Trimester Two Grades

I've had these for a while and just now remembered,,, but hey, better late then never.

Physics/Chemistry: 2

Lengua: 4

Philosophy: 5

Biology: 5

Math: 6

Science of the Contemporary World (Earth Science): 7

Computers: 8

P.E.: 9

Religion: 9

English: 10

EIGHT classes passed! Including Philosophy :)  

The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page. – St. Augustine

12 Days in Italy = Priceless 

Here's a quick summary of what I did:

Monday after school, we left Valladolid. The bus ride involved a lot of shouting, singing, and dancing in the aisle, and we kept it going for a good four hours or so until we stopped for dinner and after that everyone slowly fell asleep and I ended up sleeping on the floor.


The next morning we stopped in Nimes, France to walk around and look around and ate breakfast. Then we continued to Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo was really pretty and it ended up being a cooler then I thought it was going to be. Most of us didn't expect much of it, but once we saw it surprised by its beauty and vowed that once we are rich and famous we're going to get houses there.  We also saw all the super nice cars everyone living there had... I don't know much about cars, but the ones there were impressive.



After spending the night in Nice, France we kept on driving until we got to Pisa, Italy.
It was in Pisa when I realized 'holy crap! I'm in Italy, I'm standing in front of the leaning tower of Pisa!!'

From Pisa we went to Rome, where we stayed for three days.
'All roads lead to rome'.. or maybe not? Who knows?
For me Rome was an impressive and gorgeous city. The best part of Rome was that we had a lot of free time so at the end of the three days we knew how to get around parts of Rome without using a map.


After Rome we spent the day in Siena, which went horribly. It was a cold, rainy, windy day, my umbrella broke, and there wasn't anywhere indoors we could go because Siena was a very outdoorsy city. I felt sick almost the whole day, so I didn't eat lunch.  We had 3 hours of free time to eat lunch and my friends and I managed to find a phone room off the side of the street to stay at least dry... it was still really cold. We ended up huddled all together on the floor to try and keep warm. Then when it finally was time to go back to the bus I literally needed help to walk, because my legs couldn't support my weight. (this was because I didn't eat lunch) so my friends made me eat a whole packet of sandwich meat... by the time I was back at the bus I was walking normal again, but my stomach cramped up again... not funnn.




That night by the time we were in Florence, thankfully, I felt fine.

Florence, is a city exceptionally pretty, it's architecture is so different from the architecture in Rome. One thing that I lovedd about Florence was the waffles. Yummm, Florence had waffles to die for, picture this: thick warm waffles covered in rich melted Nutella. :)))
Also in Florence we saw the famous statue of David.
We spent one full day in Florence and the next day we left for Lido di Jesolo, a city close to Venice.


Venice. Venice, needless to say, is breathtaking. It once again down poured the whole day, but me and my friends didn't let it stop us from exploring the streets (Venice is probably one the most dysfunctional, confusing city to navigate though that has ever existed).  

In Venice

Apart from being soaking wet the whole time, we had a great time.. we were given a map that had a list of places that we should visit in our free time. One of the places was a staircase... we spent about in hora looking for this stairs... the picture below are the super 'special' stair case

we couldn't even climb the stupid stairs...

Then that night in Lido de Jesolo, we were allowed to go out to a discoteca until 2:00am which was a lot of fun... some of our teachers went with us and watching them dance... I wish a brought my camera... it was hilarious



The net day we began our trip back to Spain, stopping Milan (the financial center of Italy) for lunch and then again in Nice, France to spend the night. The next day we were on the bus by 8:30am and made to Valladolid between 1:00am and 2:00am.


The trip was indescribable, the best part wasn't getting to see all the places in Italy, but to spend 12 days with my friends, bonding in ways otherwise impossible and meeting new people in my grade that I would have otherwise never known existed. The staying up until 2 -3 in the morning, eating the worst types of food possible, the inside jokes, the drama that in the end brought us closer... these are the things that made the trip unforgettable.





After a weekend of nothing but sleeping (the first morning I slept until 3 in the afternoon... new record) and going to sleep a bit earlier and napping a bit more during the school week I'm more or less caught up on sleep.


This weekend was the 'Feria de Abril' which is a fair Sevilla is famous for, this year Valladolid decided to have it's own version of it. My host mom put together two dresses flamenco dresses for her and my sister, and I tried on a Sevillana Riding outfit which fit and on Saturday we went to a Sevillana parade with horses. My sister and I ended up riding in a buggy in the parade, the parade we really small, but it was still really cool. :D
AFter the parade I got to ride a horse, Spanish style which was really exciting.

My host mom made both dresses and my skirt... yeah she got skills :)

And finally today I had Chinese food for the first time since I left... personally Chinese food in America is better, but it wasn't bad ;)








until next time ----

“I don’t want to not live because of my fear of what could happen.” -Laird Hamilton

I longer I'm in Spain, the harder it is to write and explain what my life is like, especially now, with so much stuff going on.


Two weekend s ago I went to Sevilla to visit Noelle. I got to skip school on Friday to take a 8 1/2 hour bus ride. Going there wasn't too bad, the bus had wifi, so I kept myself amused.

Sevilla is a gorgeous city!! And hanging out with Noelle was the greatest!! She took me to all the major tourist spots in Sevilla, we went shopping, and we went to the beach!


The Cathedral in Sevilla was probably my favorite tourist place, it's the third biggest church in the world and stunning.

The Cathedral from a distance.

After that I really liked the Plaza de Toros, which is the bull fighting ring.. no, I did not see a bull fight (though I'm planning on going to one before I leave). I did see the police practice jumping with their horses, but not normal jumps. Nope they were jumping tables and fences.

Other then that going to the beach and being able to hang out with Noelle were the major highlights in the trip. When we went to the beach, we met up with another exchange student living close to Sevilla, Solomon (who's from Oregon). It was a great day of dong nothing, walking around the city looking for a place that had burgers (then finding one and realizing no one was hungry), and laughing practically the whole time.


The weekend ended way too soon.



Last weekend, my friend had another sleepover. We got to stay out later then normal, we ate a ton of food, barely slept, and had a great time.

And finally this weekend I went to León with my volleyball team. We got out of school at 12:00 to eat lunch, we had to be in the train station at 2... our coach made it clear that we would not be able to go if we walked in the station at 2:01. My friends and I walked in at 1:58. :)

We had a game at 8:00 that night, we lost :/   We played really good, the other team was better. Full of big hitter, one of the player was being recruited for the national team.

Then that night we were really smart and stayed up until 2:00am talking....  The next we had our second game and lost again. The first two sets, we played badly (might of had something to do with the lack of sleep) but the third one (we woke up) we should have won.  The referees were bias and called us on the silliest things (touching the net when no one touched, two touched on the ball when there was only one, the ball was in when it clearly was out). So that kinda sucked.

My team

After the last game, we went on did touristy stuff in León (just for meee!). There's a central street and León has a pretty famous Cathedral that was pretty (but not as pretty as the one in Sevilla). And after we looked at that we went to a mall and went shopping. :D

My team

What my team is really like <3

Tomorrow at 6:30 pm I leave with my grade to ITALY!! So it's going to be at least two until the next post.



Adios!

Our greatest is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall. -Confucius

It's finals again, this makes me realize a couple of things:

One word: crap! finals again! Where did they came from? And where did the time go?! I only have FOUR months left! Time is going by crazy fast, and it's only going faster.

Two: Classwise, things haven't changed too much... My grades are still really bad. I only have two exams left.. Computers and philosophy (which I'm supposed to be studying right now.. opps). My biology test went horribly despite the fact I put endless hour of studying into it... I get the feeling bio isn't my forte. CMC, went alright, I think I passed. I took the same test as everyone else (my teacher wanted to 'push me' a little harder in the Spanish department) and I was alright with that... but don't blame me for running out of time on the test, writing in Spanish takes a lot of work and they were all 'thinking' questions which doesn't help either. Other than that my exams are same old same old.


Now, what have I been up to this past week?

Last weekend I went to the exchange student that lives in Valladolid house and spent the weekend there. Malte is from Germany and honestly other than the orientations we've barely hung out. But he's pretty cool and his host mom (whose from Argentina)  is probably one of the nicest people I know. We didn't do much, mostly sit around, chilled, and ate a lot of food (apart from the food, it was sometime I really needed).




Tomorrow I have a volleyball game and Friday I leave for Sevilla!!!


I feel like there's something to write about that I'm forgetting... but I not having any luck in remembering it so bye for now!!

-Back to studying philosophy

Carnival and Noelle

Two weekends ago was Carnival, which was a lot of fun. My friends and I dressed up like nerds and the Americans I talked about in the last post went with us.

After going out we all slept over at a friend's house.. there were 13 of us. And then we did the natural thing teenagers everywhere do, pigged out. Pizza, ice cream, cookies, chips, pop, popcorn... it was great :)


The Americans turned out to pretty cool, and they also loved me just for no other reason than that I understood and talked English perfectly.
It was really funny because at first they didn't realize I was from the States too. Then I started to speak flawless English with them. Their faces were priceless.


This weekend Noelle, my friend from Sevilla, came and visited me. It was a lot of fun! :)

Noelle in front of the Castle

On Saturday my family took us a Castle close to Valladolid, in a town called Cuéllar. The Castle did a play to explain how people lived in the castle and stuff. It was aimed more for kids, but nonetheless was really cool and interesting.

Me in the castle

On Sunday we went to look at Roman ruins that are outside of Valladolid. This was really fascinating, the only thing left from the house were the floor, but they were from the 4th century!!

a floor made in the 4th century

After the ruins we went to this park that downscaled all the castles and famous churches in Castilla and Leon (the province I'm living in).

Noelle and I in a mini castle

On Monday I had a chemistry exam (which I failed) then I left school early and me and Noelle went and hung out in Valladolid. We walked a lot. First we went shopping in the center and checked out the park (which has peacockss). Then for lunch we met up with Malte at the mall.

It was a 3.5 km walk, but the weather is amazing! Warm, t-shirt weather! I hope it's here to stay!! On the walk, Noelle were talking in English and these two girls our age came up to us and were like: 'wohoo, you guys talk english! what are you guys doing in Spain?' To which we explained the whole exchange student thing . They were really impressed with our Spanish. They were really nice, after we went our ways me and Noelle just laughed about how only in Spain you could befriend random strangers in the street.

After eating we found out that Malte likes to shop, which worked out perfectly with our plan to shopping in the mall.

After going into almost every store and having numerous 'interesting' conversations we walked back to the center of Valladolid so Malte could buy a pair of Vans (which ended up to be pretty hard to find). And to top it off, there was a two-story carousel in Plaza Mayor that me and Noelle couldn't resist to go on. :)

Tuesday I went back to school and Noelle left.


Next week finals start, wish me luck! I'll be needing it!

Sleeping in Castles: That's what we do in Spain

Toledo

So the AFS orientation was awesome.

It started with Malte (the german exchange student also living in Valladolid) and I taking the train by ourselves to Madrid. In Madrid we were supposed to meet up with an AFS volunteer. Everything went great, until we ended up in a deserted part of the train station, no restaurants or stores and very few people. We were confused... 'This is Madrid right..??' Also only Malte had a phone, but it didn't have any minutes on it. So we couldn't call anyone. After a bit the volunteer called us (Malte could still get calls, just not make them).:

"We are you guys?"
"Outside, close to a Plaza Castilla."
"What!? I'm inside by a BurgerKing."

*Me and Malte* 'Did you see any BurgerKing?' 'Nope.' Hmmmm

"Alright we're going back inside and we'll see if we find you"
 (All of this was in Spanish of course) 


After doing some backtracking we figured out we followed the people to the metro station (which was part of the train station), once we got to the main hall of the train station (which had shops, restaurants, and people) we found Pablo, the AFS volunteer.

After that, we all took the metro to another train station in Madrid.. and thanks to the detour Malte and I took we missed our train to Toledo. But it wasn't that big of a deal because there was another train leaving a little later. Pablo ended up showing us the train station and a little bit of Madrid, so missing the train was good thing.

There's a mini jungle inside the train station in Madrid

In Toledo we met up with the other exchange students and we walked to the where we were staying.. when are got there it was a castle.. talk. about. awesome. I had a great time. I got to meet people who I either met at the Madrid orientation back in September, but didn't talk to much or people who I never knew existed.  (note: exchange student = coolest people you will ever meet) Two people I got really close with was Andrea who's from the Philippines and Maya who's from California, but is living in the Canary Islands (how cool is that?!) .

(left to right): Maya, me, and Andrea

The castle where we stayed at :)

We only went inside of Toledo once, which was disappointing. We did a scavenger hunt in Toledo.. it involved splitting into groups, getting a paper with questions on it, then being sent into Toledo to answer the questions. Basically the only rule (besides not cheating) was that we had to be back at the castle BEFORE 6:00. My group had one determined person in it and it's thanks to her that we got any answers... (I wasn't the determined person). And of course to answer one last question we ended up a bit short of time so we sprinted half of Toledo. (I don't know if you know this, but Toledo is all hills: uphills, downhill, then uphill again... in other words a really good workout) But we made the deadline with 4 minutes to spare.

And to make it all worth it, we won :)

My group after we won

First place got a box full of these pastries with apple filling, a tile magnet (apparently it's something typical of Toledo), and one person in our group got a wooden sword (unanimous choice .. the 'determined' person).

Second and Third place shared a box of another type of pastry.

The of the groups also had a box of pastries to split amongst themselves.

We ended up trading and sharing so more or less everyone got a fair share of pastries. :)


That Sunday when we had to leave came way to soon, it's so easy to relate to the other AFSers. I've always heard that some of the best friends you make when you're an exchange student are the other exchange students and it's so true.  No one else can understand what you go though as well as they can.

Me and fellow AFSers

This time we were all taking the bus to Madrid (expect for me, Malte, and Maya everyone was from the Madrid area). But by the time we got to the bus, there wasn't room for all of us so ended up waiting a half hour for the next one. And because we got in Madrid later, me and Malte (with a volunteer), had to take the metro to the train station. Where we had to sprint (literally sprinting, with an overpacked backpack with all my clothes and stuff for the weekend in it) to get to the train on time. We got on the train at 7:44pm it left at 7:45pm... it was moving before we found out seats, that's how close it was...


It was a fun, exciting weekend, but I was glad to be home again; with my family and my bed and a fridge that my parents insist I help myself to whenever I feel like it. :)


School this week was normal.. I had a biology test on Tuesday, I took the same test as everyone else. I have no clue how I did on it... And two weeks ago or so I had an exam in Philosophy. I'm not going to lie, I didn't even look at my book until the night before the exam... I crammed the whole day and managed a 3.2 on the exam. It's failing. But my teacher was so impressed I actually wrote stuff on the test that was kind of right (normally I make stuff up or just turn it in blank...), he's going to try and help me pass the test. Aka, I'm getting an easier exam. This is a good thing and bad thing... good because I have a chance of pass the class and passing classes is good. Bad because I actually need to try now.. I feel like cramming isn't going to cut it anymore.. :(


On Wednesday, the weather became really nice! So my family went for a walk instead of going to the gym. There's this forest right next to my town and it's really pretty. We got kind of lost and found a swing that someone made in between two trees.

The view of the forest from a really bigl hill and Black

On Friday I went and got my hair cut for the first time. It was kind of terrifying. I only wanted a trim, so of course it turned out okay. Still, the whole time I was l wondering, what if she misunderstands me and cuts a lot of my hair off or thinks that I want bangs or something. But no, she was really nice, and triple check how I wanted my hair cut before actually cutting it. So that went well!

Yesterday my sister and I went out and she taught me how to roller skate. (Having big feet is obnoxious a lot of the time, but it come in handy when I can borrow my dad's roller skates :P ) I'm really bad at it, but getting better. We went again today and I'm improving!


Monday and Tuesday I don't have school thanks to Carnival :) . Monday me and my friends are dressing up as nerds and going out and then later we're all going to sleep at one of their houses. Also some Americans from Boston are going to be staying with some kids from my school for two week for a mini exchange; some kids in my class went to America back in September, so that should be fun (interesting at least)

A really long post for my lack of posting:

Hasta el próximo vez:)   

Quit now, you'll never make it. If you disregard this advice, you'll be halfway there. -David Zucker

I'm officially past the halfway mark. How strange.

Part of me feels like I've been here forever and another part feels like I just got here. I miss everyone at home like crazy, but I can't bear the thought of leaving and I can't believe how fast the time has gone by. It's all very confusing.

I'd like to write of the amazing thing I did the past week, but life has been boring and uneventful. I managed a 6 on that math exam (woohoo!) and Saturday I had a volleyball game and we won (which we normally do, so that's nothing new..)



However the next couple weeks should be more exciting. :)

This weekend I have an AFS orientation, NOT in Valladolid, like originally planned, but in Toledo. (AFS is splitting the Castilla y Leon and Galicia region, which is super upsetting, but at least I get to go to Toledo and see my friends in the Madrid region.)

Next weekend is Carnival! :)   (click here, for those of you who don't know what Carnival is)

And then the following week, Noelle, whose living in Sevilla, is coming up to visit!!



Finally here are some pictures of a couple weeks ago when I went to see the castle in the town where both my grandparents live:

The Castle, it was small and kinda of falling apart, but a castle none the less:)

The Castle had a catapult :)

I climbed on one of the walls of the castle