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.
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
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