Traveling and Talking

Well… I left you guys hanging for another month. How terrible of me. I would say nothing interesting has happened, but that would be a lie. A lot has happened, and it was interesting. Well… everything I do is interesante. 

So update on my language skills is that I'm doing pretty good. I can speak. I'm fluent but also not. I only say this because while I can speak in Spanish, my vocabulary is lacking. And when I speak fast or am not thinking I can't conjugate verbs right. No big deal in English but in Spanish there are 6 conjugations for every verb for every tense. There's like 9 tenses I think. I'm not great at math or anything but when I used the quadratic formula to find the answer to how many different verb conjugations there are for each word; I came up with "A1º+". 

If you got that great. If not just stare at it for a minute. If you're reading this from Spain well I'm sorry I hope you figure it out too. 

As I was saying, talking is hard. Well it's easy in one language but hard in the other at the moment. I say things wrong then realize a second later. I say things wrong and don't correct them. But I'm talking mostly. Hahaha. I probably sound like a small child that doesn't know what everything is called yet, but it's alright. I think I'm supposed to be making a lot of mistakes. I hope so because if not.. Well it's too late now. Plus the mistakes help, because they make me want to get it right the next time. I'm not always successful. But I'm having a good time none the less. (:

So about the second week of November my school took a field trip. Well not all of the school and not a field trip. It's an excursion and only 3 grades went, which was about 150 students. We went somewhere up in the vague vicinity of Burgos. The canyons of the river Ebro. Sounds cool? Well it was cool. But it was also a lot of walking. We hiked 18 kilometers that day. (Probably more due to some unplanned side trips.) The geography interesting for me as in the USA I'm used to seeing either canyons of rock or mountains with lots of vegetation. These were canyon(s) covered in vegetation. It was a good, albeit long day.

 Before I go farther I have to let you USA people know… Thanksgiving is only practiced in the USA. Some of you are probably like "duh Miguel" but I mean, a lot of people asked if I was celebrating it. I didn't because of one fact. Your week of break in the USA was my week of exams for the trimester. How freaking amazing eh? While you lot were having fun I was studying for exams and continuing with school. 

So I try to travel wherever I haven't been in Spain as much as possible, and that state of mind is what placed me in Segovia, Spain on a Tuesday night before a history exam. Short story shorter: at lunch my host mom asked me if I wanted to accompany her to Segovia for the afternoon (returning the same night). I said "yeah sure, when do we leave" and she says "10 minutes". Thus, 30 minutes later we left the house for Segovia. That's how I got to spend part of the night alone in a foreign country in a foreign city 15 hours before I would have to write a bunch of definitions about historical stuffs. The city is magnificent. Even though I only got to see it in the lights of the city it was beautiful. I'd learned a bit in history (in the USA [thanks Mr. Lucero]) about the Roman aqueducts, but seeing one in person was pretty great. Those Romans sure knew how to stick rocks together. Without mortar or cement either. Nice job Rome. 

And then from the 5 - 8 of December I went on a retreat with Fernando (my host brother) and about 30 guys. (A religious-study-sport retreat). And no we didn't have school on Monday or Tuesday because it was the feast day of the Immaculate Conception which is Spain's patron and because practically everyone is at least baptized Roman Catholic, we have Catholic holiday days. We stayed in a "house" (the word that comes to mind is villa or humongous cottage when I picture it [I mean all 30 of us were staying there]) near Gijón, Spain, in the region of Asturias. Basically middle-north Spain on the sea/ocean/water. It's really green and rains quite a bit. But this weekend the weather was really nice. The retreat was really good. I had a good time and FYI Asturias is beautiful.

Short recap: Everything is good here in Spain, I´m having a great time, and I´m just as ready for the Christmas holidays as you are.

Un saludo, Miguel Sabol

Excursion with the school

 You go Romans, this is a cool way to move water.

A night of exploring Segovia, Spain

fog here is unreal

Cathedral of Oviedo

Villa/Cottage/House on the sea

Repel that waterfall they said

Somewhere in Asturias, canyoning

A weeked in Asturias, Spain

Americaness

Figured I´d add this just to show how they decorated for Christmas in the Plaza Mayor.

Halloween and Otras Cosas

I realize I have not blogged in a month and sorry. Life (being a lazy 16 year old) hit me in the face and I've been busy having fun (hahaha yeah you can be jealous). 

But really my list of reasons is: I'm lazy, learning Spanish full time, going to school, studying Spanish and for school, playing soccer, and balancing it all with the Spanish version of a social life.

«Part 2»

So last month was like Cancer Awarness Month or something right? I can't remember if there's a specific name. They don't really go as into it here. But anyways we did have a run. You know, the one where you run and then after, everybody asks about the number of "k's". Yeah well there were 5 times k number of k's. For those of you who are bad at math or got lost after my second senctence: I ran a 5k (kilometer) run against cancer in my city. There were some 26,000+ people that walked or ran in this "race." Which was a little like "wow" for me being as where I live in the US only has a population of 45,000. And yeah that's like half of my town running/walking in race. Anyways yeah. I realized 3 k's in that I'm out of shape… oops. It was a fun morning, albeit a tiring one. "Lucha contra el cáncer"

I liked the fog. Yes. That's a beach. 

So did October go by really fast for anybody else?? Because wow. For me it went by really fast. I mean one day I'm looking at social media and people in the USA are carving pumpkins and I remember thinking "it's a little early to be doing think you weird American people" (Spanish people don't cut up their food and put fire in it). Anyways then I looked at the date and it was the 28th of October. True story. 

Anyways. I was going to tell you that Halloween is a lot different here in Spain. We have Halloween just, I'd say, not to the American extent. I live in the city center and no one decorated for Halloween. No one decorates at all really. And there's not as much candy. And costumes aren't as big of a deal. Sure some people like dressing up but it's perfectly alright if you don't. Because after all, it just another day to party, except with a better excuse for your parents to stay out longer. Well I mean that's what we use it for here in the center of the city. Hahaha. So we parties all night and into Sunday morning. It was pretty awesome. 

Interestingly bad picture of the inside of the disco. 

Picture that I snapped in the Plaza Mayor at 3am. 

Although they (friends and family) told me that not everyone parties. That in the pueblos (where a lot of people go during Halloween) they do a bit of trick or treating. Many people go to their pueblos during Halloween because of the cemeteries for All Souls' Day and All Saints Day. Maybe some Day of the Dead stuff, but that's more of a Latin American tradition. 

Sunday after Halloween "All Saints' Day" we made a trip to some pueblos to visit the deseased of the family that I am living with. And we visited 2 cemeteries. And let me tell you, you have not seen a cemetery in the USA like the cemetaries in Spain. They are filled with tombs. Huge things made of stone like granite. With crosses that are all taller than 6 feet and sometimes 8 feet (average 2.5 meters). And they "bury" the family members one on top of the other. Not everyone or family do it this way or with "every" family member since every person has two family names. But that's why I say tombs. They have lids and when the "next" person dies you open the lid and put the other coffin very nearly on top of the previous coffin. (Obviously I haven't seen a burial but my family explained it to me). I rather thought it was interesting and a cool way to be buried. I mean the tombstones themselves were awesome. 

Just now realized that I never told anyone about Antoine. Oops. Je suis désolé Antoine. (Thanks Google Translator). Anyways quick summary. Antoine is a 20 year old Frenchman studying for some architecture degree for a year here in Valladolid at the university. He's stay with us. If you hadn't guessed already. Anyways. He speaks French, English, and Spanish. Well like he definitely speaks French. I speak English. Everyone else in the house speaks Spanish. But he's pretty fluent in English. And we're both learning Spanish. He's been here longer though. He's very into technology and studying and he plays the piano in the house all the time. Tried to learn to play the guitar in one night at random. He's very creative and a good artist. And studies a lot. Apparently you have to have studied to create building that's could potentially hold people. Whatever. 

Fin.

And then in the pueblo Fernando, Antoine, and I went and took some pictures in the pueblo of Cuenca. It was very pretty and had some cool places to see. Photo credits go to me and Antoine.

 

Part 1 is also up. So go check that out too. 

Un saludo, Miguel 

October/Octubre Adventures

I realize I have not blogged in a month and sorry. Life (being a lazy 16 year old) hit me in the face and I've been busy having fun (hahaha yeah you can be jealous). 

But really my list of reasons is: I'm lazy, learning Spanish full time, going to school, studying Spanish and for school, playing soccer, and balancing it all with the Spanish version of a social life.

«Part 1»

So like I said the Spanish social life which involves two main food groups: partying and hanging out in the city. The above picture is me and a few of my friends at a disco-bar in Valladolid. We usually go to the disco once or at max twice a weekend and then hang out in the city center. During the week everyone in Spain pretty much studies, school is difficult, for everyone. 

I went to a couple of pro futbol (soccer) matches featuring the city futbol (soccer) team, Real Valladold CF. The team is not doing great (or good) this year but whatever, I though it was cool. 

Also my school had an excursion (field trip) to Avila. Yeah, so my school in Spain does quite a few field trips throughout the year, and usually at the end of the course there is a really big one, sometimes to another country (which are not that far away). We made this excursion because this year is our schools 100th year open. And also it is Saint Teresa (of Avila)'s 500th anniversary of her birth, but we were celebrating her feast day. (In case anyone goes and looks that up). 

The city of Avila was beautiful, but I really liked the [old] city wall of which I have never seen the likes. We had a guided tour set up of the museum of Saint Teresa and needless to say it was all in Spanish. And after 3 hours of listening to different men speak in fast Spanish about the life of St. Teresa… well, I had a headache. But then we got free time. Yeah I know releasing 100+ kids into a city doesn't seem like a good idea, but that's just how they do it. But the way I see it is that this: none of them can driv well, technically I can. But I'm the only one. And Avila is like 1 hour and 30 minutes from Valladolid which is "literally forever" for a kid that lives in the center of the city. And maybe there parents don't have a car so they have to go back on the bus. And they don't go out of the city that much so a lot of them had never been there before, so we were all basically trapped in the center of Avila for 3 hours. And all the while the adults got to do whatever that wanted. But whatever, I'm cool with it. 

So they told me that they don't have school dances here in Spain.

But then we had one. But apparently it wasn't supposed to be good. 

But then it was. I'm going to give that credit to me because I was there. But we ahould also give a lot of credit to my friends, who are the craziest kids I know. And they are all really good dancers. Well I mean I am too, but they've been dancing a lot longer. Anyways, it was called the "verbena" which is an "open-air dance." I tell you they have words for everything here. 

Part 2 is also up. So go check that one out too. 

Un saludo, Miguel