Just a normal day of school and afterwards STARTING at about 9 o'clock PM I had dance. This week I had dance everyday at about this time because it was the equivalent of tech week here! I love theater here (not necessarily more or less than theater at home, I try not to compare things here with things at home because they are simply two entirely different things). The people are so incredibly nice and I swear you step onto that stage and there is no other care in the world beside the part you're playing, which in my case happened to be a vampire.
*Side bar* Being a vampire is A LOT harder than you would think! I have a new found respect for the actors of Twilight, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, etc cause man, it is not easy to pretend to me a vicious man eating monster hissing at one another without bursting out laughing!
Tuesday:
Another normal school day, another long tech day from about 9-12:30, yes that is on a school night and that is the time I finished, I didn't get home until about another 10-15 minutes later! But I didn't mind because these people, I swear are just so darn fun! Being that it was tech week, we were able to sit in the crowd and watch scenes that we weren't in and this small crowd got a little rowdy! For example, since this show is an original (I think) created by the director herself, the songs are not written specifically for the show, but actual popular songs of the past in present. In addition, some songs are even in English.
Back to getting rowdy... at one point in the show Dracula sings, You Sexy Thing (I Believe in Miracles), with his male "assistant", which I am sure you can imagine to start with. Add on top of that, a Spanish accent, the fact that this male assistant is similar to an experiment gone wrong so throughout the show he is constantly twitching and jerking around, AND THEN just multiply that by 10! It is just fantastic, and since there are only two of them in this number, the rest of us were sitting in the audience laughing along having a good time. All of a sudden a bra is thrown on stage. We LOSE it then! So there is just one example of the many fun and interesting things that happens in the theater here. Not too different from NY I might add.
Wednesday:
We had a school field trip to a little tourist town, two train stops away called Sitges. Here we were allowed to walk the streets, look around, then later we went to the movies to see a movie in English. Yay for being able to understand the entire movie. However, we went to see "The Beasts of the Southern Wild"which I mean was good and all, but the entire movie was spoken in southern slang, not at all proper English and if the whole point was to see a movie in English..... I'm just saying it wouldn't be my top choice! Anyway, since the movie ended at about 12:30 we all returned in Castelldefels at around 1 and were allowed to go home from there. Teatro later as usual, then sleep at last!
Thursday:
Regular old school. Then theater with makeup, fake teeth, the works for dress rehearsal. All went smoothly, but the nerves of others definitely started to kick in. Me? Not sure why, but I wasn't nervous at all! Maybe it was the fact that I wouldn't really know anyone that would be sitting in the audience, besides my host family of course, who would happen to be sitting front an center of it all! So yep, all went swimmingly and the 24 hour countdown began 'til show time!
Friday:
School was a bit different on Friday. In the grade above me, each student had their own huge research project to do and each student in my grade chose three presentations they wanted to see, and once those three presentations were over, we were allowed to leave school. I watch one presentation on some sort of cancer like diseases (I was lost OK, the classes were all different and I couldn't find my friends so I saw someone I knew and followed them into a classroom and this was what the presentation was about. The girl did a fantastic job, I might add!). Another presentation on disorders of how one sees themselves, for example eating disorders, working out until your skin is literally about to burst, all things about self image wrapped into one 40 minute or so presentation. The last presentation I saw was about Hip-Hop as a culture. After this was all over, my friends and I went to the mall just to look around. And wouldn't ya know it, I didn't buy a thing. Later, I gathered my things together and headed off to the theater to start preparing for show time! Here are some photo's and video clips of the stage and during and after the show. (Hope they work!)
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Saturday:
Saturday was pretty low key. I slept pretty late, since I had a late night before! (^^The show started at 10 PM^^) Then Roman, Ana and I went to the nearby mall so I could buy a birthday present for a get together I had later that night. When we returned to the house the three of us played some pretty intense rounds of Mario Kart, and lets just say, living in another country has NOT affected my racing skills ;) .
Later I walked to the meeting place for this little birthday get together. I wasn't sure what to expect and I was a little nervous at first, because I don't know if you can understand unless you have been in this situation, but meeting and socializing with people, especially new people, in a different language is EXTREMELY nerve wracking! There are just so many things to worry about! If they will talk to you at all. If they do, will they be patient with you, or just walk away when they get bored. Will they try to speak in English with you, and then you will have to awkwardly explain to them that even though you don't know Spanish very well, it is really important to only speak in Spanish, because that is the only way you will learn. Well, I got lucky! There was a girl from my class there who I had never really talked to before and she came right on over to me and we talked the whole time! We talked about travel, Christmas, all sorts of things, and she never got bored! She even said that I was a better Spanish speaker than most other exchange students she had met in the past. Now, this compliment is nothing out of the ordinary. I am not saying that to sound cocky, its just that the Spanish people are always so nice and encouraging with one another and this is just a typical compliment of theirs'. In reality, it means a lot! It's just a little reminder that some people do admire your bravery of stepping out of your comfort zone and trying to learn something completely new, so thanks guys! (Americans are really nice too, but I don't think we openly express our compliments as much. We should! When I get home I am definitely bringing that trait back with me!)
Not done with Saturday yet! So the birthday celebration included us walking to the mall, sitting at McDonalds, taking LOADS of pictures (taking pictures here is like a huge thing, like these people probably spend more time taking selfies than the average person spends breathing! Then we went upstairs, and sat like little rednecks in a corner lit candles on a cake and literally ate it off the cardboard pieces from the candles. It was pretty darn classy! OK, brace yourself, still not done with Saturday. So after walking home from the mall, we ate some dinner as a family and then some of Emma's friends came over as well as their exchange students (I forgot to mention that we have a sixth member of the family this week because Emma is doing an exchange with the Canary Islands through her school this year). We played some more Mario Kart, and some poker. Luckily we only use dry beans because I am AWFUL at this game! We called it a night around 1ish maybe 2, not quite sure, but Emma's friends left and I went to bed and was out like a light in now time!
Sunday:
Sunday started a bit early, 10:45ish with Ana Maria bring churros home from work! Emma, Carla (our exchange student), Ana Maria and I went to town on them churros! Afterwards we got dressed and headed to Emma's volleyball game. However, Emma is currently injured and can't play, so we all watched and cheered together! After the game we went out to eat. We went to a little Japanese restaurant, where I ate, you guessed it, Japanese food for the first time! Fun fact: Although I know Chinese food and Japanese food is different, its pretty similar, anyway, in the US my dad doesn't like Chinese food, and here in Spain Roman doesn't like Japanese food. See where I am going with this?! My families are basically clones!!!!
Alright so we ate the Japanese food family style, ordering lots of plates and sharing everything, and it was really good! Afterwards, we headed back to the house. Emma and Carla hopped a train to Barcelona, and I headed off to dance to practice, yet again, for the upcoming show Saturday. Dance was great of course, but I since I was at dance, I unfortunately missed the invitation from Emma to go to the movies with them to see "We're the Millers", a movie that I have literally been waiting to see since before I came here, so that was a bit of a bummer. However, it's just a movie, I can see it some other time. Ana, Ana Maria, Roman, and I had dinner together of pasta and meat sauce, and now, we are just chillin' on the couch watching New Moon.
So ya, there is my week in a nutshell! To wrap this up on a slightly different note, tomorrow marks the 25% mark of this wonderful journey of my Spanish life! (I am reading your thoughts as you're reading this mom ;) but ya know what, :P !) So there ya have it! Time does go by and I am thoroughly looking forward to the time I have left here! It's just always nice to know how much you have already accomplished! Lot's of love! Have a nice week! Love Emily!
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