“Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” – Farrah Gray

Today makes three months here in Spain. This weekend is a "bridge," which means there are 3 days, so we are in the mountains. It's a really nice house with a lot of rooms and it's farther out from Madrid (on the other side) but still only an hour away from home. 

I am very happy with my "new" family. My daily routine consists of waking up, going downstairs to eat a breakfast of hot milk and cookies, and getting ready for school. 10 minutes before school, we all pile in the car to arrive more or less 8:30 on the dot. School subjects change daily but it's 6 classes and a recreo after the first half of the day. The classes are 50 minutes(?). At 2:15, I walk home from school with a friend. At about 3:15, we eat lunch. Afterwards, we will either watch TV or I will siesta for multiple hours to wake up slightly confused, drink a tea, do my homework (maybe, maybe not) with my little host brother, Diego. Occasionally, if that's not my daily routine, it means I'm my friend's house. At 10:00, we eat dinner and watch TV after until 11:30.

I frequently hang out with my Californian friend, Lucia. We will go to either her town, which is a small city famous for its mansions, mine, or Madrid. We are always getting coffee and some sort of pastry together and now have found bus routes directly from where she lives to my city. 

I saw my "first" movie in Spain a couple of weekends ago. I'm using quotation marks because I've seen movies here before but not in theaters. I went with Asier, his dad, and his dad's girlfriend. We also apparently saw many famous soccer players, which I didn't recognize. I felt like I could understand the movie pretty well, especially because some of the things that were funny were to be seen. Maybe I didn't understand everything, but I got the gist and I still thought the movie was hilarious. 

¨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.

“Life is like photography. You need the negatives to develop.”

                   So I've been here for a little over a month and I have gotten into the swing of things. I feel confident with the language, that is not to say that I can understand everything or say everything perfectly, but it's coming along. I'm not sure how to subtly say this, but I will be changing families sometime this week. I was placed with a wonderful family that was super welcoming even 3 months before coming here and a family that gave me a lot. I'm thankful to have spent my first month, I would call it my "birth" in Spain, with this family. They have taught me a lot, not only in Spanish but in things about myself and about people in general. 

                   What's next? Originally, it was up in the air where I would be going. I could stay relatively in Madrid or I could go to somewhere as far as the Canary Islands, for example. When I told my friends this, they were naturally upset because now our 9 months left together, filled with many promises of prospective plans, had now been shortened to days. I had confided in 3 of my Spanish friends what was going on. Later, more people new just from talk and also the part that's coming next. Sunday afternoon, I went to my friend, Eva's house to pick up a shirt I had left over there and maybe say our last goodbyes. While I was there, she told me her plan that her family could possibly host me but that she wasn't sure because they were already a big family and her parents had to talk about it. I didn't really want to get my hopes up, but I really liked the idea. Then while I was at her house, another friend texted me and said their family would host me. I passed both of the numbers of the moms to my liaison, and them the rest is in the hands of AFS. 

      I think what will end up happening is that I will be staying in Eva's house. Her parents said yes, and today they are having the home interview. As of now, I am pretty uninformed of what all is going on. I get most of my information from Eva. 

               Above all, what surprised me the most from this ordeal is that I didn't ask anyone to host me, these families and friends of mine reached out to me once they realized what was happening. I can't express my emotions for this. First of all, this shows what great friends I have here and how lucky I am. And secondly, this is a perfect example of the Spanish culture. They really go out of their way to do good for others. Like after school Monday, once the other people found out that I would most likely be Eva's new sister, a boy asked her why she was doing this for me and her answer was, "a mi me da pena." 

¨The smallest decisions that you make influence your life in the strangest of ways.¨

I can´t say that much new has happened. School is still school, and I am still improving my language skills everyday. I´ve met so many new people, and it is strange to think that if I never had made this decision to go, I would have never met all these people from around the world and from my city in Spain. 

This weekend was an exceptionally fun one. Friday, I had plans to go take coffee with a friend, but they somehow happened to be put off like two hours later, so I couldn´t hang out with the friends that I normally hang out with Fridays because I just didn´t have enough time. Also I wasn´t let aware that we would be hanging out with a couple of other people as well who all go to Antamira, the school of my sisters. We met up at Burger King, then she and I broke off and got coffees and napolitanas, and later we got back together and watched the whole town´s soccer practice. I´m not really sure the point of us going, but doesn´t that sound like a typical night in Spain besides the Burger King part. It was really cool to meet a bunch of new people because I had forgotten that I don´t know even half of the kids my age in my town. 

Also, probably my favorite thing about meeting new people is the fact that at first glance, I look completely Spanish, that is to say that I fit in for the most part with the people around me, so people don´t expect that I am any different or in any means foreign. So I purposely try to talk a lot when I don´t know people because their reactions are the funniest. A lot of people actually think I´m French or something, and it´s really  interesting to see how confused they get. 

The next day, Saturday, I went to Madrid with Lucia, another American. It was really great to be able to talk to another foreign exchange student again, even though the first five minutes of speaking English was so weird. And we sat through the whole metro ride speaking in our language that nobody else could understand. Picture going to the nail salon and not understanding anything the people are saying and with constant fear that they are talking about you. Well now we were the ones painting nails, not literally though because it just wouldn´t work out on a metro if you´ve ever ridden one. So the original plan was to go shopping, but after browsing around a few stores, we realized that we didn´t have ¨ganas´¨ or desire to do so. We just enjoyed walking around and speaking English is loudly as possible when walking by large groups of people our age. Then we came across a discoteca with a bunch of well dressed teenagers waiting outside. This is one discoteca that we could go to, and it is only opened until 10 and then later opens for people of age. Originally, we had decided that this was way to lame, but it actually looked extremely fun. After a whole ordeal of trying to not be dressed so lamely, we went in and it was such a great decision. It was packed with people and a really cool atmosphere. The strangest part is that we ran into 2 other AFSers, Sean and Aidyn. 

Sunday was a really great day as well. Nerea had to do a project for class where she is learning about where she lives. This week she is learning about La Puerta del Sol or Door in the Sun, she says, so the whole familiy took the metro there where we walked around, took pictures, and sightsaw(?). We also went to the Plaza Mayor and had coffee, cake, and ice cream. It was everything that one would imagine and more. Madrid is such a beautiful and exciting city. I could go there every Sunday and do the same thing without getting bored. The streets are filled with people who each have their own story and shops that sell just about anything that you can imagine. It is so Europe, y tengo mucha suerte para estar aquí. 

¨Noone can make you feel inferior without your consent.¨ -Eleanor Roosevelt

Last week was one of the most difficult weeks of my life. To start, school was awful due to the constant antagonizing from my Lengua Castellena teacher. I would finish an assignment or an essay completely satisified, and he was there to remind me that it did not make any sense and that I would have to do it again. He also likes to use basic English when he talks to me and make jokes about how I ¨´understand´¨ things. 

This is a story worth reading, but mind you, 4 days ago, I would have become extremely emotional at the thought of anyone reading my blog being able to know this story. ´¨What happens in Spain, stays in Spain.¨

I´m not a big fan of P.E., and I did my highschool credit for it last year and was content that I had gotten it over with. Well, here everyone takes it every year. Luckily, the school is different and we have a different schedule everyday, so I only have to suffer through two days of it. Also, PE here seems to be more intense and the students take it more seriously. 

This is the part where I want to say that we were doing some extremely rigorous weight lifting or something impressive, but we had 15 minutes left and were playing tag. This kind of tag was the kind where you have to hold hands and run to touch someone who will then have to join the chain. Me being me, when my chain missed catching someone, I ran into a wall. I suppose that I could have fallen over but considered running into a wall was less embarrassing. I got myself back up and half of my front tooth was missing.... So now I was the strange American girl who ran into a wall and lost her tooth. 

There was also more problems due to the fact that on my school forms I only put the area code on the portion that asked for my parent´s telephone numbers. So my family picked me up, and they took me to the dentist where I was going to have to wait a week for another tooth. Luckily we tried another dentist as well and got one the same day. 

While we were waiting for the dentist, my host dad and I went and took a coffee at a nearby cafeteria. I made sure I was very careful not to open my mouth so nobody would stop and stare. Then, he and I had a conversation and it made me realize a lot. The ¨verguenza¨ is like embarrassment or being ashamed, and in Spanish, is something that you can have in social situations. He let me know that it did not matter what I looked like or what weird things I did in public or my friends or family did, that the next day, I could walk right into school with or without a tooth and not care what anybody thought. So when I finished my coffee, I was laughing and smiling and could later make jokes about not having a tooth. 

I think it especially made it better when I showed my friends from school(who aren´t in my class) the pictures of me without a tooth, and they laughed so hard at them and said ¨pobrecita.¨ The important part was that I could now laugh with them, at myself.

"I met a lot of people in Europe. I even encountered myself." ~James Baldwin

My first real day of school was today. Before, I had 3 days of school just for one hour to get used to it and find schedule and level and more. 

Wednesday, my first day of school for one hour, was okay. My host dad told the teacher to introduce me to the class, but he didn't. I couldn't understand much of what he said actually. All I know is we had to take a pretest for Spanish literature and I couldn't read it or anything, so he told me to write on a piece of paper just about myself. Everyone in my class knew that I was American or British or didn't speak Spanish or something.

My parents had pre-informed me that it was okay if I wanted to grab a coffee with some friends afterwards. Mind you, I had just moved to this new city and didn't have any friends and was desperate to talk to people older that 5 and less than in their 30s. So after class, I was expecting people to want to talk to me, being that I am this weird but intriguing foreigner, but nada. One person asked me where I was from but didn't seem especially interested to continue the conversation. I didn't want to leave the school without friends, so I went to a group of people and pretended like I didn't understand that we could leave after the first hour. They had fun using their English with me but still no coffee dates. They showed me some girls that were just now leaving the school and I got coffee with them. Mission accomplished! 

Within 15 minutes, I felt like I had known them forever and in the following days, we continued to go to each-others houses and get more coffee and whatever else. It's a group in total of like 6 girls, but they are all in the class of Letras and I'm in Sciences. 

For the 3 days of only 1 hour of school, we had the same teacher everyday. Honestly, I have no idea what he is saying. All I know that he is hilarious to the rest of the class, but I don't understand the jokes. I also think he cusses a lot, but that could just be my imagination. 

So today I actually had different teachers and could understand everything they said. Well not every single word, but I could understand what they meant. It especially helps when the person's voice isn't very deep. 

I've also noticed that I can now understand my family. At first, I couldn't understand much because the different voices (especially the niñas), but now I can basically understand everything. It definitely helps to understand something when you want to understand it or be understood. 

First coffee date

Las chicas minus some 

Parque de Europa 

Fashion Night in Madrid

"London Tower"

Another coffee date

Mi café

"Sometimes you realize what you have to say is not worth figuring out how to say it."

           I start school tomorrow. It's actually going to just be one hour for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I am extremely ready to go because I haven't had school since May, and I need friends. Don't get me wrong. I love my hermanitas, but it would be nice to see people my age. I went on a  run with my mom.... I don't know how many times ill be able to do that. She was too athletic for me. She kept pointing out groups in the streets and saying you're going to know them soon. They're your age. It actually made me nervous because if I don't make friends in school, I will literally have no one. Mucha presión! 

            The second day I got here, we had another party for Abuela and Ainara. It was saint's day for the people without a day for their name. We also went to a gypsy market and got olives and a scarf. 

                Dad and I went to run some errands for me yesterday. We went to look for activities and got some documents. We also got my phone working here, so now I have a Spanish phone! 

              My favorite thing here is the coffees. They are so tiny and delicious, and I try to have one whenever I get a chance! Also the Napolitanas are delicious. Miguel and I went and got a café and a Napolitana. I spend a lot of time with my grandparents because my parents work. My grandma is so sweet. She is more like the age of my real mom, but a little bit older. 

        Whenever anyone in my family talks to me, they make sure to talk in ways that I will understand. I will be fluent in 3 languages: English, Spanish, and sign language because we use our hands for gestures so much.

       The last thing I have to say is that you come into this with the idea that it's going to be this amazing experience. And YES it is, but at the same time, it's never going to be what you imagined. The first couple days, you're in honey moon phase because everything is new and awesome, but then it hits you. This is not a vacation. If you want a break from it, that sucks because you're here for 10 more months. You can't just be like oh wait let me go hug my real mom for a moment or tell her how my day was. It's kind of a scary thought, and I think this is definitely how you figure out who you are. 

      The girls on their first day of school

              Un café at Abuelas

     In the hotel, we made friends with Italians in a table soccer tournament. When I was watching TV, I realized this was the World Cup and they ended up winning.

   Mi amor that I miss dearly

Airplane travel is nature's way of making you look like your passportphoto. -Al Gore

   It is so nice to be in a bed I can call my own. We had to travel so long to get to this point. I can't distinguish the differences between the days. This has all been so surreal that I can't even comprehend it still. 

           The airport in Zurich was beautiful. It had tons of really nice stores and cafés. It also had little chocolate shops with an extensive array of chocolates.

              The orientation in Madrid ended up being at a really nice hotel called Hotel Auditorium. I think it is either the biggest or nicest in Madrid. We got there at 2ish and got to rest until dinner at 9. Then we had our orientation at 10:30. It was nice to finally meet the people that we had all seen on the Facebook group and a couple more as well. You could definitely tell that the majority of people hung out with people from their country or that spoke the same language. 

              Katrina, Lucia, and I got to be in a video interview that talks to the students before they have officially started their journey. AFS Spain seemed really cool about everything. We didn't have a super long boring orientation, and they were reasonable about sleeping and rules.

             Finally it was the time to meet the host family! It seemed like lots of the students hasn't talked to their host families much and were really nervous, but I was just excited! It was a little weird having to meet them in front of everybody. It was just the parents at first and they took me home to the girls and grandparents.

          My two sisters, Ainara and Nerea, were very excited for me to come, but Ainara was very shy at first. After a siesta, she was running around the house in underwear, screaming. I gave the family their presents. For the girls, bathing suits, milk straws, and coloring books and a book I made about my life and cupcake tins and mix for the whole family. They really liked the gifts. 

         The coolest thing so far for me was the  coffee machine. We have those electronic coffee machines in the US now where you put the container thing in and it make you that flavor of coffee one at a time, but this was even cooler. You could choose cup size and intensity. It was so delicious. I know what I will be having every morning now. 

            The family went on a walk to show me around the city. Mom had to go because he had to help a friend. Apparently she does beauty classes and sells Mary Kay as a hobby. The dad and niñas walked around with me and showed me the schools. Mom picked us up in the car because it was really late, and she and I went to the grocery store. We walked home from there because a huge shopping center is right next to the house. When we walked through the door, there were balloons and flags everywhere, music, and a welcome home sign. It was a really great feeling to know how much they cared about me and that they had this planned out the whole time. We had a bunch of tapas. After dinner, they brought out this huge box with a bunch of presents for me: keys, a blanket, something for storage, a calendar journal, my own coffee cup that talks about how much I sleep, and a pen.  My sisters already want me to stay para siempre and I am so happy and thankful.

"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." -Winnie the Pooh

             I think the incident mentioned in the  post only happened so that I could truly appreciate the ten months ahead of me. With only a few days to fix the problem, I took the initiative to contact my school, telling them of the situation. Thursday morning, the principal emailed back that he was not the one who could give me an official place in the school that the consulate needed, so my host parents would have to go to some board meeting a week from when I needed the approval. Obviously, this wasn't helping, but there was nothing we could do about it. 

              I was Skyping my host family Thursday afternoon to talk about the later travel plans and preparing for the trip. It was nice to talk to them because I was so sad. Then my mom comes downstairs and said that a lady from AFS just called and said the visa was on its way. Apparently she had been talking to a lady at the consulate all day and convinced her somehow to send the visa without the other document needed.

It's official that I am extremely awkward at goodbyes. I don't get emotional whatsoever and it ends up being more of an awkward pat on the back. I didn't know what to do when my mom cried at the airport, and now I am on my plane ride to Nueva York.

           Also, I went to school yesterday. I get the craziest questions or things people tell me. Everyone was either like

1. I thought you were in Spain! Why are you here?

2. How was Spain? Didn't you go to Spain?

3. You're going to be so tan when you get back.

          The next 4 days will be extremely busy, but I will keep you updated! 

"How quickly things fall apart that took so long to put together"

         I am not saying that it is over yet, but I am starting to feel like it is pretty close... My passport was stamped and we received a letter from the consulate of Spain. We were so excited and assumed this must be my visa. My family and I had a celebratory dinner and planned out my going away party. Maybe two days later, AFS called and said that it was actually a rejection letter. We couldn't read it because it was very formal Spanish. They said that we should get this all worked out in a week and that I should be leaving on time. Apparently the lady who we gave the papers to forgot to send one to Spain that said I had a school. The consulate called me a week ago and said they were just waiting on an email back from the school. I emailed the school yesterday, and they replied today asking if I was going to be a teacher or a student at the school. This seems promising. We have two business days left to get this done because the visa has to be her 72 hours before my departure. We will get an email if it ships out, so if it ships by Friday, we should be in good shape.

           I'm not quite sure what will happen if I don't get my visa on time. I guess I would leave as a late departure, but I'm not sure how all that would work out. I just hope it gets here in time, so I won't have to worry about all that. 

On a lighter note, I had my going away party Sunday night. We had it at our family's favorite Thai restaurant here. We had about 35 people, from family to friends. It was great to see everybody before I left. We had mini-cupcakes in the shape and color of the Spain flag with baby Spain flags in them. 

           My host mom and host dad now have a group chat. It's really funny because we are all becoming so close. I'm just casually texting my family throughout the day, and it can become quite comical. 

         

We Skyped the other day, and the connection kept messing up. They couldn't figure out how to say that the screen was frozen in English, so I thought I said it in Spanish. They died laughing, and I just assumed that frozen did not translate very well. Later that night, I was thinking about it and realized I told them the screen was boiling. You can't make this stuff up.

"Bizarre travel plans are dancing lessons from God." -Kurt Vonnegut

 

My family at the beach in Benidorm



Each day, Spain becomes realer and realer to me. For example, my family and I took a trip to Miami for an appointment at the Spanish consulate. My time in Miami was a nice, short vacation. I was surprised that so many people there spoke Spanish. Actually, there are more people that weren't speaking English than those that were. We went to mainly Spanish restaurants, and they talked to us about Spain and to me in Spanish. It also helped in that we got free food!Even though the trip was for getting my visa, we did a lot of fun things too. We went airboating in the Everglades, I hung out with a friend from Miami, and I got to meet up with my bestfriend from elementary school. 





My article in the paper



The actual visa appointment itself was extremely underwhelming. We expected it to be sitting down with someone who would ask me questions about my trip to Spain, but we just had to hand our papers to a secretary. She then gave half of the stuff that was required back to us and said we didn't need it. I hope the visa comes soon, but there is really no telling. It was just funny that we had to drive 8 hours to hand some papers to a lady behind a glass wall. 



I also was interviewed for my local newspaper. They put my picture on the front page and an article about my trip to Spain and my love for travel in it. People have recognized me from work and my parent's friends have seen me in the paper! It is a cool feeling. Here is a link to the article. 

http://www.thebrunswicknews.com/story/printer/CoastalPeopleBlackwell-080513-hr 





Miami





I've also already made some friends going to Spain. I have talked to many of the people that will be spending the next year with me, but the conversations can vary greatly. I've spent the last two nights Facetiming Katrina and Sean. It makes me all the more excited to spend the best year of my life with these people. It's great that not only do we have our family and friends to share our experiences with but also people who are having the same experiences as us at the same time. 



Tonight, my family is having Thanksgiving and the AFS Spain Americans are having a phone call all together with a Spain returnee. With only 27 days left, a little less than 4 weeks, I am going to have to start packing soon and saying goodbye to my friends. I've already gotten presents for my host family. My little sisters are going to be so spoiled since kid's clothes are the cutest. I've already bought them some coloring and small picture books and bathing suits since I thought it was kind of odd they weren't wearing any to the beach. I made a book on Mixbook about my life in the US for my parents and plan to pick them up some Swiss chocolates while we are in the airport.





"A friend is a second self." -Aristotle

So I'm on the bus ride back from what was probably my most fun weekend of summer. I went to Cocoa beach (where we had our AFS pre-departure orientation) to visit a friend, Caroline, who I had met there. She is going to study abroad in Italy this coming year. It was so exciting and relieving to be able to talk to someone for 3 whole days about our thoughts about our upcoming school year. We can talk to our family and friends about this stuff, but we both know what each other is going through and have the same expectations. It was also a nice break from working. 

Day 1

I took the train to Orlando, where she picked me up. Then we went back to her house to unpack. Our plans were to go to the beach, but they kind of fell through, so we went to get frozen yogurt, and I met a friend of hers. Then we took the bus, which was both of our first experience of taking public transportation on our own! It was so exciting! It only cost 60 cents to get from the mall to the beach although we kept pestering various bus drivers to ask if they took Visa or how to get to the beach.  We felt so independent and realized that this was actually a legit thing that we would be using a lot soon. We actually weren't quite sure where to get off, but we ended up walking to different condos to find a bathroom and a pool. We finally reached a really nice condo and were let in my a man exiting. We enjoyed their hot tub until her mom picked us up. Later, two of her friends came over to swim and watch movies. 

Day 2

Caroline and I on the beach before the rain

The weather was forecasted to e awful, but we went to the beach for a couple hours and ate lunch at a beach themed restaurant. Afterwards, we went home and watched Netflix. That night, we went to the movies to see Now You See Me. It was a fantastic movie! I suggest you watch it.

Day 3

We went to a shopping mall and spent hours in World Trade Market. Of course the foreign exchange students would find plenty of things to do there! They had everything, and it was authentic, European foods. I left with beignet mix in a box and churro mix in a box. I also got this European cookie spread a friend had told me about. It's like a peanut butter or Nutella but made of cookies. Pleased with my purchases, we headed to Melting Pot where we pampered ourselves with a Swiss cheese and classic chocolate fondue.  We spent our remaining time shopping for clothes that we didn't need considering we can only bring 44 or so pounds in our suitcase abroad. We said goodbye and her parents took me to my bus, which I am currently on, to head back home.



Caroline eating the Swiss cheese fondue at Melting Pot



I wanted to explain two things from this trip. The first was that AFS is known for connecting lives and sharing cultures. We both thought it was so great that even though it isn't even September 4th yet and we aren't in Italy or Spain yet, we have already created these friendships that will last a long time. I can't explain enough how great it is to have somebody who is going through the same things as you to talk to, and we can also share our experiences with each other because they will both be special and unique! 

The second thing was about the people around you. When we take a second to talk to somebody, we find that we have things in common. The people passing by you or sitting next to you at a restaurant may just seem like ordinary humans, but they have traveled and have stories to tell too! Caroline and I used studying abroad as a conversation starter, and it worked every time(with our waitress at Melting Pot, with a guy at World Trade Market, and with randoms on the beach.) She and I were so thirsty at the beach that we asked a Spanish guy to take a picture of us and then continued to chat about studying abroad, Spanish, and quinceañeras, so he gave us free waters!  

Anyways, I had a great weekend and am even more excited to spend my year in Spain.

Reminded us of Italian gelato

Candid shots next to the fountain