Chloe en España

Losers

Well, just so you all know, Osasuna lost. Me and Anna went to the main plaza in Pamplona where they had huge screens set up for the game, but it was raining, so we went back to my house, dried our pants and watched the game on TV. Then we went out at 11:30 to go to the bars and do the usual. There were a ton of people, but everyone was saying that during San Fermín there will be 100 times more people than that. I'm not so much looking forward to that, because you can't move in the bars and everyone is pushing and shoving and spilling drinks all over the place. It should still be fun, though. Anyways, I had fun last night, but it was Anna's last Saturday for going out at night because she's leaving for home next Saturday, so that was sad. I'm going to miss going out with her, we always have fun together. None of my friends were out there at night because they were all studying for the final exams on Monday. I should have been at home studying, too, but I decided that watching the soccer finals (this is the first time Pamplona has ever gotten to the finals), and having a cultural experience justifies not studying. I did study lots today, but all the facts about the fall of Communism and all the derivative formulas just aren't interesting to me at all right now.

Aúpa!!

My Osasuna t-shirt that Anna so kindly waited 52 minutes in line for. It says "Here beats a red heart (Osasuna's colors are red and blue). GO OSASUNA!!" The game is this Saturday. I don't think that they're going to win, but it should be fun watching it.

Stupid accent

Today in Literature class we were reading out of Fuente Ovejna, a play by Lope de Vega. I'm pretty sure that the last time that I read out loud in class was probably in October, so I was pretty nervous. I did fine, though, and after a while I had fun with it. I did, though, hear some giggling whenever I would read. I asked my friends afterwards if they understood me at all. They told me yes, that they understood me perfectly, but you can just tell that I have an accent, and that it's "funny." Later on the bus home I was talking to my friend who's also in my class, and he was like, "Hey, nice job reading in lengua today!" I thought he was being sarcastic so I got kinda mad and told him that's why I don't like to read in class, because I sound funny to them. He said not to worry: "We're not laughing at you, we just think your accent is cute."

My host dad's brother is taking English classes and has his oral exam sometime next week, so I was helping him write out his speech and all that. Even though he speaks really well, I had a hard time understanding him, and I got tired of it after a while. I have no idea how my host families have put up with my accent and me not making sense this whole year. I sure appreciate it, though.

San Sebastián

Yesterday Anna and I decided to go to San Sebastián for the day. We caught the bus at 11:15 and took the bus back home at 6:00. We didn't do much, just walked around, sat on the beach, and talked. It was fun, though, and we laughed a lot and had a good time. While we were on the beach we turned around and all of a sudden there was a man walking around completely naked. There were about 7 people on the entire beach because it was pretty cold and windy, so it's not like he fit in with the topless sunbathing women and all. It was a bit strange. Anyways, we ran into lots of English speaking people. People from America, England, Scotland, Australia, everywhere. Lots of French people too. Today my host brother told me that Spain is the second biggest tourist country, France being the first. I can believe it, there are so many tourists here in Pamplona right now because San Fermin is coming kind of soon. My host mom was complaining about all the tourists that are here already. It's going to be so crazy here in San Fermin. I'm so excited.

Pamplona's soccer team, Osasuna, is one of the finalists for the King's Cup championship game, so everyone is going crazy with Osasuna propaganda. In the newspaper they have this thing where you cut out one coupon every day for three days, and on the last day you go somewhere with the coupons and one euro and they give you a shirt that says Osasuna on it. The game is June 11th against Betis from Seville. The next Monday all the kids who are in the last grade of school here have a test called the Selectividad, which is somewhat like the SATs, but it pretty much determines the rest of their lives because you can't get into certain programs in college if you don't get a certain grade on the Selectividad. I wonder how many kids from Pamplona and Seville are going to do well on that test because I know how much they'll be studying.

These are me and my friends at their confirmation.

No quiero irme

I really, really, really don't want to leave here.

This week

So I kind of forgot that I had a blog, so I'll fill y'all in on my latest doings. I went to my friends' confirmation, like I talked about before. It was nice. An hour and 15 minute long mass, and then the confirmation bit. After that I went to a little gathering with all the friends to celebrate the confirmation. That was last Friday. Then the next night Anna the American and I went out at night to La Trave, which is a place that has about 5 bars in close proximity. All of the kids from our schools go there, so it's a lot of fun. It's not fun, though, when old men who should be doing other things than hitting on teenagers follow you around. There was one guy there, by himself, who followed us into all of the bars we went into to try to get away from him. Finally, Anna yelled at him and he left. We got home at 5:00, and then the next day was spent doing homework.

The week went by kind of slow. I had two tests today, but I think I actually did okay on them. I'm starting to get worried about the end of year tests, though. Those will be super hard. First we have to take the final evaluations for the third trimester of each class. Then, the week after, we have to take global exams, which consist of everything that we've been taught this whole year. That will not be fun to study for, because at the beginning of the year I understood nothing, so I'll have to teach myself that stuff. It's going to be miserable and I'm going to hate the world during the tests, but at the end I'll be happy that I took them and finished the year like any other Spanish kid would.

These past few days it has been very, very hot here. Today the high was 100 degrees, I believe. I'm wearing lots of sunscreen though, so hopefully I won't get toasted again. I've also been going to the gym a lot lately. I feel good about it, but sometimes I feel as though my host parents are obligating me to go. My host dad makes it seem like it's not an option to not go, and if I hang out with my friends instead of going, he thinks I made the wrong choice. They are paying for it, and this is coming from a man who does four hours of spinning during the winter, and bikes four hours during the summer, so I guess maybe I shouldn't take it personally.

Oh! I found out that one of my friends from Vashon is probably going to come here for San Fermín. It was completely random for him to come, but I'm excited. I think it will be fun.

Confirmation talk

It's been a while since I've written anything, but nothing much has been happening around here. Last Friday Anna and I went to Montse's (host mom) niece's dance performance. It was pretty cool, lots of flamenco dancing and women in really pretty costumes dancing with castanets. I love those things, they sound so cool. I was a little lost because it was pretty abstract dancing, but then at the end Montse told us that they were re-enacting parts of Don Quixote. That explained why a lady was standing on top of a guy's shoulders spinning around a long piece of cloth in circles (trying to be a windmill). Then this weekend I did nothing. I went to the gym, finally, on Saturday, then studied a little bit on Sunday. Yesterday I watched some real bullfights on TV with Tomás and Igor. Madrid has it's festival this week, so there're lots of bullfights and partying and such. It was really interesting because I had never seen a real one. I was shocked at how cruel it was, but then after the third bull came out it didn't bother me as much. To make me feel better Igor said that these bulls wouldn't exist if it weren't for the bullfighting, because it costs a lot of money to raise them. It's quite an intricate sport; every move that the matador does with the red cloth has a specific name, and there are three parts to each match, and to kill the bull they have to get it into a certain position to stab it right through the heart, instead of going through the bone, fun things like that. I had to stop watching after a while, but I'm glad I finally saw a real Spanish bullfight, even though it was on TV.

This weekend all of my friends are going to get confirmed. They're all excited - no more catequis (I don't know how to spell that word and it doesn't show up in the spell check; you'll have to forgive me). I never knew that Confirmation was such a fashionable event. This is the conversation that took place today in between literature and religion class:

"So, I think I'm going to wear my white skirt and a little black jacket."

"No, you should go with pants and a shirt. Not too formal, but still really cute, ya know?"

"Yeah, but I already bought the skirt, and I want to wear these boots with the skirt, and the boots don't go with pants very well."

"Don't even think about wearing boots with that skirt, that would look so bad."

"True, because we are going to go to celebrate in the bars afterwards. Hmm, I don't know."

I'm not joking, this is actually how the conversation went. I don't know very much about this subject, but shouldn't it be more about God and stuff instead of what to wear? Never mind, they're 16-year-old girls.

Oh! Abby called me last night. It was nice to talk to her. She's doing really well and glad to be home. She said she misses us though, and she thinks that she's already losing some of her Spanish. This worries me, because I tend to forget things easily, and I don't want to lose my Spanish.

Time with Nanners and Karen

I got back today from Madrid with Nana (my grandma), and her friend and traveling partner Karen. It was really nice, but a bit strange, to see people from home. I really enjoyed being around them, though, and hearing about what is going on at home and with everyone in my family. On Monday we left in their rental car to Madrid, with all of their suitcases and my two huge bags that they are kindly taking home with them for me. We had a good ride down, until we actually got into Madrid, and then we spent about an hour searching for a hotel. Somehow, after being lost for a bit, we ended up getting a hotel right smack in the middle of Madrid, and it wasn't too expensive, either. On Monday night we walked around and I showed them the Plaza Mayor and Puerta del Sol. Then on Tuesday we got on one of those hop on/hop off tour buses. We stopped at this really cool market that was set up on some streets. We bought a few things, then went on to the Prado museum. After that we were pretty tired, so me and Nana went back to the hotel while Karen walked around, looking for a good paella restaurant.

This morning was quite stressful. First Nana lost the ticket to get the car out of the garage, then we got lost on the way to the bus station. It took about 45 minutes to get there, when it should have taken five. I finally got there, and I really hope that Nana and Karen made it to the airport alive and on time.

I think that I did pretty good with translating between English and Spanish. Nana and Karen were very impressed, but they also don't speak Spanish, so I could have been speaking Gibberish and they would have still been impressed. Having them here made me miss home a little bit, and especially after having such a hard time getting to the bus station all I wanted to do was get on that airplane back to Seattle. But, only a little over two months and I will be home. Having them here, and talk about Prom and my best friend's dad's graduation party is making me really want to be home right now and part of the fun, but I guess you have to make some compromises if you're going to be an exchange student.

Tour guiding

I am going to kill this computer and then throw it out the window until I see it crash and break into 50 billion parts. Every time that I write in my blog and I click "publish," it won't publish it and deletes the post. So then I get all mad and don't want to write everything all over again. So this may not be too detailed.

Okay, so first, Abby came back on Thursday, but then I had to say goodbye to her that night because their flight to America left at 7:20 the next morning. She came back from the trip to Italy and France with her parents and grandma. They had a few problems, but other than those I think it went pretty well. It was so sad saying goodbye to her. We just had to tell ourselves that we'll see each other soon. Which we will hopefully. I miss her a lot, though. (Abby si estàs leyendo esto llámame por favor!!!)

Then yesterday my grandma and her friend came! It was a little bit of a mess getting them to their apartment, but it all turned out in the end. Today I showed them my school, the old part of Pamplona, and then we ate lunch with my first host family and then they took us around to two really pretty old towns. Then tomorrow we're going to San Sebastián, which should be fun. And now I'm going to bed because translating the history of 12th-century churches from Spanish to English is quite tiring.