Twenty-Seventh Week

This painting appeared in the chapter I just started learning about in Spanish literature a few days before my brother saw it in person.

Twenty-Sixth Week

Making cile kek on a Thursday afternoon.
You would not believe how much this Turkish pastry I learned from my dad has triumphed here.

Spring...?

While the snow's been melting back home, I've noticed some very early signs of spring here. Today, as I was running down a small road between my town and the next one down I noticed two bushes with bright red flowers sprouting from the tips of their bare branches. We've been having a good amount of sunny days lately (today not included) and more to come. So, I guess that's another new experience for the list: spring in February.
Apart from that I've really began to appreciate the everyday life here. Lately time has been flying by, but I'm pretty sure it's because I've come to a point where everything has just become "normal." And yet, I'm absolutely okay with that. It might seem like a year abroad for an exchange student must be such an adventure, learning and doing new things every day, which, the first 5 months was kind of the case. But I've grown to feel that confidence inside where I'm not afraid to speak up in class, even if they're speaking in Euskera and I only partly understand the topic. I'm not afraid to buy myself a train ticket or walk through Donosti (San Sebastián) trying to calmly avoid the manifestations in the streets in support of officializing the use of Euskera in all facilities across the Basque Country (which actually went on the other day). I'm not afraid to buy myself a book or run down the Zurriola beach heading back for a friend's umbrella which in the end disappeared anyway. Here I am, sitting the same room where, only a few months back, I had to think twice before understanding, 3 times before writing and ten times before speaking. Everything I used to do got a second thought, and just 5 months later it's become second nature.
And the biggest revelation I've had lately was that the lifestyle people have here is beyond anything I could imagine asking for. In 15 minutes you could find yourself at the beach, in the mountain, the small town or the big city. The culture dates so far back historians have yet to discover where the people actually come from, the education system is organized in a way where the focus is working and studying what you like to earn money rather than studying and working just to earn money. Not to mention, no matter how different each of the individuals you'll encounter here is from the next one, each and every one speaks two languages fluently (when I say this, I'm mainly talking about those that go to my school and the many more that attend schools that teach in Euskera as there are schools that only teach in Spanish as well). I could go on with the list for a good amount of time, but the point is that all these luxuries aren't things you need to have money for, they're basics, just background music for the modest lives of my classmates. But the best part about it is that they know they're lucky to have all this, they appreciate it. And that's just another thing I love about this place.

Twenty-Fifth Week

my friends and I in San Sebastian

Twenty-Fourth Week

Twenty-Third Week

My soccer team after winning the game that would put us in first place in our group in "La Copa"

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.

Twenty-Second Week

Sporting Tenafly gear at soccer practice

Twenty-First Week

Today, I spent the entire day in pijamas.
I suppose exchange students don't go on crazy adventures every weekend...

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.

Twentieth Week

Nineteenth Week

Cena de clase and Santo Tomás

Where I'm From

A classmate asked me today whether I felt truly American, and, well the answer I gave him was no. All my life I've felt like a foreigner, a European raised in America. I've always stressed the fact that my heritage is from the other side of the Atlantic, that I wasn't even born in America. Of course, I've spent a good deal of time with family in their respective countries, listening and speaking (in Germany) in the language, experiencing the culture, eating the food, etc. especially when I spent two years in The Netherlands where my grandparents' house was just an hour away, but it's not quite the same. Sure, I have customs, mannerisms, ways of doing things that are very much German or Turkish, and I've been educated to compose myself like a German with the Germans and a Turk with the Turks, but as soon as I left home everything I would do was completely American. I learned the American school system, studied the American government, spoke American English (New Jersey style if we want to get specific), pledged to an American flag (which I actually stopped doing in middle school for my personal reasons (respectfully, of course)), watched American movies, played sports the American way, celebrated American holidays, I could go on forever. Of course, this entered in the home too, it wasn't like I suddenly went to Europe when I entered the front door.
The point I'm trying to make is, I often felt uncomfortable telling people I was American. I'd go into a large ramble about how my mom's German, my dad's Turkish, I was born in Canada and my brother in England, expressing my extreme pride for my heritage every time someone asked my where I'm from. I'd even written about memories of sitting on my grandparents' balcony eating apricots and frozen bananas on a hot afternoon in Istanbul and watching the cows from my grandparents' back lawn in Germany in a "Where I'm From" poem in the sixth grade. I had a lot of trouble differentiating between where I'm from and who I am, and although heritage is important, and all of those memories in the end count very much to who I become and where I've come from, the question, "Where are you from?" has changed a great deal over the past few years for me, due to not only mindset but also location. In short, I never really felt American. That is, until I arrived here.
One of the first large observations I made here was how much of an accent I had (have, I don't know about regularly but now and then I say something with such an American accent I feel like I'm speaking English) I used to think I had a decent accent and I found it a little amusing when I'd hear some of my classmates speak spanish with such an American accent it almost seemed on purpose. It wasn't my spanish accent that really caught me off guard, that one I had coming for me. It was the American accent I have that all of a sudden sounded so weird, so different...
The reason I bring up the accent is because one day I was explaning to a Canadian friend I have here that comes from French-Canada how I don't really consider myself an American, and she basically told me that to her I am American, I have the accent, the customs, I grew up there. And for the next few days that conversation stuck with me. I slowly began to realize that, well, it's not where my parents are from, its not where my granparents are from, nor is it the blood they passed on to me that gives me any certain nationality.
In the end I didn't give my classmate a good answer today. It wasn't well-thought-out, either, just a habitual answer I was so used to giving for that question, but I've come to quite the conclusion. I'm much less European than the Italian guy that came for a trimester or the Belgian girl I became good friends with. I floated toward an American friend (who, although from across the country, shares many of the same types of observations, notices the same little oddities, even likes the same manner of saying certain words as me) whenever I felt a little left out or didn't know what was going on during the orientations for a reason: something familiar. Something I could relate to. Something American, just like me.




I'd like to clarify that in the above post solely my opinions are being posted. It has been written without intention to offend in any manner and I am in absolutely no way stating that I feel there is anything wrong with being American nor is there a problem with feeling like a foreigner. This is simply a matter of opinion and open to discussion, however I hope everyone understands the angle I am taking here and am merely writing to express prior and present mindsets and don't mean to impose on the mindsets of others. Thank you for understanding.

Video of the AFS trip from New York to Madrid

Click

All credits go to Jacob Spetzler, fellow AFSer, American, and, at the moment, fellow resident of the Basque Country.

Autumn and the "Home" Feeling

Well, it's not exactly autumn anymore, but I feel as though I've been cheated out of the most beautiful season of the year. Everything's still green here. That's not to say the trees aren't bare or holding on to their browned leaves for dear life, just that Autumn wasn't quite as marvellous as I had expected it to be when I first arrived here, thinking about how the green would slowly turn into a marvellous mix of yellow, orange and red as I'm so used to seeing in the leaves back home. It didn't quite live up to my expectations. I still see a large mass of green as I look out the window and the only color changing that's really taken place was one of the hills which actually turned white a couple times due to the snow. That's not to say I'd give up all this green to have autumn back, although I could do without all the rain. I suppose it's just another one of those changes where you remember that it's not good or bad, it's not better or worse, it's just completely different.
And that slowly brings me onto my next topic. As I walk across Urnieta from home to the polideportivo (basically a sports center where there's a gym for handball games, a swimming pool, a soccer field, tennis courts and other facilities as well as the showers. every town has one) I generally have a little chunk of time to myself, alone, just to think about whatever or listen to music. Friday, on my way to practice, as I passed by this little park for kids that I have to go through every time I go to practice, to meet with my friends, the bus station or even just to buy lettuce from the supermarket if I take that route, I got this strange, warm feeling inside me all of a sudden. I didn't quite know what it was at first, but it felt familiar. Today, it happened again, as I was lying on the couch attempting to take a siesta, but in the end didn't manage doing so, but I felt so comfortable under a warm blanket just looking at the reflection of the little streak of clouds in an otherwise clear sky in the glass of a large painting hung in the living room. But as I mulled over, once again, what the feeling could possibly be, I remembered back to those days in Tenafly where I'd go out for a short walk with some music just to enjoy the fall weather and, of course, to marvel at all the colors that surrounded me. Those were the days where I'd get that very same feeling I've been having lately, and I've finally discovered what it really means: it's that "home" feeling. That warm feeling you get on the inside when you just feel so safe and, well, at home, with your surroundings, where everything's so normal to you, and you feel as though you could walk around with a blindfold on and still find your way because you're so sure of where everything is and what's going on around you.
I guess getting that feeling is supposed to be a big feat in my year here, finally feeling comfortable and confident with where I am, having overcome the initial overall feeling of just being completely lost in another world based on completely different morals, history, geography, culture, language, and customs than what I've grown up with. But I think it has had a different meaning for me. It's been more of a catalyst for me. It's sparked new trains of thought running through my mind, new perspectives of the two lives I've now become accustomed to.
I once told my host mom how I've never felt like I've ever really "belonged." In every place I've lived, every place I've gone to school, for one reason or another, I just never quite felt completely at peace with myself, as though there was just something "off" between the harmony of me and my surroundings. But getting that "home" feeling on my way to practice, reminding myself all of a sudden of those days where I'd go from the track to the gym at school after track practice or waking up at 8 in the morning christmas break to go run ten 400's in the freezing cold, made me realize the true meaning of the word "home." You don't quite have to fit in with everybody else to feel at home, and you don't even have to feel like you belong. Home isn't the place where you were born, and it doesn't even have to be where you've spent all your life. For many of us, well, that may be the case. It could be where you grew up, where you are now, where you spent your time studying, whether it be college, boarding school, even studying abroad, but it's not the where that makes the difference. The "where" is what we often call "house," but the real "home" is, well, that's you. Home lies within all of us, and it takes a while to dig deep down enough to unlock it, and a whole lot longer to interpret it your way. For me, home is normal. Home is that place where, as I said earlier, you feel like you can walk around with a blindfold on, just because you feel so safe and secure, so sure about yourself and where you are. It's that harmony I talked about earlier between you and your surroundings that I've always felt was a little off-beat. What I've come to realize is, you can't always be in harmony with the world. In fact, you're almost never in agreement with "home," but those precious moments where you get the "home" feeling remind you that it doesn't matter whether or not you're in the town you grew up in or whether or not you still go to the same supermarket to buy chicken or whether or not you're even with your family. It reminds you that, in the very least, you're secure, comfortable, and, most importantly, safe.

Seventeenth Week

Messing around on a Sunday afternoon... Just enjoying some free time while the others are taking a siesta

Sixteenth Week

Copyright of Laura Diez Miner
Merry Christmas.

December!

With the arrival of December, everything in school's calmed down (actually finished projects and tests December 1st) and the breaks are arriving. Decorations are slowly appearing on the trees and everybody's getting in a festive mood (I even started an advent calendar).
I'm in the middle of a 5 day weekend right now and in a couple of weeks Christmas break begins. Yesterday I went to watch a "ciclo-cross" competition where some of the world's champions competed. I also got to see a friend of mine from AFS who actually lives in a small town right next to where the competition was. Later that day, my host father and sister and I went to see the local proffesional soccer team Real Sociedad from San Sebastián play against Athletic de Bilbao which they call the "derbi" here because of the rivalry between the two teams. Real Sociedad won 2-0, one goal was a penalty and the other an own goal, so all in all we left the stadium happy.
Today, we went to an old amusement park for kids on top of one of the hills of San Sebastián where we got a really nice view of the whole city, the ocean and everything. We went on some of the rides, played some of the games and overall just had a good time. Then, we walked across the city so that I could get to know the streets a little more and my host sister went to meet up with her friends while my host parents and I went to the movie theatre to watch "Biutiful" directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and starring Javier Bardem which was placed in Barcelona. It turned out to be a really good movie, I'm not sure if it'd be in theatres in America but for anyone that encounters it I seriously reccommend watching it.
Overall I've been have a pretty good time with my family and just been relaxing lately which has been nice. I've been given a lot of time to think and just to mull over all the things going on in my head lately which has been nice as well. I've been laughing lightly a lot lately (just about little things) and overall just been having a good time.

Fifteenth Week

(had a picture for fourteenth but never got a hold of it)