¨The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.¨

             Since I haven´t really posted about what I´ve been doing lately, I am going to tell you about all the really exciting stuff that has happened in the past three weeks, so this is going to appear like I´m constantly doing crazy European-like things. 

                In Spain, they have a lot of strikes against stuff that they don´t like. For example, right now they are having strikes with something to do with the trash, and Madrid is covered with trash that is not being picked up. Here, we had strikes against changing the school curriculum for budget cuts, so we didn´t go to school for three days. On the third day without school, Eva and I went to Madrid, met up with Angelina and Sam for a quick coffee date, and later went crazy shopping. Mind you, I hadn´t gone shopping in almost my whole two months here, and was in desperate need of clothes so I wouldn´t be walking around clearly looking like La Americana. 

                The next week, we didn´t have school Friday because Día de los Muertos. On Thursday night, we went to a Halloween party which was equivalent to a very small homecoming in the sense of dancing and music except it started at 11 or 12ish and ended at 4 a.m. Everything is so much later here. 

                  Friday, my best friend Katrina, who is currently living in Galicia, picked me up and I spent the night with her host family´s grandmother. It was in Velasquez, Madrid, which is a posh district of Madrid where all of the nicest stores are. Safe to say that even though it was an apartment, it was one of the nicest places I´ve been to. We even had our own maid who asked us what time we wanted to wake up, what we wanted for breakfast, etc. The next morning, we went to Taste of America and around Madrid with her host family. Later that night, we went to Kapital (lite) with Lucia, Sean, and Aidyn. It actually wasn´t that great, but we lost Sean and left him there. Then, Aidyn, Katrina, and I all got on the same metro and one-by-one got off at our stops. It was super said having to say goodbye to my best friend after only being with her for one day. 

                   I arrived at a friend´s house with the 14 girls at 11:30ish and we stayed there until 4 a.m. when all of our parents got home from a dinner. Sunday, the host family and I went to a birthday lunch at a really nice restaurant and ate so well. Anyways, this makes me look super exciting, but don´t worry because during the week I am mostly studying. 

¨Ours is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea.¨ -John Gunther

               So I think at first, this experience was about leaving the U.S. to go somewhere new and exciting because I needed something new. And yes, it still is, but I have realized so much about my own country. From what started out as a ¨break¨ from my daily life in the U.S. has made me realize how lucky I really am.

             Yes, there are plenty of American stereotypes which at first to me seemed to be somewhat true, but I´ve realized that a culture is so much more than its stereotypes. Just because some Americans eat really unhealthily doesn´t mean that all Americans do. When people ask me what is a typical meal in the U.S., it´s really hard to answer because there isn´t one thing that we always eat. (And don´t say hamburger or hotdog even though some of you may imagine us only eating that.)

           Also, our (collectively as Americans) stereotypes of the world are sadly really limited. I feel like we aren´t as educated as we should be about other parts of the world, geography, politics, and history. I don´t even know all of the history of American. How is anyone supposed to expect me to know the history of Spain or any other country?

            I do also think that I´ve gotten more pride in my own country. Some of you might laugh because that is supposedly what we are known for. When someone says some dumb stereotype of the U.S. , it actually does bother me because I feel like what they think of us is so warped, just what they see on T.V., and what is put on T.V. shouldn´t even be put on there. I can watch Teen Mom and Jersey Shore sitting here in my living room in Madrid, Spain.