An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind. — Mohandas Gandhi

Monday was Día De La Paz Y No Violencia which means Peace and Non-violence day. Also my school has existed for 50 years, so they like making a big deal out of everythingg.

Día de la paz was basically two blow off days, Friday we watched a movie (American History X, anyone heard of it.. it wasn't exactly a bad movie, it was interesting...), then we discussed it and did nothing else. Monday was had only first hour (which lucky for me I had Religion, aka we did nothing), after lunch we did a school wide dance to a song (someone in the school wrote it specially for Día de la Paz) then the last hour we did this gift exchange thing.

Our whole class wrote their names on a piece of paper and them we drew names. We had to be the 'invisible friend' to the person whose name we drew all week without them knowing who we were. Then on Friday we had to bring in a homemade gift for the person.

I made an origami dragon for my person (which turned out awesome) and chocolate chip cookies (which were delicious and I was told I need to make them more often) for my whole class. One of my friends, Ángela, got my name and made me two really pretty bracelets.



Also on Friday I got this really bad cold, that literally can out of the blue. Thursday night my throat was hurting a little bit (before that nothing), so I took some cold medicine, and Friday I could barely talk...
Saturday (I had my voice back..ish)  I thought I had a volleyball game at 8:00 in the morning, I showed up and nobody from my team is there. My dad just dropped me off and also our phones weren't working... (we could only receive calla).. So I go up to this guy that looks he's in charge, but the only thing he knows is that my team was not playing there today.

great. I'm in a gym full of people I don't know, without a phone, and my dad won't come to pick me up at least for another hour.

I politely ask the guy if I can use his phone, he gives it to me, I have my iPod with me with has all the numbers of my friends and family in Spain. There are two numbers under my dads name. I call one, and get my sister. She tells me the right number, I quickly call that and it was going to take my dad five minutes to come back for me. I give the phone back and thank the guys. And head outside to wait for my dad.
It took about 15 minutes with all the traffic.


Then later I was talking to my parents about going out that night:

Them: Are you sure you want to go out with your cold?

Me: Yes! I feel fine!


 -----> Sunday I could barely talk again. Karma, I might of deserved that. (but it was so worth it!)



Today I had a math test, I studied SO much for and I thinkkkk I passed (knock on wood). I'm for sure that I got at least 4.5 points and that I got one wrong (I need 5 to pass and it's out of 10), but we`ll see.




My post is all over the place today... SORRY! ummm, hopefully the next is better!

ps if my school posts a video of the dance I'll be sure to add it:)

I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. - Thomas Jefferson

Last Sunday was my host dad's birthday, any guesses on how we celebrated? If was answer was food, you're catching on to how things work in Spain. :P

Along with a ton of other food, we had a delicious sponge cake with whip cream in the middle and chocolate frosting cover all of the outside... all made from scratch by my dad!


Also last weekend was this 'international motorcycle rally' (that's how that internet describes it...) called Pingüinos (Penguins). Basically it's 25,000 motor-cyclers getting together and partying for a weekend. It's quite a sight. hahaha.

There's a parade, where alll the motorcycles drive through Valladolid, but I didn't get to see it because I had I volleyball game (we won!). I did, however, go to the campsite and see all the motorcycles parked, not quiet as cool, but still. It was something you have to see in order to understand what TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND motorcycles are.
Pingüinos is the largest motorcycles gathering in the world that takes place in the winter. :)


Other than that, life is normal. Today I had volleyball practice and the gym is basically a gigantic freezer! It's literally colder inside the gym than outside. (and it's around 30ºF outside). And it was a really tough practice, but fun at the same time... you have to keep doing something or else you'll freeze. My coach is great, he makes us work hard, and it took me awhile to get used to the way he coaches. But now that I'm used to it, practices are amazing :)



School is school, in my biology class we're learning bio-chem stuff and we have to study it every night in order to have a chance at passing the exam. So guess what I've been doing? Studying, studying, and more studying!! My math class started out really well, and I understood everything more or less perfectly. But now that things are way more complicated, everything I learned jumbled together and I'm once again hopeless lost. (my friend Carlota and another kid in my class, Jorge are trying to help me, I have two weeks until the exam. wish. me. luck. :P)





¡¡FELIZ SUEÑOS!! <sweet dreams>

 (because it's 11:30 and I need to be getting to sleep, Gerda this post was specially for you, I hope you're happy now! hahaha)

ps. Speaking of dreams I've been dreaming Spanish!! (well for a couple of months now, I just kept forgetting to tell everyone!) In the first dream in Spanish that I remember, I was in my freshman year biology class (with Mr. Shifflett) and absolutely nothing spectacular happened, expect for half the people in that class where speaking Spanish and the rest either English, a mixture of the two, or some made-up language.

Los Reyes Magos

Christmas Break, sadly, is over.

On the 30th of December, we had a failtacular AFS orientation. Only three of us showed up. Me, Malte (who lives in Valladolid) and Emily. We first went ice skating and then went out for churros, so beside the bad turn out, we still had a good time. :)

Eating churros with the other AFSers

On New Year's Eve (Or Nochevieja as they call it here) we went to my Aunt's house where we ate A LOT of food. And we also ate the traditional 12 grapes in the last seconds of the year for good luck. I managed to eat them all and NOT choke. :)

New Years Day we ate another HUGE meal at my grandparents house.


Januray 5th we went to a parade called, Cabalgata De Reyes, in the town next to mine. Andrea, one of my friends, was in it as a duck.

This is a video of the parade in Madrid from last year, I think... I saw the one from this year one on TV.

My friend:)

After the parade, we went home and ate Roscón, which is a traditional dessert for Reyes Magos. In it are too 'surprises' is a bean and the other is a king. The person who gets the king becomes the 'King or Queen' and the person who get the bean has to pay.

Roscón

My sister was the 'Queen' and there was a car inside the cake, not a king :P

On the sixth we celebrated Los Reyes Magos or Three Kings day. Which celebrate the three kings that brought the gift to baby Jesus. This is the day that you open up your presents. So that morning we ALL got woken up by my sister yelling 'Get up! Get up! Let's open our presents!' and singing a Spanish Christmas song. We opened presents and then some friends of my parents came over to eat breakfast, we ate the rest of the Roscón.

Also today it SNOWED!! Which is NOT normal in Valladolid:) It only lasted about 2 hours and it all disappeared but still IT SNOWED! :) 

Upcoming News:

February: AFS orientation, Carnival (I'll explain more about this later), and Noelle, an AFSer in Sevilla is coming up for a weekend! 

My host dad made crepes over break :) yummmmmm