Morocco

Okay I'm sorry it's taken me way longer to get around to posting this than I'd of liked. But nevertheless I am here. So I'll get right in to it.

Morocco was great. It was extremely different than Spain and the USA. We visited the cities of Nador, Midelt, Ait Benhaddou and Merzouga, which was in the desert. On the 27th of December we headed to Almeria, which is in the south of Spain, to catch the ferry to Nador, Morocco. This trip also helped me learn I have bad seasickness so shout out to the French tourists who were nice enough to share their dramamine on the ferry. Unfortunately on the way back even with the dramamine I bought I still got super seasick and basically needed to go to the hospital the same day when we got home to Elche because not only was I super nauseous but I was in a lot of pain... But I made it.

This is what the ferry looked like. You'd park your car on the bottom and then go up to a lounge area that had cafes and restaurants and there were a section of recliner chairs for those who wanted to sleep, or for those who wanted to sleep but not in the recliners could just sleep on the floor or my favorite the guy who slept in the kids play pen (like mini version of a McDonald's one) because the floor was the type of soft plastic... now that I think about it I have no idea what those types of floors are called... I'm going with soft plastic is not the right word.

So after the ferry you have to go through customs which took like an hour. The guy behind the desk got confused when I handed him my passport. An American boy with a large group of Spaniards. He started speaking to me in English and my host mom in French cause she could translate French to Spanish as he didn't speak Spanish (which was my first indication that unless you speak English, French or Arabic it's gonna be harder to communicate with people throughout the country, although there was the occasional Spanish speaker) So Morocco was my first time where I HAD to translate from English to Spanish because the guy only spoke English and Arabic so I felt pretty important at that one moment in time. 

Anyways once I got to our hotel in Nador we went out to dinner at a little restaurant and I had pizza which was pretty good.

The next day early morning we piled into the car, our car has 7 seats and we were seven people with luggage.

My host brother and host mom's friend trying to load our car before we left Elche.

Needless to say it was a squished ride. So we left early morning and didn't get to Midelt until around 7 p.m. it was easily 10 hours of driving in one day (we'd later have about three more days like that) 

 Restaurant where we stopped for Tea in Midelt 

 Where we spent the night in Midelt with my host family's family friends. He used to live in Spain but has now returned to Morocco.

Midelt Market. Was super cool. We were 100% the only tourists there, everyone stares as you walk by.

So after Midelt came the desert! We stayed at a pretty touristy hotel which was fine with me because there were people from tons of other countries there, Germany, France, the UK, South Africa, the USA, Canada and I think Italy. So everyone would talk to people in the dinning hall or just where ever... the universal language seemed to be English or French there among the tourists. 

oh yea we stayed in tents... in the middle of the Sahara Desert. 

About the desert, it's amazing. Climbing up the dunes is super hard but the views are great. Nothing I would've expected before I went there and I think it's because pictures do the magnitude of these dunes no justice at all.

That's me! See that dune looks small but its massive.

Misc. Pictures from Desert.

Anyways on NYE I did two things really cool. 

1. Rode a Camel through the Sahara Desert.

2. Ate 12 grapes to ring in the New Year per Spain tradition.

It was actually really cool because everyone from all the countries were in the same room for this and every country kinda has there own tradition so seeing everyone else doing it was pretty cool. Then everyone just started dancing. 

The day after this, so the 1st of January we drove to a Kasbah in the center of Morocco. Where we spent two nights before essentially meaning to go back to Midelt but after getting pulled over twice, the cops bribing us to give them money in exchange for not giving us a ticket, our car breaking down and detouring an hour out of the way, we just stopped and never made it there a second time. But heres pictures of the Kasbah

 ATTENTION: Souvenir shopping at the many stores in Morocco like these you will find there is fun but you have to be careful. They, store men, will at first tell you the price is 200 dirhams (18 euros, 30ish dollars) and in the end be completely content with taking like 50 dirhams (4ish euros, 7ish dollars) they know you're a tourist and you have to be careful. Also sometimes they won't speak anything more than just the numbers in any given language so you can't ask questions you just have to say a number and keep doing that until either you call them crazy for asking for so much or they call you crazy for thinking it's not worth as much as they do. 

But other random pics from the Kasbah.

After this we headed back to Northern Morocco to catch our 8-hour ferry to Almeria and head back to Elche. I have no pictures really from the rest of the trip except for here where we stopped on the way: 

This was pretty cool. I have no idea what it's called but it was basically just a long path in between two huge rocks with a river through it. We stopped for Lunch here one day on the trek back.

Well after this we got our ferry and we were back in Spain. 

Almeria, Andalucia in the south of Spain.

Well this about ends it. I hope you enjoyed as much as I enjoyed being there! Sorry for the delay, I'll try to be more punctual in the coming weeks. But in other news in 5 days I'll be at the halfway point which is CRAZY. Wasn't I at ABIA yesterday saying goodbye to my family? 

Til Next Time!

Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Bon Nadal...

So I have some time to give what will probably be my last update of 2013. Today is also my last full day in Spain until 2014! That's right, tomorrow I'll be going to Morocco with my host family for about 9 days. From the 27th of December til the 5th of January. Morocco will become the fourth (well does Switzerland really count?) country that I've been to, and Africa will become the third continent I've been to as this is still my first time out of the USA (crazy right?). So on the 27th we are all waking up at like 5 in the morning and piling 7 people into my host mom's car and driving to Almeria, where we will catch the 5 hour ferry to Nador where we will stay the night, the next day we will go to a city in between the Sahara and Nador for one night and later arrive in the Sahara where we will essentially camp with a group of more than 20 friends and family of my host family, on the 2nd of January we'll begin to make our way back to Elche through the same path that we went there. Anyways when I get back I'll write a nice long post with everything when I get back that'll also include Christmas here in Spain, until then, Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

December 1st Half & Photos

Well. Long time no write. Sorry. I've been way too busy. I'll go right into it.
I turned 16! So on my 16th birthday I woke up early and gathered all the papers I thought I would need to collect my visa in Pamplona and headed to the Cercanias station by my house went to Atocha and caught the morning train up to the north of Spain back to where my journey started.  

Picture 1: Atocha

Picture 2: Pamplona random pic

Picture 3: News on my birthday

Picture 4: Train station in Pamplona. Funny story about this one. So my train home the day after my birthday was Pamplona to Zaragoza, and then about 30 minutes later Zaragoza to Madrid on the AVE (which is Spain's super fast train system that went well over 300 km/h... for the Americas about 190 m/h.) Well my train from Pamplona was supposed to leave at 9:13 a.m. but it didn't get there til about 9:30 and left around 9:35. I had no idea what to do once I got to Zaragoza so I was kinda worried I'd totally miss my train or get on the one I was told that will be right next to it that would take me to Barcelona. Thankfully I arrived with a good amount of time to transfer (actually the train from Zaragoza to Madrid was delayed like 15 minutes too so there was no rush at all) 

Zaragoza train station pictures. 

To avoid having to dwell on things I'd prefer not to, I'll just cut to the chase and move on. I had to switch families and now I live in Elche, a city in the Valencian Community really close to both the beach and the city of Alicante. Valencian is an official language but Spanish is still used a lot here. My family speaks both in home and my school is all in Spanish (except for the one hour a week of class I take that's in Valencian.) Valencian is from what I've been told the exact same as Catalan (what's spoken in Catalonia, another region in Spain, where Barcelona is) but just has a few different words. My new school has a program for Spanish for foreigners so I get 15 hours of this class a week at school. There's another girl from AFS in it as well as kids from Sweden, Belgium, and China. 

Random pictures from Alicante and Elche which are super cool.

Well I know this was pretty short, but I'll try and update it more soon. Happy holidays to everyone if I don't get around it to it until after it!

5 Cool Things I've Done & Life Update

Today I'll write about five things I've had the chance to do that I probably would never have been able to do if I didn't come to Spain:

1. Saw an actual bull fight in Spain's most famous bull fighting region. Disclaimer: they didn't kill the bulls after.

So one day while we were in our home in the village my host family woke me up and where like "do you want to go see a bullfight today?" Me, wanting to see what they're all about, decided to go. We got there at around 8 in the morning and it was freezing. From our seats in the ring we were able to also see the running part that was going on beforehand. Then after that all the bulls ran in and were put into a corral to await their turn to go out. Once out a bunch of guys would run out and the bulls would chase them leading the guys to jump over the wall and then the bull would proceed to his next "victim"

2. Learn Spanish. No I'm not fluent, there's a long path ahead of me for that one. But I've come such a long way! I remember my first days here where I understood practically nothing. I couldn't respond, nor understand. Now I feel like I can speak a good bit of Spanish without effort. And not understanding something is usually due to lack of vocab, not verb conjugations or accent. We'll give this one time to fully develop for sure... 

Spanish notes I took. Yes people I still do homework and study. But at least it's over the topic I understand the best. 

3. Make friends from all over the world. No doubt I've made so many Spanish friends, I've also made a lot of friends from the US and other countries which probably wouldn't have happened if I didn't come to Spain.

4. Got the chance to see one of my brother's friends who lives in Spain but was an exchange student to Austin a few years ago.

Hopefully you don't mind this Rodrigo.

5. Got to see three Spanish cities that have made me realize how big the world is, and how much more I have to see. 

Burgos, Castilla y Leon, Spain. Talked about this one before. Only there for maybe twenty minutes but hey I saw this so...

Pamplona, Navarra, Spain. Actually if I believe correctly I will be going back on December 9th to get my visa... which also happens to be my 16th birthday...I guess it'll make for a birthday I'd never forget! Besides I want to go back!

Madrid, Comunidad de Madrid, Spain. Write about this one too much, I know. 

Life Update

Well I've been making new friends at my new school so that's good. And exam week is starting. Pretty much everyday we have one. Tomorrow's I think is English so I think I should be okay with that one. Today I had a Physics test and while there were things I didn't understand at all, I was shocked I was able to do some of them with as much confidence as I did, well maybe I shouldn't say that until we get our grade backs. 

The past Friday I had one in Biology (yes everyone in 7th period Deere's last year, I'm taking it again.) And it was over a concept they really drilled into our heads in my school the year before that the kid's in Spain were just learning. So I really think I did well. I studied and reread my notes a heck of a lot of times and really think I aced it. 

Swimming. I finally started swimming here. I am right now swimming with a group of maybe 40 kids (estimating a group of people is so hard.) They do things much different than I'm used to in the USA. They sometimes swim with dummies (back to lifegurading this summer) and sometimes we do these drills where you have to stop in the middle of the pool go under a net/obstacle and then continue without touching neither the obstacle nor the ground. Also these kids are really fast. Maybe it's cause I haven't swam in 4 months or just because they're really fast. I'm thinking it's a mix. 

Also I really am learning I still dress like an American. At my old school I could dress like an American and blend in, but at my new one I stick out like a sore thumb. I have started getting more Spanish-Fashion-Forward clothes but to be honest it's so expensive and sometimes I lose my appetite to dress like a Spaniard when I look at the price tag on a new jacket from Pull and Bear/Jack and Jones/El Corte Ingles which are way overpriced. 

That's it for today, til next time when I'll probably be 16.

Reflections/More

The title should maybe suggesting this will be a deeper post... well for me. Usually I like to post things to make people laugh, or brighten their day. I'm not going to do the opposite with this I promise. Don't tune out though, it's just going to be a more reflective post, because I feel it's necessary... at the end is just more of a mix of ideas and things.

• It's now been 82 days since the day I left, going into this program having no idea what my future in Spain would hold. 
• I came knowing how to conjugate maybe 3 forms of a verb... can now do double that. 
• I'd never spend more than 15 days away for home until I came here... and for people that now me, leaving home for 10 months wouldn't be something you'd expect from me
• The first time I left the country was to come here. Never have I ever (wait... we aren't playing that) been to Mexico nor Canada.
• I never thought a city itself can be pretty before I came here. Yea Cedar Park is a true beaut. I mean no hate to anyone from good ol' CP cause I miss it a lot. 
• Not understanding every word that people say is normal now. I've learned so much Spanish but the thought that I'd understand everything someone says already is pretty crazy to me. I usually can understand the general gist though without much effort.
• Accepting things that are so wild and crazy to you as normal. Obviously I can't think things would be the same here, so when I see something that's different I observe it and say "okay, that is now normal." Of course it takes a few occurrences for it to not affect you anymore.
• Not seeing my families face since saying goodbye in the airport. Yes, that's right. I haven't skyped with them, why? I have no idea. I talk to them on the phone and even while I'm typing this thinking we need to skype. So to my fam: Soon.
• In two weeks from today I'll be celebrating my 16th birthday. What my plans are? not sure yet. I definitely want to make it something I'll never forget.
• It's been over two months since I left Pamplona and feels like a lifetime. 
• Over one year ago (year and a day) I started this blog. No doubt I've changed so much. Reading that post just makes me cringe a little. I don't know why. My writing was so awkward and I wasn't witty, kind of flat and boring. I apologize. 
• The past 82 days have been so fast and crazy. Who knows how long it'll take for time to slow down, or maybe it won't ever. 
• I've never been a Patriot for the USA til I came here. No I don't think one country is better than the next but I really have come to love my country more than I thought I did before I left.

Misc.:

Okay, I've tried lots of new food here. Maybe this shouldn't really count, since it's a pastryish thing. But it's like my new favorite thing. These Chocolate & Churros was bought in Plaza Mayor at one of Spain's oldest Churro places. Even seeing this is making me consider making a quick after school trip to grab some. Actually there is a churro vender right outside my metro stop on my way home from school... Idea planted. 

Egyptian Temple

Royal Palace

Monastery

Monastery... but close

Prado

Royal Palace... But further also La Almudena.

I've seen so much since I've been here. So many things I never thought I'd get to see. Who gets the chance to see Spain and how great it is at the age of 15. I feel so lucky to have this chance and am extremely thankful to anyone who has had the part in getting me here. I could never have done this without y'all!

Okay also this is from my going away party from a while ago & I want each and everyone in this picture know how incredibly jealous I am y'all have the week off.  Enjoy it. Miss y'all!