“Happiness is a complex path that becomes easy only as we walk it.” Andrea Polard

Hello world,
my life is going fabulously! I have two more days of cramming and stressing, and 5 more days until I find out just how badly my finals went.
And then... SUMMER and not losing a single second of my last couple weeks in Spain.

Apart from unreal amounts of studying I've been doing the past couple weeks, I saw 21 Street Jump with Carlota (my new host sister), two more friends from school, Emily and Alex (two American exchange students visiting Valladolid), and Malte.
My host family also taught me how to drink from a 'botijo'.

That's me, drinking from a botijo.

Plans: 

On Monday, the 18th I`m going to Ponferrada with Carlota and her grandma., then from there we are going to Galicia to the PLAYAAAA! (beach) with Carlota's grandama, aunt, cousin (that's only 1.5 months!!!). We're going to be there until that Friday. Then on the Saturday it the festival of San Juan, which will be the last time I'll be able to go out with my friends!!! :( Then four days and I'll be in Madrid at my departure orientation. 

So heads up.. this will more than likely be my last entry in Spain.. I'll try to do one more before I leave, but no promises.

It impossible to describe how fast this year went by, how much I learned, and changed (for the better I hope:P). My friends, I got incredibly lucky with, they were most definitly the making point of this year!!

Once I'm back in the states I'll give a better refection of my year... but until then I have 18 days to make the most out of. 

Lotte,

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit. -Aristotle

Last Monday I finally got to see a bullfight, I went with Malte (the german exchange student) and Jorge (a classmate). I left in the morning on train and spent the whole day Malte and his host mom. In the morning we went to an Arabic market in Valladolid and then after lunch we left to the bullfight which happened to be free! :)

But because it was free it wasn't the greatest, it was still really cool to watch!

Then, when I got home, I had a talk with my host parent; we came to the conclusion that the problems we were having couldN'T be solved and by 12:00 the next day I had all my stuff packed up and was with an AFS volunteer. 

After talking with my friends and them talking with there parents, one of my very good friends (called Carlota) said I could stay were her. So by Wednesday night I was moved into her house. 

THEN on Friday I left for Ponferrada for my last regional AFS orientation. It was a lot of fun, which involved all of us talking until 5:30 in the morning and then getting up at 8:30am... good time:)

but at the same time it was really sad because some of the other exchangers aren't going to the last orientation so we'll probably never see each other again.

And now how's my life going with my new family? Very, very well! :)

Today Carlota and I went for a walk with the dog, Nala, and we found 20 euros in the middle of the road:))) 

adiosss

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” ― Mae West

Alright, it's been a pretty crazy two (three?!) weeks, two weekends ago we didn't have school on Tuesday so I skipped on Monday and me and my family with down to visit my host dad's uncle with lives in Ciudad Real, two hours south of Toledo. My host dad's cousin and her husband and two little kids (who line in Madrid) also came. And it RAINED almost all weekend. We tried to go hiking in this national park that went through a really pretty mountain, but after 15 minutes of walking it started down pouring so we had to turn back.

So, we stayed inside and ate and ate and ate some more, that Monday was my host mom's birthday and the birthday of my cousin's son, so we had churros for breakfast and then later a delicious cake :)


Then the rest of the week I spent studying for a math exam I had last Friday... I think it went pretty well (*knock on wood*). After my math exam I had to begin studying for my biology exam which I took today.

How did my bio exam go? Well... it was multiply choice, but there was 100 questions. My class only had one class period to do it (50 minutes), but (because my teacher are that great) I got a whole extra hour.
We'll see if I passed or not.

Finally I'm done studying for my hardest classes (at least until finals) and now I only need to read a book for Lengua, read a book for CMC, write a report for CMC, do my report for gym, and finish my computer class homework, that's IF prezi (which it a presentation program kinda like powerpoint, but different) ever starts to work again... but you know.. I'll get it done :P


Today is May 8th... I officially have less then 2 months left in Spain, how crazy!! I'm seems so unreal how long I've been here, yet the time went by uber fast. Only 51 days left... I got to enjoy EVERY second of it!

Alright, prezi is working again so byeee.... until next time...

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