En España...

One final entry...

2009-06-30T05:16:00.000-05:00

Well. It's finally come to an end. This is my last week here in Spain.

Between graduation, end of the year stuff, the Germany trip, and The Hogueras festival, my birthday kind of snuck up on me. The problem with that is that my birthday was what I had chosen as the event/date that marks the start of the end, because after my birthday, I don't even have 2 weeks left. But I've been spending the small amount of time the way I like to: low-key. Some time with some friends, hanging with Sofia (my best friend here), with the family, enjoying the fireworks festival from the 25th-29th, and the like.

Last night, I finally cooked an American meal for my host family. I had been thinking about it when they asked out of curiousity if I was going to, so I decided then to do it. However, I really didn't want to do hamburgers and hot dogs and french fries or things like that, because that's TOO American, you know? It's just too stereotypical. I ended up asking my dad for the recipe, from my great-grandfather if I understand right, for the meatloaf he makes and his green bean. I made them both, to my apprehension, and my host mom made some veggies, potatoes, fruit, and a red fruit cheesecake to go with it. We invited over a couple from the urbanization that we know, a friend of Elena who lives in the urbanization and her son (who is Luis' age), and my best friend Sofia. It was a complete success. Everyone commented on how good it was, and I must say, it reminded me perfectly of the meatloaf my dad makes, so I didn't end up screwing it up. It was a good night of good food, good people, and good conversation.

Me and the food I cooked. Below, the food.

Lastly, I want to mention how crazy it's been trying to pack. I had no idea how I was going to manage it without adding another suitcase or going overweight. Not to mention the fact that people kept giving me going-away gifts. I was totally stressing out, because I didn't want to leave anything behind, even though all 4 of my parents were telling me I'd have to do that. In the end though, thanks to some creative thinking and reorganizing, I managed to get all the important, irreplaceable stuff (i.e. not the underwear, socks, undershirts, etc.) into the space and luggage I have. It's such a relief to not have to worry about that now.

Well, I'm coming home soon, so the next time I talk to you all, it'll probably be in person.
Thanks for tagging along!
Un abrazo
Erik

Currently listening to:
Song: I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow
Artist: The Soggy Bottom Boys
Album: O, Brother Where Art Thou? Soundtrack

Happy Birthday to me!

2009-06-26T13:42:00.011-05:00

Well, since it's my birthday, I thought I'd blog a bit about a few things.

First, I'll explain Las Hogueras. I'm not sure why they celebrate it, but it's THE festival in Alicante, the one not to miss. Each neighborhood builds their "hoguera" (which means bonfire, but is also used to refer to the statues.) and there are barracas and racos everywhere. Barracas and racos aren't much different. They're tents for different groups or neighborhoods or whatnot, that usually have music and a dancing area and drinks and food and tables.
The entire city center is basically blocked off and cordoned off, so travel is a...well, it ain't easy to get there with car or bus. Anyway, every night is a party night starting on the 19th. During the day the barracas are open and they have las mascletas.
Las mascletas are a type of firework show, but instead of focusing on pretty lights, las mascletas are more about the noise and ryhthms and stuff. I love them! My host mom told me about some friends who live on the plaza where they set off the mascletas every day at 2 and how every year, they have to turn in forms to the city hall to get them to replace the windows the mascletas broke!
The night of the 23rd to the 24th, everyone goes out to party on the beach. People build bonfires and drink on the beach. It was crazy. One thing they do is write a wish on a piece of paper, burn in, and then jump the fire. I didn't do nor see it, but they tell me it's done when the fire has burnt down to coals, so it's a little safer. haha
On the 24th, at midnight they "shoot the palm tree" from the castle, which is a firework that looks like a palm tree, to mark the start and then starting at the hoguera statue in the town hall plaza, they go around the city burning the statues.
The following week is a fireworks competition, which I like because I got to welcome my birthday with dinner on the beach with friends the night of the 25th and then at midnight, we watched the fireworks and tonight, I'm going out to dinner with my host family and then we're going to watch the fireworks. So I'm starting and ending my birthday with fireworks. Not too bad, huh?

The hoguera in the town hall plaza.

Above: A street in the city center, blocked off and filled with people, and below: the beach on the night of the 23rd.

The "palm tree" above the castle. It was a little disappointing, because to me it didn't really look like a palm tree, but it was one big firework!

Since it's my birthday, that means it won't be much longer before I come home, so I wanted to talk about what I'm going to miss and what I have missed.
The States:
-> I miss junk food. There is junk food here, but it's not a typical thing to have at home though.
-> I miss having the words match up with the mouths in movies and on TV. I got used to that though, so it's not that big of a deal.
-> I miss driving. You don't know how many times I wish I could have hopped in a car or a on a moto instead of taking the bus.
-> I miss "your mom" and "that's what she said" jokes. They just don't get them over here. haha
-> I miss family and friends and familiarity of places, although I have that now here too, so it's not so bad.
-> I miss watching "Bones" during dinner with my family.

Spain:
-> I'll miss not having junk food around. While I miss snacking, I don't filling my body with all that junk.
-> I'll miss fresh bread every day with lunch and bread with every meal.
-> I'll also miss quantity and diversity of fresh fruits and veggies that we always had in the house.
-> I'll miss how open everyone is here. They're a lot less judgemental about some things here. Also, while sometimes, they might come across as touchy-feely, you get used to it and realize they're just open and caring people.
-> I'll miss the few people I've become close to this year: my host family and a few select friends.
-> I'll miss watching "Bones" and "The Mentalist" during dinner with my host family.
-> I'll miss how basically every window and/or door in the house can be opened up, which is just really nice, for fresh air and to deal with the weather.

I'm sure there were other things I wanted to put on the list, but right now I can't remember them. But it kinda gives you an idea.

Currently listening to:
Song: Home
Artist: Daughtry
Album: Daughtry

An Not-Quite-As-Behind-As-I-Imagined Update

2009-06-22T14:41:00.003-05:00

Hey everybody, I know it's been awhile and I apologize. Since it's been awhile, this one might get a little long.

The weekend of the 23rd of May, my host family and I traveled to Granada. We stayed with a cousin there, who was a fantastic tour guide (no sarcasm there at all, he seriously knew his stuff). The main part of the trip was the visit to the Alhambra. It's one of those places you always end up talking about, but rarely ever travel to, so I was excited to be able to visit it.

The next big thing that happened was "graduation." Here, they call them Las ORLAS. A few of the big differences are that the ceremony is slightly less formal. Dress varied from dress shirts and jeans to suits for the guys, although all the girls got dressed up. Also, the majority of the people talked amongst themselves throughout the ceremony, which was in the school's parking lot. Instead of calling each person, they named off the people in the groups that signed up and the groups went on stage to receive their ORLA. The ORLA actually isn't a diploma, just a posted with pictures of everyone from the class. There were also some recognitions of other awards and a speech by class representatives, but that's it really. Then on to the class dinner and party, an aspect I really liked, doing one last thing together as a class (a little easier to do here, with no more than 70 people in my class). The open bar at the class party was interesting, but that's just Spain for you.

Next on the list of news is my Germany trip. An exchange friend was stopping in Alicante on their way to Germany and from there, I was eventually invited along on the trip. We went to Freiburg in the south to visit some of her (Canadian) family's friends and then we went to Berlin. We spent 5 days in Freiburg, just relaxing and enjoying the feel of the laid-back city and then an overnight train to Berlin and 5 days in Berlin, doing as much sightseeing as we could. If you want to know about all the places we went to and the things we did, check out my Germany photos on Flickr. (The word Flickr is the link to the page).

Speaking of Flickr, I got all but my most recent photos up now. So that's the photos from Granada, graduation, class photos (high school and language school) and Germany, as well as some photos from around town too, to give you all, my readers, an idea of where I have been living. (Each name is a clickable link to that specific album on Flickr, for those of you that don't know).

Class photos
Granada
Graduation
Around town photos:
Walk to school
Walk to beach

The Germany link is above in the previous paragraph.

I'd love to go into more detail about each step I listed and maybe even about my day-to-day life, but that day-to-day life is exactly what prevents me from that. 3 days after I got back from Germany, Las Hogueras started. Las Hogueras is THE festival in Alicante, from the 19th to the 24th of June, and what a festival it is! In order not to miss anything, I'm afraid I'm going to skimp a little on this entry. No hard feelings? Alright then. I hope these brief explanations and all the photos satifsy the curiousity of what I've been up to lately.

So, that didn't turn out quite as long as I thought it would, but anyways, I'm off to the parties. Until next time (which should be soon[er than this last wait]).
Erik

Currently listening to:
Song: Come Back
Artist: Foo Fighters
Album: One by One
(Granada)

Song: Keep On Trying
Artist: Poco
Album: Head Over Heels
(Graduation)

Song: Lovestoned/I Think She Knows
Artist: Justin Timberlake
Album: Futuresex/LoveSounds
(Germany - this was kind of the Germany trip anthem, for some reason it was stuck in our heads the whole trip)

A visitor in Alicante

2009-05-12T09:35:00.005-05:00

Since Evan let me stay at his house during my visit to Madrid two weekends ago, I returned the favor when he wanted to come down to see Alicante.
I was going to show him around when he came down Saturday afternoon, but for the first time that week the weather decided to NOT be nice and we went home to avoid the rain. Later that night, we went out to see a play by Luis's old theater group and then we went played Spanish Trivial Pursuit with some of Luis's friends (that I'd met once before) and after that, we met up with Javi, Carlos, and a few other guys for a game of bowling.

Sunday, Cassie and Maddy came down to Alicante like we had discussed and the 4 of us spent the day on the beach: playing volleyball, swimming in the freezing water (now I get why my host parents say it's better to wait til June to swim...haha), and just relaxing. After we dropped the girls off at the bus station, we headed to Panoramis and saw the amazing new Star Trek movie (in Spanish of course).

Evan, Maddy, Cassie, and me on the beach.

Monday was the big day. Since Valencia is so close, Evan wanted to see it and since I hadn't really been there either, we made a day trip. All we ended up having time to see was the City of Arts and Sciences, which is the big thing in Valencia. There's an art museum, IMAX theater, science museum, garden, and aquarium. We saw a movie about the Alps in the IMAX (with cool headsets that let you choose your language: Spanish, Valenciano, English, or French) and then checked out the Science Museum. We thought about going to the aquarium but since that was another 18€ (and that was with a student discount!), we decided not to and spent more time leisurely in the Science Museum.

Various shots of the City of Arts and Sciences.

Unfortunately, Tuesday I had to go back to school, especially after skipping Monday to go to Valencia, so I left early but Evan had learned the bus route from when we'd used it, so he got himself up and off to the train station (and even had time to stop at the castle before he went, which was good, because it's one of the really good things to see in Alicante, and we hadn't figured out how to fit it in the schedule very well.).

All in all, a good weekend.

Currently listening to:
Song: Uprising Down Under
Artist: Sam Roberts
Album: Chemical City

Trip to Madrid

2009-04-28T05:29:00.024-05:00

This past weekend, we had a 4-day weekend in Alicante, but unlike a lot of the other holidays, this one was just celebrated in Alicante, and nowhere else in Spain.
Thursday was the festival of Santa Faz, celebrating a saint in the small town of San Juan, which is one of the small towns surrounding Alicante that are basically part of Alicante.

Anyways, I decided to take advantage of having a 4-day weekend. I'd been talking with several other exchange friends that I'd gotten close to on the Italy trip about traveling to Madrid, Barcelona, and the Canary Islands, and Evan and I figured out Santa Faz would be a great weekend for me to go up to Madrid and stay with him.

Thursday, I went up to Madrid by train and Evan met me at the station. Since I'd packed light, we decided to walk around the area, which luckily the train station is fairly centrally placed in relation to many sights in Madrid. We went to Plaza de Cibeles, Puerta de Alcala, Retiro Park and the lagoon there, and finally we went into the Prado Museum, taking advantage of the free entry after 6PM. I saw "La Rendición de Breda" and "Las Meninas" by Velazquez and "El 3 de Mayo" by Goya among other works. After the Prado, we headed to Evan's house to get me settled in.

The lagoon in Retiro Park.

Friday, we woke up and headed back to the train station to catch the train to Toledo. Ever since I'd gotten to Spain, Toledo has been on my list of destinations, and since it's 30 minutes from Madrid by train, I made sure to get there while I could.
We spent the morning wandering around Toledo, stopping at various sites on the map from an Info booth. Toledo is a small, old town, but it is very well-preserved. We also stopped along at a lot of the stores we saw, as I was on the hunt for the perfect sword. Between many of my hobbies and interests (fencing, history, etc.), ever since I've known I was going to Spain, I knew I wanted to buy a sword from Toledo, because it would be the perfect souvenir for me. And in the end, I found one!

Toledo.

My sword.

Saturday, we spent hitting some more sites, such as the Plaza de España, Plaza de Castilla, and Puerta del Sol.

Plaza de Castilla.

Saturday afternoon, we met up with Ariel, another (non-Rotary) exchange student that lives near Evan and we went to a "recorte de toros," which isn't the same as a "corrida de toros." The corridas are the typical bullfights, like what everyone thinks of, but the recortes are like junior/training bullfights. All the recortadores (the people) do is dodge the bull. It was pretty amazing. One of them kept jumping over the bull and another was so close when he dodged that the bull ripped his pants (but he didn't get hurt, just his pants)!!!

Sunday, we met up with Stephen, another Rotary exchange student in Madrid at El Rastro, the biggest, most well-known street market in Madrid. After wandering around and getting lost in the surprising vastness of the market, we stopped off at the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) and the cathedral and then headed to Plaza Mayor, two sites I'd gotten to see briefly the only other time I'd been in Madrid. We stopped at a kebab (a Turkish restaurant) for lunch and then it was time to go. We headed back to Evan's house, I collected my things and thanked him for having me and it was time to head to the train station and go home to Alicante.

Currently listening to:
Song: Next Year
Artist: Foo Fighters
Album: There Is Nothing Left To Lose

Semana Santa => Holy Week

2009-04-09T04:33:00.009-05:00

Holy Week is a big deal here in Spain. Starting with Palm Sunday, there are processions and concerts and all kinds of things all week. Most of Spain has vacation that week, but here in Alicante we also have a festival for San Vicente on the 20th, so our vacation goes from Maudy Thursday until the 20th. Which following that we have another break pretty quickly for a saint in San Juan. But I digress.

For Palm Sunday, Elena got in touch with Pep's mother and the other relatives in Elche, about 30 minutes or so south of Alicante so I could go see the parade for Palm Sunday there. Elche has a lot of palm trees and even a park full of palms that has been named a Patrimony of Humanity by the UN. So needless to say, they are quite skilled when it comes to palms. Whether it be giant staffs with everything from baskets of flowers or statues of the Virgin all entirely made of woven palms or brooch like pieces ranging from flowers to leaves to crosses and many other things. Sadly, it started raining and the procession was canceled, so it was good I happened to stumble upon it on my way to meet up with cousin Pablo. The Iaia (grandma) Remy said it's the first time she can ever remember the procession being rained out, so I apologized. haha
We went into the church to see some of the palms and then had lunch and Palbo took me home.

Above and below: photos from the procession for Palm Sunday in Elche.

I really didn't watch any of the processions, but while I was out and about one day, I stumbled upon one and it kinda freaked me out. Here's why:
Yes, they look like the KKK. But the outfit has something to do with sinners and the KKK actually ripped the idea from this. Anyway, the processions last several hours each and they wind through the city center, where the main streets are cut off from traffic after a certain hour of the day.
I also happened to be very lucky this year. We just formed a Rotaract club here in Alicante and thanks to the brother of one of the members, we were offered the chance to be costeleros in a procession. The costeleros carry the statues of Christ or the Virgin in the processions. Here's the one we carried:

In the photo below, you can see me in the back of the third row from the right. I'm the only one not looking straight ahead, but I'm looking at the camera.

It was massively heavy, even with almost 50-60 people carrying it, but luckily we stopped like almost every block. We also had to stop to change: some people to better distribute the burden, but mainly to switch the front and back groups. Depending if we were going uphill or downhill changed where the "short" group and the "tall" group were. Our procession, of the Convent of the Monks of the Holy Blood, started at 9:15 or so and we didn't get back until around midnight. It was crazy. But it was a memorable experience and one that not many people have, so it was worth all the effort and the sore back, side, kidneys, neck, and shoulder the next few days.

Un abrazo,
Erik

Currently listening to:
Song: Jueves
Artist: La Oreja de Van Gogh
Album: A Las Cinco en el Astoria

Italy - Pisa & Venice & Home

2009-03-25T05:33:00.011-05:00

Sunday was once again spent traveling and on our way to Venice we stopped by Pisa to see the Leaning Tower. The Tuscany region is stunningly beautiful. It's probably my favorite zone of Italy. And the weather in Pisa that day was fantastic and sunny, a nice contrast to the cold in Florence the day before.

There isn't much to see in Pisa, aside from the Field of Miracles with the church, baptistery, and bell tower (the Leaning Tower), so we spent the afternoon lounging around on the grass, enjoying the weather and each other's company. We took all the cheesy, touristy photos "leaning" against the Tower and everything and eventually worked our way up to making pyramids in front of the Tower. We really wanted to do one with the whole group, but the biggest one we managed to make was with 10 people. For a bit of the afternoon, several of us rented these bike-things to ride around the city. That was fun (and some good practice for driving!).

Supporting the Tower. haha

The church and the Tower.

The bike-car-thingy we rented.

Later they kicked us off the grass, so not long after that we headed on towards Venice. That night though, we went out on the town to celebrate Josh's 18th birthday. We went out to a bar/club and then headed back to round up the night on the beach in front of our hotel.

Venice was definitely one of my favorite stops we made. Monday, we woke up and went to the boat that would take us to Venice. Technically, Venice is part island and part mainland city, but the city that everyone thinks of as Venice is the island part. There was a problem with our tour guide, meaning we had some free time, so a small group of us that were interested went and found the cheapest priced gondola ride we could. It was 80€, but since we split it between the 6 of us, it wasn't that bad. And getting to ride around Venice through the canals in a gondola was definitely worth it. Our guide finally showed up and we were shown around the city and St. Mark's Square and inside St. Mark's and the other main sights, like the Doge's Palace and the Bridge of Sighs. We got to see a glass-blowing demonstration, which was astounding (the rapidity of the glass-blower to make a beautifully crafted vase mainly). After that, we were free to wander the city and some of us went to see the Rialto Bridge.

Evan and Caitriona with our gondolier, Antonio.

Standing on the Rialto, overlooking the Grand Canal.

St. Mark's Basilica and St. Mark's Square.

Tuesday was the worst day because it was our last day together. We were all exhausted from having stayed up the night before hanging out and signing postcards, kinda in the style of yearbooks or whatnot. I didn't have that many postcards, so I had people write their notes in my Rick Steves' Italy guidebook that my (real) parents had given me. I did that, because I was constantly passing it out to people or referring to it to explain things to people. I was declared the "unofficial tour guide" within the group. haha...
Anyways, we spent Tuesday sleeping on the bus to Milan and then flying from Milan to Madrid, where we ended up missing our train since the flight had been slightly delayed, and we made our goodbyes and headed to the train station to get our tickets changed and we came home.

All in all, they were some of the 9 best days of my life and I made 22 amazing new friends (or deepened an already existing friendship).

Currently listening to:
Song: Running Out Of Days
Artist: 3 Doors Down
Album: Away From the Sun

Italy - Asis & Florence

2009-03-25T05:32:00.005-05:00

After Rome and Naples, we got up and headed to Florence. Since it was only about a half-day of travel, on the way we stopped in Asis, the birthplace/origin of St. Francis of Asis. It was a pretty small town, but the church was interesting, as it had several different levels and then the catacomb-esque tomb of St. Francis. Asis had to be my least favorite of everything, but that's only because there wasn't really anything to do, but the city was cool because of the history is has with St. Francis and everything.

In the plaza in front of the church in Asis.

Lunch was in Asis and then we continued on to Florence and went to the hotel.

Saturday was spent in Florence. The morning was spent being led around by our guide and the afternoon we had free. We hit the Duomo (the call it that, but duomo is Italian for cathedral), Santa Maria del Fiore, again, but only from the outside. A small group of us decided to pay the 6.50€ to enter the Gallery of the Accademia, where they have Michelangelo's David. That statue was worth every penny. It's breathtaking: in size, in detail, in everything. We also stopped and saw the Ponte Vecchio and the Uffizi Gallery (but didn't go into the gallery as the lines were ridiculously long). Florence was nice because it was really easy to find our way around as we just wandered through the city, stopping at the different markets and sights that caught our eye. While we were there, about 8 of us took the opportunity to buy some Italian leather items: 2 girls bought leather gloves and the rest bought leather jackets. It was the first time I'd ever had to haggle the price for something and I think it went pretty well.

Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral in Florence.

Piazza della Signiora in Florence.

Michelangelo's David (they didn't allow photography, so this is the only shot I got, but I couldn't NOT take a picture to show I'd been there...haha)

Next: Pisa & Venice!

Currently listening to:
Song: Details in the Fabric
Artist: Jason Mraz
Album: We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.

Italy - Rome & Naples/Capri

2009-03-25T04:33:00.009-05:00

There are so many stories from the Italy trip, so I'll just keep this to a quick run through of what we did and save the stories for later.

Sunday the 15th, Cassie and Maddy came down to spend the night here since we had a really early train to catch. I showed them around Alicante and the beaches and then we had Mac & Cheese that Maddy had with her for dinner. Yummy!

Monday, we got up and took the train (business class tickets - that was an interesting experience!) to Madrid and then the metro to the airport, where we eventually met up with the other students. They could be divided into 3 groups: those I remembered, those I remembered but not the names, and those I didn't know. So we all got introduced or re-introduced. Then we caught our flight to Rome.

Once in Rome, we found our bus, went to eat dinner and then headed to the hotel to get settled in.

Tuesday began the actual tour. After picking up our guide for Rome, we started with a bus tour hitting the main sights: some old Roman baths, the Circo Maximo, the Colosseum, the Forum, Palatine Hill, etc. Then we got off the bus and walked around on foot and passed through the Trastevere neighborhood and the Jewish quarter and we saw some more ruins (they're everywhere), the place where Caesar got killed, and the Castel Sant'Angelo. Then we rushed to make it to lunch on time, so we would have time to get into the Colosseum. After lunch we went back to the Colosseum and we went inside. It was amazing and a dream come true, to be there. After the Colosseum, we went around Rome a little and we saw the Arch of Constantine, the Forum and Palatine Hill up close, Trajan's Column, the Victor Emmanuel Monument, and we had our first gelato! Then came dinner and the night tour of Rome's plazas and fountains. We went to the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Four Rivers Fountain and Plaza Navona. At the Trevi Fountain, we all threw in the coins to come back to Rome.

Caesar got killed somewhere in here.

Inside the Colosseum.

In front of the Trevi Fountain.

Wednesday, we actually went to a different country. But since the Vatican is basically a giant museum, I don't know how it can be a country but it is! haha
The Vatican wasn't that interesting but that's because we spent most of the time looking at statues, mosaics, or paintings, but they were kinda cool. We saw all the Popemobiles from the different epochs, we got to see the Sistine Chapel (Amazing!), and we went into St. Peter's Basilica, which is enormous, and we saw Michelangelo's "Pieta" statue too. And we saw some Swiss guards.

The Pope's balcony, from St. Peter's Square.

Inside St. Peter's Basilica.

After the Vatican, we had a free afternoon, so we split up and my group went back to see the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon with less of a rush. We also did some shopping and tried some famous "death by chocolate" gelato, which was good but not that rich.

The next day, Thursday, was a day trip to Naples and the island of Capri. Really it was a trip to Capri, because we barely spent any time in Naples, which I didn't like, because I really wanted to see Pompeii, which is right next to Naples. But Capri was beautiful, even though the weather was a little chilly.

Naples and Mt. Vesuvius.

On the island of Capri.

We ate lunch on the island and then wandered around Naples for about half an hour before returning to Rome to spend the night.
Next: Asis and Florence!

Currently listening to:
Song: Not A Man
Artist: Celebrity Chimp
Album: Celebrity is the New Royalty

3 teens, 2 days, 1 city...(Part 3 of 3)

2009-03-09T17:01:00.011-05:00

Sunday, we split up a little. We went to see the Tower of London from up close. I decided that I should enter at least one of the historic landmarks we were seeing, and so paid the £14.50 student price (instead of the normal £17 price. Either way, the price is ridiculous.) to get in, while Luis and Juanmi went to see a couple modern architectural landmarks they wanted to see. The Tower was impressive. Between replicas of the torture machines used when it was a prison, engravings on the walls left by the prisoners that are still there today, the displays of old armor, the interactive museum, and the Crown Jewels, it was definitely worth the price. I took a lot of pictures, including some of the Jewels, which techincally is prohibited, but I couldn't NOT photograph every step of the trip.

Running about 10 minutes late, I met up with Luis and Juanmi outside the Tower and we went to see St. Paul's Cathedral. After that, the day went downhill.
We left the cathedral, our map almost blew away, we headed down the main street looking for the Metro station, it started raining, we realized we'd lost the map and also gotten lost, we walked about 10-15 blocks in the rain until we found a station, which happened to be on one of the two central lines through downtown London which were closed that weekend for repair, we walked another couple blocks in the rain to another station, realized we really didn't have any more time to see anything more. So we headed to the restaurant Masiel had recommended for lunch before heading home. However, the whole street of restaurants was closed! We ended up going to Wok-in-a-Box, where they only accepted cash. I used the last of mine, and Luis only had the £20 note. Uh-oh (earlier that day, buying the train/metro tickets, we'd tried to use the note to buy them, but the ticket agent justed started laughing, saying it was a really old note and asking where we'd gotten it!). The Chinese woman behind the register just stared at it for awhile, before calling over her workmate, and then the other, and the other, and finally the manager. After all 5 of them had looked it over, they finally took it. And so ended the saga of the old £20 note.

After lunch, we went home, thanked Masiel, grabbed our suitcases and took the train to the airport. However, due to construction that started THAT day, we ended up taking 4 trains instead of 2 and we missed the check-in for the flight by 10 minutes!!! They wouldn't reopen for us, so we had to pay £35 each to catch the next flight to Alicante. So instead of flying out Sunday night at 6:50PM, we had to fly home Monday morning at 6:35AM!!! As such, we had to spend the night in the airport. Between sleeping on the benches, calling the parents to explain how we'd missed the flight, and trying to exchange 2€ so I could use a computer and check my debit card (that I'd been using all weekend) and send an email, it was an interesting night. It was also an interesting end to a fun weekend.

Sleeping on the benches in the airport.

My legs/feet were killing me after so much walking, but it was worth it, to get to see London.
Next week: ITALY!!!

More in PARTS 1 & 2!!!

Part 1: http://erikinalicante.blogspot.com/2009/03/3-teens-2-days-1-city.html
Part 2: http://erikinalicante.blogspot.com/2009/03/3-teens-2-days-1-citypart-2-of-3.html

Currently listening to:
Song: Elgar/Something Inside
Artist: Jonathan Rhys-Meyers
Album: August Rush Soundtrack

3 teens, 2 days, 1 city...(Part 2 of 3)

2009-03-09T13:47:00.020-05:00

Saturday, we headed out to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. On the way there, we were lucky enough to run into the Horse Guards' Parade on its way to the Palace so we followed them there. There were so many people, we actually couldn't see any of the ceremony, but I still managed to get some pictures. The Guards' band was playing and we recognized a few of the songs: Ricky Martin's "La Vida Loca," the Beatles' "With A Little Help From My Friends," and one we're pretty sure was from Pirates of the Caribbean! After the ceremony, we decided to walk around the palace to see if we could see any more of it, but sadly, all we got to see was the barbed-wire tipped brick wall around the grounds.

The Changing of the Guard

We then headed to a pub the was recommended on a traveler's forum, since we wanted to try some English food, but about halfway there, we were feeling exhausted and since we'd happened to stop in front of a pub, we went there instead. It was really good food.

After lunch, we made the big stop for the day: the British Museum. They say you need at least 2 hours to even do a bare minium tour. We passed through the areas housing objects of all kinds (statues, sculptures, jewelry, weaponry, coins, etc.) from Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Rome. We saw THE Rosetta Stone, Cleopatra's mummy, pieces from the actual Parthenon, among other things.

THE Rosetta Stone!

The museum left us kind of tourismed out, so we decided to see a movie to relax a little.
We relaxed in Leicester Square until the movie started and then we went home.

More in PARTS 1 & 3!!!

Part 1: http://erikinalicante.blogspot.com/2009/03/3-teens-2-days-1-city.html
Part 3: http://erikinalicante.blogspot.com/2009/03/3-teens-2-days-1-citypart-2.html

Currently listening to:
Song: Move Along
Artist: The All-American Rejects
Album: Move Along

3 teens, 2 days, 1 city...(Part 1 of 3)

2009-03-09T13:46:00.004-05:00

This past weekend, Luis, Juanmi (Juan Miguel, Luis's sailing partner), and I went to London. It was a Christmas gift from my host parents. We were going to stay with a friend of my host parents who lives in London.

We flew out of Alicante late Thursday night and met the taxi driver at the airport who drove us to Lewisham, the neighborhood where Masiel (the friend) lives.

The next morning, Friday, began the madness.

We got up and walked to Greenwich, the neighboring neighborhood, to see the Old Royal Observatory, from which time all over the world is measured. We visited the "museums" they had there, dealing with the history of the observatory, time and clocks, longitude/latitude, and astronomy. After that, we went down to the National Maritime Museum.

Us standing on the Prime Meridian.

Us in front of Big Ben.

The next part of our trip was a boat ride down the Thames river to central London. We saw a lot of things from the boat, including Shakespeare's Globe Theater and several sights we went to see later. Once we got downtown, we went to see Big Ben, the London Eye, and Westminster Abbey. We didn't go into Westminster Abbey because it cost 12 pounds a person, nor did we go up in the London Eye because the lines were long and it cost 15.50 pounds per person. So instead of going up in the Eye, we went to the aquarium next door, which we though was reasonably priced at 6 pounds each. However, the aquarium was undergoing construction, meaning half the exhibits were closed, a fact they didn't advertise (until after you'd entered and paid). After the aquarium, we went up to Trafalgar Square, where we saw the 167-foot monument honoring Admiral Nelson's naval victory in 1805. We went there to visit the National Gallery, with it's very esteemed art collection. However, due to the hours, we decided to go to the Museum of Natural History and then return to the gallery.
At the Museum of Natural History, we thought we'd been through all the galleries, which was fortunate since they were closing, when we discovered we'd only seen one of the three zones. And unfortunately, we never got back to see the rest. Down the street from the museum, we visited the famous Harrod's. Wow. That store sells just about everything. They even have a "Toy Kingdom" that is a veritable kingdom, solely due to its size. We also found an 108-inch TV that cost 100,000 pounds (~$140,000) and a Swarovski crystal encrusted foozball table that cost 80,000 pounds (~$110,000)!!! It even has its own bank!

The 108-inch TV...

After giving ourselves sticker shock in Harrod's, we returned to Masiel's house for dinner and went out to a pub to enjoy some live music to end the night. And thus began the saga of the old 20-pound note. I really enjoyed the band and wanted to buy the CD they had with them. So Luis gave me the old 20-pound note Pep had given him before we left. After the guy scrounged up the change, he came back to say he and the rest of the band didn't think they could take the note because they didn't think anyone would accept it because it was so old, but we told him it was valid tender, he left and came about about 5 minutes later, saying the bartenders had said they wouldn't accept the note. So I borrowed 5 pounds from Masiel and we held onto the old 20-pound note.

More in PARTS 2 & 3!!!

Part 2: http://erikinalicante.blogspot.com/2009/03/3-teens-2-days-1-citypart-2-of-3.html
Part 3: http://erikinalicante.blogspot.com/2009/03/3-teens-2-days-1-citypart-2.html

Currently listening to:
Song: Back Home
Artist: Yellowcard
Album: Ocean Avenue

Haircuts and parties!!!

2009-02-22T07:08:00.005-06:00

At school, this last Thursday and Friday (19th and 20th of February), we had las jornadas culturales, or Cultural Days. Basically, they were two days of different "cultural" activities and just plain activities. There was a ping pong tournament, as well as tourneys for soccer, basketball, and volleyball. There was a cake contest. There was a crêpes workshop (which ran out the first day before I got back), as well as one for bunyols de carabassa (in valenciano, not castellano...it's a type of fried dessert thing made of pumpkin...which also ran out both days just as I was getting in line...). In the library, there was a quote wall, a "free trade" market, with bracelets and other jewelry, tea, cake, etc. They were also selling books. There was a photo contest of historic sites which I participated in, but didn't win. There was a contest of landscape or cityscape drawings too. My sociology class also did a mural/collage of photos to students from the institute showing how even though we may look different, we're all equal.

I didn't really sign up for much, not knowing at the time of the sign ups (which were usually a pair of students who would come into the classes in the week leading up to the cultural days), and not wanting to sign up for conflicting times. Anyway, my plan was to wander around the school and just pop in on the different activities. It didn't work out quite as well as I was planning, because there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to where things were put or how well they stuck to the schedule we were given. So I wandered anyway, popping into those I could find, and some I stumbled upon. It was an interesting two days.

The mural/collage/whatever you want to call it we made (with a video slide show too!).

However, the highlight of this past weekend most definitely has to be Carnival. Yes, Carnival, like they have in Brazil, although obviously, here it's less well-known that they celebrate. But believe me, it's just as crazy! Here, everyone goes out to celebrate the Saturday at the start of Carnival and everyone dresses up, as in costumes. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about what I wanted to dress up as, and in the end I decided I would do something with my hair, since it was so long and I had so much. I decided to get a mohawk and dress up like a punk/rocker. So Saturday afternoon, I went into a hair place for my appointment. They told me they would have to cut off quite a bit in order to make the mohawk, which I was REALLY nervous about because I wanted to be able to go back to normal the next day. But I finally went through with it, for a few reasons:
1) It's hair. It'll grow back.
2) It'll be really different, which is the idea for the costume.
3) I've always wanted to know what I looked like with short hair.
4) I really want to get this mohawk for my costume, plus I don't have any other ideas for a costume.
And I think that's about it...
And here's the change:
Crazy, right? But despite my intial trepidation and immediate regret in the process of the shaping of the mohawk, it was totally worth it.

Anyway, that night, I went out with Luis and his friends. The streets were PACKED!!! And in some cases, I mean literally. The buses were rerouted to avoid going up La Rambla (the main street heading up from the port) because the street was full of people, a couple of stages with music going, as well as some street vendors. And many of the streets and areas branching off from there were packed as well. We finally found a spot to sit ourselves down and drink (I'll get back to that in a second), but when we went to try to find a couple of the other people, we had to hold hands and make a human chain in order to weave through the crowd and not get separated.

Anyway, about the drinking. Basically, Carnival was like one giant botellón. A popular thing for the youth to do here is gather in a public site, like a park, and drink (usually to get drunk, but sometimes just to drink like socially, like Luis's friends do. They're all overage though and Luis doesn't drink, which is nice because I can go hang out with them and they don't pressure me to drink and Luis and I usually end up buying ourselves something else to drink like Red Bull.). And Carnival was one giant botellón, with a sea of people in the streets drinking and dancing and generally having fun and going crazy.

After hanging out for awhile and wandering (a.k.a. weaving, swimming, etc.) through the crowd to meet up with different friends, we finally went to a club in the port, where we spent the rest of the night. Slowly, our group wittled down as the people left as the night wore on, although the club never stopped being filled to overflowing with people. When the last of our group finally left the club, it was around 7 in the morning. And at the bus stop, we met a couple of the girls that had left around 6AM because the one bus #22 that had passed in since then had quickly filled to capacity, leaving them no room, and the next #22 didn't pass until around 7:30-7:45. I didn't get home from Carnival until 8:00AM after having left the night before at 11:00PM. It was a long, crazy, awesome, fun night. But a night I can wait awhile to repeat.

(above) Javi and Carlos dressed up as LEGOs, me in my punk rocker outfit, and Luis dressed up as Boxman, the newest superhero.

(below) Some of our group with a group of people we stumbled upon that they knew.

Although the mohawk was a complete success! The people who just stared kind of bothered me, but I had a ton of people asking me if it was real, if it was my hair, if I'd done it just for Carnival, if they could touch it, etc. And about just as many that I overheard remarking on it, like "dude, like at that mohawk!", and other similar comments. Today (Sunday) I trimmed it down a little because there's no way I'll be able to make one that large on my own every day, but I don't want to let the hair just lay there, because that'll look weird, so for now I'm going to have a small mohawk. It's so different from what I'm used to. I actually kind of like it, but I'm on the fence about keeping it.

I woke up today just before lunch, and then went back to take a LONG siesta afterwards. I still feel tired.
However, I am now fully caught up on my blog! From now on the entries will no longer be back dated and hopefully (or else I'll be quite disappointed in myself) I'll be posting more quickly and more on time with my blog.
Until the next entry,
Erik

Currently listening to:
Song: Brand New Day
Artist: Joshua Radin
Album: Simple Times

The start of the new year...

2009-02-07T07:07:00.012-06:00

After break was over, January turned into a dull month. There wasn't much going on in Alicante, or Spain, in the way of holidays or festivals. I found myself stuck in the daily routine of school.

On a couple occasions, I went out on the weekends with my host brother Luis and his friends. Those nights were pretty cool. We went bowling, played some pool, and one night we shot some darts. I enjoyed hanging out with them. It's interesting, the differences between the kids my age. The kids my age in high school (17-18, high school seniors) seem to mostly be interested in going out to the clubs on the weekends, while the kids my age in college (~18, college freshmen) seem to like other things like bowling, pool, etc. instead of the noisy clubs (although they do enjoy clubbing too). I'm not sure if it's just the people that I've spent time with or if it's something more to do with the age groups. Not that I'm saying that I don't like hanging out with my classmates or going to the clubs, it's just that I don't really enjoy that as much, so it's fun on occasion, but not often.

Anyway, something that I did do in January/February was a personal defense course. My friend Sofia asked if I'd be interested in attending a 4-day personal defense course at the beach community center, which is right across the street from our school, over the next 3 Saturdays (I'd already missed the first one). I wasn't really doing much of anything, and it did sound interesting, so I said I was interested. Anyway, since it was the first time they'd offered this course, the final day was interesting. They handed out certificates to the members of the class, then took us up to the cafeteria to have a snack (they said we'd go up and have a Coke, and there were even some people from the press there! Since it was the inaugural course, it was a important to them to find out how it went, how we felt about it afterwards, etc. While I didn't get interviewed, I did show up in a picture on one of the online articles (and in a group photo in one of them)! It was pretty cool and I'm glad I did it.

Here's the link to the one of the two articles (and the one I show up in):

http://www.laverdad.es/alicante/20090208/alicante/artes-marciales-poco-coco-20090208.html

Clockwise from top left: The class, the "Coke" that they prepared for us, close-up of me in the online article, and the online article where I showed up.

Anyways, that's about it for January and the first couple weeks of February.

I finally caught up with myself (mostly, since this is technically overdue) on my blog, so there are some new entries that I wrote, but I back-dated them, so they showed up on the date when I SHOULD have written them. On the sidebar, there's a spot where it has the year with an arrow/triangle by it. Click the arrow to drop down the list of the months, and then the arrow by the month to see the entries for that month.

Here's the link to my blog about Christmas in Spain:
http://erikinalicante.blogspot.com/2009/01/christmasnew-yearskings.html

I want to apologize again for not keeping this as updated as I had been and for taking so long to finally write in it, but I also want to thank those of you who continue to follow my travels and adventures here in Spain.

Un abrazo,
Erik

Currently listening to:
Song: One of Those Days
Artist: Joshua Radin
Album: Simple Times

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words...(Updated 1-21-2009)

2009-01-11T07:25:00.007-06:00

First off, I'd like to apologize to everyone who is following my blog for not giving you anything to follow. I've never really kept a journal or a diary before, so I'm not used to trying to write on a constant basis about what's going on in my life.

I'm glad to tell you that I am getting to work though. I've gotten a couple done and I'm working on several more, about the other things that have been going on, like what I did for Christmas break. And in the meantime, you can enjoy my pictures that I've taken here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31031028@N03/sets/

The link is also on the right, listed under photo albums.
Choose the album you wish to see, and then choose DETAILS (the options are THUMBNAILS, DETAILS, and COMMENTS...DETAILS is the best way to see the photos and captions). Some of the albums will be added to over time, and as such will have a date listing when it was most recently updated. Also, if a caption has "..." a the end, that means there is more to it than is shown.

Besides, you know what they say about a picture. Although I think it might not be so good without the explanation of what the picture is of and about. But I'm working on the blogs that will explain them, so I ask for a little bit more of patience, and thank you for what patience you've already shown with me.

Also, if any of you, my readers, happen to be in the Spain/Alicante area, feel free to get in touch. My email is erik.mightyfineshindig@gmail.com
If you want to send me something, like a letter, let me know through an email and I can give you the address.
Thanks for tagging along!
Erik

NOTICE TO MY READERS:
I'm working on updating my blog, so all the new blogs will be back-dated and will show up before this one. On the right, click the arrow for 2008, then the arrows for the separate months to see the older blogs.

Currently listening to:
Song: Resolve
Artist: Foo Fighters
Album: In Your Honor

Christmas/New Years/Kings

2009-01-06T07:24:00.011-06:00

Christmas Break was quite an experience.
Break started the weekend before Christmas day, the 20th.
Break was nice and calm until the arrival of Christmas Eve, after which it was crazy. We traveled A LOT, but for brevity's sake, I'll keep my story to the main stops.

We drove up to Zaragosa to have Christmas Eve dinner with Elena's parents. After spending the night there, on Christmas day we drove through the Pyrenees into France to visit Pep's sister and her family. The Pyrenees are amazing and what I saw of the French countryside was as well. Our stay in France was fun and interesting. Growing up with a French father and a Spanish mother, the two cousins speak both Spanish and French, it's pretty cool. Anyways, our stay was packed. One night, we went ice skating at a rink that had been set up in front of the town hall. I hadn't been ice skating in quite some time, so that was fun. Later during on stay, we toured the town and some landmarks, such as a park that was once a lord's estate.
One day we went out to visit the uncle's pigeon-hunting stand. From his description, pigeon hunting is quite a complex sport. The stand was made up of several different stations with camouflaged tarp tunnels connecting them. It was awesome. However, getting out there was not as awesome. The first road we tried was too muddy, so Luis and I ended up pushing the car out of the mud (which we then had to clean off our shoes. Ugh! It was a mess!) But we finally got turned around, found a different road, parked, and then hiked into the hunting zone. After that, we stopped by his father's house, which has a mill that had been in operation since 1492!!! To have a piece of history like that in the family would be amazing!

Between the different excursions and meals, most of which were family events, the time was passed leisurely at home. We played a lot of Parcheesi, which was fun, except for the fact that they play with each person putting in a Euro. I only won once, so needless to say, I ended up losing some money over Christmas.

Luis, cousin Sarah, and I ice skating.

The lord's house in the park.

Luis, cousin Ines, and I in front of part of the stand.

View of the Pyrenees on our way back to Spain.

After we left France, we returned to Zaragosa to spend a few days with the aunts, uncles, and cousins there. Then a day or two before New Years, we headed up to Navasa, a small village in Pyrenees. Each of the three uncles has a house there that they usually visit sometime during the year, such as for New Years. The village itself is tiny, taking about 20 minutes for my cousins to give us a tour through AND around the village. I think they said the constant population is about 20 people and about the same number own houses and stay on occasion. New Years Eve was fun. I'm pretty sure I've heard of this tradition in the US, but I never took part in it, but they do the thing with the 12 grapes at the start of the New Year. Once the chimes start, you have until they end to eat all your grapes if you want good luck for the coming year. I had a plan of swallowing them whole, to avoid ending up chewing the seeds, but I couldn't swallow them as easily as I thought and the chimes went faster than I imagined. So I only finished four. So I'll have four lucky months this year. Hahaha. After that, we went out to THE bar in town to dance and party and celebrate. It was a great New Years.

The view from the outskirts of Navasa.

January 2nd, we returned to Alicante, since my host parents had to return to world and get back to work. Now, I bet you're asking yourself, but where was Santa? Where were the presents? Surely they must have something like that in Spain? It can't be that different!
And it's not.

Here in Spain, Christmas is an important day, but they actually celebrate on the 6th of January and instead of Santa, the three wise men/Kings bring the gifts. The night before, the 5th, there's an enormous parade for the arrival of the "Kings," which was pretty cool. The streets were packed though.

One of the Kings "arriving" during the Cabalgata (the parade).

On the morning of the 6th is the exchange of gifts.
We ate roscon de Reyes, a traditional holiday food, that morning. Sometimes it has cream, sometimes no. Anyway, supposedly inside the roscon there is a bean and a figurine. Whoever finds the bean in their piece has to pay for the roscon and whoever finds the figurine is destined to become a King or is King for a day, or something along those lines. This was explained on a little card that came with the roscon. However, after eating the ENTIRE thing in our search, we never found the King figurine. Luis found the bean, so he was hoping to find the King to cancel them out. What we did find were a crystal/glass elephant, two little plastic cars, a sucker with a Santa hat, and a dolphin, but no King. So I got crowned since it was my first time eating roscon. After breakfast we exchanged gifts and I surprised with what they got me. A book, a DVD, some slippers (they also tell me I'm going to catch a cold walking around barefoot, but I hadn't brought any slippers with me), a shirt, an engraved pen. The best one was 3-day, 4-night trip to London for Luis and me.
The only problem with exchanging gifts on the 6th was that I was given no time to enjoy them as I returned to school on the 7th.

The roscon.

The car, sucker, car, elephant, and dolphin we found in the roscon, along with the card explaining how there is a King figurine in the roscon.

All in all, it was a hectic, which isn't surprising, but fun Christmas vacation.
Sorry it took so long to write about it though.
Erik

P.S.
Here's the link to my Flickr page with more photos from my vacation (215 in total):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31031028@N03/sets/72157612441101762/detail/

Currently listening to:
Song: Home
Artist: Michael Bublé
Album: It's Time

Sailing Get Together

2008-12-21T07:24:00.004-06:00

Today we went out to some kind of party in Torre Vieja (I think). Basically, Pep's old sailing partner and the rest of their circle of sailing friends get together once a year. That once-a-year happened to fall on today.

We drove for awhile to get out the the farm/ranch/hacienda. There were a TON of people, none of whom I recognized. Basically they talked and ate and that was about it. It was interesting. There had a paella "competition." Paella is a traditional Spanish dish with rice and veggies and meat. We had some in Madrid at the orientation, but everyone says that doesn't count as real paella because the coastal zone is where the best paella is. There were 4 groups that made paellas and one that made gazpacho (a type of soup/stew). They also had a potluck dessert, which I think was a "competition" too. After everyone ate, at the end of the day, they gave out awards for the desserts and the paellas.

I got a little bored, mainly because I didn't know anyone and I felt a little out of place, since everyone else knew each other already. And since I don't know anything about sailing, a lot of the conversation didn't really make any sense to me, as such, didn't interest me. But it was still kinda fun.

The lobster one group was using to make their paella. It was still moving. I didn't take them up on their offer to hold it.

Cooking the paella (with the lobster cut up and put in).

The completed paella. Usually the rice is mixed in with the rest.

Another group and their paella.

A girl, Luis, Elena, another girl, and me. They know the girls from sailing, but since I only met them once I don't remember their names (I'm still bad with names here...lol).

Currently listening to:
Song: Do No Wrong
Artist: Thirteen Senses
Album: The Invitation

A Weekend with Joaquin

2008-12-13T07:20:00.004-06:00

This weekend, Elena had a conference in Madrid, and Pep went with her, so Joaquin Solbes, one of my Rotary contacts, invited me to spend the weekend at his house. Which worked nicely since Friday I went to the first meeting of the Rotaract club of Alicante. It worked nicely because his daughter, Carmen, has been setting the meeting up and getting everything ready.
We went to the meeting together . The meeting was kinda dull, but then it was mostly technical stuff: when will we meet, what day, what time, what kinds of events do we want to do, etc. Sofia, my friend, had expressed an interest in joining the group and participating in the volunteer projects, so I invited her too. It was a little weird, because the rest of the group is made up of college students, and Sofia and I are the only two (that I know of) that are still in high school that joined. After the meeting, Sofia said she was planning on going to see Twilight, and invited me along. I still don't understand what all the fuss about Twilight is.

Anyway, when I got back to Joaquin's house and we were talking about everyone's plans for the next day, I found out that they fence! Both Joaquin and his son fence, although they haven't done it in years. The country club was starting a new fencing club and Joaquin was going to go. I told him about how I used to fence, so he invited me along. It was an interesting experience. In fencing, there are three types of swords: foil, epée, and saber. Each one has a different style, different scoring area, different rules, etc. Here in Spain, epée is the popular one. I learned foil. In foil, the target is the torso. In epée, it's the entire body. It'll be interesting to get used to that. Joaquin signed up two people for the course, so he'll either take me or his son, depending on who can go. I'm looking forward to it.

After fencing, we cleaned up and went to the grandparents' house for lunch, where I finally had paella, real paella. We had some at the orientation in Madrid, but everyone says that doesn't count. It was good. The paella here, not in Madrid.

The rest of the weekend, what little remained, was kinda slow. Joaquin, the son, and I played pool and some Xbox. Sunday afternoon after lunch, Joaquin took me back to my house and I got ready for another week of school.
But now I have Rotaract and fencing to look forward to.

Currently listening to:
Song: Courage Is...
Artist: The Strange Familiar
Album: You Can't Look Back

Huelga = No School!

2008-11-13T06:04:00.005-06:00

That's because "huelga" is Spanish for strike. I'm not exactly sure why they're striking though. Lots of schools are striking because the government wants to create a citizenship class for the equivalent of 8th grade that would be taught in English. The fact that it would be taught in English is one problem people have with it, but also because it would deal with topics like abortion, homosexuality, etc. I've heard varied things on this: some people don't want the school/government explaining those things to kids, thinking the parents should do it, while other people just don't think it should be taught. Anyways, that is one reason some students and schools are striking. But they passed out a sheet that explained why we were striking at our school. I didn't quite understand it, so I put it through a translator, and this is what it said:

1."In the last years there has been a gradual privatization of the public education; the investment has been reduced while it has increased the dedicated money to the private-arranged education."

2. "The Bolonia plans mean the privatization of the university affirming that they compare to us with Europe, with the mentioned plans the present diplomaturas and degrees to transform them into graduates and postgraduates that besides consisting of an own test of access can arrive at 3.500€ of cost; the scholarships will not get to cover those amounts. They want to replace the scholarships by bank loans, that they will have to return when it is begun to work.

3. "The new selectividad (basically their ACT/SAT) introduces an oral test of foreign language and hardens the access to the more demanded university careers than they will enter more than the own baccalaureate."

So it's one or the other. Or maybe a combination of the two. Whichever it was, I didn't have to go to school. And since I won't be here next year for any of the changes to affect me, the fact that I didn't have to go to school is what mattered the most to me. =)

Update 12/18/2008: Yesterday we were supposed to have another strike, but the radio that morning said the strike was called off because they would not be having the citizenship class. So i went to school, where it appeared I was the only one. I finally got in touch with Sofia (who was still sleeping), who explained that the strike had only been canceled for the teachers. I saw the paper today that said that the Community of Valencia had voted to not instate the citizenship class. And since we still had a strike, I'm thinking the other three reasons are why we are striking.

Currently listening to:
Song: Change
Artist: 3 Doors Down
Album: Away From the Sun

Altea - A Weekend in English!

2008-11-09T12:44:00.006-06:00

This weekend Maddy invited Cassie and I to come visit her in her host town of Altea. For those that don't remember, Cassie is living in Alcoy, to the northwest and inland of Alicante, and Maddy is living in Altea, north of Alicante along the coast.

The preceding days were spent exchanging Facebook messages and then phone calls until it was all settled. Friday afternoon, I met Cassie at the bus station in Alicante, where her host parents had dropped her off, and we went and bought our tickets to Benidorm, the bus station nearest Altea. We spent the bus ride catching up and enjoying the opportunity to speak English. After about an hour, we arrived in Benidorm.

Maddy, her host mom, and her host brother, Andrés, met us at the station and we went to Altea. We wandered around the town with Maddy as our guide, but unfortunately, the sun had already set, so we couldn't really enjoy the beach. But we made the most of it. We played on the toys that are on the beach, that technically are for children; but we're exchange students, so what's the difference? We ate dinner with Ana, Maddy's 13 year old host sister, Ana's 17 year old boyfriend Kay (who doesn't look 17...), and a friend of theirs. After that we wandered a little more. On our travels, we bumped into another group of youngsters. Some of them knew Kay and Ana, and one of the boys began to chase Kay. Kay ending up hiding behind our group and the boy asked me, in Spanish of course, to go block Kay so he couldn't get away. Not wanting to get in the middle of it, I told him in English I didn't know what he was asking me to do. His response was the repeat his request, but this time in English with a British accent! It was hilarious. Eventually we tired out and went to Maddy's house where we watched a movie in English before going to bed.

Saturday, we slept in a little bit, before going to met Maddy's host club's president, who was also Maddy's tutor. It's a small club. He had invited us to grab a quick bite to eat before lunch (a typical Spanish thing apparently). Maddy, her host mom, Cassie, and I met him and his wife at a cafe and we talked a little about how our exchanges were going, but mainly Maddy's host mom and the president talked about ideas for things Rotary could do. She had to go eventually, and the rest of us continued to another place and ate some tapas. Since the president and his wife were Austrian, they knew German as well as Spanish, but they also knew English, so our conversation switched between Spanish and English with the occasional German comment between themselves. We went home for lunch, and decided to rest after lunch and watch a movie before going to the beach. But by the time the movie had finished, it was night again! So we went out around town and did some shopping, they wanted some scarves and we all bought some things for our Rotary jackets.

The street with the shops, the are slightly aimed at the tourists.

The Spanish flags we bought for our jackets.

The next day, Maddy's host mom asked if we wanted to go pick mandarins, another typical Spanish activity, but when we got to the fincha (plot of land) where we were going to pick them, we found out that they weren't ripe yet. They had a bunch from another area, which we bought two crates of, but none ready to pick. Since we really had wanted to pick them though, we figured something out:

"Picking" mandarins.

After that, we went to the trail to hike out to the lighthouse. It was 2km, which is a little over a mile. The views along the way were amazing.

We stopped at one spot, overlooking the Mediterranean, instead of the bay (in the above photo, it's the bay, not the Mediterranean). There was a sign that said "Out of route," but there were some paths and we saw people out there, so we jumped the rail fence and explored a little. It was breathtaking. We found an overhang, and stopped to have lunch, overlooking the Mediterranean. It's still one of the best memories.

Having lunch, overlooking the Mediterranean.

We continued on to the lighthouse, but the gate was locked and there was a sign saying "End of Route." However, Maddy says no one respects the sign, and the last time she went there with some friends from school, they went up to the lighthouse and there were people there. So we continued up to the lighthouse.

"Jumping" the fence to continue to the lighthouse.

After looking around at the lighthouse, we headed back and then went down to the beach. From there, we followed the beach back to Altea. It was about a 30 minute walk along the beach, which with all the walking to and from the lighthouse, plus down to the beach, made for quite a bit of travel. The beach was interesting though, because it is a pebble beach, not sand. I collected a stone, that now adorns my jacket. Once we got back to Maddy's house, we lounged around waiting for her host parents to return and take Cassie and me to the bus station so we could go home. Cassie's host parents picked her up at the bus station and I walked to the bus stop to go home. It was a great weekend.

Currently listening to:
Song: Lose Yourself
Artist: Eminem
Album: 8 Mile Soundtrack

Zaragoza

2008-11-02T14:17:00.005-06:00

I finally got to met the rest of the family, mostly.

One night, we headed over to Elche, about 20 minutes away, and I met Pep's mother and a couple other relatives. One uncle is a history teacher and we had a very interesting discussion about the European mindset of superiority from being colonizers and the US saving Europe during WWII. It was very interesting and I'm looking forward to the next time we go to Elche.

Anyway, this weekend, we went to Zaragoza and I got to met Elena's family. All of her family. Her family is from Zaragoza, and with the exception of her, the all are still there.
Brother Ignacio, his wife Marichu, and kids, Juan and Ana.
Brother Alberto, his wife Rosa, and their kids, Paula and Daniel.
Sister Sylvia, her husband Alfonso, and their kids, Ines and Andrea.
I don't really know the ages of the kids, but I think Dani is 5, Ana is 5 or 6, Andrea is 15, I think, but those are the only ages I know.
Luis, Pep, and Elena were staying with her parents, but that filled all the extra beds, so I spent the weekend around the corner in Ignacio's flat.

I got a tour of a little bit of Zaragoza. We went to the Cathedral of Pilar, which is an important landmark and church in Zaragoza. We also passed through a few other parts of the city. We went into the church, but they don't allow pictures inside, so I didn't get any, but it was amazing. I found a map that detailed a few points of interest within the cathedral and noticed that there was an elevator in one of the towers that allowed people to see a panoramic view of Zaragoza. I asked Elena if we could go up there in the elevator and she asked me what elevator? Seeing as how see grew up here, that made me laugh (later, she asked her parents and siblilngs, and she had been up there, awhile ago, but she didn't remember it). The view was amazing!

The roof of the cathedral.

We went out to tapas again (which we did in Elche), which is something I really enjoy. Tapas are small types of food, that can be specific to the town, the region, or maybe even the restaurant. Usually tapas are a slice of bread with some kind of topping, like cheese, meat, and a pepper. Or it can be something like a stuffed baked potato. Whatever it is, every type of tapas I tried, I loved! Unfortunately, according to Pep and Elena, Alicante is one of the few regions that doesn't do tapas very well. After that, the parents went to a movie, while Andrea, Luis, and I went around town. We rented bikes, which was really cool. There were these sites all over the city. I'd never seen them before, but Elena says they're pretty common in Europe.

The bike rental rack. Just swipe the bike rental card (it's almost like having a bus card) in front of the scanner on the end.

Luis and I on our bikes. The cathedral is in the background.

After riding around for awhile, we went to see something in theater in Zaragoza. It turned out to be a reading of "Don Juan," I believe. But it was very hard to follow. Because each character had a reader at a stand with the name on the stand. But there were usually two stands for character and sometimes even two people at the same stand. The only way of knowing who was talking was by finding the person whose mouth was moving, which was easier said then done!

The next day, we had lunch at a Turkish restaurant with the entire family. Turkish and Chinese restaurants are about as common here as Mexican and Chinese restaurants in the US. Anyways, I like Turkish food. I think Dani and I really hit it off, because Dani was asking if we really had to leave and if they could come back next weekend...and bring Erik. It was a nice weekend.

Currently listening to:
Song: The Middle
Artist: Jimmy Eat World
Album: Bleed American

Petrer

2008-10-26T19:15:00.004-05:00

This weekend, Alvaro (a friend of mine, who was a Rotary Exchange student to the US last year) invited me to go out partying with him (that's what the kids my age do on the weekends), and then spend the night at his house. The next day, we were going to go to a festival.

The party was fun, I guess. We started out as a group of about 5 guys, but then we met up with another group along the way, making it about 8 guys and 4 girls, or something like that. We bar-hopped, as is the norm. Bars here are a mix between what we would think of as a bar and a club. One had a karaoke room, one was more of a club, one was more of a bar. Basically the night consisted of drinking, smoking, and dancing. And since I don't drink or smoke, and I can't really dance (at least how they "dance" in the clubs), I did more watching than participating. Nobody got drunk, because we didn't go to a botellon, which is the other popular thing for youth to do. Botellones basically consist of a group of people getting together somewhere, usually outside (not in a restaurant or a bar) and getting drunk. That's all there is to it. It's only become popular recently among the most recent generation. Anyway, we did not go to a botellon. Once things started winding down, we went to Alvaro's house to sleep, what little we could, since we didn't get there until sometime after 3AM.

The next day, we both slept in and then passed the morning lounging about not doing much of anything. Once Alvaro's parents returned home, we went to Petrer. Petrer is a small inland town, where Alvaro's mother's family is from. We ate at his grandparents' house. One of the things we ate for lunch was whole shrimp. Legs, eyes, antenna, everything. Well, we didn't eat everything, but the shrimp were still whole and they taught me how to take it apart and what to eat. It was an interesting experience. I still am not used to seafood, and still don't really like it.
On a sidenote, my host parents find this story hilarious and tell it occasionally. About the whole shrimp, with legs and eyes and everything! Looking back, I suppose it makes sense that whole shrimp would have legs and eyes and all that, but for me, it was something new.

After lunch and the siesta, we headed out to see the festival. What it was for, I never really found out. But what the people do is dress up in all kinds of weird costumes and cover their faces with handkerchiefs. Then they change their voice and try to see if people recognize them. And it's perfectly normal for guys to dress up as girls and vice versa. There was some kind of band as well, that sounded cool. All in all, it was a very interesting parade, if it could even be called that. Not long after that, we headed home to Alicante.

Currently listening to:
Song: Believe
Artist: Yellowcard
Album: Ocean Avenue

School #2 - Escuela Oficial de Idiomas de Alicante

2008-10-11T07:26:00.002-05:00

The Official Language School in Alicante...I don't really know what to say about it...

It's been an interesting challenge...

Before I even left the States, Elena had pre-enrolled me in Spanish for Foreigners: 2nd Basic Level. Apparently, the language schools are very popular and there's always an extremely large number of people who want to enroll. Because of this, it's necessary to pre-enroll, and find out what date to return and actually enroll in the school. September 30th was my date. I had school that day, but Elena said she didn't need me to come along, so she went by herself to enroll me. And later, I felt bad about letting go through that process alone.

I felt bad because she spent 3 hours in lines trying to complete my enrollment and from what she said, they kept sending to her a different line to resolve the issue. The issue she had was that they wouldn't let me enroll in 2nd Basic. Why? Because I hadn't taken the "prueba de nivel," which is basically a skill test to see how good (or bad) my Spanish is and which class I should be in. This test was in September, but when Elena had pre-inscribed me in July, they hadn't said a single thing about it. Unfortunately, they remained firm, and I ended up in 1st Basic Spanish for Foreigners. Along with probably being too easy, there were some other problems with 1st Basic. One, they enrolled me in the 9AM class, which I obviously can't do, since I have regular school. Two, the other class I could attend was Mondays and Wednesdays from 4-6. This was a problem because I don't get out of school until 2 o'clock, leaving me barely enough time to get home from school, grab a snack, and then head out to catch the bus, but not enough time to eat an actual lunch.

So I went ahead an attended 1st Basic. Which was ridiculous, for me, and I don't feel bad about saying that. First off, there were no other people my age (which is not the ridiculous part, actually...I had just been expecting to see some other youth in the class). The ridiculous part is what we did the first day of class. Seated more or less in a circle, we took turns asking the person next to us three questions: ¿Cómo te llamas?, ¿De dónde eres?, and ¿Dónde vives? (What's your name?, Where are you from?, and Where do you live?). All of which I already know how to say, what they mean, how to conjugate each verb, and everything...things the other members of the class struggled with at times. After a short break 30 minutes later, we returned and then proceeded to learn the alphabet - letter by letter. Again, something I already know. The next class wasn't much better. While I didn't necessarily know every occupation on the worksheet, I knew the majority. And in 1st Basic, I have no problem following the class. I understand everything that everyone says, including the teacher.

So I decided to talk to teacher, who once again talked about the skill test in September. The only helpful thing I learned was that there is another test in February. To wait for that test would be a waste of time, I don't have however.

Luckily, Luis had an idea. He had attended a class at the language school last year. He said, in the beginning, things are still a little unorganized and the teachers don't have lists, and he said there were many people who came in and said it was their class. However, once the lists came out, several of these people weren't on the lists...but they still attended the class for the whole year!

With that in mind, I have begun to attend the 2nd Basic classes. While they're still not a challenge, it's not easy. Some of the stuff I already know, like irregularities with verbs, and some I don't, like colloquial Spanish expressions. And I still have to work to follow the class and the professor. There still aren't lists and I'm hoping once the lists come out, if I'm not on it, it won't be a problem. If it is though, this professor seems much more understanding than the other. Another thing I learned was that if a student has a problem (with a class, professor, or whatever), they are advised to talk to their professor, which didn't work for me. If that doesn't work, they are advised to talk to the department head, who happens to be the professor for 2nd Basic! So if my professor of 2nd Basic asks me what's going on, it's perfect to talk with him, because he's also the department head!

So I'm attending 2nd Basic on Tuesday and Thursday, from 6:10-8:00, a much better time slot. I'm looking forward to learning more in this class, but we'll have to see!

The Official Language School

Until next time,
Erik

Currently listening to:
Song: Overkill
Artist: Colin Hay
Album: Scrubs Soundtrack

School #1 -IES Cabo de la Huerta

2008-10-10T14:01:00.006-05:00

As returning readers will know, I am attending a "colegio" here in Spain, which is their version of high school. The thing is though, that here, "colegios" have 6 years of class, instead of 4 like in the US. Basically, if Turner was combined with the high school, putting 7th through 12th grades in the same building, it would be a "colegio." There are 4 levels of E.S.O. (Enseñaza Secundario Obligatorio = Obligatory Secondary Education) and 2 levels of Bachillerato. The second bachillerato is when the students prepare for the "selectividad." The score on the "selectividad" plus the grades from the two levels are bachillerato are averaged to get a combined score, and that is the score that determines where the student can attend for college.

I'm in the second bachillerato, but it's not that bad because I don't actually have to prepare for the "selectividad." One, because I've already graduated from high school, so it doesn't matter what grades and scores I get, although I am going to try to do well in the classes. Two, because I am an exchange student, who will not be here next year and will not be attending a university, so the score doesn't mean anything for me. Third, the combination of the first two is why I don't have to take it, and the stress of being an exchange student, making friends, learning the culture, and learning the language are enough stress for me to deal with this year.

My classes are going well. I still don't understand much, but I feel like I understand a little more each day. It's hard to judge because I can't tell if I'm understanding more, or what the teachers are saying that day, I just happen to understand better than what they said the day before! For the first week or so, I didn't even have two of my classes: Philosophy and Sociology. The teacher was sick and they didn't have a substitute, so we just didn't have class that period. But we have a teacher now, so no more napping during my free period! English is really boring, simply because it is a very basic level, so for me, it's incredibly easy! Spanish class is interesting, learning the grammatical rules and functions and everything. Geography is okay. History of Spain and history of art are both good classes, and the teacher is really nice and fun too. Wednesday in class, Victorino (the history teacher) was talking about something and he began to talk about Egypt, but I don't know why. Anyway, he said that Egypt is split in half by the Nile river and the sun rises, is born, in the east and sets, or dies, in the west. Because of this the Egyptians built all the temples and whatnot on the eastern side of the river to celebrate the living and all their tombs on the western side, where the sun dies. I found that very interesting because I have never heard that before. Then I was even more surprise, because I said to myself, "hey, hold on a minute...you actually understand 95% of that...wow!" Needless to say, I was quite proud of myself for having actually understood a complete story/idea/thought in school. I also have math class, which I hate. Not only does it require a lot of effort, because I have to translate the words to figure out what the problem is (which sometimes is very easy to do and sometimes not), and then I have to translate the problem to figure out how to solve it. The other problem with this math class is that it's a bit over my head. We just finished up a unit on the Gauss method to solve a system of multiple equations. I was talking to my family later that week, and my brother told me that in his Calculus 2 class in college they said he should have learned it in Calculus, which he hadn't. And neither did I. So it's even harder because I actually don't already know some of the lessons in class. But we'll see how it goes.

I'm on the third floor. Many of the other students in my group switch rooms during the day, but with the classes I have, I'm in the same room all day. During the breaks, I usually go down to the courtyard and talk with Alvaro and sometimes Andres, or I go to the cantina with Sofia and her friends. The cantina is nice. It has candy, drinks, sandwiches, pastries, and other things to eat during breaks, for a small price. I can usually get a pastry or sandwich and a drink for 1,40€. It's not bad, but I can't do it every day, so I do like a lot of the other students and I bring a couple snacks or some fruit to school with me. The cantina is kind of ridiculous though. The small bar is always crowded by students pushing to get to the counter, and let me tell you, you have to fight to get to the front, or if you manage to slide up to the counter through a gap, like I do, you have to fight to keep your spot. And even if you're not at the counter, it's still okay to yell our your order and hope they serve you. The two workers seem a bit pressed to me, so I always wait until they ask me what I want, and they seem to appreciate that. Actually, I know they appreciate it, because the third or fourth time I was waiting to order something, a kid came up next to me and started yelling his order. The one lunch lady went ahead and got his order, but she then told him that he should be more "prudente" like this kid and pointed to me. "Prudente" means formal. That day I learned that good manners and being a gentleman is something universal.

My classroom.

The view of the courtyard from my classroom.

The courtyard.

The cantina -with students.

The cantina - vacant and calm.

Currently listening to:
Song: How Far We've Come
Artist: Matchbox 20
Album: Exile on Mainstream

P.S. Soon to come - "School #2 - EOI = Escuela Oficial de Idiomas de Alicante"

Spanish Theater

2008-09-27T14:01:00.003-05:00

Today, we went to see Luis in a play. The play was about the absurdities of life, but I only got that from the program. I didn't understand much of the play. Parts I did, parts I did, and parts I didn't need to know what they were saying. But it was interesting and fun. I have a picture with Elena and Luis out in front of the theater after, but I still have to get it from Elena. Afterwards, Luis invited me to dinner with the theater group. Elena said that was okay and then went to met Pep to eat tapas, like we had been planing on doing. The theater kids were pretty cool, especially Amin. I thought he did a really good job in the play. He spoke some English, so we talked quite a bit and we switched back and forth between Spanish and English. Once everyone was ready, we went to a Turkish restaurant, which was really good! Afterwards, 6 of us went to a bar, which here are half bars and half clubs. The music was ridiculously loud. I swear I could feel my jeans vibrating from the music! We didn't stay long because there weren't many people there. It was kinda fun, but the whole clubbing/dancing/loud music thing isn't really my scene. Luis says it isn't his either, and he only goes out to the bars about once a week, if that.

Which is something I'm really happy about, if you'll pardon the sidetrack. My host family is very low key. I don't know how to describe it exactly. My host father loves to listen to music and both my host parents love movies (so much so that when Luis and Miguel were little, they would take turns going to see movies, so they could both see them!). And Luis isn't a nightlife kind of guy. It's reminds me of family, a little, I guess. For dinner, we watch TV while we eat (we even watched "Bones" recently...that was great...but it made me miss doing the same thing at home...), and sometimes we watch movies (usually, non-school nights). I couldn't have gotten put with a better family.

Anyway, at 1AM, Luis and I left the bar and went to the bus station. We talked about videogames while we waited, and I learned that he and Miguel are big fans, and would play against each other a lot. Another plus for me! Finally, we caught the bus home and got in at 2:30AM. It was a long night, but it was fun.

The theater - outside.

The theater - inside.

Currently listening to:
Song: Times Like These
Artist: Foo Fighters
Album: One by One

Orientation in Madrid!

2008-09-21T10:00:00.022-05:00

What a weekend! I don't know where to begin...

I would suppose from the beginning would be best though.

Friday, I "skipped" school because I still needed to pack for the weekend. Also, the train was leaving at 12, so in order to have time to return home from school, pick up my things, walk to the bus station, take the bus downtown, and then walk to the train station from the bus stop, I would have only been in school for one period, if that. So I stayed home and packed.

At the train station, I met Maddy and Cassie. I knew that I would be taking the train with them to Madrid, but I had no idea what they looked like, so I didn't know how I was going to find them. I shouldn't have been worried though. Maddy had her Rotary jacket on so I spotted them as soon as I get into the terminal. Cassie is living in Alcoy, about 30 minutes inland from Alicante, and Maddy is living in Altea, up the coast, but still close, to Alicante. The train ride was almost 4 hours long, but it wasn't bad. Cassie, Maddy, and I got to know each other pretty well. It was such a relief to be able to speak English! They also showed "The Spiderwick Chronicles" on the train, but it was in Spanish, so it was kinda hard to follow. But most of the ride was spent sharing our experiences so far in Spain.

When we got to Madrid and left the terminal, we met Gonzalo, a Rotex (for those of you who don't know, Rotex is the group for ex-exchange students) and another girl, who I can't remember where in Spain she is at. Our swiftly increasing band then went to the high speed train terminals to collect the students from Barcelona.

The group in the Madrid train station. (Cassie is the fifth in from the left and then it's Maddy and then me)

Once the Barcelona kids had been collected, we all went outside and then attempted to find the bus. Eventually, we found it. The next hour or so was spent traveling around Madrid, gathering other students. Finally, we went to a university about 30 minutes away from Madrid. It was still part of Madrid, but it wasn't Madrid proper. At the university, the rest of the students that lived nearby showed up. It was nice to meet the other students finally. Sadly, there is only one girl from Brazil, one from Sweden, and I think 4 from Canada. The rest are good ole Americans. Not that that is a problem, but I was hoping for something similar to this last year of Rotary weekends, where there were students from all over and a lot of diversity. But this isn't a problem. Two students have really interesting assignments. One girl is living in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, and one guy is living in Melilla, which, as he says, is Spanish North Africa. Friday night, there wasn't a lot going on. Early on, there was a barefoot soccer game, which was fun, except for the wet/mud patch and the patch of goatshead (which hurts like crazy when you run through it!!! And when you pull the burrs out of your feet, they get stuck in your fingers!!!). After that, a small group of us retired to someone's room to just hang out and talk. Josh has a friend from India and he had brought some real henna his friend had given him, so we did henna and talked the night away.

Saturday we got down to business. Tommaso and Eduardo went the rules, the 4 D's and everything else we could and couldn't do. One thing we learned that wasn't really a surprise, but I just hadn't really thought about it was how restricted our travel is. We have to have permission from our host family and the Rotary club, and if the trip means missing school, permission from the school principal and we're not allowed to travel alone. So that officially means going to visit Danielle in Madrid, or Josh in Malaga, or whoever else it pretty much out of the question. Luckily, Maddy and Cassie live close enough that I can visit easily on my own with a 3€ bus ticket. Then there were a few videos: one about Madrid and one made by Rotary concerning the 4 D's. Then we went through a checklist of things: have you met your Youth Exchange officer and do you have their contact info, do you have your proof of insurance (although for some, like me, we received our CIGNA cards at this point), etc. and so forth.

Most of us after all the official business was taken care of.

Saturday afternoon, we went on a "bus tour" of Madrid. Originally, we were going to simply drive around Madrid and have an actual bus tour: on your left you'll see this building and ahead on the right is that statue and whatnot. What we ended up doing was stopping at a couple select locations. We stopped at the Palacio Real and walked around a little of that area, and then we proceeded onto the Plaza Mayor, where we walked around more. Most of us went to the churro restaurant. Molly , Maddy, and I shared an order of churros con chocolate, which were good, but not what I was expecting. The churros themselves were just fried dough without the sugar I thought would be there, and the chocolate was more bitter than sweet. They were still good though!

Maddy and me in front of the Palacio Real (the Royal Palace).

La Plaza Mayor.

Random artistic shot getting back on the bus in Madrid.

After the bus tour, we returned to the university for a few more presentations and a paella lunch. It was interesting, to say the least. The paella had whole shrimp, cooked, but still in the shell, mussels, and who knows what else, and it was certainly interesting to try. Saturday night, there was a crazy party, but I was hanging out with a small group of people in one of the rooms, just talking about whatever came up. Then we went outside to the party, and later, another slightly different small group of us went to a different room and talked, but it wasn't just chit-chat, it was some really interesting, personal, and deep stuff. Sunday morning, was more or less the opposite of Friday afternoon, driving around Madrid dropping people off, finally ending with the same group from Friday returning to the station. Maddy, Cassie, and I only had to wait about an hour for our train, but the group from Barcelona had to wait almost 6 hours for theirs! Once we got back to Alicante (having slept most of the ride back, to make up for the sleep we lost over the weekend, as happens at any Rotary weekend), Cassie's host mom met us at the station to take her home. Maddy and I then walked to the bus station, had a snack, and saw her off, back to Altea. All by my lonesome, I walked down to the bus stop, and caught the bus back home.

It was a long weekend, but it was definitely worth every minute of sleep that was sacrificed.
Come again soon,
Erik

P.S. I have posted more pictures on Flickr. The link is under "My Photo Albums" on the left. Once you click the link and chose the set of pictures you want to see, choose "detail" to see all the pictures with their captions.

Currently listening to:
Song: Extreme Ways
Artist: Moby
Album: The Bourne Identity Soundtrack

School and Rotary

2008-09-16T12:18:00.006-05:00

I had several interesting experiences today.

First, today was the first real day (at least considering what the first day of school like is in Jacksonville) of school. Victorino is the history teacher, teaching both history of art and history of Spain. He´s really nice and pretty cool. I think his classes would be my favorites and I would love them, if I only knew what was going on. I still have problems with understanding and many times have to ask people to repeat, but little by little, I am understanding and picking up more and already at times, I find myself inside my head like usual, but it´s in Spanish! Which is a good sign. Geography was okay, once again mainly due to the lack of understanding and math, well it´s math. I understood what the problem was asking, I just couldn´t think. It´s going to be an interesting year.

The other interesting experience I had at school today was trying to figure out how to get out of valenciano. It´s a dialect of catalan spoken here in Alicante and is part of the schedule of 2nd Bachillerato for everyone. But since I´m an exchange struggling with two languages, I was told I wouldn´t have to take valenciano. Trying to figure out what exactly needed to be done to get me out of that class was interesting, but we finally figured things out. Now I just need to figure out what school supplies I need and how to get them. Paper here is more like 8.5 by 12, not the normal 8.5 by 11, and by normal, I mean what I´m used to.

Today, I also attended my first Rotary meeting (pictures once I get them). It was long and boring, much like Rotary at home. But I´m just kidding. Although it did seem to drag on, but when you don´t have any idea what people are saying that tends to happen. It was interesting. The Rotary club meets in the Sidi Hotel, which is a luxury hotel, and let me tell you...it was nice! We were in a conference hall that looked out over the ocean and there were tables with nuts, chips, and olives to snack on and drinks (alcoholic and non...I had a Coke) to enjoy while waiting for the meeting to begin. Luis Ramos, the YEO for the club, took me today because today the ¨oespa¨ (no one´s really been able to translate it exactly, but I think it´s like ¨bishop¨) was attending the meeting. I was introduced to him and many other members of the club. There were also two Frenchmen attending, who were very nice.

Anyway, we finally sat down at the long central table, and we sat down to a 4 course meal. There were three sets of forks and knives, used from the outside in with each plate. The first plate was hor d'oeuvres. I didn´t really eat any because I wasn´t sure we were supposed to start, and I had only tried one thing off the plate before a server took it. I tried something which is from Alicante, according to Luis, which was a date wrapped in bacon. It was good, but different. I didn´t particularly like it, but it wasn´t bad. The second plate was a salad, I think. There was lettuce, corn, some pineapple, shrimp, caviar (I think), and some other veggies. I didn´t like it very much. The shrimp was very strong and I didn´t even try the caviar (I don´t think I´d like fish eggs...and it´d didn´t look particularly appetizing to me). The third, main course was some kind of wrap-thing with a small piece of potato and two dates. It was some kind of bread shell with sesame seeds filled with what I later found out was lamb and I think a couple pieces of asparagus. The lamb and the shell were okay, but it was different. After that, dessert was served which was some kind of pastry with fruit and a scoop of ice cream. The cake had a weird flavor and I didn´t like it. There were also two glasses, one for water and the other for wine, and the server was going around filling everyone´s glasses and almost filled mine. Before the server got there though, Luis Ramos asked how old I was and said since I was 18 I could drink, but then I reminded him that Rotary prohibits drinking on the exchange and he said, ¨Ah, sí, si.¨ So I just had water.

The ¨obespa¨ was the main event of the meeting, but near the beginning Luis introduced me to the club and I said where I was from. Later on, there was an exchanging of banners. The obespa was presented with a banner and a plaque, I exchanged banners with the club, as did the two Frenchmen. Next time I go, the sergeant-at-arms is going to give me another, so I have two. One has to go to my sponsor club in Jacksonville, to show they had a student here, but the other one I want to sew onto the back of my jacket with one of my sponsor club´s banners. All in all, it was quite a day.

Hasta el próximo vez,
Erik

Currently listening to:
Song: May It Be
Artist: Enya
Album: Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack

Mi casa...

2008-09-16T10:51:00.008-05:00

es bonita.

My house is beautiful. But the video tour of it I made isn´t uploading (I can try to send it to you via e-mail, if you want. All you have to do is send me an e-mail asking for it.), so here are some pictures.

The dining room and living room.

Panorama of the kitchen...the laundry area is out the door...

Spanish light switches.

My room.

Pictures

2008-09-15T16:34:00.009-05:00

View from the hilltop

First half of panorama

Second half of panorama

The hilltop

The hill from the roundabout at the end of the road

Me on the beach

It´s hard to believe I left 4 days ago...

2008-09-15T04:50:00.009-05:00

The group in Madrid (Olivia, me, Danielle, Dan, Josh, and Stephen).

And the last four days have been very interesting ones.

For starters, my flights to Spain began on September 11th at 5PM from St. Louis . For those of you that don´t know, I have never been out of the country (except to Canada, which isn´t quite the same as going to one of the other countries) and I haven´t flown in many years or post-9/11. Despite that, security at the airport was very smooth, simple, and easy to handle. I had spent the preceding nights having nightmares about being detained because of some, what I saw as harmless, item. Thankfully, all went well. After landing in Detroit, I met the other exchange students I would be flying with all the way to Madrid. Olivia (going to Madrid) and Dan (going to Pamplona), I had met at Grand Rapids earlier this summer, and I met Josh from North Carolina (Malaga) and Stephen from Ohio (Madrid). We played cards and talked for a few hours waiting for our overnight flight to Amsterdam.

One interesting thing is that at each airport, we always met interesting people and swapped stories about where we were going, even though most times, we never exchanged names.

Anyway, the flight to Amsterdam left at 9:40PM and was scheduled to take 7.5 hours. The only problem was that we were flying AGAINST the time change, so the flight, according to the clock, took almost 14 hours. Landing in Amsterdam at 11:15AM, I was exhausted having spent much of the flight watching movies because I couldn´t get comfortable enough to sleep. In Amsterdam, we met Danielle from Idaho (Madrid) and we all became fast friends, as only Rotary Exchange students can. After flying from Amsterdam to Madrid, Olivia, Danielle, and Stephen left to meet their host families and go to their homes for the next year. Josh, Dan, and I wandered around trying to figure out many things, such as what exactly was the situation with our checked bags (we were a little hazy on what was supposed to happen to them in Madrid), which bus would take us to the right terminal, where customs was and would we need to go through it, etc. We finally sorted everything out and then it was time to wait. We had arrived in Madrid at 4 and we each had a flight to our host city, Josh at 8:10, Dan at 9:25, and me at 9:40. So we waited. And waited. And waited. The gates weren´t posted for flights until about 45-50 prior to takeoff, which was about 10-15 minutes prior to boarding.

After finally catching my flight, I landed in Alicante at about 10:45 local time and finally met my host family. I was greeted by Elena, Jose, and Luis, as well as Luis Ramos, the Youth Exchange officer, and his two kids. Even after that short meeting, I can see what my two biggest problems are going to be. First, I´m going to be terrible with names. Usually, I have to ask people to repeat their names, and sometimes even then I don´t know exactly what their name is. The bigger and more important problem is my understanding of the language. I´ve been complimented on how strong my Spanish is, but that is me speaking the language. When other people speak, there are issues. It´s all part of learning the language, which I´m going to do, but right now, a lot of things go right over my head the first time they are said.

My host family: Jose (Pep/Pepe), Miguel (in the US), Elena, and my host brother, Luis.

Christina, Guillermo, and Luis Ramos, Elena, me, Luis, and Pep.

The closest word I can find in English for where my host family lives is a gated community or condominium complex. I think there are 30 some odd of the similar type small house/apartment/condo in this urbanization, as they call it. There is a locked gate leading into the complex and then a gate into our unit. There is a pool in the complex, but Luis says it´s only clean during the summer, but I can use it whenever. The following two items are a panorama of the pool area and a video tour of my house. I don´t know how many pictures I could upload and I didn´t know how to best take pictures of my home that would show it the best, so I made a short video, which wouldn´t upload, so I´m going to post some pictures in a different blog. If you´d like to see the video, send me an e-mail asking for it and I can probably send it to you.

Aside from realizing how completely inept I am at Spanish, the other big surprise of arriving in Spain was my school. From the e-mails I received from Elena, I thought I was attending the university in town because there had been problems getting me enrolled at the high school. Actually, Elena had been very smart, because she had a friend who works at the university sign off on my host guarantee form, so that it could be sent to the US and I could get my visa (the host guarantee is a necessary part of the visa application because it shows where you will live and attend school). Rotary doesn´t like students to go to college through this program, so I eventually was enrolled in a high school here in town.Yesterday, I met Alvaro (a Rotary exchange student to Vermont last year) and Andres (an exchange student to Tampa, FL last year) who answered some of my questions arising from my knowledge that I no idea what to expect from a high school in Spain. Later that night, I met Elena, who lives in the same complex as me, attends the same school, and I think is in the same section of the bachillerato as me.

Here in Spain, there are 6 years of what we would probably call elementary school and 6 years of high school. I´m in the last year, where the students are preparing for the big selection test to attend universities. Bachilleratos have different sections of study, such as humanities, sciences, and technical tracks. In Alicante, there is a dialect of catalan called valenciano that is studied in schools, but I´m not taking that, Greek, or Latin at the school, because I´m going to have enough problems with Spanish as it is. Today, Elena and I walked to school and along the way met up with a few other students. It took about 20-30 mintues to walk to school. Once there, we found our names on the lists saying who was in what class and went to the classroom. In the classroom, they took role, passed out agendas, and then read of the schedule, which was a little confusing. But after that, which took maybe 45 minutes, my first day of school ended. The confusing thing about the schedules is that a lot of periods finds the class split between sociology and Latin, or geography and French. Here is what my schedule is, I think:

----------------Monday------Tuesday-------Wednesday----Thursday------Friday
8:00-8:50----castellano*----arte+-----------castellano*---------x------------math
8:55-9:45----history~-------history~--------geography------math-----------geography
9:50-10:40---English--------math-----------philosophy-----philosophy-----philosophy
11:05-11:55--math----------sociology------sociology-------castellano*-----sociology
12:00-12:50--arte+----------geography-----English----------English---------arte+
13:15-14:05--geography---x(valenciano)-arte+-------------sociology-------history~
14:10-15:00--x (valenciano)--x-------------x------------------x--------x(valenciano)

*castellano = Spanish class, I think, which should be like an English class in America, I think
+arte = history of art, once again, I think
~ history = history of Spain, I think, but this one I´m pretty sure about

On the 30th, we have to go the the Official Language School in Alicante to enroll. Elena actually didn´t enroll me in the school, she had put on what I can best describe as a wait-list. It should be twice a week in the afternoon and I should be in the 2nd level Spanish class.

In Spain, 24 hour time is used all over the place. Also, lunch is the big, important meal of the day, where the family gets together, sits down, and eats. Dinner is not so formal or important. Last night, I had a small pizza, my host mother had some fruit and yogurt and we ate on the couch in front of the TV. The other thing about meals is the times are different. In Spain, lunch is somewhere between 2-4 (so there is no lunch at school, only two breaks during the day to snack, from what Andres and Alvaro told me), and dinner is around 9 or 10.

The weather here in Alicante is beautiful. Elena says September is her favorite month, and I can see why. During the day it gets up in the 80s, which is warm, but there is always some kind of breeze or wind from the sea, so it doesn´t feel quite like 80. It´s very sunny, which also makes it feel warm, but once again, the sea breeze cools things off. At night though, it´s the perfect temperature, where it is cool, but not to the point that a sweater is necessary. And the views. Wow! Words won´t do it justice, so here is a panorama I took after school today from the ¨calvo¨ or maybe ¨cabo,¨ I´m not exactly sure what the word is and I´m not exactly sure what it means, but it´s a rocky hilltop, up a steep street from our complex and the view is amazing.

I think that´s enough for one post. And that´s about all the major developments of the last four days.
Hasta,
Erik

P.S. I haven´t really been homesick much, although I do miss everyone. The hardest time is at night, trying to fall asleep. Laying there, my mind wanders and I think about everyone back home and how I won´t see them for a long time. It´s not that bad now, but the first night when it happened, I almost lost it. But I´m getting busy, so I´m not thinking about it as much. It´ll get better over time. I miss everyone though, don´t get me wrong! Hope all is well back home.

Currently listening to:
Song: When I´m Gone
Artist: 3 Doors Down
Album: Away From the Sun

"Some days are better than others"

2008-09-08T22:53:00.001-05:00

"Some days are better than others," states Charlie Bartlett (in the movie Charlie Bartlett). And I have to agree with him.

2 days left before I go.

As that day draws closer, I find myself constantly dwelling on everything I'm leaving behind for a year and all the people I won't be able to see for a year. And the more I think about how I won't be able to see them for a year, the more I find myself wondering how much I really want to go.

The other exchange students have all been in their countries for quite some time. August 5th for Austria, August 13th (or around then) for Mexico, August 22nd for Bolivia, and about a week or so ago for Turkey. In an effort to be productive in my dwelling, I began thinking about why I have started feeling so strong about not wanting to go all of the sudden. I came to 2 conclusions.
#1. These feelings were to be expected as part of the exchange and are probably part of anyone's exchange, but the difference is that the earlier departure date forces the student to get over it by getting them involved in their host country. In my case, I've had more time sitting around waiting to think about it. Which leads me to,
#2. The extra time at home has made given me more time to spend with the people I'll be leaving behind and let me build those relationships up before I go, in turn making me feel more attached and making me want to leave them even less.

Now, I'm not trying to say I don't want to go. Because I do want to. It's just that I've had time to think about who I'm leaving behind where other exchange students may have been too busy getting ready and going to think about it before they left. But I'm just speculating about what the other students have been thinking and feeling.

2 days left before I go, and I'm excited. At this point, another quote from Charlie Bartlett comes to mind. "What you do in this life matters." I don't know exactly how that's relevant, but it's an interesting sentiment. I think the way I'm dealing with and plan on dealing with these feelings will matter and will have an impact and I think this exchange is going to matter and I think it's going to effect me. How I deal with that effect and what I do with my new perspective is going to matter, eventually.

Until next time,
-Erik

Currently listening to:
Song: Closing Time
Artist: Semisonic
Album: Feeling Strangely Fine (Ironic, no?)
"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

"Bipolar" Beginnings...Part 2

2008-09-04T23:30:00.001-05:00

This blog is VERY overdue, but one of my talking points in this post still works. That point is that a lot can happen in a few days.

When I posted my last entry, I had a tentative departure date, I was waiting to hear back about the status of my visa, I had no travel itinerary, and I had several items I needed to buy before I went to Spain.

Now, it's all done.

One day later, I found out my visa was ready and that my departure date was fixed as the 11th of September. The next day, we went to Chicago, picked up my visa and went shopping, finding everything on my list. The day after that we received my itinerary from the travel agent. Each day brought me one step closer to leaving for Spain.

Although I have an interesting story about our visit to the consulate in Chicago. Ever since I found out I would be required to pick up my visa in person at the consulate, I had a mental image of what the place would be like. Circle drive, walled in with some military personnel manning the gate, etc. Like something out of a movie. When I found out the consulate was in downtown Chicago, I was still expecting something out of a movie. Lettering on the front of the building reading "Spanish Consulate," Spanish flag hanging out front, military personnel and metal detectors inside the doors and all that.
Instead, we read through a directory of what seemed like 500 offices within the single building to discover the Spanish consulate was on the 15th floor. Arriving on the 15th floor, we discovered that the consulate was no more than a room, with chairs around the wall, a Spanish flag in the corner and three bank-teller-like windows. "Spanish citizens," "Others," and "Visas." And all I had to do to pick up my visa was show them my ID. No paperwork to fill out, no questions to answer, just show them my driver's license, and have the one woman working behind all three windows go through the little plastic file case of passports and visas to find mine and hand it to me. All in all, the process took about 5 minutes. Nothing like what I expected, which more and more I am preparing myself for that happen on a fairly regular basis in the next year.

Even more now, with everything falling into place getting me closer to going, I find myself struggling with conflicting emotions. I'm getting more excited about finally going to Spain and living there and all of the exciting adventures I know I'm going to have. Then I become anxious and worried and scared about being away from my family and friends and everyone I care about for basically a year and how I'm going to deal in Spain and living in a language that I don't speak. I find myself wanting to go, yet at the same time I find myself wanting to stay. I want to just get to Spain. But at some lever, I want to find some way to back out (even though that point was two interviews, many dollars worth of fees and insurance payments, and friends ago). These bipolar emotions aren't helping my pre-exchange nerves any. I know the negative emotions are just me worrying and getting cold feet, like anybody else before a major event in their life, but I still can't just repress them. I guess, for me at least, these emotions are just another aspect of the exchange. I'm just dealing with them as they come and trying to get everything ready to go.

"And that's all I have to say about that." That being my reeling, bipolar mental state that leads me into my exchange. There'll be more later.
-Erik

Currently listening to:
Song: Wave Goodbye
Artist: Steadman
Album: Revive

"Bipolar" Beginnings...Part 1

2008-08-31T23:30:00.002-05:00

This is just a test...kind of...
This is actually the second blog I have set up. After setting up the first one, I left it alone for about a month. It was marked as a spam blog due to inactivity and by the time I realized this, the grace period to request a review to unlock the blog had expired and the blog was deleted.

I still haven't left yet, although it's getting closer. Right now I don't really know what else to say, because I'm mainly posting an entry so this blog has some activity and doesn't suffer the same fate as my first blog.

For those of you just tuning into my upcoming adventures abroad, here's what's happening:
I will be living with my host family in Alicante, Spain (on the southeastern, Mediterranean coast) for the next 10 months as a Rotary International Youth Exchange Student. The family lives a 2 minute walk from the biggest beach in the city (pop. 350,000) and they enjoy sailing. My host father, Jose, is a photographer and my host mother, Elena, is a surgeon, who works in the biggest hospital in the city, doing plastic surgery in the burn unit. Their younger son, Miguel, 16, is already in New York on his own Rotary Youth exchange. The older son, Luis, 18, is going to the University of Valencia to study aeronautics engineering. Instead of going to high school like I expected, I will be attending the University of Alicante and will also be taking Spanish classes at the Official Language School in Alicante.

Right now, I don't know when I'm leaving, although the travel agent said she's working on getting me out on the 10th or 11th. The only problem is I don't have my visa yet and without that, all other travel plans are meaningless. So I don't know when I'm going, but it's soon. Very soon.

The looming departure is playing havoc with my nerves as I get ready, but more on that later.
-Erik

Currently listening to:
Song: Farewell Ride
Artist: Beck
Album: Guero