My Year in España: 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: