Caballos y...cerdos?

So, I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I just didn't feel like it, happens sometimes.
Anyway, a LOT has happened, so I'm going to try to just sum things up into a main point.


Monday night I went to my first Rotary club meeting. We met at a really fancy hotel just about a 10 minute drive from my apartment. Isabel accomanied me, which was fine by me. When we got to the hotel, we were met by a few Rotary members, who welcomed me to Spain. We stood in the hotel lobby for about 15 minutes, exchanging small-talk. I was trying to figure out what we were waiting for when we finally took an elevator down one floor, and went toward one of the hotel's several conference rooms. I inhaled, ready too see all the people that I would surely be introduced to, and walked into -- a tiny, empty little room. It turned out we had been waiting in the lobby for the other Rotary member, and we'd all taken the elevator down together. Isabel, Me, and the 5 Rotary members. I couldn't believe how small the club here is. I'm used to Eugene, which has several clubs, and mine, the Delta Rotary, has about 30 or 40 members, maybe more. We talked about some rotary business for quite awhile, and then we had dinner. Dinner consisted of a ton of things I'd never had before. Nothing looked fishy, so I went for it. The first thing I tried was really good -- some sort of ham-and-cheese thing (nooo, ham and cheese in Spain? never) Next was this interesting-looking thing that looked like fried meat of some sort. I took a bite, and after pondering the strange flavor, I remembered that Kaitlyn Heater, who went to Spain 2 years ago, told me the strangest thing she had tried was fried chicken's blood. I asked one of the Rotary members what it was, and they all laughed.
"Oh, it's...uh, it's Pork." he told me.
"Just try one."Isabel said.
"Oh I already did. It was very...different."
"It's fried pig's blood." one of the other rotary members spoke up.
so, there you have it. I ate fried pigs blood. Needless to say, my appetite really wasn't all that good after that. :)

Saturday I FINALLY got to ride. I went to el Club Hipico Anezcar, (In English it would be Anezcar Riding Club), which I found online in the US. So I took a lesson there Saturday at 1:00 p.m. and it was great! Obviously it's no Equispirit (my barn back home, for those of you that don't know..), but it will certainly do for my time here. I rode a horse named Morito, and he was great. (Caution, horse-speak ahead) He may not have had the best conformation, but he was totally sound, and had that great jumper-canter, super easy to sit. I only got to jump about 2 feet, because I was in the lower-level jumping class so that the trainer could assess my riding skills. no biggie. While I was there, I saw these HUUGE (and I mean HUUUUUGE) muscley, but somehow still fat, high-level dressage horses. One was definetly a lippizan, not sure what the other was. They were having a dressage lesson in one of the (who knows how many?!) other arenas. Also, toward the end of my lesson, a guy came in riding this really impressive chestnut gelding. Well, Monday morning there was an article about Anezcar, accompanied with an impressive picture...of the Chestnut gelding. (see picture) So, I'm going to have weekly lessons at anezcar, starting Saturday. yay!

I'll leave you with a picture that will be greatly appreciated by my aunt and uncle. This is a picture of three adorable dogs that were playing on the hill behind our apartment. A dalmation puppy, an Old English Sheepdog puppy, and what I think was a boxer.

Besos!
~Gwen

Random-o

So today in school I wrote down thoughts and things that I was going to put on my blog in my notebook...

My notebook is safely inside my desk, at school, so rather than try to use my brain (which is very tired from a lack of sleep) and remember what I wrote, I'm going to share some things that I've noticed are very different from the US, things I think need to be said, or just random little blurbs that really don't fit into their own post.

1. Today I actually understood Econ (!!) and was even able to answer a few questions -- correctly!

2. I absolutely ADORE my Religion/Philosophy teacher, Natalia. She takes the time to make sure I understand, and sometimes there are mini English lessons in the middle of class if I don't know what a word in Spanish is, and she prompts the class to try and think of it in English, or she explains it in Spanish, and I tell the class the word in English. It's soooo nice to have a teacher that really takes care of me, and makes sure I'm following.

3. I have to acknowledge the girl that sits next to me in class, Andrea. She always helps me in class, and is very good at understanding me, and doing her best to explain difficult concepts (hello, philosophy!). She actually says that I speak Spanish very well, which is nice to hear. I'm starting to think that I actually speak Spanish better than I understand it, because when it's a conversation that I know the vocabulary needed, I can say pretty much exactly what I want to say, and be understood very well, whereas I cannot always understand what is being said by others.

4. People here drive like maaad. Even if it weren't a rotary rule, I would be beyond terrified to drive here. The roads are really curvy, and they go really fast in their tiny little cars. Not so great for my motion sickness. :S As crazy as it sounds, I actually think you have to have a lot of skill to be able to drive so badly on a regular basis and not be in a number of crashes (per day)

5. A follow-up on my post yesterday -- I'm actually not a picky person, I'm quite the opposite. Just ask my Aunt! :) It just so happens that the one type of food that I absolutely cannot stand (the smell of it actually makes me nauseous, and sometimes get a headache) is what they seem to eat an awful lot of here -- Seafood. I will try almost anything, but I decided to stop trying seafood ever since one time in a restaurant I tried some sushi and, well, really couldn't keep it down. I think it's much better to politely turn down seafood than to have to "sea" it again. ;) (I know, really bad pun. Give me a break, It's 10:40 and I slept for 5 1/2 hrs last night)

6. I had the most ah-maaazing pastry at lunch today. I have no idea what it's called, but it was fresh out of the oven, and was a warm and flaky pastry-type bread on the outside with chocolate cream in the inside. ooooh my goodness, it was good. I couldn't find a picture of it online, so instead i'm going to put a picture of the store I got it at.

well, I better start my lovely routine of trying to sleep.

Besos!
~Gwen

Comida

So today we went to Isabel's sister's house to eat lunch (which is a very big affair on sundays.) And the first course (of like hours and hours of eating) was pretty much all seafood. I wasn't aware that there was going to be more food later, so I kinda sat there trying to figure out if there was anything that I could eat. There was this thing in front of me that looked like a funny vegetable. Everyone told me I should try it, so I took a chunk and put it on my plate. Well, after examining it more closely, I realized it had little suction cups. Yes, it was chunks of octopus. :S I couldn't bring myself to eat it, and they all laughed and said that was ok. Other foods included shrimp kebabs, whole shrimp (eyes and legs included. sheesh!), and fried eggs and ham and cheese. Needless to say, nothing very appetizing to a non-seafood person. I tried some of the fried stuff, but I really did not like it.

Later I found out there was yet more food. I figured maybe it was dessert or something, since everyone had already eaten so much. But, to my surprise, they brought out tuna salad, and a huge plate of steak!! Now, in the US I don't eat red meat, but here I've been eating it, just because I don't want to be a burden. So I managed to eat a small steak (on which they put a TON of salt..?) and helped myself to the salad. Here, rather than putting a portion of salad on your plate and eating it that way, they just eat it straight from the bowl. For those of you who don't know, I'm a tiiiiny bit of a germaphobe, so I made sure to get enough salad on my plate before they started sticking their (used) forks in it. no biggie.

After that came the desserts. And man, do spaniards know how to do dessert! There was cake, 3 types of Ice cream, an assortment of shortbread-type cookies, and pineapple. It was delicious.

And, after that (I know, right?!) we had coffee and these yummy cookie things.

All in all, lunch lasted about 2 1/2 hours, but we stayed at the table talking for a good 4 hrs. After awhile, all the Spanish really started to make me sleepy, and give me a headache, so I excused myself and went to chill on the couch. One of the good things about having a family that has a daughter in the US, is that they understand that being around a new language all the time seriously has some side affects, and that sometimes I just need to have some down time, to give my brain a rest.

So, during the meal, I was asked what typical food in America is like. And to be completely honest, I really don't know. Our food tastes are so diverse, and we have the food of so many different cultures, that I decided to ask you guys. So, if you have time, please post as a comment what some of your favorite foods are, or what you eat in your house on a regular basis, so that next time I'm asked, I will really have some solid answers.

Besos!
~Gwen

La Primera dia de Colegio (por Real)

So while yesterday was more of an orientation, today was the first REAL day of school.

I woke up at 7 (ick! I'm not sleeping very well, especially since I [try to] go to bed earlier than Isabel and Tiberio do, and since we live in an apartment, the TV they watch keeps me awake.)
So, anyway, I woke up at seven which, if you ask me, is an ungodly hour. If the sun's not up yet, I shouldn't be either. I got dressed, put on my north face (it's COLD here in the mornings. brr) and had a lovely bowl of corn flakes. yum. at about 10 til 8, Lidia and I walked to the park next to out apartment complex and waited for two of my friends, Laura and Claudia. Then we all walked to school together, which is pretty close.

Schools in spain are very,very,very different from in the US. My classroom reminds me very much of a one-room school house, except that the door is in the front, rather than in the back, of the room. There are coat hooks (yes!!) in the back of the room, and we all hang our coats and backpacks up there. I felt like I was in kindergarten again, and hoped that maybe there was a naptime, too. (no such luck. :( )
Rather than the students moving from classroom to classroom, we stay in the same room, and the teachers come to us. Because of this, we have desks that the top opens and we store our books inside. We can keep them there overnight, and just take home the ones we need. It's similar to a locker, but there's no lock or anything, so you don't want to keep valuables in there.

The teachers were (for the most part) very nice. We started the day with what I guess I would call homeroom. We sat while a teacher (I think?) took attendance. Then she handed us a paper that I couldn't understand. Then we had a moment of silence, I think to pray, but I really don't know. No one in my class spoke English, so when I didn't understand what they said in (quiet, rapid) Spanish, no one could explain in English. I guess eventually I'll figure it out.

Like I said, most of the teachers were really nice. My history teacher is pretty eccentric, she talked using a lot of funny voices, and I say that because I couldn't understand a word she said, so I paid attention to the tone of voice, figuring it's a place to start.

My math teacher. I thought at first he might be one of those guys that looks all serious, and then cracks everyone up with a sly, sarcastic comment. But, nope. He's one of those guys that looks all serious...and then yells. superb. All I had in terms of school supplies were most of the books, and pencils. Isabel said that I should go, see what I need, and then we would buy it. So when my teacher, Mikel, saw that I didn't have a notebook, he asked me where it was. I told him I didn't have one. He then responded in a crazy mean voice, "What, do you not use paper in the United States?!" aah! I couldn't exactly explain to him that I was going to get it after school, so I just said sorry, and squirmed in my seat while he stared me down. Talk about a warm fuzzy guy.

I had Literature after that, and that was a chance for me to realize what my class is really like. The teacher (a very soft-spoken reserved lady) asked a girl in the front row if she liked literature. The girl responded "No." The teacher asked why she didn't like it, and the girl just stared at her desk, refusing to answer! I couldn't believe she would have the audacity to do that. At least say "because I find it boring" or something! The teacher did nothing, and proceeded to ask another student, where she got the exact same response. I actually wanted to be called on, so I could say that yes, I love literature, but in English. Alas, I wasn't called on. Later she gave us a mini reading assigment - just four paragraphs, maybe four or five inches of reading, very very little. Even I, the FEZ had to wait about 10-15 minutes for everyone else to finish reading it. The people in my class are, more or less, pretty nice, but I almost want to be in a different class just so that I don't feel like it's bad to answer questions (even though I'm going to anyway!!)

At lunch (a 30 min break between classes) I asked my friends about Mikel, and they all laughed. "Aah, Mikel." Apparently he's not their favorite teacher, either.

After lunch, I had ENGLISH class! Ahh. It was so nice to have a class where I could understand things. However, I was surprised at the teacher's accent. At times I honestly couldn't understand her, because of her pronnunciation of things. And I was surprised when we read aloud and people said a word terribly wrong, and she didn't correct them, but she would correct them on a word that they had said, more or less, just fine. The work was crazy easy, but I actually enjoyed it immensely, since I finally understood it (and made corrections in the work book. It left out "the" and "been" in a ton of sentences!!)

After English was Economics. With...Mikel. again. Four out of 5 days a week I have him twice a day. Yessss. I'll survive. Good news is, when I take Econ next year, I will already be familiar with the material.

The best part, however, of the whole day, was 3 or 4 people (including a teacher) telling me how well I speak Spanish. I guess it really depends on who you're talking with, and what you're talking about. My family says that my Spanish is really bad, but my friends, and one of my teachers said that I speak Spanish very well, and that it was a surprise how well I speak. So maybe I'll just hang out with them (minus the teacher. haha!) more often.

I know it's a crazy long blog, but I guess I had a lot to say!!

Oh, and I changed it, so now you don't have to log in to leave a comment. Feel free to leave a comment, if you have anything to say, and just put your name at the end so I know who it was.

Besos!!
Gwen

La Primera dia de Colegio

So today was the first day of school. It didn't start until 12:00 noon, which was really cool because I got to sleep in, and take my time getting ready. We had thought that my class didn't start until 12:30, so one of my/Soraia's friends, Laura, was going to walk me to school, because that's when her first class started, too. But then we found out school started at noon for me, so I thought Isabel told me that Maria, one of Soraia's friends who is in my class, was going to walk me there and help me find everything. Apparently not.

I thought Isabel had told me that Maria would come get me around 11:45, and we would walk to school together. So I got ready and was waiting for Maria to buzz our apartment and tell me she was here. 11:50 came and went, and still no maria. Since my school started at noon, and it takes about ten (according to my family, 20 if you ask me..) minutes to walk there, I waited 3 more minutes and then decided to leave without her. And it's a good thing I did. Apparently Maria wasn't going to come and walk with me to school, I was going by myself... So, I got to be the weird American who was 10 minutes late to class. super.

The classroom was reeeeaally small, and very cramped. I had to squeeze around people to get to my seat. The walls are bare, absolutely no decoration or poster, nothing like in the US. My class is smaller, with about 25 or so people.

Last week when I found out only one of Soraia's friends was in my class, and I saw that the class was smaller, I asked Isabel what being in class "C" meant... Well, more or less, it's a class for people who just barely passed last year, or have repeated years before. I'm not saying you can tell what a person is like based on their clothing, but I suddenly felt very out-of-place, wearing my pink Gap sweater, in the sea of all-black clothing, and heavy eyeliner.

Class only lasted an hour, and then we were done for the day. Basically we just got our schedules (i'll explain in a minute), and the teacher told us some basic things, that I totally didn't understand.

Rather than having a set schedule every day, or even having a different schedule every other day, I have a different schedule for every day of the week! It's going to be crazy hard to remember, but I think we don't switch classrooms, so that's ok.

My Classes:
English (Yes!!)
Economics (oooh crap)
Religion
Philosophy (huh?)
Literature
World Science
Informatica (no clue what that is..)
Social Mathematics (??)
PE

so, to say the least, it should be a very interesting year...

and I'll leave you with a clip of Lidia singing a children's song about going to bed. :)

Besos!
Gwen

No tienen Cheddar Queso!!

So, last night I learned something absolutely horrible...

They. Don't. Have. Cheddar. Cheese. Here.

I just might keel over from shock.

Having grown up on Tillamook cheddar cheese and good french bread, the thought of having to go a year without cheddar cheese is just a little terrifying. Right now I'm craving it more than anything, especially since the bread here is amazing, and would go with it so so so SO well. aaargh!

*sigh*

Well, anyway...

A few days ago I met Soraia (the girl who's room I'm sleeping in while she's in Colorado for the year)'s friends. They are all really nice, and speak english well enough that if I don't know a word in spanish, I can ask them, and they'll tell me what it is. This works well, because I don't have to stop the conversation to consult my electronic translator. They told me I actually speak spanish pretty well. I also found something out that makes me feel better. Apparently everyone in the family I'm staying with has a very thick Portugese accent, which is why I don't understand them. Even my new friends told me that they can't always understand the parents. Suddenly I didn't feel so bad about my spanish skills, since (for the most part) I can understand and carry on a conversation with Soraia's friends.

The food here is ok, but I definitely miss my mom's cooking. haha. Last night I smelled something really good, and then about 15 mins. later Isabel called me to dinner. When I came out of my room, I was suddenly assaulted by the very potent smell of fish. Ugh. When I went into the dining room, there was a platter of about 8 or 9 fish, that looked like they could still be alive, if they weren't missing their heads. To say the least, my appetite wasn't what it had been, say, 30 seconds before. For those of you who don't know, I cannot stand fish. Just the smell makes me nauseous. It turns out the yummy smell 15 minutes before was the spaghetti Isabel had heated up for Lidia and me...
I made myself eat the spaghetti, so that the family wouldn't worry, plus I didn't want to make them feel bad by letting them know their fish was making me feel sick. Apparently it worked, because they didn't say anything.

During dinner, the family asked me how to say things in English, like fish, or "to eat", or wine. After dinner, Isabel tried to demonstrate how little English she knew, by saying "thank you"... Instead, it came out F*** you! I started laughing really hard, and Isabel asked me what she had said. I whispered to her what she had said (in Spanish) and she started laughing really hard. Tiberio asked what Isabel had said, and he guessed correctly, saying it in Spanish. I told him that, yes, that's what she'd said. Lidia was there for the whole thing, and when she realized what her mother had said, she started saying it over and over, in English!...so now she knows how to say F*** you in English. awesome. But it was actually really funny, and we were all laughing really hard.

I'm having a blast, and my cold is almost totally gone.

Lots of Love!
Gwen

Un otra Dia!

I've noticed that the more I speak, write, and think in English, the harder it is to go back to Spanish. So I'm going to make this short and sweet.

I'm sure some of you are wondering if there are things in the US that I miss, or am going to miss. And I've been thinking about those, too. So, here they are:

Mint Chocolate chip Ice cream (they don't have it here, as far as I can tell!!)
Cafe Yumm
NyQuil
Puffs plus with Lotion
Airborne
Zicam
Campbell's Chicken noodle soup.

You may have noticed, unless you are rather slow, that most of these things are what you need/want when you are sick. Well, guess "What?"...I have a cold. yay! it's what everyone wants for their first few days in a foreign country/home. It's making me tired, which was hard to explain when I fell asleep around 2:30 p.m. today. I really want my NyQuil, which may be disgusting, but you can down it quickly and then you're done... Here Isabel gave me something that you dissolve in water, and it tastes awful. It's salty and bitter at the same time, and you can't down it quickly. She said it will help me sleep, and breathe better. Well, for tasting this awful, it better!!

Here are a few other things I've been thinking about, that are very random.

The driving here is INSANE!! the roads are tiny, and curvy, so you can't see if a car is coming toward you, and you have to be in the middle of the road to not sideswipe the hills and stuff directly next to the road...

There are fiestas outside our apartment every night, starting around..now, which is 11:25 p.,m. they have fireworks, music and, what every spanish party needs, lots and lots of alcohol. But it doesn't keep me up, so that's ok.

Lidia is sooo cute! she's already calling me her sister, and I can tell she's really happy to have me here

In the house here, we all always wear slippers. If I'm not wearing mine, someone will notice and point, asking why i'm not wearing them, and if I'm cold. This is very hard for me, because I hate hate hate wearing shoes/socks/slippers, and prefer to go barefoot. We'll see if I can remember to wear the slippers (that are waaay too big for me)

and I'm sure there's more, but that's all i can remember for now.

The pictures today are of Igos, a very sweet fruit with lots of seeds inside, and of postres Isabel made, with cream inside.

My first days

I'm finally here!!

I had a 9 1/2 (!!) hour flight from Portland to Amsterdam, and then flew to Madrid, and then Back north to Pamplona. I am not really able to sleep on planes, so I only got about an hour of sleep that whole time. I left Portland at 1:30 pm (PST) on Thursday and didn't get to Pamplona until 8:25 am the next day. To say the least, it was a VERY long day.

My host family is great! The mother (Isabel) is very sweet, but she talks really fast, and knows NO english, so it is hard to understand her. The father (Tiberio) is also very nice. He is better at talking slowly, and is pretty good at explaining things (in Spanish, he also speaks NO english), until I understand. And, Lidia, my 9-year-old host sister, is ADORABLE!!! She is soooo excited to be able to practice what (little) English she knows, and last night she sat on my bed with her English notebook, trying to teach me the colors and numbers in Spanish (which I already know, but that's ok.) She is always in my room, which sometimes gets just a tiiiny bit annoying, since I don't really know how to politely ask her to leave, but she's so cute that I don't really care. She recently started playing the bagpipes (yes, bagpipes!!) and played a little tune for me, which I will post on youtube, and then (if I figure out how) put on here. Lidia is the best at explaining things, and doesn't use words that are too complicated, and doesn't speak too fast for me to understand.

Today I woke up around 10 a.m. and went into the kitchen to see what I could find for breakfast. Tiberio asked if I wanted milk, and I said "si". Well, the milk here is very different from the milk in the US. Here it tastes like a combination of Soymilk and milk that has gone bad. It is not good. They also heat it up and put sugar in it, but I hadn't tasted the milk yet when I was asked if I wanted to heat it up. Tomorrow I will try it warm, and hope that makes it taste better. With the milk, I had a tiny little thing that they called a galleta, but it looked like a muffin. It was very sweet, and helped wash down the milk -- a little.

After breakfast we went to the store to get a plug so that I could charge my computer. We went to a store called Leroy Merlin, and it is just like a Home Depot. On our way out, something caught my eye -- the word "Oregon." I stopped to look, and it was something by the brand Oregon Scientific. It was cool to be so far away from home, and yet there's something here from Oregon.

Later in the day, Tiberio and Lidia showed me around Pamplona. It is a really cute town, with lots of old bulidings. My school is a very big, old building and it is very pretty. The buildings downtown are all one long building separated into different stores, shops and things. And the streets are really narrow -- classic Europe. There was a renessaince market today and we wandered around for a while looking at all the different booths. They showed me the Mercado (market) and it is totally different from in the US. It is one big bulding, but several tiny little stores within. There's a store to get fish, bread, wine, olives, and everything else that is fresh. It didn't have things like oreos or coke. The little stores look like booths, but you pay for things at whichever store you got them from.


I LOVE Pamplona. It has about 50,000 more people than eugene, a good size. There aren't many houses, mostly apartments. It is surrounded on all sides by large mountains, with the Pyrnes to the North.

Something that I never knew about Spain is that they don't say thank you!! It's driving me crazy. If someone does something nice for me, or they hand me something, and I say "Gracias", they laugh and say "No Gracias." It's so new to me, since in the US we're taught from the time we start talking, to say thank you for everything. It's also different that when you meet someone for the very first time, rather than shake hands, you air-kiss each cheek. I knew that they did that, but I thought it was for friends or family, not strangers.

The spanish accent isn't too hard to understand, when you know they words, and they speak slowly. However, I am already starting to lisp, since Lidia corrects me when I don't. I have even started to do it for English words...aaah!

We just ate dinner which was, I think, veal. Although it tasted an awful lot like beef, so i'm not 100% sure. It's kind of weird to be eating red meat again, but it tasted really good. I'd forgotten how much I like red meat, even though I only stopped eating it in the late winter.

That's all for now. It's 10:19 and Lidia and I are going to watch a movie, with English subtitles, so I can put the english and spanish together.

Lots of Love!!

~~Gwen