A Visit to Granada

I recently, as in a matter of minutes ago, returned home from a 8 day visit to Granada with the host family. Now the actual visit itself was actually only 6 days long because it took a whole day to drive there and another whole day to drive back!

Just to give you an idea. 

First of all road tripping across Spain is really one of the coolest possible road trips you could ever go on! Its literally mountains one second, desert the next, and then a perfect sea side view the next! I tried to take pictures, but they did the terrain NO justice. Here are some better pictures courtesy of Google.

More or less.

These kinds of tunnels are very common here!

More or less again.

Also while driving through Spain you get to see a lot of older, ruins-type buildings that we simply don't have in New York.

So in Granada we stayed in an apartment that my host family has in addition to their home here in Castelldefels. We spent the majority of the time there with Ana Maria's family who were all so nice! 

One day we spent in the actual city of Granada we visited the Alhambra.The Alhambra is basically what Granada is known for here in Spain. It is the ruins of a HUGE fortress / palace complete with gardens and fountains! Again these aren't my photo's, they're Google's.

And then another day we went back into the city just to do a bit of wandering and shopping.

So ya! Nothing overly exciting, just a lot of new sights seen and people met!

If you are wondering why I didn't post about Christmas, it is because here in Spain Christmas is not a very big deal, at least not in my family. We had Christmas Eve or Noche Buena which was basically just a huge dinner, and then we slept in the next day. "Christmas" comes on January 6th and is called Three Kings Day. So I will keep you all posted on that when the day comes! As for right now, I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!!!

T'was the Weekend Before Christmas Break

Let's start it all off with Friday!!!

Friday I had a pretty quiet night at home. Unfortunately the internet went out for a little while of that time, so I had to improvise and find something fun and creative today, seeing as no one else was home yet, so I made a VideoStar to Friday by Rebecca Black by myself. So that was about it for a successful Friday. Afterwards just had a low-key dinner with Emma and Ana since the rents were a working.

Saturday, by far the best day of the weekend. Saturday was an early one and started with me waking up at 8:30ish to catch a train to Barcelona. Not gonna lie, it was pretty difficult to get myself up that morning after such a jam packed Friday.... ha! Anyway, caught a train got a little lost with another AFSer (seeing as we were on our way to an AFS event it was obviously easier to travel with each other to have a kind of moral support if (more like when) we got lost. So after almost boarding a train to Madrid, that was a close one, we found the metro line we needed and were off to meet the others. 

When we arrived we were expecting to just sit around and talk like we had done at all of the other AFS "camps", but surprisingly, we found ourselves in the heart of the city counting off numbers and being paired up for a city wide scavenger hunt! We made signs, were assigned eggs that we needed to protect (still not sure what the point of that one was), and our first clue. Soon we, my partner Mattia from Italy and I, found ourselves racing off to the first stop the Columbus statue by the bay. While answering the questions and taking the appropriate pictures for the first challenge we noticed a very official magazine shoot going on behind us. So if you see a magazine ad or TV commercial of a bunch of men in suits with umbrellas by the Columbus statue in Barcelona just know that I was there. 

Next we walked three legged style through Barcelona while asking random people along the way for directions to our next destination which I cannot remember what it was now, but I do remember it was not easy to find! When we finally got there we were allowed to remove the tap from our legs, but then got one of each of our arms taped together. So now looking like some sort of runaways from a prison that couldn't afford handcuffs we were off to the large "berlin" or manger display in another part of Barcelona. For the sake of winning the scavenger hunt, and fitting the role of prison breakaways, we cut the ENORMOUS line by walking in through the exit to take a quick picture, while getting death stares from parents holding three year old's who had been waiting in the proper line for a very long time (I felt like you on the Zebra Mari ;) ). 

After getting our picture we were off to the next place which was some sort of church thing. I should mention that every time we reached the next destination there would most likely be an AFS volunteer waiting in the proximity, not always completely visible. So my partner and I are looking around like idiots (we were usually the firsts ones there, not bragging or anything, just stating the facts) while these volunteers were quietly watching in hysterics until we finally saw them. They would continue to cry with laughter as we scrambled around looking for people to help us answer the questions from our little envelopes before we could get the next clue. Keep in mind that our arms are still taped together, and unless you have ever walked through a city with your arms / legs taped together you should know that this is an EXTREMELY difficult task, especially during a Saturday, during the holiday season. 

When we finally got the information we needed, we got the next clue and an apple. Now, in addition to completing the next little mission thing, we needed to find someone and exchange this apple for something, literally anything else. So as we were walking through these very narrow side streets looking for the next destination I pointed out a random little shop to go to and try our luck at exchanging our apple for something. The man working at this little boutique was very, very nice and let us choose from a bowl of spare buttons and rings and stuff in exchange for our apple. It was so cool and a little strange to me that we were able to walk into a random shop and not even buy anything, simply trade an apple for something random, and have the shop keeper be so accommodating!   

By now Mattia and I were feeling pretty proud of ourselves and were off to our next stop which was simply to take a picture in a very specific spot in front of the opera house. Boom, done, onto the next one... except there was no volunteer there to guide us to the next spot. So eventually a bunch of the other AFS participants are arriving to this place and we are just a massive group waiting in a very central location location for someone to show up and tell us what to do next. So what does a large group like this do when they are waiting around? Sit in the middle of the street and start having a little picnic of course! I mean we are literally like 15 - 20 kids just chilling on the side walk in the middle of everything! 

Finally, after about 15 minutes and half a bar of fudge, a volunteer shows up and asks who was here first. My partner and I, although definitely not the first to show up, race over to the volunteer and act like we were. He tells us the next challenge is to find someone that speaks one of our native languages and bring them back to him. THANK GOD I AM AMERICAN! Saw some teens about my age, maybe a little older (hint if you are ever in a scavenger hunt situation like this one always go for the young ones, they're the nice ones) and boom they were Canadian, spoke English, on to the next one baby!

We open the envelope and it mentions La Rambla Drinking Fountain, BOOM know where that one is! First ones there, drink the water, take a pic next challenge. This next challenge, our worst challenge by far! We had to explain to some stranger what AFS is. Now come on guys! Who, while walking through Barcelona, wants to be bothered by a couple of teens trying to explain a program to you for the sake of winning a game!? No one! We were literally stuck on this challenge for like a good 20 minutes. Finally I just pick out this random girl on the other side of the street and we go for it (again she was a teen, always go for the young ones). So we start to explain, and she mentions she is waiting for the bus, no biggy we think. Well as we are explaining what the program is we literally see the bus coming around the corner and start to panic. We still haven't finished explaining and we still need to show the volunteer that the person we explained the program to is in fact a real person and not just someone we made up to win the game.

*Its worth mentioning that throughout the process of finding someone to talk to quite a few characters walked by and the volunteers kept saying "OK if you explain AFS to that guy you will automatically win the entire game", I am talking STRANGE people. This one guy was riding his bike and yelling random phrases to the world and another was a full on hippy. Needless to say, we missed these two opportunities and our last hope was the girl who was about to leave.* 

So we wrap up our little speak, start jumping up and down waving our hands around like lunatics (by this point our arms are free) and just get their attention and approval in the nick of time. Next challenge, take a picture with the stair statue in the Plaza de Catalunya. Done. One more challenge they say, and they pull out another bag of apples. This final challenge is apparently a typical one of Catalunya. The rules were, you and your partner must eat this apple, at the same time, without using your hands. I was lucky enough to only have one partner for this challenge, while others struggled to try and get all three people to eat one apple at the same time. And just like that, our epic Barcelona scavenger hunt was over. However, Saturday was far from it.

After this we all headed to a little studio type room and had a dinner / meeting / presentation of food from out home countries, explaining Christmas traditions from each country, singing a Christmas song from each of our countries, and finally answering the questions of the AFS 2014-2015 exchange students (crazy that I am even at the point where I can explain my experience as an exchange student and start to help these guys prepare for their time! I remember when that was me with Emma and her exchange student friends!) . As always I met some really nice new people and was hopefully a help to them and all their questions.

After this meeting and eating way too much, Emma, Roman, Ana Maria and I headed back to Castelldefels, were my social life was about to continue. Once home, I was out of the house basically as soon as I had gotten into it and of to this cool like cafe type place called "+ +" (Mas Mas). It is basically the Spanish equivalent to Red Hooks Taste Buds except cooler with just dance projected on a wall, a pool table, bean bags and just cool stuff! 

Here the dance kids / theatre people / people in general were throwing a surprise going away party for one of their own, who is off to Dubai for the next three years. Kind of makes my ten months look like a joke, but hey who says life is a competition!? It was just really fun and super cute. It was completely unexpected and super emotional! I actually really felt like a part of a family! It didn't matter that I had only known this guy for two months and that we had barely even spoken to each other, he was just as considerate and appreciative to my showing up as he was to his very best friends. Its the little moments and human interactions like that, that make you realize that the human race is really just one big team. 

After a whole bunch of pictures, videos and laughs had been shared the dance crew and I headed out. By now it was midnight and I was beat! Despite the hour my friends were going to go hang out at the boardwalk and meet up with the rest of the crew still at + + later and they asked me to come along too. However I knew I knew i had a some what early morning the next day and I really wanted to catch up on my sleep after such a long day, so we parted was, but only after my friends made sure that we would hang out by the boardwalk a bunch of times before I leave for the U.S. again, and honestly, I could not be more excited to go out with them!

Sunday!

Nothing too exciting took place on Sunday. Emma and Ana's school was hosting a little like school community day so the whole fam went to check that out. Afterwards all of us except for Emma headed home for some lunch. Ana and I played some Wii and..... before I knew it, it was Monday!

So there you have it, my super fun and exciting weekend (more like Saturday!) and hereeee are some pictures!

Cutting the line to take a picture with the pooping man called a Caganer. A Caganer is a Catalan tradition. It is a little figurine of a pooping man that is normally hid among the manger setting or "berlin" as they say in Spain. (You can't tell but at this point our arms are taped together).



This is where we patiently sat and waited with the other AFSers while waiting for our next challenge! (See the tape?)

This is La Rambla Drinking Fountain. Folklore says that if you drink from this fountain you will always return to the city. This fountain is also known as the place where the Barcelona soccer team celebrates after a big win! (And our arms are free at last!)



Wish I had some pictures of the going away party to show you, but that's all for now folks!

Happy Holidays!

100 Days Away From Home

Bare with me here! 

One hundred days ago today I woke up with the biggest butterflies in my stomach in my entire life! I was up at 6:30 to see my little sister off to her first day of high school, and trying my hardest to brace myself for a year without constantly seeing her in the halls making faces at one another, stopping to have a whole conversation in a few short words like only sisters can, and most importantly to us both, a year without performing by her side in the school play. 

Today marks 101 days since I last saw my best friends. Having dinner together. Digging through my closet to stake their claim on whats theirs for the ten months I would be gone, and sharing last minute gifts, words of advice, and just plain gossip before we wouldn't be able to do it all for a year.

Today marks 100 days since I last saw my parents. Now you can't imagine how hard this goodbye was unless your have lived through it yourself. Sorry college goers, this goodbye is by far ten times harder to get through and comprehend. And yet my perfect parents were able to keep it together for me, because before arriving to the hotel I made them promise no tears. It's funny, because when I pictured the moment ahead of time I imagined that I would have some sort of feeling, like I was finally ready to face the world on my own and it wouldn't really phase me that they were leaving me for ten months because I would be so wrapped up in excitement that I wouldn't even feel a thing. But I was wrong. Watching the two of them walk out of those sliding doors without me was the hardest thing I have ever done. All I wanted to do was run up to them like, "Hey aren't you forgetting something? ME!" But I was off, on my own, for 10 long months without them. And trying to understand this was quite literally impossible.

However, by the gift of God almost the second I walked into the hotel that day, after signing in and what not, two wonderful people Caroline and Victoria came up to me and asked "Hey are you Emily? We're roommates!" And just like that I knew I was in the right place and that this was the right thing for me! 

Since that unforgettable day I have grown, matured, achieved and changed so much! 

I have learned to come out of my shell! Don't sweat the small stuff! Let things go! Thing happen for a reason, if one door closes a million more are about to open! Quit judging people! Give everything a chance! Not being busy 24 / 7 is not the end of the world! Put yourself out there! You only regret the things you didn't do! And most importantly time goes on, so don't wish you life away!

When I first came here, 100 days seemed like FOREVER, but looking back on it now I feel like I just got here a week ago! I have seen and done so much in my time here so far and I am so lucky to have the time I have left! 

Now that I have gotten that off my chest on to the fun stuff!

I am sooooo looking forward to this weekend! I have my first AFS orientation since OCTOBER (it reallllllly does not seem like that long ago!) and I am pumped! We are having a multicultural dinner where each student is to bring a food from his or her native country. I am making chicken cutlets, which is the most American food I could come up with cause if ya really think about it, do we Americans have a particular food that is simply all american? So not only am I looking forward to the food, but also to seeing the other AFSers. Its true what they say, exchange students are the coolest kids you will ever meet! The time spent with them just goes by so quickly. Plus at these orientations I get to see Victoria, yes the same girl that came up to me that very first day at the hotel. We have roomed together, traveled together and grown together and I simply would not have it any other way!

Tomorrow night after this little event I have even more plans! Which I will tell you about afterwards because I don't know if its suppose to be a surprise or not. And then a family day Sunday doing something that I simply can not remember, but will tell you all about when I have time!

So, on this 100th day anniversary of my leaving the USA I would like to assure you all that I am truly having a fantastic time, the language is coming along, and I miss you all. Thank you so much for keeping in contact with me and sending me letters! It truly makes my day! Love you all and see you in less than 200 days (CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!?!?!?)  

100 Days of Memories

100 Days of Memories

The Latest Goings On

Ever since the start of November time has just been whizzing on by! Thanksgiving has come and gone, my mom is helping make my schedule for my senior year of high school, and Christmas is just around the corner. So has time flown by or what!?!?

Anyway there have been a few exciting things that have gone down in my life since I last posted. Some of them are small and insignificant, but I figure you may get a kick out of them, so here we go!

First of all, the other day Emma invited me to go with her friends to see Catching Fire (here its called "En Llamas" which means "in names" totally different but going on) and I obviously said yes! So Emma, Ana Maria and I were in the car, on our way to the train station to meet up with the rest of Emma's friends and walk to the mall, when we saw these black figures running along side the road. Emma pulled out her phone and told me to quickly do the same so we could prove that we saw wild pigs running alongside the road. No I am not joking, actual pigs were right there out in the streets of Castelldefels. I guess if you leave the Pine Plains life, the Pine Plains life comes to find you! So that was something!

Next up on the list, the other night Ana, Ana Maria, Roman and I walked into town to run some little errands and stuff. As we were walking we heard some drums in the distance. Technology savvy Roman whipped out his phone and showed us that tonight there was going to be some little festivities in town at 7 o'clock. So we walked around a bit, went out for hot chocolate, and found our way into the time square where things were coming alive. There was a Christmas tree with lights and lights all over the buildings in town and it was just so incredibly comforting to see a custom so familiar to me being displayed in town, just like home. But this wasn't all Castelldefels had in store for tonight. 

We walked over to a gathering crowd in front of the church and there is a parade of sorts about to begin. However, this is no ordinary parade. There are a bunch of people in strange coats holding marshmallow sticks with something stuck onto the top. They huddle into a circle and a man lights their sticks on fire and things go crazy. Stuck to the ends of these sticks, are fireworks. Not only that, but once these things are lit and going off, these guys just spin around in circles, not having a care in the world where they are going or where their sticks are flying off to. 

So that was a bit unexpected, but very cool all the same. This went on for about six more groups, pretty much doing the exact same thing with intense drumming in between each set. For the grand finally a man / woman in an elaborate dragon suit came out with fireworks on both its mouth and tail. Once the dragon is lit, this person just starts spinning around like a maniac getting pretty close to the crowd, but successfully remaining on their its feet (which if you saw the size of the thing, says a lot!). As we were walking away Ana Maria explained to me that each group was from a different town near by, and for some unknown reason, people who live in the district of Catalunya, simply like to have parties or festivals that involve playing with fire. Fun stuff!

Last up we have probably the least exciting for you, but something pretty exciting for me! This past week, and the rest of this three day school week ahead of us has been final tests for the first school trimester. Here, this week is a HUGE deal! These grades count for something like 70% of your over all grade for the trimester and kids just go ballistic about these tests. So, to be honest, I haven't really been taking these tests too seriously because my grades don't really count here. So we have begun to receive some of the grades for these tests and I am (for an exchange student, or just out of any student here) actually doing pretty well!

Teachers are really tough graders here and it is like IMPOSSIBLE to get a 10 (100%) in anything so I am going to tell you my grades thus far, and the American equivalent. (PS a 5 is technically speaking the equivalent of a 50%, however you only need a 5 to pass here so for my purposes a 5 is going to be the equivalent of a 65% OK? OK!)

CMC (Contemporary Sciences) - 5 overall (65%)

Math - 7.45 on the final (or something like that, we aren't allow to keep our tests here) (83%)

Philosophy - 5.4 on the final (71% and better than majority of the class, AND in Catalan)

And here are some pictures of a quick trip to Tarragona, the second largest (after Barcelona) out of the four largest cities in Catalunya. Emma had a volleyball game here so we decided to do a bit of walking around before the game started.

The Mediterranean Sea

There it is again.

The ruins of an old Roman castle.