Holidays Away from Home

From now on, I'll probably stop apologizing for being "late" persay on my own blog, even if I do feel a little bad at doing some stuff on time, like... write a blog post that doesn't actually have a set date. Or that's what I tell myself, even as I set the date in my mind, and then pass over it, again and again.

Anyways, this holiday season was a special one, certainly, and a different one. Thank goodness that they don't play as much Christmas music here. (Sorry if you like Christmas music, but to me it´s not that great).

The holidays here aren't much different from those that I have experienced in the USA, but at the same time, are completely different. One thing that I liked was the amount of food. And that's one thing that every person I talked to complained about after the holdidays. That they had eaten too much. A lot of times (most with my family) all the food is served at one time, or we go buffet style, but in Spain, there are courses... Well, not like a 5 course meal or anything. On a normal day there are 3 courses, but then their are holidays and festive days when we go 4 courses or more. We start out with like appetizer food in the living room, then move to the dining room to eat the (big) soup, then on to the meat, and then dessert. And that also comes with as many drinks as you need to wash it all down ;). And sinces there are a lot more festive says during Christmas break, you end up eating a lot more. I thought it was great.

We spent almost all of holiday holidays with my host extended family, all of whom are pretty cool. We filled the house a few times with all the family. We never fit at one table, let me tell you that. But to be honest, my family has never fit at one table. Haha, and so far Spain has not changed that part.

It was a busy but relaxed Christmas break all in all. We were always doing something, never stopping. But we also had a lot of relax time, just to do whatever. We took a few trips within the region, but nothing far away. I have been to a lot of convents all over Castilla y Leon (my region of Spain) because of the work that my host mother does with them. And me hitching a ride with her on her convent-ional trips (pun intended) has taken me quite a few places.

Christmas, as in the day itself, was a lot different from the previous 15 times I have experienced it. Like, a lot different. The morning was the same, we went to midnight mass, and then sometime later (earlier??) we went to sleep, but no one really woke me up a measily 5 hours later for presents. Actually I think I might have gotten a full 8 hours of sleep too. (Don't worry it wasn't a surprise to me, they'd already told me). And then, we got up and dressed, and left to go have a big meal with the family in the pueblo (basically where the family started and so they all have houses there). And we ate, made a side trip to a convent, went to visit a 100 year out aunt, and then went home and ate again, and eventually went to sleep.
Did I forget anything, no. Spaniards, in general, do not celebrate more than the birth of Jesus on the 25th of December. It's Christmas, but without the Coca Cola advertizer (Santa Claus; if you didn't catch the red and white reference). Haha those aren't my words. Those are some of the Spanish opinions that I have witnessed. They appreciate Saint Nick and what all, but Santa Claus is a bit of a sham to them. Some even asked if I was sure I was Christian (Catholic) because by having celebrated Christmas with Santa Claus, I merited that question. It was a bit wierd but they didn't bother me that much. They do presents on the 6th of January, the Epiphany. (more on that later).

I also got to go to a Real Madrid/football match in Madrid on the 30th of December. That was fun. You should go if you ever get tickets and are in Madrid. Just saying guys.

Well, they do celebrate New Years' Day basically like in the USA: alcohol, fireworks, and the same channel on TV. But we add the grapes.
The Grapes. The 12 grapes. The last and first time you choke for a year.
Basically, you down 12 grapes in the 12 second before the "ball drops". Which is basically just you choking on the 7th grape, and then you end up having 9 grapes in your mouth, while shaking the hands of everyone around you. 100% brilliant tradition. I don't have to hear your voice for the first minute of the new year. Already the year has started off good. The general public (everyone) in Spain throws a significant amount of firworks in the 2 weeks leading up to the New Year and the day/night itself. Just a warning.

Then came the 6th of January, the, by now, much anticipated day of presents, that needn't be shared with Jesus. Los Reyes Magos, the Three Wise Men, or the Three Kings, however you prefer, had arrived.

Actually, los Reyes Magos are the ones bringing the presents to all of the kids of Spain (and the rest of the world), just like they brought presents to Jesus. (And that's their reason for saying they're more Christian than I am, even when they can't stand through a 30 minute church service without complaining). So I got some presents from los Reyes Magos too. Pretty nice of them to stop by for the little American boy.

January 6th I was woken up at an unholy hour by the youngest of my host siblings here. He tried to wake everyone up, but it only made us angry at him. Because everyone in the family is a lot older and we have all decided that through years of experience that the presents are not going anywhere in the near future, and that the extra hours of sleep will be appreciated later, when we want to play with our toys. Though, eventually we got up, and opened presents. Nice job to los Reyes Magos, whereever you guys reside when it is not January 6th. (nobody would explain that one to me)

Then, suddenly and rather violently, I was thrown into school,  a measely two day later. And BAM we are back in school. Yay. 
It's been a slow start for me at school. But it only gets easier (in regards to the Spanish part; the other part just continues to get harder).

And then, I recieved a couple of packages from the US of A. And then it kind of hit me a little bit, that I had just missed my first Christmas with my mom and dad, and my siblings. And a few Kleenexes may have been needed for when I had to read the 8 letters that I found within the two packages. I send a special thanks to the genius who made each of my siblings write me a letter about why the miss me and double thanks (because it cheered me up) to them, for telling me why they didn´t miss me. That was especially nice of you guys. I needed that. Seriously, almost thought you liked me or something. (Totally joking around for those of you who don´t catch sarcasm when it is written.) Love you guys. 

All in all it was a pretty good Christmas season. Hope yours was a good one too.

Un saludo, Miguel Sabol

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