February to March

February ended, just as great as March started.

3 days ago, my dad arrived here in Spain. We greated each other in the streets, with a true Kodak moment. We had a dilemma in the process, but it all worked out perfectly.

My dad arrived at 8 in the morning without service on his phone. Neither of us thought this through, but we had our meeting spot previously set (the metro station near my house here), and I had an idea of around what time he would be there. So I left my house at about 9:30 walking super fast to the station. As I rounded the corner, there stood my dad, luggage in hand, in the brutal cold, unsure of what to do. I screamed “DAD” and ran across the street, running into a big bear hug. We were both screaming and laughing and crying, while the busy morning streets of the city were watching our moment reuniting.

From there we spent the day around the city, taking it easy, and catching up. That night we went out to dinner, where Blanca and I spent our time translating from parent to parent. We all had a good time.

The next day, which happened to be my birthday, I took my dad to Toledo, where we spent the day in the warm sun. It felt like a spring day. We took countless pictures and the middle of the day was spent taking a siesta on a park bench in the sun.

Yeah, I did get sunburnt.

That night we went to a Mexican restaurant called Si Señor. Just like most restuarants they so things for people who have birthdays. However, my dad was unaware of this, so he told them it was my birthday.

So before I move on, you should know that what they do if it’s your birthday, is they put a hard helmet on you, shove a shot down your throat, move your head around in a fast motion, and shove whipped cream in your face… all while blowing a whistle. Happy birthday.

I was aware of this going into the night, so when I heard the whistle, I was suddenly terrified. They placed the helmet on my head, when I quickly repsonded by taking it off, meaning, don’t do this to me, I’m not legal.

They put it back on.

This time I took it off stood up, and they got the point. I’m pretty sure the waiter holding the hard hat and shot thought I was going to take him out, because he threw his hands up like he was being arrested when I got out of my seat. As I sat back down the whole restaurant was watching me, but thankfully they went straight to my dad and did it to him.

I think this took some of the attention off of me. It was a little embarassing and looking back, it probably would have been easier just letting them force a shot down my throat, but in the moment, I wasn’t ready for it.

It’s all good though, we had a fun night together and ended the day riding on the metro for about an hour because neither of us were up for the task of navigating at the time.

Today we went shopping and spent another day hanging in the city with some beautiful weather.

We’re both really enjoying these days togther, just hanging out, and getting some good laughs in.

I’ll follow up with some pictures too, but we’re heading out for some pizza soon, so maybe tomorrow.

Adioss.

Bohoyo, Avila

Host dog

Oldest bull ring in Spain

Pure Happiness

I’m aware of my lack of posting. February has been a great month. I knew the second that I hit that half way point and started working my home, things were going to take a turn, and not to my surprise, they did.

I’m not saying things were terrible before, but things are way better now, I just belong.

The day I’ve been counting to since 121 days ago will finally be here in 2 days: Febuary 28, 2013: Reunited with my dad. I keep imaginging this Thursday morning, 10:00 a.m. waiting at the metro station at ground level, eyes open for the familiar face to be walking up the stairs. And everytime I do it brings a little tear to my eye.

I’ve really been enjoying life lately. The other day on twitter, I woke up to a tweet from a girl from my class that said, “All I can say is I’m going to miss Emily so much next year. Philadelphia girl come to Madrid one more year!”. People don’t realize it, but those things mean a lot to me. It feels great to know I’m going to be missed. Sorry fo the mushy stuff, but these people are making an impression on me, and that’s pretty scary.

I love school. I’ve gottten to know pretty much everyone in my class, and I love how they don’t judge me for my mistakes, or how many questions I ask them about homework. They’re all really cool people. I’ve had a lot of people come up to me lately asking if they can come to my house this summer, to which I always respond yes. I’m not sure if they’re always serious, but I am.

Esta vida es una cosa bonita, y cada dia, yo aprendo que Espana es el pais para mi.

Therefore, I won’t be returning to PA.

Happy Lunes a todo.

Cathedral in the Making

The following pictures are of a cathedral that was started to be built back in 1942, and is still being worked on today. It is all done by one man who started the building because he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was isolated from the community. There are no blue prints, no plans, he does what he feels like and how he wants, from anything he can find. This man’s name is Don Justo, and he has created one of the coolest cathedrals I have seen in my life.Truly a piece of art. I met him and he was the sweetest person. His hands clearly held a story of all the work put into the cathedral, but he couldn’t have been happier or had a bigger smile on his face. I wish I would’ve gotten a picture with him, but it completely slipped my mind.

With that being said, enjoy these:

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

This past weekend, I went with my host parents to see snow.

I was woken up early on Sunday, and honestly didn’t start out very excited about the trip because of the 1 and a half car ride that awaited me. Since I’ve gotten here, my experience in cars has only brought me to headaches and upset stomachs, so I was not anticipating that part of the journey. Also wasn’t incredibly pumped because I’ve seen enough snow coming from Philadelphia to last alife time.

However, despite my mixed feelings, when I saw the snow capped mountains in the distance, I got excited.

It turned out to be really nice… and cold. Extremely cold. After a succesful wanna be snow fight had finished between my host parents and I, we went back down the mountain, stopping here and there to get different views of the scenery. Well spent Sunday in my opinion.

Tomorrow I find out my grades for the quarter so fingers crossed. It feels good to finally have results for all this work.

It feels good to feel like you belong in your host country. It’s an unexplainable feeling to feel a sense of belonging in such a foreign place. It makes me want these last 5 months to go on forever. However, I know they cant… guess it’s time to start taking “viva la vida” seriously.

 

Half Way Retirement

Today’s the day that puts everything into perspective… the half way mark. This is it, 5 months down, 5 to go.

This day has come so fast. These past 149 days flew by, and the scariest part, is that the next 149 are going to go even faster. It’s a tornado of time that sucks you in and spits you out as a bilingual girl.

Today was really good. Nothing in particular, just little moments of laughter with friends. Understanding without thinking. FINALLY getting good grades (69% on my physics and chem exam :), and feeling good about exams. It was a good reminder to enjoy these next 149 days. It’s weird to think about saying goodbye to this place. I’ve developed a second home, which I have already planned on visiting multiple times over the next years.

I’d like to give a shoutout to my dad, my papa T., used to be referred to as Poppy-vandershnitzel, and better known as Papito, who will be retiring today from his job in carpentry. In less than an hour, he’ll be finished. This may sound silly from child to parent, but I’m so proud of him.

I remember sitting in the back of the car on the way to the airport that tuesday morning, in the middle seat. I was so confused, so excited, so happy, so sad, so emotional…. I remember looking up into the rear-view mirror and making eye contact with my dad. That’s when all my emotions went down the toilet until I fell asleep on the plane to Spain. With that sappy moment, 28 days. ONLY 28.

In case you haven’t noticed before, I count down a lot.

Course selection for my senior year is now complete, so I’m glad that’s completely out of the way. I don’t even want to think about that.

Time to go study for the math midterm. If anyone wants to explain logs to me, I will love you forever.

Whoaaah I’m Half Way There

Day 144.

Today I’m missing the 1st birthday of the most beautiful little baby in the whole entire world.. my second cousin Avery.

I’m actually pretty mad I missed a big chunk of this little girls infant years. SHE’S SO CUTE.

Thursday is the half way mark for me. It’s like I’ve been counting down to this point, but now that it’s here, I know these last five months are going to come and go faster than the first five. That’s both scary and exciting. It’s also the day my dad retires, so I’m feeling a mini Skype party coming on.

I’ve also been working on course selection, which brings me to the fact that I’m graduating next year. What? How?

I had 6 exams last week, and 4 in the upcoming week.

I’m just going to say it:

I had an English exam and I didn’t understand the first part. IT’S ALL GRAMMAR AND STUFF OKAY?

I had an exam on Wednesday where I had to comment on a map of Europe during the first world war. Because no one knew which map from the book it was going to be on we had to study like, six of them, and the teacher would put a picture of the one he chose on the screen. However, the screen was broken, so a girl in my class convinced him to let us use the picture in the book. Let’s just say I nailed that exam. Other classes from the grade started to hear about what happened and all of a sudden every computer from the sophomore class was broken.

Tomorrow I’m meeting a girl from Maryland who is staying with the family from Toledo that I visited for a weekend last month. It’s probably a lot more exciting for me than for her, but it should be fun. There’s also a slim chance that I’m heading out to another soccer game tomorrow so fingers crossed.

I’m off to work on history vocabulary about the Great Depression. I really wish that last year when I was sitting in that junior history class I would have listened a little more. This would be easier.

A lot easier.

 

 

 

It’s Officially Official

I have officially recieved my return date to return back to Lansdale and I’m not even going to lie, it’s a great feeling. I woke up to a message from my dad this morning:

“Saturday, June 29th!!!!!!! :D”

I wish there was an easy way to explain how that message makes me feel right now.

It’s basically a whole lot of:

“Oh my gosh I’m so excited, but that’s only 5 months away, I can’t wait to see my family and friends, but I will never see some of these people again, I don’t want this to end, let’s count how many days exactly until June 29th…..”

But for the most part I’m excited, because there’s no place like home. But there’s also no place like Europe. My mind is going in circles.

On a completely different note, I’m planning on ditching school tomorrow due to the fact there is an English test that’s a total of 4 or 5 classes. So thats 4 or 5 hours in the library, plus another one after the hour of lunch, resulting in one class for me tomorrow: the last one of the day. So that’s not happening.

Let’s flashback to Monday morning, first class of the day:

Get to class.

Hand in the work that took me a good hour to do because Spanish.

Teacher sees that someone has written an offensive work on the keyboard.

I have no idea what this word means.

Everyone gets a zero for the work because no one admitted to doing it.

Tuesday:

No one has fessed up.

Two points off of the next exam.

Teacher calls me out to sing a song in 2 weeks in English with others for some “day of peace” at school.

I say no.

He says it’s “obligatory”.

I say I’m not going to school that day.

Emily – 1

My teacher Ricardo – 0

That’s what I like to call winning.

And to all a goodnight.

Exciting Things

Just a quick couple of things. Super quick because my battery is about to die,a nd where my charger is hiding is way beyond me.

• I’ve had about 340837249870 people tell me I speak Spanish super well since I came back from winter break.
• Starting tomorrow I’m going to stay in English class with my fellow peers, which I’m so excited about. Finally talked everyone into letting me.
• Because of previous said exciting thing, I have 3 less hours of sitting in the library a week. Moment of silence for this amazing news.
• Lastly, I got 3 tests back this week. 1. Technical drawing, didn’t pass because of 5%. 2. Math, teacher said “muy bien”, so I’ll just go wit that and not tell you what the percentage was. Numero tres deserves it’s own bullet…
• Physics and chem.The dreaded subject… I will admit my test was different from the others but still, got a 70%.

Okay, I’m off to try to do this thing called sleep, because the past three night I’ve gotten a total of 11 hours. Don’t ask me why, I couldn’t give you a good answer.

Hope you can sleep better than me tonight.

ADDDIOOOSS.

Life is a Climb

Today is an “everything is gonna be okay”, kinda day.

My favorite kind of days.

Part of me hates that I can’t share everything I do with my family and friends, all the little moments of happiness, and things that remind me of them, simply because I can’t remember it all. The other part of me likes that. I like how it’s something I’ll always have with myself.

Last night as we were driving from Leganes to Madrid,  as me and my host sister singing to Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, and Swedish House Mafia, I began to get angry with myself. Two months ago I was afraid of just letting go, and belting “DON’T YOU WORRY, DON’T YOU WORRY CHILD”! Why?

Why have I spent so much time wanting to be in Lansdale? LANSDALE.  I have the rest of my life to live there if I want. Now things are easy, I know the language well enough to understand, and can go long periods of time without English. I finally made it. I’m working on my fifth month, and from here on out, it’s all about enjoying the ride.

Haters gon’ hate, but you know that Miley Cyrus song “The Climb”? You know how she said in that one Hannah Montana movie, “Life’s a climb, but the view is great”? I know it’s cheesy, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said that to myself over the past 4 months and 2 days.

I saw this thing on the internet about a month ago that was a suggestion for the new year. Take a jar, and everytime something good happens, write it down and toss it in, and at the end of the year open them all up. I started January 1st, and I already have about 20 pieces of paper in there of small little memories I want to remember looking back.

It’s a great reminder to look at and recognize the good things.

This post made me think of something, so I just added a new one.

“January 6, 2013: Being woken up to by ‘Viva La Vida’ live playing on full volume all through the house on the holiday of Reyes.”

That moment made me happy because Coldplay and presents.

Tomorrow I start school again, the 16 day break is coming to an end, and I DON’T EVEN CARE.

Because life is good. And I’ll see my dad in 51 days. My mom and brother in 68 days.

Before I go on any further, I’m sorry that this post is completely unorganized and probably too full of emotion for anyone liek my brother.

Starting today there are major sales here, so Dad if you could throw a few thousand in my bank account that would be A+, thanks.

I guess that all. Happy Monday, only 4 more days until the weekend everybody.

PUEDES HACERLO.