My soccer team after winning the game that would put us in first place in our group in "La Copa"
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Twenty-Third Week
My soccer team after winning the game that would put us in first place in our group in "La Copa"
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Giving Directions
Yesterday was the first time I gave directions to someone in my year abroad here. It seems like such a basic little thing, but I felt like it was a pretty monumental moment. As an exchange student, what makes everything so difficult in the beginning is having to start all over again. But it's not just a new school, new friends, new people, not even just a change in culture and language; it's everything. You start over in every sense of the word. New family, new food, different air, different house, different lighting, different bed-sheets, different curtains, down to the way you sharpen your pencil, it all just changes. It feels like in the blink of an eye I've been hurled into an entirely different world - but that's not to say it's a bad thing. As AFS likes to remind us, it's just different.
So, when an older woman asked me, "Ey, txiki, Sarobe... non dago?" meaning "Hey, girl, where is Sarobe (local theatre)?" (txikia in Euskera means small, but txiki is a way older people tend to call kids or teenagers), well, although we were fairly close to the theatre I was pretty proud after having given them directions without any struggle at all explaining it to them or remembering how to get there. I felt as though I had been living in Urnieta all my life and I was just another local teenager passing by in the street.
So, after 4 and a half months of building my world from scratch, I felt as though I had accomplished something big. Not only that, but I was actually on my way to the bus station when the lady stopped me because I had plans to meet with a friend in San Sebastián and I actually took the bus alone for the second time, just like, well, I guess I'd have to say just like any other normal person from here.
Taking the bus and the train alone, for me, has always been a little difficult (especially the bus) because I tend to get nervous about where I need to get off and whether the driver's going to stop or not or whether I pressed the button on time and all of that, but everything went smoothly and so far I've never gotten lost in my experience abroad (I wouldn't say it's easy to get lost around here, but for a 15-year-old exchange student in the first couple of months even just spinning around a few times was all it took to lose my orientation).
So there's my monumental moment for the weekend, it's no trip to the Canary Islands, but, large and small, in the end all the experiences contribute to my 10 months away from home.
So, when an older woman asked me, "Ey, txiki, Sarobe... non dago?" meaning "Hey, girl, where is Sarobe (local theatre)?" (txikia in Euskera means small, but txiki is a way older people tend to call kids or teenagers), well, although we were fairly close to the theatre I was pretty proud after having given them directions without any struggle at all explaining it to them or remembering how to get there. I felt as though I had been living in Urnieta all my life and I was just another local teenager passing by in the street.
So, after 4 and a half months of building my world from scratch, I felt as though I had accomplished something big. Not only that, but I was actually on my way to the bus station when the lady stopped me because I had plans to meet with a friend in San Sebastián and I actually took the bus alone for the second time, just like, well, I guess I'd have to say just like any other normal person from here.
Taking the bus and the train alone, for me, has always been a little difficult (especially the bus) because I tend to get nervous about where I need to get off and whether the driver's going to stop or not or whether I pressed the button on time and all of that, but everything went smoothly and so far I've never gotten lost in my experience abroad (I wouldn't say it's easy to get lost around here, but for a 15-year-old exchange student in the first couple of months even just spinning around a few times was all it took to lose my orientation).
So there's my monumental moment for the weekend, it's no trip to the Canary Islands, but, large and small, in the end all the experiences contribute to my 10 months away from home.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Twenty-First Week
Today, I spent the entire day in pijamas.
I suppose exchange students don't go on crazy adventures every weekend...
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Christmas, New Years, and the Canary Islands
Supposedly one of the most difficult periods of an AFSers experience, I found this Christmas-time to be a very pleasurable one. Well intergrated into my host-family, it didn't feel quite so out of the ordinary. Of course, it was a little weird, but I suppose in the very least I could say that's natural. We spent Christmas eve at home eating a quiet but very tasty dinner with my host-uncle and afterwards opened all the presents we had given eachother. I was both surprised and pleased at the thoughtfulness of their gifts, not to mention thankful. Over all I'd like to think the most important part was that we were there together happy and healthy, warm at home with a nice dinner and lots of laughs. We all cut the night a bit short to get to bed on time because the next day we had to get up at 5 in the morning since we had a flight to catch. The 25th of December in the afternoon we arrived in Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands belonging to Spain that lie next to Africa.
Spending 14 full days in short sleeves and running shorts was certainly a great way to bring in the new year. We visited the famous sights and spent a lot of time at the beach, forgetting our busy lives for a moment to take in the sun and relax.
On New Year's eve we gathered by the television, tired out from the day's excursions and swimming in the ocean, and waited until the clock ran out, 2010 finishing and starting the next year together. We celebrated a typical tradition from here, where each of us took a cup full of 12 grapes and in the last 12 seconds of the year, swallowed a grape every second until the new year started.
Overall we came back pretty tanned and very content. Although admittedly I wouldn't have stayed a day longer I wasn't dying to go home either. It may sound pretty negative since I put it that way but in reality it was the perfect amount of time to have been there, I wasn't regretting leaving and wasn't desperate to go home, it felt like everything just went so smoothly, I couldn't have spent my winter break any happier. I saw my friends again today, glad to be with them, and we had a good time as always. Tomorrow school starts again, but I'm not too upset about that either. After all, that is what I'm here for, I've learned to make the best of it.
Spending 14 full days in short sleeves and running shorts was certainly a great way to bring in the new year. We visited the famous sights and spent a lot of time at the beach, forgetting our busy lives for a moment to take in the sun and relax.
On New Year's eve we gathered by the television, tired out from the day's excursions and swimming in the ocean, and waited until the clock ran out, 2010 finishing and starting the next year together. We celebrated a typical tradition from here, where each of us took a cup full of 12 grapes and in the last 12 seconds of the year, swallowed a grape every second until the new year started.
Overall we came back pretty tanned and very content. Although admittedly I wouldn't have stayed a day longer I wasn't dying to go home either. It may sound pretty negative since I put it that way but in reality it was the perfect amount of time to have been there, I wasn't regretting leaving and wasn't desperate to go home, it felt like everything just went so smoothly, I couldn't have spent my winter break any happier. I saw my friends again today, glad to be with them, and we had a good time as always. Tomorrow school starts again, but I'm not too upset about that either. After all, that is what I'm here for, I've learned to make the best of it.
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