Finally, the real Christmas post.

This is their family (kinda). Just thought it might make it easier for you. My host parents are Luis and Maribel, btw.

From the back: Luis Jr., Me, Marta, Marina, and Ale.
This picture wasn't so much for looking at the people, but to show the setting. This is where we sat with everyone before dinner, and after when we were opening presents.
From top left: Marta, Maribel, Luis, Alejandra, Me, Luis

Just to show you my dress! I borrowed it from my host sister Marta, it was really cute. And I wore black leggings and my silver shoes.
This is the kitchen. This is where we sat before everyone came over. It's really big and pretty nice. I hated the chair though, really uncomfortable.

Bad quality, but there's me, Marta, the aunt Marta, Marina (who is not pregnant, it's just the way her vest was moving), and Ale

This was a couple days before Christmas at my house. From top left: Willi, Marta, Ale, Marina, and Me.
This was a lunch we had at the grandma's house. From the front left going clock-wise: Jorje, Isabel, Borja, Marta, Me, Cristina, Marina, Ale, and Willi.
Same lunch, in the kitchen, with the grandma
Before christmas, my host mom had all of her friends over to stuff the turkey. The kitchen was really messy. That's me and Javier.
A while ago, some friends from Theota came to visit, and this is a picture from a breakfast we had.

So, in summary, for Christmas eve, we had dinner at my host aunt's house with all of the family ( I think there was like, 20 of us) and opened presents. We got home at around 2:30.

Then the next morning we went over to her house again, but this time it was just the grandma, me, both luis's, marta, ale, and host mom. We had lunch and opened presents for each other.

Then for New Year's we went to another uncle's house and had a really informal dinner (although we were all really dressed up) and watched the 'ball' drop on tv. The big thing in Spain is to watch what's going on in Sol, they have a big clock tower and it has a puny non-lighted ball that drops on midnight. And then for every chime of the clock, you have to eat one grape. It's actually harder than it sounds because the chimes go so fast. Then Cristina (the cousin that's in Canada this year but just came to visit for the holidays) and I went to a discotheque. It was very fun. Unfortunatly I don't have any pictures because I didn't want to risk getting my camera stolen.

Then they have another holiday Jan 6 called Rayos Magos (magic kings). We didn't do anything really special. There's a special pastrey called Roscon. That was good. And the grandma came over for lunch.

From a couple weeks ago

No, that's not a finger in the way.... It's the heavy fog we had a couple weeks ago! I just thought it was really impressive. I woke up, and I was confused, because I thought it was pretty late and the light wasn't coming in like normal, so I opened the window, and it was just really really foggy!

More fog, I could hardly see the ground from the apartment.

This is a fountain in the back gardens of the Royal Palace. These next few pictures are from the tour I took in Madrid a couple weeks ago with Susanna. It was really cold and wet and rainy.
This was our tour guide.
This is the street where the Royal Opera is and it's right across the street from the Palace.
Palace, back side.
I'm not sure what this is, I think it's a church.
The El Corte Ingles promotional stuff for toys during Christmas. Down below they had clowns doing balloon animals and 'mickey' and 'minny' mouse posing with kids. Their costumes weren't very good.

Last Day of School!

Yesterday was my last day of school and now I'm on break until January 7th. It was really boring and I'm glad I don't have to go back for 22 days. And I wont have my physics class for 30 days! wooohoooo

The look of the whole building.

The front steps.

This is a view from those steps.

These are what the steps in the school look.

This is my 3rd floor. The fire supplies and the heater below it. They have vents in the ceiling, but it's only for cold air. Every room (schools and houses) have these things.

The bathroom. The one on the right is one of the two that actually close.


A real chalkboard. I hate them. And that bulletin board is the only other thing on the walls.

The icky, icky desks. Every grade, even in other schools, has desks like these.

2 Days In a Row

Well, I decided to write another blog, just because I have so much extra time this week. I think because it's a big test week, none of the teachers are giving homework. I've had lots of time after school and have been sleeping a lot.

As you have probably noticed, I found out how to add a new layout! I think it looks a lot better. The only thing is that it doesn't show a couple of the pages features, like my About Me and stuff. And I'm not sure if it lets you click on pictures. So when I put new pictures on, I'll probably take it off. But I thought it was really nice and festive!

I just found out today that the teacher's grades are due this Friday, so that means I'll probably have no tests next week! Only 7 more days until Christmas break. And then after that, it's January! I have a Spanish Language exam tomorrow. I have to know about Romanticism and Modernism and that kind of stuff. I hope it will be multiple choice, but I'm not counting on it. Then Friday I have another make-up test in Spanish and then a history test. Not sure how those are going to go, but it doesn't really matter, right?

I'll try to buy some postcards on my way to school one of these days. I've been bored a lot in class and I could take that opportunity to write some!

Bye for now!

First One of December

Happy December! Nothing much exciting going on here. I have this week and the week after until Christmas break. It goes from Sat Dec 20 to Wed Jan 7. So nice long 20 days. The only things I know about what we're doing for Christmas is that we're going to go over to my host aunt's house and eat a lot. The apartment here is a little decorated, they hung a (small) strand of lights in the window and there's little Christmas figurines around.

This next couple weeks in school are really test filled. But at least some of them are makeup tests, but then I have to do most of the makeup tests... I usually fail all of the tests anyway. The classes themselves are still terrible. I think they might even be more terrible now because we've taken enough tests and homework that my grades show horrible I'm doing. And in the beginning I felt bad for my teachers because of how badly behaved the kids are, but now I see that they bring it upon themselves. I only have 1 teacher out of 9 that doesn't seem completely cruel.

I had a really good weekend a few days ago. It was a fiesta weekend, so I had Monday off. On Saturday, it was a holiday because December 6th was when the new Spanish Constitution was signed. And Monday was a holiday because it's the Virgin of Madrid Day or something like that. Well, anyway, on Saturday, Susanna (the girl from Holland) and I met in Sol and bought our Twilight tickets at a theatre called Yelmo Cines that plays all movies in English with Spanish subtitles. Then we took a walking tour that was free and all in English. We went to a bunch of churches and the Opera house and the Palace. We had to leave early though because we wanted to do some souvenir shopping. So we went shopping and I bought a bunch of stuff that I really love! By then it was dark and the Christmas lights in the city were on and there was tons of people! It was really hard to get from place to place. But at 6:30 we ate dinner at McDonald's and Shayna and Cayle met us there. So the movie started at 8pm, and we wanted to get there a little early. So we left and got to the theatre at 7:35. There were tons of people waiting in the lobby because they wouldn't let anyone go up until about 10 minutes before the movie started. So we waited and got a bag of popcorn. Then when it was time we went up. Our seats were pretty good. In the middle more or less. We were all hoping to see the HP6 trailer, but they didn't show any trailers :( I didn't really love the movie. There were parts that were funny, but the parts that I liked weren't in the books. Probably because the parts from the books weren't exactly like the books, so of course they weren't as good. Shayna and Cayle (who had both read the book) felt kind of the same. Susanna (who hadn't read the book) really loved it and was asking me to explain the book series the whole way home.

So after the movie, we wanted to go to Plaza Mayor and get something to eat. So we walked there and unfortunately the venders were packing up their stalls and the Christmas lights were turned off. But there were still plenty of people. We ate, then left on the Metro. And that was our night.

Then Susanna spent the night at my house. We got up, ate breakfast, and then went in the Metro to meet with Shayna and Cayle again to go the the big flea market they have here called El Rastro. It's a long confusing story, but Shayna didn't end up getting there until 1:30, and Cayle couldn't come at all. But when she got there, we were all hungry, so we went to a pizza place and sat and talked and ate for a couple hours. Then we went back into the Metro. Susanna had to meet other friends (she was moving to another part of Spain and this was here last weekend) and Shayna and I were going to Sol to do some more shopping. But by the time we got to Sol, I only had 45 minutes. So I didn't shop much, but it was still fun.

And that's my big weekend. Now it's icky school again. And Luis (the kid of my host parents that's supposed to be in Nevada) is coming on the 20th just to be here for Christmas. Then going back to Nevada on the 4th. A little bit ridiculous to spend $1000 just to come home for the holidays, I think.

Thanksgiving Pictures

I did all of these from the bottom up, so if it seems like the captions are out of order, that's why.

This is the doorway that leads to the backer part of the apartment. It's where the master bed/bath is, 2 bedrooms, and 1 bathroom. And the little table you see is full of nutcrackers that were bought in TJMaxx. Some still have the price tags on the bottom.
The living room. It's very full of stuff.

the kitchen. That's where we eat dinner. I usually sit on the right, closest chair to the front.
Look at that. Look at it! No counter space! it's barely even a sink! At least the mirror is pretty big. But the lighting in my very orange bathroom, is terrible. So I usually can't see well anyway.
My weird square toilet and the teeny tiny cabinet.
My shower.
And this is how it comes. I couldn't find the massive stash of them. I think we've used them all, but we used to have about five of these under the sink. This is in the pantry.
A closer look
Milk in the fridge, the pink ones.
I pulled it out so you can see better.
Because I keep getting pestered. Can you see the milk in its natural habitat? From the right, there's Corn Flakes, Special K, some chocolate flake things, and then there's a carton of milk tucked behind that.
The dress in question, from Bershka, for those of you who know what I'm talking about. Cute huh?
El Corte Inglés (the courteous englishman) is the biggest department store. The one in our mall is about the size of Macy's at the Galeria. But in Madrid, there are about 20 of them. Full size ones, usually 3 or 4 stories. And they have smaller stores, like for travel planning, or autodealers, or things like that.
The mall.


This is one of the places I run sometimes.
I have no idea what these are for, but they're really close to the apartment.
The elevator in our building.

These are from the 'Thanksgiving' dinner last night. The food wasn't very good, but we had turkey. And it was nice of that Rotary club to put it on for us. It was really nice talking with the other exchange students (in English). It's fun to share all of our stories and feelings lol.
Caylee (from South Shore Lake Tahoe) goes to my school too.
Janelle (she's here for an au pair program) me, Shayna (from arizona) Catherine, and some random guy who leaned in on our picture.
Caylee, me, and Danielle
They were always doing some presentation. And then we all had to be quiet and couldn't talk. Tomasso (left) Eduardo (right)

These are some videos I decided to take when I walk from my building to the Metro. The second one was after I crossed to street and walked a bit.