Update! (Language, Rotary, and General happenings)

So I know I haven't updated this in a while, sorry! I'll try to start updating more than once a month, it's a lot more fun than trying to do the giant Spanish packet they gave me for school. A lot has happened since the last update, I've been to France, San Sebastián, a cemetery, and a bunch of pueblos (towns/villages).

 Last week we got school off for Halloween (which is kind of, but not really, celebrated here) and Día de Todos Los Santos which was when we went to the cemetery. It's traditional to go to the cemeteries and put flowers on the graves, it was interesting but it was pretty depressing too. Afterwards we went to a castle but it was closed so we just walked around the tiny town for a while.

I've done a lot more but I can't remember right now so I'll talk about my Spanish progress... I definitely understand A LOT more than when I first got here, I can usually understand what people are trying to tell me unless they speak ridiculously fast or slur their words (which a lot of them do) but it's coming along. As far as speaking, well that's an area that could use improvement. Hopefully it starts to come faster soon, it would be nice to be able to speak Spanish when I come back! So you could say my Spanish is doing okay, más o menos.

Later tonight I'm going to my first Rotary meeting and I finally get to meet the rest of the exchange students (I've met 5 out of 9 I think). Rotary is a lot different here, I've been here for over a month and this will be the first real meeting I've been to. I also found out that I don't have to do any sort of presentation, which is nice. I do, however, have to produce 400€ (100 more than expected) for the emergency fund tonight. I only have 3/4 because of stupid ATM and banking issues, but I'm sure (hopeful) they'll understand. Everyone in the club is really nice though so I'm happy to be a part of it.

Last night I attempted to make churros because I love them and I found out we have a churrera. It went pretty well but I ended up under-cooking them because they were too big and the oil was too hot, but next time I will be successful and I will have chocolate to dip them in! Anyway, I plan to go to an animal shelter on Saturday because I miss having animals and I want to see all of the perros, gatos, and tortugas! I also might be able to volunteer there, but I'm not sure yet.

Well I hope you enjoyed the short update, I have to go to my Rotary meeting pretty soon so that's all for now. I'll be sure to post more regularly (no promises)!

¡Adiós!
(I hope it makes sense, I did it pretty fast)

Catching up

So the past week and a half I've been in Spain a lot has happened. I was chased by a drunk guy, I ate octopus, I've walked A LOT, and I've gotten to travel outside of Pamplona. But first I'll talk about all of the differences I've noticed here in Spain.

• Eating- Lunch and dinner are a lot different here. They eat lunch at around 2:30 and it's almost always three courses. It starts with a soup, salad or something similar. Next is the main course usually meat and something else. And finally dessert which is usually some type of fruit. Also, everything has olive oil on it and there is ALWAYS fresh bread. They buy bread everyday and get rid of it when it gets crunchy. Dinner is around 10:00 and is usually leftovers or have whatever you want, it's definitely not a big deal.
• Driving- Driving here is really scary. The streets and lanes are really narrow and there are crosswalks everywhere so you have to slam on your brakes when people decide to cross in front of you. In Navarra, the state/province I'm in, there are a lot of roundabouts, and people swerve out of the lanes to exit at the right spot. My host mom told me they decided to add more roundabouts instead of traffic lights because it's faster, but I don't know if faster is better... In short, I'm glad we're not allowed to drive.
• School- School here is definitely a lot harder and a lot more boring. You usually stay in the same class and the teachers switch around, but for some reason my classes change all of the time, so I never know where to go. All of the classrooms are very plain and they only have a chalkboard, no projectors or fancy smartboards. Finally, the school hours are a bit different. I have three classes and then a 20 min break and three more classes, but Tuesday and Thursday after the break I have two more classes, a 2-hour lunch break and then two more classes so those are very long days.
• City- Pamplona is very different from Crescent City. For starters there's about 195,000 more people and so far I'm liking it. I live 30 seconds away from my school, so I don't have to wake up very early to get ready. I also live next to a major shopping street/plaza so when I need something I don't need to make a special trip to Wal-mart, I can go to one of the many shops or malls.

I'm sure there's a lot more, but I'm really tired so I'll just have to add them later. Anyway, now I'll talk about the wobbly drunk guy. I was with two other exchange students, Julia and Abbie (all of the 8 or so exchange students in Pamplona are girls except me) and we decided to walk around the main plaza. While we were walking we noticed this short, extremely drunk man with a bottle of alcohol in his hand just wandering around. I guess he noticed us too because he started to stumble towards us really fast. The girls screamed like, well girls, and ran until they couldn't see him anymore. After we walked around some more we decided to go to an awesome Helado/Crepe shop. We bought all of ours sweets and went outside to eat in the main square. While we were eating I noticed the drunk guy creeping up behind the girls. One of them turned around, looked at him, and then we ran away from him all over again. The crazy thing is, between the area we first saw him and the area where he creeped up behind us, there are a bunch of intersections and it's pretty far (and he was really drunk the whole time) so I have no idea how he found us again. I saw him again a few days later in the same general area, I'll try to get a picture of him to put up.

Well it's 11:00 right now and I have school tomorrow so that's all for now. I'll try to get that picture :).

The place to get Crepes and Helado

¡Adiós!

Travis

Finally in Spain! (First post!)

Well after a lot of waiting I've finally made it to Spain! For those of you who don't know, I had a lot of trouble getting my visa and long story short my departure was delayed a month because of it. But I'm here now and I've decided to write this blog so you can experience Spain with me!

I'll start with my plane rides. They were really long and I got lost in the Madrid airport. I managed to make it to a train that took me to the other side of the airport but after that I had no idea what to do. I was able to find somebody who told me that you have to exit the airport to go through security again. So I went through the process of taking off my shoes, belt, removing my laptop and all the general security hassles all over again. But after that I was fine and I explored the airport for 3 hours.

The flight to Pamplona was really short and 40 minutes later I was finally there. I was greeted by my host mother and sister, Cristina and Camino, and two of the other exchange students here, Rebecca and Julia. The first thing we did was walk around the area where I live (Everybody walks EVERYWHERE here, I walk many miles EVERY day) and I think we pretty much did that the whole day. I remember being very tired (I didn't sleep at all on the plane) and I finally went to bed after about 30 hours of no sleep.

The NEXT day I started school. We decided that I would be in Letras (Arts) and not Ciencias (Science) so I would have an easier time. I don't remember much of it, everyone was talking really fast and I would just say "No entiendo" and they would repeat it at the same speed. Apparently half of my class was on a field trip to a Convent so I didn't meet everyone, but I was still hammered with questions that I didn't understand. The kids would come up to me and say, "sañlk dfjief jfdkjsle eityuewo dsfncs," and I would't know how to respond. Luckily a couple of them spoke English (I mean they spoke it well, they all start learning English when they're young but not many speak it very well) so they were able to help me out. So I was basically extremely tired the whole day and understood nothing.

As I'm writing this I still don't understand very much, but I definitely understand people a lot better. My most used words are Vale! Sí! Qué tal? and Bien. Here in Spain they say Vale A LOT, it basically means okay and I'm pretty sure only Spaniards use it. Also words are pronounced very differently in Spain, for example ciencias (science) would be pronounced thee-ehn-thee-uhs instead of see-ehn-see-uhs. And cinco (5) is think-o instead of sink-o. They think that Mexicans and other Spanish speakers pronounce things weird (but I think it's the opposite).

Well I think that's it for now. I'll add more about a wobbly drunk guy chasing us and my trip to Zaragoza later, so look forward to that.

This is Duffin Dagels a wannabe Dunkin Donuts. There are always huge lines and each doughnut costs €1.60

¡Adiós!
Travis

(P.S. feel free to leave comments so I know people are reading)