Chloe en España

EEUU

In history class we're studying a wonderful topic: The United States of America. The title of the chapter is "Bajo la influencia de los Estados Unidos," or "Under the influence of the United States." When the teacher read the title the kid in front of me turned around and said "Under your influence." The teacher is really worried about offending me though, because in the book it talks about all the good aspects of the US, but then it also talks about the bad ones, like the racism, and all the pollution that we emit. Whenever the teacher says anything like that, he turns to me and says, "Now Chloe, please don't take any of this offensively. I don't mean in any way to offend you." I was kind of surprised that he said that. Like he told me, the US is a huge place, and there's bound to be some faults. Although I never took any of it offensively, I did appreciate his concern for my feelings.

I love Spanish nightlife

Last night I went out with some of my Spanish friends to a group of bars where my whole school goes. I had a lot of fun and I'm really going to miss doing this when I get back home. I wish we had bars and clubs like this at home. One of my friends is probably going to go to Miami this summer for a month, so he was asking me some questions about America. He asked if we go out at night. He was terrified when I told him that there are no bars, no clubs, we can't drink, and that lots of people have a curfew of 12:00 or 1:00. He looked at me shocked and said that 1:00 was his curfew when he was 13 years old. We'll see how he holds up down there. Anyways, I had quite a few chats with some of the kids in my class that I hadn't really talked to before. One of them was going on about how I get better grades than lots of the kids in my class (I'm not bragging or anything, it's true), and how on our next test he's going to cheat off of me. I told him that wasn't going to happen. Then I was talking to one of my friends who I hadn't talked to for a long time. He's Mexican, went to a private boarding school in Boston, and I just found out yesterday that his dad is the coach of the Pamplona soccer team Osasuna. He speaks fluent English and likes to practice it on me. Usually I get mad when people speak English to me, but he has an excuse, and I can actually understand him, so I don't mind so much. I got home at 5:30 because we had to accompany one of our friends home who got sick. One of my friends told me that the night buses to Zizur, where I live, stop at 4:00, so the dad of my friend drove me home. Interestingly enough my host brother, who was at the same place as me last night, got home at 6:00 on the bus. Now I think I'm going to take a siesta because I'm running on 5 hours of sleep and I have school tomorrow.

Whoaaa

Today it was 90 degrees, and tomorrow it's supposed to be 95. No wonder I got so burnt.

Happy Friday

Ahhh I hate computers, it just erased the entry I just wrote. But oh well, I'm in a good mood so it's okay. Today I had to go to the police department to do some more things for my permanent visa. Luckily the police dept. made the appointment for 10:00 Friday, right smack in the middle of the school day. When I came into the living room before leaving today without my uniform my host dad looked at me and said, "So it looks like you won't be going to school today." I said, "Looks like no, if you don't mind." He told me he couldn't care less, and that he would do the same thing, so I didn't feel too bad about it. So we went to the police station on his motorcycle (so fun), and did what we needed to do. I thought that they would be giving me my ID card, but no, wait about a month and come back, and it might be ready by then.

When they were taking my fingerprints we discovered yet another abnormality of my body; not only do I have an insane number of unnecessary wrinkle lines on my palms, but I also have them on my fingers. My host dad said I was a freak basically, because he's a physical therapist and has seen lots of hands, but never ones like mine. Yippee, thanks again, Mommy.

Anyway, after the police station, I went and bought a bus ticket from Madrid to Pamplona for when my grandma and her friend comes. Then I went back home and sat in the very warm, hot sun for about two hours. I am now quite burnt, and my family is worried that I'm going to keel over from skin cancer any moment. My host brother grabbed a spatula and poked me with it, saying, "Look! The meat is already cooked from her skin!" I may be red as a tomato on one half of my body, but it sure beats having to comment on Garcilaso de la Vega's first sonnet in literature class.

My parents put some dinero into my bank account yesterday, so of course I went shopping. Now I have some things to wear this weekend when I go out with my friends from school. I'm also going to cut my hair, but I don't know what to do yet because my hair is quite insane. I'm afraid I'll end up with a mullet, which is quite popular here now a days.

Abby's grandma Francis, me, Abby's dad Rick, Abby, her mom Jan, and Anna at the Lacalle's house.

Ana old host mom, me, Abby, Anna, and Vicente

Los Padres

I completely forgot to mention that Abby's parents came! It was really fun getting to know them and her grandma. We all ate dinner at Ana and Vicente's house (I've never eaten so much food in my life), and then all the Americans went out and ate dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Now they're on their way to Paris I think, on their organized trip that they've planned. Then they come back on May 5th, and leave the 6th. I'm so sad for her to leave. But my grandma is also coming to visit me on the 6th, so that will be really exciting.

Today I had an interesting experience. I was waiting for my bus after staying the night at Anna's house (my first host family), and it was just me and a grumpy-looking older man. Then after about five minutes he turns to me and asks me if I know how the buses work. He told me that yesterday he wanted to go to the center of town, and he got on the right bus, but ended up going to the last stop on the route, which is right by the border of France. So I told him which bus to take, and then where to get off. Then we just kept talking, and it took him about ten minutes to ask me if I was from there or not. That's a record. I open my mouth and the person I'm talking to will be like, "Oh! Where are you from??" I told him I was from America, and he thought I was talking about South America. That made me so happy, because it meant that it wasn't extremely obvious that I was North American. He told me that I spoke very well, and he understood me when I talked, so I was very happy. He was telling me about how he has eleven kids, and he's here in Pamplona staying with his daughter because his wife died, and that he didn't know how to get to the center of Pamplona because it has changed so much. He gave me the usual "this was all trees and farms the last time I visited here" speech, which was in 1968, he told me. It was just kind of fun talking to a random Spaniard, especially when he kept complimenting me on my talking abilities.

Oh, and thanks for the comments, everyone!

Coments?

P.P.S. I agree with Anna Rae: if you read my blog please leave comments. It seems quite pointless if you don't know if anyone is reading it or not. Thank you.

Adiós Abby

So this is Abby's last independent weekend in Spain. Her parents are coming tomorrow. I'm going to miss her so much, but she's ready to go home, so I'm happy for her. To celebrate her going away, on Friday Anna, Kat, Kalin, Abby, and I all ate at our first host family's house, and then at night Abby, Anna, and I all went out to the Gala. The Gala is a discotheque that the schools use as fundraisers. Some nights it's sponsored by my school, some nights by Anna's school, some nights by Kalin's school, and so on. The kids that are on student council sell tickets, and I guess that money goes to the class trip at the end of the year, but I'm not exactly sure. It's a little funny that the school is sponsoring this club, where everyone goes and gets drunk. What's even better is that the benefit from buying the tickets from the student council at school rather than buying them at the door is that the ones from school have two coupons for free drinks, rather than one. Kind of strange, seeing as how almost everyone in the school is under the legal drinking age. That's almost as bad as selling lighters for a fundraiser. But anyway, we had a lot of fun because a lot of my friends from school came, too, so we were with them a lot, and then at 3:30 Anna got tired of the Gala, so we went back to the strip of bars that everyone our age goes to. That was even better because they played really fun music, and there was a lot of people. At one point there was a group of "viejos" or old men (around 40, 45 years old) that were very drunk and kept trying to dance with us and kissing our hands and giving us kisses on the cheeks. It was a little disgusting, but after a while they left. At 4 we went home because that's when all the bars shut down. On the way home we ran into two other Americans that are in one of the colleges here. I guess there's a group of them, and we met some of the ones from Ohio in September, but we haven't seen any other ones since then. They were nice, but not the kind of people you want to hang out with. Especially since one of them is supposedly banned from numerous bars and clubs in Pamplona. But it is pretty cool that so many people are taking advantage of this amazing opportunity. Anyways, the next day me and my friends from school had planned a surprise lunch get-together for Abby at a Mexican restaurant. She was mad at first because she wanted to go home and take a shower and everything, but I had to come up with reasons to make her stay out in the wind and rain until one of the girls showed up. Then after a while Abby realized what was going on and she cheered up a bit. It was really nice, the food was good, we all had fun, and Abby was surprised and happy. The day before some of us went out and bought her a card and a necklace that had "Tus amigas de Pamplona, 2004-2005" engraved on the back, which means "Your friends from Pamplona, 2004-2005." She really liked it. We left the restaurant after sitting and talking for about 3 hours. I went home and got bored, so Anna came over and stayed the night. That was also fun because we stayed up, despite the lack of sleep, and talked to my host mom for hours. Now today I have to study because I have three mid-terms this week.

This weekend going to the Gala and lunch with my friends made me realize how much I'm going to miss them all, and how much I'll miss going out at night. It's so much fun. I mean, it will be so great to see all my friends and everything, and I can't wait, but I'll miss Spain so much.

P.S. Ma, the first thing we do when I step off that plane is relax my hair, it is officially out of control.