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