Thanksgiving! Christmas! Movies! Field Trip!

I kinda have a lot to say, so please bear with me. Although, I am going to try to put more pictures and fewer words!

So I had a bit of a surprise Thanksgiving dinner and honestly, it was one of the best Thanksgivings I have ever had. On Wednesday my host parents asked me if I wanted to go to Liz´s house for dinner tomorrow night, and of course I said yes! Liz is this amazing Bristish woman who runs the Libreía (book store) by my school. That is also when I learned that there are 2 Americanas on the Bembibre Basketball Team (only one was able to come to dinner). So on Thursday at about 9:30pm I got picked up and we went to Liz´s house for an amazing dinner. This is how awesome Liz is, she googled tons of information and recipes about Thanksgiving to make it as special for Ni (basketball player) and I as possible. We had chicken (turkeys aren´t exactly easily found here), stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy, and for dessert apple crumble with nata (cream). It was amazing, I can´t even put into words how delicious it was.

Liz even make the table all cute!

There are not even words to describe...

On Friday, we had our AFS Thanksgiving/Christmas party, and I was in a terrible mood and did not want to go at all, but obviously it was tons of fun! All the families of all the students gathered together and ate food and all hung out (typical Spanish). It was nice to finally meet some of the host siblings of the other students!
We all had made posters before about how we celebrate Christmas in our homecountry (except Lani and I had made ours together because there wasn´t enough poster board). We all gave a short presentation in Spanish with our posters. We ate tons of food (I guess that´s why they also called this a Thanksgiving fiesta?), and everyone brought food from their homecountry. I made carrot cake (all by myself) and all the Spaniards loved it (none of them have eaten it before)!! All the adults kept asking my host parents if they helped me because they didn´t actually believe that I made it all by myself and that it was so delicious!
Ida is leaving in less than a week because she is only here for a trimester, so it was also a chance for people to say bye, but I will be hanging out with her this Thursday so say one last goodbye. I´m so sad she is leaving! I remember being bus buddies on the way to Ponferrada just a few months ago and now it´s goodbye :(
okay, well I am just going to post lots of pictures now because I assume people enjoy looking at pictures more than reading!

my carrot cake!

Marina (my tutora´s daughter) and Carolin

Ya´ll can´t even imagine how many trys we have to do just to get a decent picture as a group (see below for final result)

Lani <3

Just some of the students and host siblings

Ida! <3

our beautiful Christmas Poster

Derin´s poster, and he will kill me if I don´t say that he is not the one who spelt Christmas wrong :)

Christmas in Germany

Christmas in Denmark

Chirstmas in Lativa

On Saturday I went to the movies with some friends from school and we saw Breaking Dawn Part 2. It was sooo goood!! and most importantly, I understood it all! I was really impressed with myself with how much I was able to pick up on nearly every word and not just rely on the video part and simply understanding what is happening. I was able to understand the conversations between characters completely and the exact words being said. It was a very fun afternoon!

Last thing! On Wednesday this week, I am going to a field trip with my grade, grade above me, and grade below me to Leon (a big city about an hour away). We are going to watch a Sherlock Holmes play in English. This is meant for schools from all around to come and watch the play and give students a chance to listen and try to understand the English. At the end of the play, students are supposed to ask questions to the actors to practice their English and such. Then we are going to la Universidad de Leon, I am assuming for a tour of some sort? but I am not sure. I´m excited though!