Sunday, December 20, 2009











Things have definiltly cooled down on my side of the planet! The most drastic change that's happened since my last post has been the drop in temperature. At about -7 celcius for the mornings and 0 for the day on average? It's proven to keep my rapidly walking every morning to and from school, as well as run extra fast at cross in the afternoons to keep my body temp up. School here is broken into trimestres, so in two days now, tomorrow being monday and then tuesday I will officially be done with my first trimestre in my private catholic spanish school! In turn with the end of a trimestre you have final exams. Whoa. Now that could have quite possibly been the most stressful week of my life for various reasons, but mainly just the hours of studying and translating -- then coming to school to study for 2 more hours in the morning, one 2 hour final after break, then have our lunch and come back to another 2 hour final. All week long. It was honestly a miracle surviving. Most of my finals were in Catalan; however the understanding teachers gave me finals in Castellano. Completely drained I got through in one piece, and enjoyed the two days break we had this week. I know my scores weren't exactly compelling...having that switch of not seeing a good grade on a paper can take some getting used too.

Had a lovely day yesterday in Barcelona with other AFSer's, on an unofficial orientation for a intercultural merienda. Everyone had to bring a typical dish of their native country or state; I decided to make a halibut ceviche, for the reasons a.) being the dish had to be served cold and b.) it was relatively easy to buy the fresh ingrediants. Turns out my point b wasen't exactly very truthful! Using a cookbook from AK all the measurements were in cups and so I had to guesstamate roughly by taste and look. A little bit iffy about my final product because of the unbelievable smell of citrus, I couldn't bare to taste it. Just wait for the surprise and take the hit if it ended up being terrible. So the next day embarked off to Barcelona at 7am and enjoyed a beautiful market - the bustling people, blazing colors, and powerful aroma's. Then a promotional AFS walk including baloons in las ramblas. This involved my dear friend claire and me meeting a wonderful artist named Rafael, successfully sparking interest in exchange while speaking in very broken Catalan, and a good lunch of paella. Man I can never get enough paella. Next we met at a nice flat where we had our merienda, which is the typical snakc time at 6pm. And it turned out everyone loved the ceviche. Score! or as I would now say here !Toma! It's always a great time to see the other exchangers. I love all of them so much :) So now just to get through the next day and half of school, then it's break time for me! I hope you all enjoy the magical wonders of this holiday season...and remember the most important aspects of peace and love! Bon Nadal!