited to try making them by myself back home!

This week, I have the majority of my exams this week, so I´m a bit nervous. On Friday morning I leave for Logroño and I get to enjoy my weekend with my friend! I get home Monday night and then I have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of school left. Then, Friday morning I leave for Berlin with my class for the week!

I have lots of different things planned with all my friends and with my family throughout the month, and with my two trips, I´m going to have one of the most fun months of my life. The worst part will be saying goodbye and I honestly don´t know how I am going to be able to do. I´m just keeping positive, and enjoying the rest of my time here, though.

Okay, here are some photos of everything:

The family

Andrea, one my favorite people here in Spain

Raquel, Rebeca, Andrea

Alberto and Andrea, love them!

This is Andrea´s little sister, Marta, who I have adopted as my little sister

making la Tortilla Patata

The final AFS Orientation

May 11 and 12th we had our last AFS orientation with all of the students in Castilla y León. For this one, we were joined by Spanairds that also live in Castilla y León that will be going on exchange this year. There were about 20-25 of usin all, and we were pretty equally split up, too. However, the two groups were separated for the majority of the weekend.  

I didn´t really get much out of this orientation, it was just an opportunity to see my friends for the weekend. It is funny because I feel like at every orientation we do fewer activities and have more free time (which I am totally for). I also think the majority of the things we did were for the “sending” students and to help them prepare to leave. 

On Saturday, we did this activity that I think was really interesting for us “Hosting” to watch, although we definitely had a lot of fun doing it. First thing the volunteer did was explain that we will be playing a tribe with strange signals for communicating, a special sound to indicate we were speaking to one another, and we would be putting on a welcoming ceremony for the Sending students. We picked Emils as King, Paige as Queen, and Esther as the queen´s assistant. We created our signal for yes, our signal for no, and our speaking noise. Then they explained to us how the “Welcoming Ceremony” would go and we learned the different customs we have as a tribe with the different rituals we do. So, we practiced and practiced to make sure everyone understood what they had to do. They had fabric and face painting crayons so we could get all dressed up, and then we were ready. The Sending students walked into the rooms and were shocked at how we were set up: all in a circle with candles and dimmed lights, the men sitting on chairs, the women sitting on the floor without shoes, and of course our clothes and makeup. Before we could begin our ceremony, they had to observe how we were and adapt to it. That basically consisted in how we were seated because the girls all went straight for the chairs when they saw them. Let´s just say it took a long for everyone to figure it out and then there was this one girl left who was sitting on the chair for a solid 5 more minutes before she understood what was happening. We did the ceremony, which the sending had participated in. They thought it was ridiculous and weird, but I think they learned a good lesson about what they will be faced with when they go on exchange: can´t judge or make assumptions, must observe, must respect the other culture, and most importantly, that they are the ones that have to adapt and conform to the new culture and customs.

On Sunday, we Hosting students didn’t really feel like doing the assigned activities so we ended just sitting outside in a circle and going one by one sharing about our experiences. I think that is better, anyways, becuase we have been with eachother since the beginning, so it´s fascinating to hear how other students have changed, grown, and their overall expierence

After that, they told us that the parents of the Sending students were there and we needed to put ourselves into groups, make a poster and give a presentation. We had to imagine that we were going to give it at a school about AFS in general and why a family (whether they were in sending their child or hosting a student) should choose AFS. I´m sure it was also a way to make us feel more confident with our Spanish because it can be nerve-wracking speaking in another language to a big group of adults.

All in all, it was a pretty fun weekend, although equally sad because we all know that all we have left together is the night in Madrid before we have to take our plane home to our respective countries. 

In other news: Not this weekend, but the weekend after, I will be traveling to Logroño (located in the top center of Spain) to visit my friend Marianne (who I talked quite a bit about in my Camino de Santiago blog post) for the weekend!! I am seriously just so excited to see her, and of course it will be fun to visit another city and travel some more! I get back on Monday night and then Thursday at 3am I will be traveling with my class to Berlin and Prague for the week, which I am also so incredibly excited about!!

I have one month left, it is such a sad reality...but I am making the most of it and enjoying the rest of my time here.

Now here are some pictures from the orientation

basically half the pictures taken at the AFS functions are similar to this, it´s just how it is 

the whole group (with sending kids)

These people have become like a big family

What I´ve been up to!

Hello All!

I´ve been doing some super fun things lately, and with school I haven´t been able to write as much about my adventures recently.

This post will just be me talking about the different things I´ve done over the past few weeks (minus my "typical stereotypical Spanish weekend" and the last AFS orientation, which will get their own blog post).

Starting with what I´m pretty sure was almost about a month ago, I went to my friend Zuzana´s birthday party where I met some really cool new friends. Then, the next weekend, with some of the girls that I had met from the birthday party, Zuzana, Carolin, and I went to the fiestas of Cuatro Vientos (a small town right outside Ponferrada).

 Starting in about May (when the weather starts to warm up) all the way through September (right before school starts again) each town has their own weekend of fiestas. There are always lots of people (teenagers and adults) and the fiestas take place in the streets, all the bars of open and full with street venders. At times, there will be some type of fair rides set up or discotecas set up outside (basically just a huge tent with a DJ and a small bar set up).

I went to my friend Cristina´s birthday party, which was super fun, and I sang karaoke, too!! 

The past three weeks, I have had a day off of school. First it was because it was the day of Castilla y León, which is one of Spain´s seventeen “Comunidades Autónomas” (I guess they are similar to states, kind of). Each comunidad autónoma has 1 day of the year as a holiday, and because I live in Castilla y León, I had the day off. I didn´t do anything special, just went into Ponferrada to hang out.

The week after I had Wednesday off because it was the international holiday “Day of Work,” which the Spaniards here loved making fun of the irony because the unemployment rate is so high (27% to be exact). That day, I had Carolin and Zuzana come to Bembibre since they had never been here before so I could show them around my town.

This past week, we had Thursday off…well kind of. It was a day of strike for students and professors, although I didn´t go to the strike in Ponferrada, I stayed home and studied for my Literature test. I´m glad I did study though, because I think I did well on the test!

Then of course, the past two weekends I had my Typical Spanish weekend and the AFS orientation.

All in all, everything is great, school is getting really busy because of all the tests I have had lately, but I am happy because I am always busy and doing things. That is something I have missed, always being busy, although don’t get me wrong, I have really enjoyed my relaxed lifestyle here.

I´m always hanging out with friends, enjoying the time left I have with them. Actually, this past Friday, I hung out with this super awesome girl, Ainhoa, who I had met way back in October and who goes to the same school as Derin and Lani. I had seen her around Ponferrada a few times throughout the year and we always said hi to each other. Well, with Lani´s suggestion, I texted Ainhoa and asked her if she wanted to hang out sometime, she said of course, and so we did! We had so much fun and I met a ton of other great people throughout the evening. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming (because I only knew Ainhoa) to me. We all definitely plan on hanging out again. I´m sharing this because I´m pretty proud of myself for reaching out, taking the first step, and making things happen.

My volleyball team is great. They are so crazy, energetic, and hilarious; I love them. The majority are in the grade below me (with a few others from my class), and they have been some of the most welcoming people I´ve met here. We aren´t super great (we have lost basically all our games), but we have improved so incredibly much since the beginning that I don´t even care that we are losing. Also, I´m still having fun although we are losing, so I am happy.  

I am also really looking forward to my class trip to Berlin and Prague!!! I´ll be going the third week in June, and I cannot adequately express how I excited I am.

I only have about 1.5 months left, which is incredibly sad for me. It´s coming to the point where I just don´t even think about it.  

That´s about all the updating for now!

¡Hasta Luego!

Now some photos:

at the Fiestas of Cuatro Vientos 

In Bembire

At Zuza´s birthday

All of us girls

there is no photo from Cristina´s birthday party because I didn´t find a photo I liked enough to post...sorry :)

Castellón

I had gotten home from El Camino de Santiago, and fewer than 10 hours later my host family and I left for Castellón an 8 hour drive across the country to the Mediterranean Coast. We got to our cute, beach view flat at about 2:30, right in time for lunch, and then we went down to the beach. It was so incredibly beautiful; the beaches, the cute beach towns, everything. During that 8 hour car ride, I could literally feel the weather get warmer and warmer, and see the sun shining brighter and brighter. The weather itself was just so exciting for me; I miss Sacramento weather so much! 

We stayed there for five days, and the weather was so wonderful!! Whenever the sun was high and bright, we went down to the beach, but if it got cloudy or during the evenings, we visited surrounding towns. Everything was so Mediterranean, like things looked they also belonged in Italy or Greece (which is completely different from how things look up North where I live). On every beach there were always small play structures, volleyball nets, and different sporty type structures set up for people to use. I thought that was pretty cool.

We went to this one town, Peñíscola, where we visited a castle where a pope had lived. It was so pretty, right on the water, and at the bottom of the castle there were like these cute little streets with street venders and flats, too, where people actually live.

 

The statue of the pope

The castle from afar

My host family and Me

My host parents

We also went to this other town, Oropesa, which was basically a tourist family vacation town, but in the fullest sense of those words possible. It was very excessive and extravagant, although the beaches were beautiful. Now I understand why the Spanish beaches are so famous, especially in Europe, because they really do go all out in touristy places.

There were artistic pieces like this all over the park

We visited the actual city of Castellón, but we went on a Sunday, so everything was closed. We had also gotten a bit lost, and we found ourselves in a kind of bad part of the city. Castellón is also a port city and has a fishing industry, so it had a weird smell, too… Although I will say the inner part of the city was nice, clean, and smelt normal.

On the last day we went to Valencia (a huge city in Spain, it´s up there with Barcelona and Madrid) to go to the famous Science museum. I was iffy about how fun this would be because I am not really a fan of the sciences, but it was so interesting, interactive, and I really liked it! My favorite part was definitely the section on different superheroes! The city of Valencia is just gorgeous (from what I saw), but I wished we could have stayed longer to see more of the city but it was getting late and we had an 8 hour drive ahead of us.

There were a lot of different building with different things and each building had a different architectural form. This is just one of them.

All in all, it was such an amazing vacation with my host family, and it was perfect because I was able to see a part of Spain that is distinct from where I live in the north. It was also a very well needed vacation soaking up the sun and relaxing. I had so much fun and am so grateful to my host family for taking me!!

Hasta Luego!

trimester two

Overall this trimester was a huge step up from the first one. School is noticeably easier, although I noticed I didn´t try as hard, either.
My grades turned out really well, which actually shocked me because I got a bit lazy... I think because the language isnt really a problem and I have gotten used to the system of teaching and learning, those things compensated for my laziness.


Science for the Modern World 8: It´s a joke for me, and my teacher is such a cool guy. This class is pretty good.
*up from a 6


Economy 5: This class brings out all the tiredness in me. It is quite boring, but I´m getting through it becuase I need to pass
*down from a 6


P.E. 9: I changed my attitude for the better in this class, and I guess the class isn´t so bad anymore. It´s still kinda annoying, but I have to do it, so whatever.
*up from a 6


Math 5: at this point, this is the class I look the least forward to to going to because it is so hard. I thought I had good basic math skills, but obviously not.
*last trimester was a 4, but I took the recuperation test and I got a 6



English 10: Don´t really have commentary...it´s English
*same


Philosophy 1: I listen during class (most the time), but I choose not to do the tests, projects, or homework. It is prohibited by law to give a student a 0 if they come to class, thus, I have a 1
*down from a 3


Lengua 5: I was so close on this one, so close, and I pulled off a 5! The class of Lengua has two parts: the language part and the literature part. It is the stupid Lit that kills me. I study really hard, and I´m trekking through, though. I guess it helps that I really like my teacher and I have learned a lot from her class. She really knows her stuff, and although she is very tough on us, she is one of the best teachers I´ve ever had. She is really good (I mean like perfect) at explaining the things I do not understand to me, and she has been hopeful with me improving my Spanish grammar.
*last trimester was a 4, but I took the recuperation test and I got a 5

History 6: I was worried I wasn´t going to pass, actually! I don´t need to, but I really like history and learning it, so I study and try in this class. The first test I only got a 4, but the second test I was really confident about and I got a 7! Cool story, right before my teacher had handed me the test she was like "Shannon, what happened here?" I immediately thought I did terribly or something then she shows it to me and I see the 7. I actually freaked out, I´m serious. Then she tells me that my test was fantastic and that my writing was very well written and I explained things very well (this is like the Lengua exams where it is all written, no true/false, multiple choice, fill in blank, nothing like that). That was such a confidence booster for me, and I felt so proud of myself, especially since writing isn´t the easiest aspect of the language for me to execute.
*up from a 5

Technology, Information, and Communication (TIC) 9: How this even happened is beyond me considering my computer skills (or lack of), but I guess it is because I´ve passed the examss (fairly easy), I did all the assignments, and showed interest in learning these things. So that is dandy.
*up from 7*

I´ve been putting off putting writing the beach trip (like 2.5 weeks ago) post becuase I´m lazy. It really takes a lot to write (almost) every week, I´ll get to it though.

Hasta Luego!

El Camino de Santiago

Every year AFS does a Spring Break trip for all the students in Spain of the Camino de Santiago. The whole Camino starts in France, but a lot of Pilgrims (what the people who do the Camino are called) start in Sarria because from the pueblo marks 111 km left, and to get the certificate of completion at the end, you have to have walked at least 100 km. The Camino is divided into recommended “legs,” so that meant there were a certain number of kilometers we had to walk each day. From Sarria, it is 5 days of walking.

If you have never heard of the Camino, here is the link to the Wikipedia page to give you more general information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_of_St._James 

I have to say one of the coolest things about the Camino de Santiago is all the different people you meet from around the world, it´s not abnormal to start up a conversation and walk with them for a little bit. We met a group of Irish boys along the trail. In the laundry room of one of the albergues, I heard these two Irish women speaking in English, so I struck up a conversation with them while waiting for the laundry to finish (random, I know). A group of Spanairds struck up a conversation with two of my friends (Marianne and Lani) and me when they heard us speaking the best Spanglish you´ve ever heard. Then my friend Isa and I met two 20 year old German girls, but the thing is, Isa is Spanish and she doesn´t know a lot of English and the German girls didn´t know a ton of Spanish either. Basically, I had to play translator for a little bit. On top of meeting all these random people from around the world, I also made the most amazing friends with the other students on the trip with me. It´s funny though, because the people I became the most friends with are the ones I had never even seen before. We just don´t remember meeting eachother at the Madrid orientation. 

I wouldn´t be a true exchange student if I didn´t also rave about the food (eating is like the number 1 thing to do in Spain). Considering we weren´t in nice hotels and we lived out of a backpack for the week, the food was abosolutely delicious. Even our packed lunches were good, a nice sandwich on delicious spanish bread, fruit, water, and chocolate...always chocolate. Dinner in Spain is eaten around 9 and it is supposed to be a small meal, but not in Galicia (the region of Spain where the Camino is). They gave us full three course meals, and it was delectable. I don´t think I went a moment even slightly hungry.

I live in Ponferrada. We started in Sarria. We ended in Santiago. (Look to the left of León to find the cities)

So let´s start from the beginning of one of the most overall rewarding experiences of my life.

We start on Friday 22 March; I had a bus leaving at 2:30 with the only other student from Ponferrada going on the trip, Emils. We went 2 hours to Lugo then had a 1.5 hour stop before catching our next bus to Sarria. We walked around in the center of city and we both agreed it is a very ugly city. We were also in search for a grocery store for almost hour (we even asked around) and we didn´t have any luck, so the city lost major points there, too. After the 30 min bus ride, we were in Sarria.

before leaving

We get to the Albergue and for the rest of the afternoon/night we all hang around, catching up with each other, meeting the students we hadn’t met before, and waiting for the rest to come.

*I know Albergue is a Spanish word but I don’t like the translation of hostel because I think they´re different. Albergues are big rooms with bunk beds, small longue room, small room to eat, and bathroom. You go there to sleep, recuperate, eat, and shower.

We start our first day walking with ­­23 km to do and the weather isn’t too bad, a tiny bit of rain, sun, and breeze. Everyone was so pumped, running off adrenaline, so it was definitely a good leg of the trip.

We always stopped halfway through to eat lunch and I had left with the first group, which is where I had met one of my new really good friends from Norway, Marianne. We didn´t get lost, but we realized that somehow we got separated from everyone else. We just got so caught up in talking to each other and walking at our own pace we realized we hadn’t seen anyone from our group of 46 in a few hours, but that was okay we made it to the albergue perfectly fine.  We instantly became really great friends and we walked the majority of the other legs throughout the week together, too. The first night at the Albergue we were the most active. We did yoga (and other people staying there joined in with us), we played cards, sang songs, hung out and talked.

Ready for our first day of walking! (Martina from Italy)

I didn´t take this, I stole it from the internet but I really like it

Marianne and I; we had almost finished the first leg!

Literally a stairway to heaven because our albergue was  a little past the stairs

I was serious when I said we did yoga...

Before dinner, this isn´t all of us, though.

Next morning we woke up exhausted, it took us 2 hours to get going. Ridiculous, but oh well. We had 24 km that day and I’m not sure we were entirely prepared for it. It rained the whole day, I mean the whole entire day, and I say rain, but I think pouring would be the better word to describe it. That wasn’t even supposed to be the worst day of weather, so if we thought that was bad, we were in for a treat the next day.

Now it may sound like I´m complaining or that it was terrible or other negative things, but it was one of the best things I’ve ever done. And with all the rain, it wasn’t as bad as you might imagine because within 20 min of walking you are soaked, to the skin, through all the layers. Everything in your bag is soaked so after that 20 min, you start not caring and worrying; so everything was okay and became a lot better.

We gotta prepare, including stretching...in various languages

Honestly though, it just rained and rained and rained and it just got to a point where it doesn’t affect you anymore. Sore muscles start to numb, the blisters stop bothering you and you just keep walking at a good pace, with your friends, talking to one another to keep the time passing.

Before all the rain had started...

On top of that, you are basically carrying a small child on your back the whole time (aka the backpack), but after a while, you stop feeling it.

Day 3 of walking was 28 km (the longest leg), and I am actually particularly proud of that day because it was my best day of walking, and along with a few of my friends/walking buddies, we arrived first (only motivation for getting there first was getting the showers first). We also kicked butt on the trail. There were some huge hills to climb but we didn´t stop because that just made it more painful and we would lose motivation to keep going. They say a pretty good pace for the Camino is 4 km/h (1 mile= 1.6 km), but that day we averaged 5 km/h and considering how long and how many hills there were, that is really good pace. Don’t think I’m bragging about my *in theory* “physical ability” because I paid the price the next day…

Gotta keep smiling

Day 4 was actually kinda terrible, I felt new blisters forming and in general was in pain. It was a mere 19 km. It didn’t help that the whole last hour we were being told that we were almost there…talk about false hopes.

Lani and I

Taking care of my feet...during lunch time...in the middle of a restaurant

Day 5 of walking was pretty great though. We were woken up at 5:45 so we could leave by 7 so we could get to Santiago de Compostela (the ending point) by 12 for the Pilgrim Mass they do in the Cathedral. I was under the impression we were supposed to be walking at record speed and to rush so we could make it. I wanted to go to the Mass, so I went up to the front. After about an hour, Martina (from Italy, who I was walking with) and I realize we had just done almost 6 km and that we were extremely ahead of schedule.  A few more hours pass then we hit the city of Santiago. At this point I am with 2 of my good friends, Lani and Milena, we walk into a bar for a water and bathroom break and Milena and I start talking to the manager. He tells us we only have 30 min (we thought we had quite a bit more), he gives us all a brownie, and sends us off with the common phrase of “Buen Camino” (Good Way). The three of us are just too excited to arrive, very emotional (not the in the “crying” way, but the “I am feeling every possible emotion at this point” way). We are almost to the big plaza where the cathedral is when we see David (USA) and Emils (Lativa), who were had been walking with earlier, just chilling by this big fountain. We take a quick photo then the 5 of us start running to the last quarter kilometer to the Cathedral, just like yelling full of excitement. When we get to where the volunteer is, we drop our backpacks then start hugging each other. It was such a great feeling. The whole thing was very Amazing Race style, too, running to the finish line with your partner (in my case group). There was even someone playing a bagpipe (kinda like the finale music) and all the other tourists (or those that actually live there) watching us run, smiling at us, not looking at us like crazy kids running and yelling through a relatively quiet city. We arrived at 10:50, so we did 20 km in less than 4 hours, which is really awesome.

Lani, Me, Milena. Almost there...and we know it!

When we met up with the guys, before running into the plaza

The guy playing the bagpipe (I seriously took this while running)

Moment we got there, with about half the Cathedral

Emils, David, Me, Lani, Milena

We took a ton of photos, waited for all the other people to come, then at 12, we went to the mass, did the symbolic hugging of the statue of St. Santiago, showered, ate lunch, etc. we then had the rest of the day to do whatever before dinner at 9. The majority decided to go out into the city and explore and buy souvenirs, but I ended up falling asleep. I didn’t even make it outside until dinner; it was fine though because I had the next day to explore and such until I took the 1:45 bus home with Emils and another friend Erinn (who was off to Madrid).

Next morning we all had to say good bye to each other which was extremely hard and sad to do because we all made great new friends (hard not to when you have 40 hours of pure walking to do). We also all knew we weren’t going to see each other until Madrid in three months, which then made us realize…we only have 3 months left…it is hard to even think about.

So, Erinn, Emils, and I take off to go explore and buy things, and then we hop on the bus home.

That ends the tale of the most physically challenging, mentally strengthening, best friend making, and exhausting yet enjoyable and adventurous week of my life.

Here are just a bunch of photos from when everyone was arriving to the Cathedral, before we said our goodbyes, and other random photos from the trip.

Zuzana (Slovakia) and I 

this was in joke...and posed...but it´s funny

Milena (Switzerland), Me, and BP Lee (USA, his name is Benjamin but no one calls him that and he has the biggest personality I have seen, he´s great)

When we changed Provinces...but the rain just kept coming

Ryan (from Elk Grove!!!), Lani, and Me

Embarrassing picture of the year... (please note socks with sandals, it was the trend for the week)

At dinner

Galicia, very pretty and very green

BP Lee and Ryan are the king and queen of photobombing.

Basically the joke of the week...my pregnant pouch, becuase  I had a pocket on the stomach part of my  poncho and  when I put my phone camera etc inside I looked pregnant.

Lani, Milena, and I with Emiliano, the coolest volunteer ever and he lives in Ponfe, too

Ponfe Crew (although Lani moved, we still love her)

Lani and Marianne

BP Lee and I!!

Lani, Me, Marianne, Miriam, Annalena, Esther, Jorgis (last 4 are Germans)

My two new amazing German friends

I don´t actually remember what this is...I think it was on the ceiling

The alter, side view

Streets of Santiago