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.