When you reduce life to black and white, you never see rainbows. -Rachel Houston

      "It's not good or bad, it's just different." is a phrase AFS told us before we left. So instead of talking about school and life like normal (which I'm sure you're getting bored of and it hasn't changed much since last week)  I'm going to discuss the 'differences' of Spain and America.


Weather:
In the last post or so, I mentioned how colllddd it was here. In reality Michigan is around the 10ºF colder. I shouldn't be complaining. But nonetheless, no matter how cold it is in Michigan... I'm still cold here hahah.

Also I think I've mentioned it before, but I'll say it again because it's kind of a bummer. It doesn't snow a lot here, according to my friends and family, a light dusting is the norm.


Holidays:
Christmas is celebrated, but not Santa Claus and not and the 25th of December. In Spain they celebrate 'Reyes Magos" or the Three Wise Men on January 6th. (I'll write more about this later, closer to the date.)


Food:
Meat- there is so much meat in Spain, so many types and they are delicious! I quote the guys running our gateway orientation, "They do things with meat that you didn't even know was possible." I would be more descriptive in describing them, but honestly I don't even know what I'm eating half of the time...

Candy- So in Spain they have these wonderful sections in a lot of shops that just have rows candy and you take a baggie, put what every candy you want in it, and pay for whatever candy you picked out (normally it's around 1 euro)

I found this picture on the internet, but this is more or less what they have... (There's a store within walking distance from my house and they have this at my school's cafe).

Bread- Except for breakfast, we have a slice of bread with EVERY meal. yuummm, bread <3

Dessert- It also normal have an ice cream or yogurt everyday with lunch.

--in short Spain is bad for the stomach...


Homework (studying):
Do I talk about this already too? Oh well.
Homework is almost nonexistent, sounds nice doesn't it? Well it makes it hard to know what to study for.. Which is something you're supposed to do everyday. Study.Study.Study. It's what's Spain all about. Oh and any homework that's assigned normally isn't checked.


Exams:
Exams are a huge deal. Your whole grade rides on 2 or 3 exam grades.
During exams: No talking. You're desk is cleaned out and all you're stuff is put on this self thing in the back of the classroom. Only a pen, pencil, easer, and in some cases white out. Your pencil bag is put with your books in the back of the class too. And it's normally on 6 questions.



CLothes:
You always wear shoes or slippers in the house. Going barefoot is not acceptable.

In PE no one wears shorts, everyone wears long jogging pants.

We have 'house clothes', which simply means we wear sweats in the house, when nothing is going on.


Volleyball:
Clothes: Some people wear leggings to practice, and there's even a girl that wear school clothes to practice.. We can practice wearing earrings, necklaces, and bracelets. (We can even wear them in games).

Games: Every Saturday we play best out of 5 against another team. (My first game was last week, we killed the other team!! :) )

Teams: At the last game, there were only six people there from my team, I think this is normally... Also in the younger teams there are boys that play... not something you see in Marlette....


Smoking:
So mannny people smoke in Spain. And so many 'younger' people smoke. I pretty sure around half the people in my grade smoke...  AND it's socially acceptable. it's was something that really caught me off guard.


School Buses:
There are school buses, but don't go thinking about yellow buses that are in America. Nope if have to ride the bus you ride in a coach bus or take a normal city buses (there's a bus stop right outside of the school)

Also for field trips (we went to the museum in Valladolid today) the school doesn't provide a bus. We take a city bus.


House/Roads:
ALL house have a fence around it with a gate that open only by using a remote, key, or pressing a button to 'call' the inside of the house, where you can press another button which opens the door.

There is no roadkill here. none. I haven't seen a single dead animal on the road since coming. Also people don't need to worry about deer running out on the road (though my host mom told in the South they sometimes have that problem with horses..) Also roads curvy and confusing and rarely go where you think they're going to.




I hope you're all enjoying my blog and if there's anything you'd me to write about comment or e-mail.
Chao.