Pictures!

I realize that not everyone gets to see my pictures on Facebook, Myspace, Tuenti, etc...so I am dedicating this one to the past few weeks worth of pictures :]

 Little pastry

...More not-so-little pastries

Alejandro and I

Boating in Parque Del Retiro

Simon, Sarah and I at the Palaico Oriente

In an old glass factory

Modern glass art

Glass icicles?

Ana and I in Gran Via

School friends, out to dinner on Halloween

Bowling Field Trip!

Yes, there is paella here

Rainforest in Atocha Train Station

Mariah and I in the Palace gardens of La Gran Ha

Take Two

I moved in with my new host family yesterday!
So far everything is AMAZING.
The parents are Carlos and Lola, two teachers. Carlos teaches special needs, and Lola little kids (not sure how little). They have two children, Laura (18) and Sergio (20). Laura is studying to be a veterinarian, and Sergio something in movies making. Laura is super nice, as is the entire family. They are not shy at all, talk a lot, and are all very warm and friendly people. They live 5 minutes walking distance from my school, and right near the middle of the town and metro. This means I can actually hang out with my school friends, who now are my neighbors :)

This is all I have been able to gather from being here for one day, but the botttom line is that things are already looking a lot better.

I am going to be writing less frequently, as I want to spend less time on the computer. Know that all is well though!

Love, Chloe

Warning: This Post Contains No Useful Information About My Life In the Near Future

There is almost nothing that 6 different kinds of chorizos and cheeses can't fix.
Thank you Spain for understanding that sometimes food is the only real comfort in life.

Unfortunately, there a few things that this country was not designed for;
Being up early-Starbucks, and every coffee place opens at 9. School starts at 8:30
Getting anywhere on time- Train comming at 8 could mean anytime between 7:30 and 9
Boobs-Mariah and I went to 3 different underwear places, they all only carried bras up to B
Exchange students living on a budget- Just look up the euro to dollar conversion now

At the moment, I am living with Mariah and her host family.
I don't even want to talk about what it took to get me here.
I am safe, with all of my stuff, and for one week I know what my life contains. After this week, I am going somewhere.

I would like to take a moment to thank AFS, for deciding it was a good idea for me to continue going to the school I have been going to this entire time, despite my recent housing change.
It now takes me nearly 2 hours and 3 different methods of transportation to get to school every morning, where I then collapse and sleep through all of my classes. Who doesn't love getting up at 6 am?

I'm going to go eat more Spanish food now, and remind myself that even though things probably can't get any worse, I still have Mariah, and her amazingly stocked kitchen.

Love,
Chloe

Homeless In Spain

I am sorry that I have been dead to the world for the past week or two, I have been trying to clean up a Pandora's box of utter chaos.
The ultimate point of this post is that I am switching host families.
I will start by addressing the frequently asked questions;

Q. IS AFS officially moving you to another family?
A. Yes

Q. Are you getting sent back to the USA?
A. No.

Q. Are you living on the streets?
A. No, I am still with my host family until they can find me a temporary one, then a permanent one.

Q. Are you a horrible problem child, and they are kicking you out?
A. No I am not. Yes, they did ask me to leave, but it was a mutual decision.

Q. Where are you going?
A. You tell me, do you know any families who want a host student?

Q. Do you want to live on my sofa?
A. I appreciate the offer, but I think the program I paid $10,000 to had better find me a family before it comes to that.

Now, I am going to try to explain the sequence of events that led up to me moving families in the most fair and unbaised way possible...even though the entire story is actually about misunderstandings, feeling getting hurt, "broken telephones," language barriers, and personal opinions on what a host family/student should be.

Since I have arrived here, I was warned that my host siblings and father are shy.
Saying that my host family is shy is like saying that a dead person is only slightly handicapped.

I would walk into a room where my host siblings were talking, and they would stop talking for the entire duration of me being in the room. If I asked them a question, I would get a one-word answer,or a blank stare. I really really liked my host mom, but unfortunately, she worked a lot and was hardly ever home.
There were other things I found frustrating, such as that they never took me anywhere, except to visit their family occasionally. I have been here for almost 3 months, and everything I have done or seen, I saw with Mariah or her host family.

A couple of weeks ago I emailed my laison asking for help, but I got no reply. As usual with huge, worldwide, beaurocratic, programs, you don't hear from anyone until things get hugely disasterous ,and out of hand.

Since I do not want this to turn into me ranting about what I was unhappy about, I will just skip straight to last weekend.

On Friday, I was supposed to spend the night at Mariah's house. We went into the city together to meet with some friends, but shortly after we got there, Mariah decided she was going to go home because she was not feeling well, and was very tired. The plan was that I would take the metro and train back to her house later that night, but when it came time for me to go, my friends and I agreed that it was not the safest idea for a 16 yr old girl to take the metro and train alone at night in one of the biggest cities in the world. Instead, I stayed with one of my friends in the city. It was pretty late, so I made the mistake of not calling my host family and telling them the change in plans. I completely understand that they are responsible for me, and I should have called them. Please, no lectures.

They have never taken an interest in what I was doing, so I figured that if I was safe, and came back the next day (like I said I would) it shouldn't be a problem. I was wrong, and my host mom happened to talk to Mariah's mom, discovering I had infact not spent the night with her, and was very upset.

The next day, my host mom asked me where I had been on Friday night. I told her the truth, and tried to explain the situation, but she was very angry, and did not want to talk about it. She called AFS asking for advice on what to do, and my laison told her I had sent him an email saying I was unhappy before.
After hearing that, she decided to tell them to find me a new family. She informed me on Monday that I should call my laison, and schedule a meeting with him to find myself a family.

On Tuesday, I had a 3 and 1/2 hour meeting with the boss of AFS Madrid, and my laison. For a couple of hours, the boss tried to convince me that all families are different, and that does not mean they are "bad." I continued to explain that being ignored is not what I came to Spain for. She eventually got the picture, and agreed a change was necessary.

Right now, changing families is EXTREMELY difficult for multiple reasons;

1. I know of 8 students who are currently changing families
2. In AFS, the families are unpaid volunteers
3. Spain is very family-oriented, as in "this is my family, why would I take in anyone else?"
4. Even when they do find families, they need to be interviewed, and subjected to endless paperwork.
5. In Spain, there arew 3 different kinds of schools, public, private, and semi-private(half government funded, and half tuition). Because of this, any family that has money sends their children to semi-private, or private schools. Since all of the exchange students on AFS go to public schools, most of the families in the school are not in the position to take in another person.

I know fully well that changing families means you take whatever they give you, which could mean moving ANYWHERE (in Spain of course). However, my program does tell us we are more than welcome to look for our own families. All that we can do is give their phone numbers to one of the laisons, and they make all the decisions from there. I really like my friends here, and although my town is obnoxiously small, I have become very close with the people near me.

My friends at my school and I decided to atleast make an attempt to find me a family here so I don't have to start at a new school all over again.
Suprisingly, putting up one tiny sign in the school hallway can actually have an effect. 3 Families in my school offered to help, and over 30 people emailed me asking for information.
The headmistress got involved, and found me families in the surrounding schools as well.

I have a meeting tonight with the boss of the Madrid AFS and my laison. I have no idea what they are going to tell me. Once I know what is going on, I will let you all know. For now, you know as much as I do.

Love
Chloe

Boats and Clothes

Let it be known that this is the first Halloween I have not dressed up for. I am still emotionally recovering. 

Although Halloween is wholly unpopular here, my host sister decided that she wanted to decorate the house this year. Cristina went out a bought a bunch of fake spider webs, chains of spiders, ghosts, and witches, as well as candles, and a cardboard skeleton. On Thursday, Cristinita and I dug through their old costumes, and she decided she wanted to be a vampire princess, so I painted her nails black, and straightened her hair. The majority of people don´t dress up here, and the ones who do usually make their own costumes, or just wear parts of them. Also, people mainly dress up as scary things, like devils, witches, zombies, etc., as opposed to in the US where it is a free-for-all, whatever you want to be, fest. 

As usual, none of my plans ever stay on track.

This weekend, Mariah and I decided to actually accomplish all of the things we have been saying we would since we arrived here. Every weekend, we plan too much, and everything falls to pieces. This weekend, we would drop everything, we would under-plan! Finally, things would go our way.

The first thing we both needed to do was buy clothing. We were only allowed to bring one 44lb suitcase with us, and it has been getting colder recently. On Friday, we did some shopping, then got KFC to go, and ate it in our favorite spot, the floor in the center of plaza Mayor. On a Friday night, there are hundreds of people there, and always something interesting to watch. This time, we saw some street performers dressed in shiny tinsel and antlers, a flamenco dancer, and a french couple get into a huge fight. In the center of Sol (one of the busiest parts of Madrid) we also saw a mariachi band...and AFS thought they could get away with telling us we´re not in Mexico!

On Saturday, we had planned to continue our shopping...that is, until the Caja Madrid ATM ate Mariah´s card, and I realized I had no money in my account. Mariah and I spent over an hour pressing buttoms trying to get her debit card out of the stupid ATM, and we eventually got tired of being glared at by people in line, and lisetening to entirely useless advice by a bunch of people who seem to have enough technical skills to be confused operating a calculator.

We ended up having an amazing day being broke! There is a beautiful park in Madrid called El Parque Del Retiro. It is similar to Central Park in NY, but in my opinion pretter. Mariah and I had talked about going there before, and this seemed like a good time. All the trees in the park were beautiful fall colors, and for a California girl, that is extremely exciting (palm trees don´t change colors). We walked around the park, and eventually found a lake with tons of people rowing boats! We rented one for an hour, and took turns rowing and sunbathing.

Who said you need a costume to be woodland Fairies?

Lago en Parque Del Retiro

Fun Fact: Instead of having rats on the train tracks, Madrid has kittens. Lots, and lots, of kittens...Especially in the station of Principe Pio. I must admit, they are much cuter than rats.

I bunch of my friends from school decided that they wanted to come into the city for Halloween. I met them in Callou, which is the Madrid equivalent of Times Square. My close friends came, as well as some who I don´t know as well. The ones who don't know me were all shocked that I came into the city by myself and didn't end up in Portugal. All I could do was smile, and remind them that I'm not 2 and the metro system is color coded. I was really glad I had a chance to hang out with them outside of school, and be with just Spanish people. As much as Mariah adn I love hanging out, we realize it is not the best way to integrate into the culture. We talked, and walked around the city attempting to find a not-packed resturaunt. Alejandro and Ana went into several trying to get a table. At one point, after another lady told us that they were too full, Alejandro blurted out "We are 16 people!" Her response was "OH! What time is good for you?"
Money conquers all.

Also, my friend Juanpa is mad tht I haven´t mentioned him in the blog yet, while I have introdyced you all to Ana, Alaejandro, and some of the others. Let it be known, Juanpa, my friend, and partner in Tecnologia is the guy in the purple jacket and yellow shirt. He is kinda cool.

As a side note, I did get my nose pierced on the left side. It was the smallest one they had.

Also, for future reference, I usually have the most news and time to update my blog on Sundays or Mondays.

Love,

Chloe

Traditions; Yours, Mine, and Ours

One morning, I woke up and found myself in a country without my favorite holiday...Halloween.
Forget ghost stories, now THAT is scary!

This past Saturday, AFS had a booth at a fair in Madrid for different youth organizations. All of the exchange students in my Madrid chapter were required to work together with the students of their home countries, and put together a poster and typical meal from their place. The objective was for all of us to share our culture while experiencing this new one. Comming here, you're reminded that not only are you learning something new, but your host family, and everyone around you is gaining something from you, and your culture, as well.

 The only students from the US in my chapter are Mariah, Simon, and I. It was quickly decided that Mariah and I would get together and do everything because Simon lives in a far away mountain village. Being the well organized people that we are, Mariah and I planned everything out really well and efficiently. Except for us that means we threw everything together the day of. I made the poster, Mariah the macaroni, and we took turns showering while screaming Spanish translations of basic US facts downstairs to eachother.

We eventually made it to the fair, all after getting lost and carrying around a huge pan of baked macaroni and a poster. The fair itself was pretty cool, there was pretty good live music, which was mostly reggae and and tribal-ish drums. Note: AFS students love to dance, play limbo, and eat macaroni with their hands. Some of us went out afterwards, then as usual, I spent the weekend at Mariah's house.

Leave it to Mariah and I to be the one's still celebrating our own holidays while living in Spain. On Sunday, we both carved a small pumpkin that Mariah had bought a few days before. She had to hide it in her room to be sure that her host parents wouldn't turn it into soup. Vegetable cream soup is one of the most common meals here, and can be made from almost anything. We also plan on getting out host families together and making them Thanksgiving dinner. Some may call us ambitious, we call it hungry.

Happy Halloween!

Love, Chloe and Mariah

As anticipated, I am failing every class in school. That is, every class except for educacion fisica (PE). As I mentioned before, PE in Spain is scarily similar to what I imagine boot camp would be like. So, of course, instead of running the one mile like most schools, we run two! All you track and cross country people, stop scoffing, it doesn't come as easily for most of us. However, I did finish first out of all the girls in my class! Except that today a girl who was sick and needed to re-do it beat my time, but that's ok. Unfortunately, I can't even transfer my PE credit here back to the US because I already fulfilled all of them. Ironically, I completed my PE credit early  last year because I dropped out of Spanish 2, which was probably not a good decision on my part given the current circumstances.

Yesterday, Monday, was my host brother's 14th birthday. We all ate dinner together, which was nice because that is not very common here. In my host family, usually just the kids eat together, and the parents eat later. I finally learned how to sing "Happy Birthday" in Spanish! It is actually almost simpler than in English, if that's even possible considering it is only a 3 word phrase sung over and over with a "Dear ___" thrown in.

Afterwards, I was getting ready to go to bed when my host dad called us downstairs. There is a show called Madrileños X el Mundo. A Madrileño is some one who is from Madrid, and the show is about Madrileños who have moved around the world. This partiular episode was all about people in....San Diego! It was so cool because they followed the featured people around all of these places that have been my home for my entire life (The SD Zoo, Balboa Park, Coronado, Old Town, etc.) and it was a great way to share it with my host family.

Love,
Chloe

Chloe's First Winter!

It has started getting REALLY cold here...but let us keep in mind that this is "really cold" in California standards, which means that anything under 60 degrees is scary. It never really occured to me that I will be spending a full cold season here! I have never been in winter for more than 2 weeks. This should be funny.

Spain really is not that different from the U.S. For one, girls still avoid those big puffy winter coats at all costs, and will come to school wearing a couple long-sleeved shirts, tights, and pretend not to be freezing. Needless to say, I have been doing the same thing, but that's because I actually don't have any warm clothes! One suitcase of clothing doesn't really cut it when the country has 4 seasons.

Rocking my host brother's puffy jacket

This past weekend I went to a youth hostel in Segovia for an AFS camp. It was a lot of fun seeing all the students in the general Madrid area, even though I see some of them pretty often. Segovia is a BEAUTIFUL mountain town with lotof old buildings and a nice village feel. Almost all of Saturday was taken up by activities covering the usual stuff; culture, communication, be nice to your host families, don't do drugs, etc. We were outside most of the time, and since we were in the mountains the air was super cold, but the Spanish sun was REALLY hot. Our solution was to keep moving the chairs and benches into the sun once shadow had passed over where we were. Afterwards, We managed to find a small bar to sip hot chocolate in.

The feeling of spending time with a group of kids from all different countries is impossible to describe. When questions stop being "what is your school like" and become "I've never heard Flemish before, what does it sound like?" conversations are much more interesting. I never thought the world could be so different! A HUGE part of this experience has been becomming friends with people from so many other countries, and that is something I never even expected when comming here.

On Sunday I went back to Madrid with Mariah and Fiona (a girl from France). I spent the rest of the day relaxing, and talking with one of the neighbor girls. My Spanish is deffinitly improving in leaps and bounds, but sometimes I have those days where everything just comes out all wrong. I think that probably happens to most people living in foreign countries. I learned a new tactic of getting attention though! Today between classes, my group of friends were all speaking very quickly about something apparently really important and quickly walking somewhere. I kept asking over and over in Spanish what had happened, but either they didn't here me, or they were really engaged in what was going on, but no one was answering. Finally, frustrated, in English I yelled out "Ok can someone PLEASE tell me what is going on because I can't understand any of you right now!" They all stopped, turned around, and asked "Que?" When asking in a way they understand doesn't work, try something they don't understand. People are curious, and what they don't know is more interesting. than what they do.

Today my cell phone and Ipod were stolen out of my backpack sometime between my first and third class at school. I'm pretty upset, but my host family and friends and helping me out, and we will figure out something. Who steals from the shy new kid who worked really hard to come learn about your culture?! Thanks to whoever stole my stuff for teaching me a lesson about Spanish culture.

Love,

Chloe

Don't Panic!

Every single night after dinner, Cristinita asks if we have these little cups of chocolate mousse. This is slightly a ridiculous question because we NEVER have them, EVER! So today, Cristina finally went out and bought a few. After dinner, Antonio grabbed one for himself and one for Cristinita, who in turn, looked at it for a minute, then proceeded to say that she didn't feel like eating one anymore. I then snorted water out my nose laughing.

The two of us, Cristinita and I, have been given a unique bonding opportunity. Seeing as we now both have Grip A (Swine Flu), we get to stay home all day, everyday, with eachother. This would be great if we weren't both sleeping all afternoon! Everyone needs to stop worrying! I am living with a pediatrician! Infact, I am getting better medical attention here than I would be getting at home, and I am feeling better every day. No one needs to fly out here! Have you looked at ticket prices to Spain these days?!...However, if you want to mail me soup, crackers, or whatever sick people like, I won't complain.

Love,
Chloe

A Weekend in A Coruña

I am sorry I have not updated this blog as often as I should, but I would like to point out that my weekdays are just as boring, predictable, and monotonous as everyone else's.

This weekend, I went with my host family to A Coruña, a city in north-eastern corner of Galicia. I had no idea what to expect; what it looked like, where we were staying (or with whom), what we would do there, etc.

We arrived at around 2 am because what should have been a 4 hr drive turned into 7. Murphy's law really stuck it to us this time. First, we were stuck in traffic for 2 hours because a car, to put it simply, EXPLODED on the freeway. Once we made it out of the traffic, we heard a large bang/pop/boom...which turned out to be what a popping tire sounds like. Our tire, to be more specific.
The sunset was pretty at the time though!

Eventually we did make it to A Coruña, however, things just kept getting weirder and crazier from there!

The entire weekend was something out of a crack-fairytale that I would probably write. I woke up to find myself on the 5th floor of an 102 yr old house, located in the middle of the city, but a block away from the beach. What everyone failed to tell me was that apparently Demetrio's family was not short on cash. His Great-grandfather built the house, which is 5 stories, and years later connected it to the house next-door as well. Demetrio's entire family was born, lived, and in many cases, died, in that house. Now however, his family rents out all but the 3rd and 5th floors. The house itself is all worn hard-wood floors, incredibly high ceilings, long hallways, and and huge shuttered windows without screens.

The view out of my window

My favorite inanimate objects are doors. I have always found them intriguing, as do the rest of the human population with any sense of curiosity. The hallways in the house looked like something out of those Scooby-Doo scenes, where everyone is running into doors, and comming out of ones on the opposite side. Despite its initial small appearance, I found myself lost multiple times. Twice, I could not even find the front door! However, I did find a room with a toilet, and a porcelelain bust on top of it.

Its not about where you are, but who you're with. In this case, who I was with and where I was fit perfectly hand-in-hand. The only people still living in the house are two of Demetrio's siblings, Maria and Tonita, as well as his aunt, Carmina, a woman named Lola, the maid Jaqueline, and her daughter Cintia.

Maria is a sweet, VERY talkative woman, who has spent her entire life in the house taking care of various family members. No matter how many times I mentioned where I lived in the US, the only places that seemed to register were Canada or New York. Talking to her was great, I understood her very well. In 3 days, I never saw her wearing anything other than a blue robe and slippers.

Tonito is Demetrio's older, mentally challenged, brother, who is also a sweetheart. He collects postcards and puzzles, and explained to me who the people in all the pictures were.

I was slightly shocked when I first met Carmina. She is 84, but could easily pass as 100, and appears as if she jumped straight out of one of the many 19th century pictures that lined the walls of the hallways.  She immediatly took a liking to me, and everytime she saw me, she commented on how beautiful she thought my eyes were. She then took my hand, and showed me around the house. From what I could tell, she is a little bit on the batty side, but in the nicest of ways.

While giving me another tour of the house, Maria asked if I had met Lola yet. I told her I had not. She proceeded to recount to me how her mother had had many children, and hired Lola to help raise them. She said that Lola had always been "mom" to her, and now it was Maria's turn to take care of her. I was a little thrown back when I first entered the room, and my initial thought was that Lola was dead. However, the 94 yr old is still alive, but unable to move or speak. Maria stroked her face with unbridled affection, while Lola simply gazed at me through unblinking eyes. She may have been a stone-toss away from the white light, but mentally, she's there, and her eyes said everything she couldn't.

We all ate lunch together everyday (which is the main meal here) and then went off to do our own things. I had been feeling pretty sick, but I decided to go for a walk on the beach. I was suprised and how mild the weather was, I was fully prepared for it to be freezing. The beach was different from the one's I am used to in California. The grains of sand are almost big enough to be pebbles, and walking in it was like walking through snow; Your feet sink in really deep leaving perfect footprints. I found tons of beautiful stones, as well as three blind dead jellyfish (its a camp-song reference).

For the next few days, I slept a lot because I started to feel really sick. I woke up one afternoon after a nap and found Cristina waiting with hot chocolate and churros for me. She is so amazing! Hot chocolate here is not a drink, it is literally a small teacup of melted chocolate, in which you dip your churros, then eat with a spoon.

Hot Chocolate

On both Saturday and Sunday night we went out to dinner with family friends. Galicia is known for its seafood, mainly octopus and squid. It was all delicious! I learned that waffles in Spanish are "gofres." If you ever want a really funny situation, try to explain to people in Spain how to prounounce the word "waffles." We settled on "Wah-fel-ehys."
Continuing with the theme of explosion and bad luck, the last night I went to go brush my teeth, anda pipe burst and started flooding the bathroom. I ran to my host parent's room and banged on the door frantically. While Demetrio went to go see what I was pointing at the bathroom and freaking out about, Cristina tried to calm me down saying there was nothing wrong. All I could say was "SI! HAY UNA PROBLEMA!"

Bottom line; My host family thinks I am a curse.

Did I mention that this is the second time I have been in a Eurpoean city while it was anounced that the Olympics would NOT be held there? Paris in 2005, and now Madrid.

However, during the trip back to Madrid, I managed to elevate myself to "God" status in the eyes of Cristinita because I know how to make a goblin face out of my hands, and have commited to memory the process of making an oragami paper crane. The downside to this was that for the remainder of the trip, I was forced to turn every scrap of paper available in the car into a paper crane.

As of now, I am incredibly sick. Despite the fever, hallucinations, dizzyness, full-body pain, and non-stop sleeping, the worste symptom by far is that I can't taste anything. I love food too much for this.

Love,
Chloe

Mission Nocturno

The longer I am here, the more I am starting to like it. The weekdays are still unbearably boring, but the weekends are making up for it.

Now that I understand the public transit system, the possibilities are endless.On Saturday night, Mariah and I took on the greatest challeng that the public transport system of Madrid has to offer; Nocturno Bus.
It is a super complicated mess of busses which only run on Friday and Saturday night to get the party people home. The charts condradict themselves, and are made to confound even the most sober person. As a personal test, Mariah and I got on the train from her house at 9:30 into the city, knowing fully well there was no way we were going to catch the last train home at 11:30.

Mariah found an ourtdoor churro cafe straight out of everyones' Spanish dreams. It was conveniantly hidden on a tiny, cobblestone, side-street, with soft glowing lights and a feeling that makes you want to start singing in Italian...except we're in Spain.

Since we had no pre-arranged plans, we decided to just walk around Madrid and enjoy the nightlife. We passed the giant Tio Pepe, and spent an hour or so sitting on the ground in Plaza Mayor listening to possibly hundreds of Spaniards singing one of the commonly known drinking songs. I think it may have been an engagement party, because one of the guys started stripping on the table, and from what I have heard, the engagement parties here go something like that.

We eventually planned to take the Nocturno bus from Montcloa (another part of the city, which is also botellon central) at 12:45 am.

Word of the Day:

Botellon [bow-tay-own] Noun/Verb- 1. A drinking party in the street or park. 2. The act of drinking in the street or park.

However, everything is in 24 hour time here, and we confused 0:45 for 1:45, and read the wrong chart for the wrong bus. After many more mistakes, we missed our correct bus. Lucky for us, there was another one...at 2:45. It was fine though, we walked around the city, watched someone drunkenly crash into a parked car, saw 2 guys dancing in the middle of the street, and listened to a couple girls throw up. I love Madrid!

We did eventually make it home around 4am, happy, and proud that we have found our way back all by ourselves. Oh, and did I mention that neither Mariah nor I had any money on our phones? So we had no way of contacting anyone if we actually did need help, and that did put a little bit of pressure on us to figure things out. We did though, and it was good.

Love,

Chloe

Feeling Hot...In A Fever Way

This week was really eventful!
I started hip-hop classes, hung out with friends at school, and continued to explore Boadilla Del Monte.

Scratch that, that was what was supposed to happen this week. Instead, I got sick, and have been home since Tuesday. The most interesting thing that has happened to me so far since last Saturday is that after 10 hours of sleep at night, I managed to take an 8 hour nap. Being home gave me time to do some reading, practice Spanish, and hone my movie-pirating skills.Yay for being sick!

On the bright side, I am feeling better and will hopefully go back to school tommorow, where I will have my first Danza (bellydancing) lesson in Spain.

Also, after it became apparent that the "sink or swim" method is not the very best way to learn a foreign language, Cristina and I decided it would be a good idea if she spent an hour every day tutoring me in Spanish grammar and such. What luck, having a teacher as a host mom!
Fact of the Day: Swine Flu in Spain is called Grip A (pronounced greepah), and it is talked about, jokingly and seriously, in Spain, just as much as it is the U.S.

Another related fact, instead of reading anagrams as the actual letters, they are pronounced like words here. No one knew what I meant by YMCA, until someone pronounced it "yimkah."

I also finally have the pictures from the Baptism;

Happy Host Family

Infront of the Palacio de Oriente

I don't think our priest was old enough...

93, still a youngster.

Breaking News!
Literally 10 seconds ago Alejandro called me to see if I was feeling better, but then he also told me that the psycho Greek teacher ditched the school! Out of nowhere, he just left. I'm not sure whether to overjoyed or scared that we might get a real Greek teacher who makes us do stuff.

Love,
Chloe

Chloe and Mariah Are American

Once again, weekends with friends means speaking english, and taking 3 steps back in the "learning spanish" department.

On Friday, AFS hosted a kin ball game as a reunion type thing for the exchange students living in the Madrid area. I had never heard of kinball before, and to be completely honest, I thought it was another dumb AFS made-up game, that is until we got there and met two people from the National Kin Ball Association. The first thing we all noticed were the actually kin balls. They are a little bit difficult to miss.

                                           Mariah and I with a kinball

The game was covered by two Spanish news stations. I figured it would take me more than 3 weeks to end up on Spanish TV, I guess not! I have never really enjoyed playing sports, but this one was slightly more interesting than your average team game. However, I still got bored after about 10 minutes but that's just me. For an easy to understand outline of kin ball, check out this site;

www.mpeta.ca/documents/SAG/SAG%20Handouts%202006/KIN-BALL.pdf

After the game, Mariah and I set out back to her house, which only required us to take a bus, the metro, and a train. On the way, we decided that we were really hungry and needed to eat something. Somehow, we managed to find the Spain version of 31 Flavors called 31 Cheeses, which was still an ice cream shop infact. While walking through the train station, we saw a KFC and could not resist. Apparently, KFC's in Spain don't have mashed potatoes, macaroni, or cole slaw...However, they DO have chicken! We made the commute home at around midnight, eating a huge bucket of KFC chicken the entire way.

Could we have looked any more ridiculous? No.

"Ok, so maybe we miss our train...but this chicken was definitly the right idea."

We now interrupt this Spain trip for a moment of twangy American accents and fried chicken.

Yes, we did eat all of it

I spent Friday night at Mariah's house, and of course, we stayed up late talking about everything we were going through, what we miss, what is hard to get used to, and how much we hate school here. Here's our list of complaints;

The refrigerators are never cold

They only have powdered milk

EVERYTHING is fried

Where are the vegetables? Fried and cooked in an empanada don't count

No cupcakes

No clothes dryers

Busses don't stop unless you flag them down

Everything is really expensive

ICE! It is only frozen water, why hasn't Europe discovered it yet?

Doors are crazy difficult to unlock

People get mad when you use paper bills instead of coins

All the bathroom light switches are OUTSIDE the bathroom

On the bright side (no pun intended) we do approve of the light switches themselves. They are huge, and are made for people without fingers, or those who just like to punch the lights on and off.

Still in "American-mode," Mariah and I put together a shopping list and walked to the supermarket. Both of us had been missing fresh vegetables, so we picked up broccoli and coliflower, as well as cheese, cheetos, 2 kinds of cookies, ice cream bars, and chorizo. Only in Spain would they sell, not one, but TWO kinds of ham-flavored chips.

The "carts" are pulled like little dogs!

When we got back to Mariah's house, we steamed the broccoli and coliflower, and ate it will melted cheese. It was delicious! Of course, we had to eat it along with the cheetos, cookies, chorizo, and ice cream. So much for healthy.

Mariah's Backyard

Neither of us ever thought we would miss the U.S., but we were both surpised at how much we actually do. For a night and day, we were able to create out own, little, American haven, complete with a bunch of Spanish-brand snacks.

I took the train back to my house SAturday afternoon, then got ready to go to my host-cousin's baptism. The ceremony was held in a beautiful "new "cathedral in the city of Madrid, "new" being debatable considering it is a little over a hundred years old.

The Baptism itself was hilarious. As my host mom said, "This is not typical Spanish! This is a disaster!" The priest was 92 years old, the godmother arrived 15 minutes late (after the mass already started), tourists kept walking through the ceremony taking pictures of the cathedral, and the cathedral was booked for a wedding to start 20 minutes after our mass started. Throw in 4 crying babies, and you have the most entertaining religious ceremony I have ever attended. Needless to say, most everyone was lighted-hearted about the absurd situation...well, atleast I found it hilarious.

The after-party was held in one of the most famous cafe's in Madrid, directly accross from the Palacio de Oriente. The floor was clear glass, revealing the real excavated finds of an ancient city, which I thought was pretty cool.

As usual, the food was great, people were nice, and despite the "no smoking" warnings, atleast a third of the people had their cigarettes lit. After an hour or so, I decided to go for a walk, considering I didn't really know anyone at the party, and it was conveniantly located in the center of Madrid. I took my time and enjoyed walking up and down the streets filled with people, shops and cafes. A tourist came up to me and asked if I could take a picture of him infront of a fountain, which I did, but I also pretended I didn't speak english, and that I have always lived in Spain. Bwahaha! I am 99.9% sure that I fooled him.

Love,

Chloe

Up's and Down's

I officially have a routine. One that involves all the strenous activities of normal life (school, studying, chores, etc) in addition to a huge helping of "yo no intiendio."

For the most part, I no longer have something to write about everyday because the weekdays are all pretty much the same. Get up, go to school, take the metro/bus home, eat, sleep, repeat. I think this is one of the most difficult times for most of us exchange students; falling into a routine that is similar to the one at home inluding friends, family, school...but no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves, the bottom line is that it is not OUR family, OUR friends, OUR school, or OUR language. It sounds cynical, but I still think that it is an adventure worth having (I hope?). It's easy to feel like an imposter in this new life, and it just doesn't feel like it's MINE. Hopefully it will become mine eventually.

On the bright side, Cristinita gave me this adorable stuffed animal giraffe today, totaly out of the blue. It ws the cutest thing ever and it made me really happy. How did she know I love giraffes? I named her Maha, which means nice, or friendly in Castellano.

People at school are nice,and the classes are more boring than anything I have ever experienced before in my life. I'm sure they would be more interesting if I understood more than 15-20% of what the teacher was saying. Here is a complete set of Pros and Cons concerning my new school:

Pros:                                           

No homework                               

Fantastic food                                

No uniforms                                

Learning Spanish                         

Starts at 8:30 (at home 8:05)       

No math class                                

Cons:

Everything is in Spanish

PE, actually intense

I know like 10 ppl

No lunch-time

Ends at 3:10 (at home 2:05)

Latin & greek classes

I went from a valuable member of the class to the "little class pet." Everytime I say anything everyone giggles/laughs, and goes "Awww!" or "Que mono!" (meaning "how cute!"). Atleast they like me! It could be worse, they could be making fun of me.

I have never stepped foot in a latin or greek class in my life, and learning them in castellano is not easy by any means. Lucky for me, Greek is not a really a "real" class. The teacher, a sweet old man, is only semi-sane, to say the least. He runs around the class with excited wide eyes, having outbursts of  what can only be described as enthusistic yelling. This afternoon, he asked me if I understood what he was talking about, I amitted that I didn't, he then leapt into the air excitedly and joyfully screaming "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAA!!!!" I hid under my folder while the rest of the class (a whole 5 other students, all new friends of mine) burst into laughter. It is my favorite class so far just because even though I don't know what the teacher is saying, I can tell it's hilarious.

You may be confused by the "fantastic food, but no lunch-time" thing, let me explain. In Spain, lunch is eaten around 2-3pm and is the main meal of the day. In some schools it is mandatory to eat there after classes are all done, but it is optional at my school. At first I thought "School food, ew! I'll just go home," but then Alejandro invited me to eat with him at school for a day. It is NOTHING like school cafeterias, and cannot be considered school food in anything but in name. The "cafeteria' is a small, quiant, room with table settings (place mats, silverware, napkins) all set out for each student who signs up to eat everyday. All of the food is homemade by a super nice older lady, Maria. The meal is served in courses; a soup or salad first, bread, then a main course, and dessert. Needless to say, I eat at school everyday. I'm always the first one home (because I get out of school earlier than my siblings, and take the metro and bus home) so it is much nicer eating with Alejandro, than eating cereal alone at my house.

Bad news never had good timing. Yesterday I found out a friend from school (at home in CA) died unexpectedly from what was thought to be the swine flu, but now medics aren't sure. It is always the sweetheart who everyone knows and loves. 15 is too young.

You always drew beautiful wings, now you have a pair of your own. R.I.P. Geraldine <3

Love,
Chloe