Thanksgiving abroad...and some other stuff

So....

Before I even start on my update on what's been going on these past few days, I need to address my concern for the lack of information known about Thanksgiving and its history. At least ten people asked me what people do over here for Thanksgiving and if the celebrations are still the same. A couple of people even went as far as to not believing me when I told them Thanksgiving is only an American holiday so obviously they don't celebrate it in Spain. When Thanksgiving rolled around nobody here even knew/acknowledged that it was a holiday. The only reason any of my friends knew Thursday was Thanksgiving was because I spent my entire day in school sulking and complaining about how annoying it was that I was in school when I could be eating with my family. (not one of my finest moments) I did end up having a little celebration in the central with a couple of the other Americans staying in Jerez. While Paella and Gelato with friends isn't nearly as good as Turkey and Pumpkin Pie with family, it was still fun and definitely a once in a lifetime experience. One thing I found amazing was how little people here actually know about Thanksgiving. My host father had never even heard of it. My host mother and sister had only seen it in movies and T.V. shows. When I tried to explain it to them all they said was “Ahh siii, pavo pavo!” (pavo means turkey) I tried to explain the history in Spanish but I eventually gave up and told them to Google it. Needless to say, I was pretty homesick on Thanksgiving considering nobody was around to Skype. Thankfully I have friends here who understand what I'm going through which made the day much easier.

On Friday I went to the birthday party of one of my exchange friends from Finland. It was definitely an interesting experience to say the least. Two of her friends from Cadiz came up to celebrate, one from Switzerland and the other from Australia. In total there were six countries represented at the party. (3 Americans, 2 Australians, 1 girl from Finland, 1 girl from Switzerland, 1 girl from Germany, and many Spaniards drifting in an out as the night went on. At the party I started talking to the girl from Switzerland and found out that Spanish is her 7^th language. Yes, you read that right, 7^th. Apparently in Switzerland most kids grow up learning Swiss, Italian, French and Swiss German. Swiss-German is where you understand German and you can speak it but not as well as you can understand it. Or well, I think that's what it is. I'd never heard of Swiss-German before Friday so I'm still learning the exact definition. All I know is that the girl from Switzerland was speaking German most of the night and she sounded pretty fluent to me. Anyways, her mother is Russian so she is fluent in Russian, and in school she learned English and Spanish. Obviously I was pretty amazed by this and it got me to thinking about how most Americans don't even know two languages. Schools in the United States don't really pressure kids to keep up with a second language which is sad because most of the outside world is already fluent in two or three languages. For my generation at least, knowing only English isn't going to go very far in our world today. Now I don't mean to criticize the language classes in schools because anyone who completed all four years of high school Spanish or French would be sufficient enough to get by in any situation in the real world. My only point is, is that coming here has made me realize how beneficiary it will be in the long run to hopefully be able to speak both Spanish and English.

Anyways.....

On Saturday, after a nice day in the central with my exchange friends, I went to a party called a Zambomba. I'd never heard of it before this weekend but basically it's a Christmas party...Spanish style... The party I went to, took place in a huge parking lot with at least 100 kids. There were some surrounding buildings with smaller parties inside but I didn't get a chance to go in any of them because they were too crowded. Basically, the party consisted of different groups gathered in circles singing Spanish Christmas carols while doing some weird clapping thing that I never got the hang of. Overall, it was pretty fun and there are apparently many more before Christmas so hopefully I'll get to go again. I wish I could put up pictures from the party but my camera broke so I wasn't able to take any.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.

Now I have to go translate about 20 pages of Philosophy.

Adiooo

Style in Spain

So as promised..

Instead of giving the usual update on what I've been up to.

I'm going to talk about one of the main differences I've noticed since I've been here.

Fashion/Style

This post probably won't be interesting to most people who read this blog, but at the moment my life is just too routine to explain. (school, swim, siesta, fiesta, the usual)

The reason I'm dedicating an entire post to this is because people here care a lot about what they look like. Well, when they're not in school. Whenever I get ready to go out with my friends they take at least twice as long as I do. I'm talking like two or three hours, maybe more. It's ridiculous. I'm going to break this post into smaller sections considering this a pretty broad topic.

School:

The first thing you should know about the style in Spain, is that school doesn't matter. I wanted to do a little section on school because of the fact that this is where I spend most of my time. Sweatsuits are perfectly normal (Cai this place is perfect for you). I myself have not taken part in the whole sweatsuit craze, unless it's gym, which I'll explain later. The difference between a person at school and a person at a club is almost scary. Everyone looks completely different. At school, girls rarely wear makeup, but at club, at least 85% of the girls look like they just came from a Jersey Shore casting audition. No joke. The reason kids don't dress up for school, is because on days they have gym, which is twice a week, we have to wear your gym clothes to school. Thank goodness it's not hot anymore because those first few weeks here were just unbearable. I have gym first period, so everyone would come to school in their gym clothes, run around outside for an hour, and then go to a confined classroom without changing or doing anything to not look/smell completely disgusting. I had a really hard time with this for a while. Of course, on days we don't have gym, some girls will dress up a little bit, but usually kids just trade out the sweat pants for jeans and wear boots instead of sneakers.

Now that I've talked a little bit about school I'll talk about articles of clothing that I've found to be different than in America.

Shoes:

I came here with four pairs of shoes, my flip-flops, a pair of Toms, a pair of nice sandals, and my sneakers. When I told my host sister this her first question was “What about your heels?” (in Spanish of course) It took her about ten minutes to understand that I didn't bring any. After my first weekend here I understood why my host sister acted the way she did. Everyone, well every girl, wears heels when they go out. The trick is, to wear a pair of flats when walking and then bring your heels for the club. Outside of clubs, heeled boots are especially popular. Shoe stores are filled with boots with the most obnoxiously high heels. I laughed when I first saw them which really confused my friend because she absolutely loves them. Everybody does. Except for the weird American. For guys, it's basically the same. The more pairs of dysfunctional sneakers the better.

Pants:

Jeans, jeans, jeans. Just like in America except there really isn't any other pants besides jeans here. I wore corduroys one day and had at least 10 people rub my leg cause they hadn't seen pants so soft before. With guys, skinny jeans are extremely popular. The whole baggy jean thing isn't as big here as it is back home.

Shirts:

Shirts alone made me want to write this post. You wouldn't believe how many shirts with random English phrases I see on a daily basis. Some of them, have drinking and drug references but they're seen as acceptable in school because no one can understand them. Well, except for a few of the teachers which makes me wonder why they don't do anything about it. Some of them are really bad. I'm constantly getting asked to translate peoples shirts because they have no idea what it says.. I can't imagine buying and wearing a shirt without understanding what's on it. Some of the weirdest ones I've seen are:

• “Party like a cheetah without its spots” (I didn't even bother translating this one considering I didn't even understand it in English)
• “I hate boys, I hate girls, I love me” (Hopefully that designer is out of business)
• “Don't eat my cabbage!” (Maybe this is a reference to something, but if it's not......)
• “Say my name in a Russian accent” (Again, I really hope this is a reference to something that makes sense.)

I wish I was making these up but sadly I'm not.

Jewelry:

Piercings anywhere and everywhere!

I'm talking earrings, lip rings, nose rings, tongue rings, nose rings galore. People pierce random places on their face. My host sister has a piercing on her cheek that I thought was mole for a good two weeks. Guy or girl it doesn't matter. Most people have some sort of weird piercing.

Hair:

Hair styles are basically the same except for when girls put their hair up. When putting your hair up for gym or to go out, the higher the better. Thankfully my hair is to short to do this so I have an excuse not to look like a complete freak. It's perfectly normal for a girl to stick her ponytail right on top of her head and have people rave about how pretty it is. I've seen this happen on numerous occasions and I just smile and try really hard not to laugh. With guys, BEWARE OF THE GEL! Everyone uses hair gel when going out and even sometimes in school. Another hair trend I have a hard time not laughing at.

So that's it from what I've seen. Obviously I don't know what the style is in Madrid or on the runways but from what I've seen in Jerez,

This is style:

Hair on top of their heads/Gel, gel, and more gel

Five earrings, two lip rings, and a nose ring

Shirt with some random phrase that no one understands

Jeans

And some heels or heeled boots/sneakers

I'm sorry this post is not what many people were expecting to read but next week I promise I'll give an update on how my first Thanksgiving away from home was. I'm already getting into the holiday mood which is fun but extremely sad. Lights have gone up around the Central and it makes me miss home every time I see them. Hopefully some more candy will come and I can push away the homesickness with some Starburst and Psych (the only/best cure..although I do think my family is starting to worry about why I'm always laughing to myself)

Abrazos y besos a todos

-Libby

P.S.

I got my internet back!

For now.....

Two months!

So....

It's been a while.

Remember when I said that things were supposed to calm down after last week? I was wrong. Teachers just keep giving me more and more tests to study for. Last week I had two tests in Philosophy and History. This week I have a Science test, two French tests and apparently I have another Economy test coming up. Perfect. I'm not intending for all my blog posts to be about school that just seems to be taking up most of my time lately.

First thing that's changed since last time I wrote, it's been surprisingly cold here recently. I can no longer wear t-shirts and shorts which has been a nice change. Last weekend it was so cold I had to call a taxi and leave my friends hours before I was planning because I actually couldn't handle it. Of course, then the next day it was hot and I woke up sweating. I swear, sometimes the weather here is more temperamental than Maine, and that's saying something.

I actually can't believe that it's already mid-November. Tomorrow is the two-month mark of me being here and that means I'm 1/5 of the way through my trip. I don't know why but it feels like I've been here so much longer. Stuff I did in September and even October feels like forever ago. A distant memory, yet on the other hand, it also feels like time is going by extremely fast. It's hard to explain. I read about this before I came here on other blogs, but nothing really makes complete until experience you experience it for yourself. I can write about how amazing this trip is or how hard it is to be away from home, but it's not like anybody can really understand what I'm going through unless they're going through it too. That's what makes exchange friends so much fun. For the most part, we all miss the same things and are going through the same challenges.

This past week I've been experiencing my first real case of homesickness since my first week of being here. I'm pretty sure this is mostly due to the fact that my internet hasn't been working and I haven't been able to Skype with anyone without the fear of my internet turning off. I don't know what the problem with it is, it just keeps randomly shutting off and when it does work it's really slow. Basically every time I try to Skype all we're able to talk about is how terrible my internet is, and then it shuts off again. After a few days of this I've just given up which has made me sort of homesick. I wouldn't say this is culture shock because according to my program directors, the most common sign of culture shock is when you start spending all your time talking to family, which of course, I can't, so that's not it. I'm embarrassed to admit, the hardest part about having internet problems is the fact that I can't watch last weeks Psych, Grey's Anatomy, or Glee. That's been hard. Spanish television just isn't the same. Hopefully this problem will fix itself, because I don't think I can go much longer without talking to people. Luckily, this problem didn't occur during my first weeks of being here. Now at least I have friends, swimming, parties, and other things to keep me busy. It's just days like today where I'm stuck inside doing homework where I really need internet. I'm proud that I've gone this long without being really homesick. Thankfully, I still have candy left which is always helpful.

Moving on from that, I have a new addiction. Shopping. This weekend I was luckily able to restrain myself and not buy anything, but these past couple of weekends, my German friend and I have gone a little crazy. Don't worry, I haven't spent that much money, it's just the act of shopping which I'm now addicted to. I love the stores here! Oh and the bracelets. I've bought a few more than I'm willing to admit. I just love bracelets! I'm still wearing all the bracelets people gave me before I left. People are always asking me why on one hand I wear the same bracelets every day, while on the other hand I wear different ones every day. I just tell them they remind me of home :). All this talk about clothing has given me the idea for my next blog post. Style in Spain. The clothing choices here are surprisingly different. Everyone's always telling me how they model themselves after American fashion but it just isn't true. Now obviously I don't know much about fashion, but I do know enough to know that whatever the kids are wearing here, isn't American.

Now I know I'm always saying this, but, wow these blog posts are hard to write. Everything is so routine now. Most of the stuff I know would be interesting to everyone back home just isn't interesting to me anymore. I'm still experiencing many new things every day, they're just not as shocking or memorable. I need to start my journal back up so I can remember everything to write down in my blog. Throughout the week, I'm constantly saying, wow I should write about this in my blog, but then when it actually comes down to writing it, I forget. For example, yesterday there was this huge Spanish music festival where these groups of musicians were all dressed up and parading down the central. Now, I would've forgotten that if I hadn't wrote this section on forgetting important things that I should be remembering. Hopefully my internet is strong enough for me to post some of the pictures I took. I would post the video but I don't want to risk my internet shutting off.. again.. It's happened four times since I've started writing this.

Anways,

I have two French tests to study for,

and a science test,

and an art project to do...

If you're reading this Teagan, know that sadly I won't be able to start my bush drawings for a couple of weeks because apparently I have to do a project on the tree I've been working so hard on.

Not...

I swear,

This art class has been the single most pointless class I've ever taken.

First trimester=Trees Second Trimester=Bushes Third Trimester=Flowers.

If only my Spanish was good enough for me to drop out.

But sadly,

it's not.

Adioss

-Libby

They worked!

Halloween weekend

So as I said in my previous blog post:

Last weekend was a four day weekend. It was nice because I was able to have Halloween and the day after off which meant I could actually do something and not have to worry about having school the next day. Here's a summary of what I did on my Halloween weekend in Spain.

Friday:

Friday, my friend Maria (or Snooks as some people like to call her * cough Ben Nelson cough *) and I went out to eat at a Turkish restaurant which was surprisingly amazing. It's definitely the best restaurant food I've eaten. After that, we went back to her house and she helped me finally make a Tuenti! Tuenti is the Spanish version of Facebook, and to make one you have to be invited. I had been putting it off because I don't really enjoy talking in Spanish on Facebook, but I was convinced by Maria that it's the most efficient way to get in contact with people.

Saturday:

On Saturday I met up with my German friend Nele to go shopping in the Central. We went to many different stores that I had never heard of before, but are supposedly in the U.S. Similar to the U.S., quality depends on cost. I bought a gray sweater for only 8 euros that ripped the first time I wore it. Luckily my host mother is sewing it for me so I don't have to worry. I was planning on going out that night but the person I was supposed to get a ride with canceled which meant I had to find another way of getting there. I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to get over my fears and try and navigate the bus by myself. I've somehow managed to avoid the bus the entire time I've been here but after being here seven weeks I've realized that I need to start putting myself in more situations where I'll have to use my Spanish. Of course, after figuring the correct bus, getting the right times for getting there and back, and finding the correct bus stop, the bus never showed up. I would've been more disappointed but all the stress of making plans and figuring everything out had left me pretty exhausted.

Sunday:

Thanks to Tuenti, I was able to make plans to go to the movies with some friends. We ended up seeing Paranormal Activity 3 which was actually the perfect first movie to see in Spanish (outside of the movies I watch at my house with my host family where I don't really pay attention). The sentences in Paranormal Activity are simple and most of the movie is just watching creepy stalker footage of people sleeping. It was actually a pretty good movie for anyone contemplating seeing it. One difference I noticed between Spanish and American movie theaters is that the popcorn here is soooo much better. Now I might just be saying this because I've had an extreme craving for popcorn ever since I've been here or because I was starving at the time, but I'm pretty sure it's just because the popcorn here is truly amazing.

Monday:

Halloween. (Also the birthday of Emma Pidden :) Happy Birthdayyyy!!)

I think Halloween was the first time I truly missed home. I missed dressing up even though my past costumes haven't been the most creative (witch, witch, witch, death, spiderweb......) While some of my friends here were able to dress up and go to discos, I went to my first house party with my host sister. Oh how I missed house parties. The party was in this sketchy apartment that was basically just an empty room with a couple mattresses and enough food to feed over 100 people even though there were only about 20. I won't go into extreme details of what happened because it was basically just food, games, and music, but I will say that even though there were no costumes it was still pretty fun. Luckily, I received my first care package the day before filled with candy so between that and Paranormal Activity 3, my homesickness wasn't to extreme on my first holiday away from home. Another thing that I noticed, was that unlike I had been told, trick-or-treating is very much a thing here. Walking around the neighborhood, everything reminded me of Halloween on Princes Point. The costumes, bags filled to the brim with candy, and house decorations, were all the same. While I'll admit it's definitely not as extreme here, Spain has definitely taken after some of America's traditions which was interesting to see.

Tuesday:

Homework day. In the next week I have tests in Philosophy, History, and Science. Yesterday, I had a Math and a Lengua exam. Trying to balance studying, swimming, and skyping with friends has been a challenge recently but I'm hoping after next week things will be easier.

Speaking of school, I think this post would be a perfect opportunity to give an update on school.

Lets start with my absolute fav subject, Economy!!

Economy: The reason I'm starting with this terrible class is because....I passed my test! I don't even know how this is possible. Technically, I only got a 5.5 out of 10 which is still pretty bad, but here that is considered passing. It was a little awkward though because not everyone passed so when anyone asked me my grade I tried not to sound too excited. One thing I hate about my school is the fact that the teachers read everyone's grade out loud for the entire class to hear. I always feel bad when someone finds out they failed a test and then proceeds to get made fun of by the rest of their classmates. If I could change one thing about my school it would definitely be that.

Math: Well.. I've taken two tests since I've been here. The test I took yesterday I'm not sure if I passed or failed. It's hard for me because for about three weeks I was being taught by a substitute who always took the time to make sure I understood what was going on. The teacher I have now doesn't care at all that I'm extremely confused so on the test I felt confident on some parts and on others I just had to guess. I know I should be saying that Math is so easy because it's a universal language or whatever, but that is not true. It's hard to explain why Math here is so difficult but sometime I'll take a picture of my textbook which I'm pretty sure will confuse even the smartest of math wizards. It's not the Math itself, it's the way we have to solve the problems that make absolutely no sense. Today I found out that I got a zero on the test I took on my first day of school. I thought the teacher was joking when he made me take it...but he wasn't...and I failed...miserably.

History: I took my first test a couple of weeks ago and got a four on it. Don't worry though because that was one of the highest grades in the class. People cheered for me when they heard I got a four. Apparently understanding the French Revolution isn't very common here. Thankfully, everything I've learned so far, I learned last year and somehow remember. Next week, my test is on Napoleon so I'm not too worried.

French: I am amazing at French. I can't pronounce it to save my life, but somehow the reading and writing is extremely easy for me. I am currently getting a nine in that class :)

Science: I had to do a presentation on stars a couple of weeks ago which I got an eight on, but other than that I've basically done nothing. I have a test next week but I still don't have a book so I don't really know how that's going to go.

English: I have never loved a class more than English.

Philosophy: I think right now we're talking about evolution. It's hard to follow exactly what's going on because the teacher just sits at his desk and talks for an hour. I'm a little worried about that test.

Lengua; The Lengua teacher is definitely the most understanding of my situation. I've had two tests so far but every time he makes me a different test that's easier. He seems to be the only teacher that actually cares whether I pass or not.

Drawing: I've been drawing the same tree for seven weeks. I'm actually starting to go crazy.

Gym: We're playing badmitten twice a week until February. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be a pro at badmitten by the end of this year.

So that's it. I know that was a really long post but I had a lot to cover.

I now have to go finish some Philosophy homework...

On a side note,

Today is my 50^th day in Spain!

Crazyy

-Libby