La Vida esta Mejorando!

For one, it bugs me that I can't / don't know how to use accents on my computer because some words have different meanings when they don't have accents vs. when they do, like año, which means year, vs. ano, which means anus. It's been embarrassing trying to talk to Spanish friends on here.

So everything's been getting better since last post. The weekend was fun, I hung out with another exchange student since neither of us really had (or still have) Spanish friends to hang out with. All that's changing though!

Yesterday was pretty good and today was even better at school. My class is definitely starting to open up to us foreigners and I'm really happy that I'm starting to feel welcome. The other kids in the school are still giving me weird looks and whatnot but I'm planning on joining some of the extracurricular activities so I can meet more kids. As it is now, we have maybe 25 or 30ish kids in our class and that's who we're with all day. We don't have classes with anyone else so at school I really only know 30 kids out of the few hundred so that makes it harder. But I'm also trying to make friends outside of school too, I'm thinking about joining an art class or something.

So Sunday night I went to a tapas festival in San Fernando, where I'm living. My host sister that I went with, Cristina, is 29 and we met up with some of her friends, who were all quite borrachas. I had a yummy potatoes/calamari/bread combo and we stayed out until maybe 11 and it was a school night so I was itching to get to bed. I get so tired here because of the 24/7 Spanish I think.

Yesterday school wasn't the best, but still so much better than it was last week. After school yesterday I went with Cristina to Bahia Sur, the big shopping center in San Fernando (and all of Cadiz, I think). I bought myself a cell phone and SIM card (it's international so if you want my number email or Facebook me!) and some shoes too. Today school was even better than yesterday. No particular reason just that my class is starting to really be nice and welcoming. I'm starting to understand my teachers way more and classmates too, so I'm just in an all around better mood. Physically I felt bad last week too and now that's starting to go away, so everything's really just looking up!

So here's my normal day at school:

-Wake up around 6:30 I think. My host mom just comes in and turns on my light to wake me up because I don't have an alarm clock. Big mistake!

-Eat breakfast (it's kind of like chocolate rice krispie treats every morning...it gets old), put on the ugly uniform, brush teeth and all that jazz, and then leave the apartment at like 7:00 to walk to the bus station about 5 or 10 min away.

-I catch the bus at like 7:20ish and it's a pretty ride into Cadiz over the water! It's definitely not a smooth ride. More like a test of balance. The bus is always jam packed, all the seats taken and the aisle more than full. It's crazy. Once we get to the Hospital station in Cadiz I walk the 3 minutes to Amor de Dios and class starts at 8.

- We have 3 classes (each an hour long). The schedule changes every day but my classes are: Ancient Greek, Latin, English, Spanish, French, Contemporary History, "Science for the Contemporary World", Philosophy, a class that's pretty much just all Spanish History and Catholic Religion. Oh and gym class. I'm scared of that teacher.

- After 3 hour long classes we have a 30 minute break called "recreo." All the students are allowed to go out into the city to buy lunch or eat their bocadillo/sandwich if they packed it. It's great because the weather is still nice and Cadiz is so gorgeous. I usually spend it with the other American girl and some of the kids in our class while eating my Nutella or salmon pate bocadillo and water/coca cola. (I need the caffeine by now because I'm already falling asleep in all my classes. Either from staying up til midnight or the 24/7 Spanish or the combo of both definitely does it.)

- They (meaning Maite, my host mom, who's also the receptionist at the school) ring an obnoxious bell before recreo so everyone scurries out the door to make the 30 minutes last as long as they can and after recreo so everyone hurries back into their classes (mine on the 4th floor..lots of stairs) unless Maite will unleash her wrath.

- Then we have another 3 classes. My class is the Primera Bachillerato D, which means it's the equivalent of junior year, and I'm in class D. We have most of our classes combined with class A in the same room, and for those classes we all stay in the room and the teachers are the ones who move. It's nice to be able to keep all my stuff in one place! But my class, D, has a few classes (Latin, History, Greek) in other classrooms with just us, about 12 I think. For those we walk together to the other classrooms.

- After school ends at 2:30, I walk to the bus station by the hospital (I can do this all by myself now, my host mom trusts me for the most part now) and take the 20 minute ride to a station in San Fernando and then walk to the piso.

-Then, on normal days, we eat lunch together, which is the biggest meal of the day here in Spain. (Recreo is considered breakfast.) Then my host family takes a siesta and I usually take one too unless I get carried away doing something else. Sometimes we'll go shopping or to the beach after lunch. Last week we spent our afternoons at my oldest host sister's apartment in Cadiz, her name is Edurne. We'd go to the beach or shop there too. This week she started working though so we're usually just staying in San Fernando after school now unless I have other plans which I usually don't seeing I don't really have Spanish friends yet. But hopefully soon!

-But today wasn't normal. I took the wrong bus home on accident (I took the San Fernando del Sur bus instead of San Fernando del Norte bus) and got way lost. And it wasn't in the best part of town either. And, my cell phone that I bought yesterday wouldn't work because I didn't know I had to remember a PIN so I couldn't unlock it to call anyone. (Now I made sure I remember it!) But it was only for about 5 minutes then I found a shop that was open and I asked him how far away the apartment was and he said it was pretty far away so I asked him to call a taxi and he did. The taxi got there in like 2 minutes and it cost 4 euros to get home so it wasn't too bad and I was only home late by about 45 minutes, so no one was too angry. Although they were weirded out that I didn't know my PIN number...but I never needed to do that before so I didn't know! Blah..

- I do my "deberes" or homework, which is never too much (although I was assigned a report / drawing of Napoleon Bonaparte today in History) and we usually eat around 10 or 11 and go to bed at 12. Whew!

Long days. Weekends we sleep in and I do whatever I want. I have no curfew, but I don't get to use it since I don't have (Spanish) friends yet haha! This past weekend I hung out with another exchange student, like I said, but could only stay out til 10 when the last train left for San Fernando. So we'll see!

What else...

Other things I've noticed:

-Spaniards (at least here in Cadiz) are never strangers. You can strike up a conversation with anyone and they'll be incredibly friendly to you and you can act like you've known each other forever. Maite said something about "paiseros" or something like that and that's when Spaniards run into each other abroad they instantly go way back and are like brothers. They'll help you with anything. Here's an example!

So I was with my German friend Arne this past Saturday and we have a friend Nate (HI NATE if you're reading this!) and Arne knew which street he lives on in the old part of Cadiz (my favorite) and so we decided to walk the 20 minutes or so to his house! Then we realized we didn't know which street number it was, or which apartment it was. So we continue to ask everyone we see on the street "Sabes si hay un chico americano que viva en uno de estos pisos?!?" or something like that. Most of them were like "Sorry sorry no, but feel free to ring every apartment to see! No one will mind!" We didn't do that. But one man was finally like "I KNOW AMERICANS HERE!" (this is all in Spanish though of course.) So he proceeds to call the other people he know on the street and people are helping us left and right and this one woman came down and called down the Americans she knew. But they were girls....Nate is obviously a boy. We had woken them both up from their siesta. But they were nice about it and didn't seem to mind at all! It was hilarious and very embarrassing. Oops!

what else....

The fashion is totally different. A lot of the differences are good differences but then there's the girls who wear insanely (to me at least) strange and tacky clothes and everyone seems to love it. It's interesting..

I can't think of anything else. I'll try to blog more often.

I miss home so much though and all you guys! But life is great here and I'm so glad I get to do this. Hasta luego!