1) My family is more than amazing. My host mom is so incredibly hospitable and makes dinner every night. Tonight, it was just me and her and even though she already ate by the time I came home, she still sat with me at the table and asked about my day (like my real mom would! :] Sorry, mama...) Yago... Well, he is a 14 year old boy: loves to watch TV, go to the skate park, not really have much to do with an older host sister, but nonetheless, he still asks me "¿Qué tal?" whenever one of us returns home.
2) I go to the beach everyday, no big deal. It is usually 75ºF, slight breeze, sunny, clear cold ocean... So pretty much it is PERFECT. It has only rained once and it was only for two hours, so I would say good weather so far! I know I will like it here mucho.
3) I have been to Ferrol twice now, and what a lovely city it was! (I will talk more about it later...)
4) I signed up for classes: yikes. School starts on Tuesday and I will be taking Spanish, English, Gallego, History of Spain, History of Music, History of Art, Religion, and Universal Literature. WHAT A LOAD. The co-director of school decided to put me in small classes so I will have about 10 kids or less in each class. At Minnetonka, I had 25-30 kids in one classroom. What a change. School goes from 8:20AM-2:50PM with two 15 minute breaks in the morning and no lunch time (that's for after school.)
5) I am now meeting people around my age and who I can hang out with! I played a card game similar to BS with about 10 other people. What's funny is their cards here go from 1 to 12, not Ace, 2-10, Jack, Queen, King. And we played this game outside of a bar because, what better place, right? But they were all very nice to me and when I saw some of them the next day, they said hi and remembered me! Perhaps school won't be so scary if everyone is this nice.
6) I have discovered that nearly EVERYONE smokes (even the kids my age.) Apparently, cigarettes are super cheap in Spain. So unfortunately it does smell frequently. On the bright side, my family doesn't smoke.
Now, for my adventure today, because today was my best day so far:
I went to the beach (as always. I do my devotionals there,) but today, I decided to release my inner child and make a sand castle.
Who says I am too old to make a sand castle?
It's beautiful! I am so proud of it! I love the beach! I have also started running here, but today I was lazy so I took a walk along the beach instead.
Look that the water! So clear! So bright!
Footprints from other walkers.
Shall I tempt you with another picture of the ocean?
Are you jealous yet? It's five blocks away from me. I counted. I only got a mild sunburn today, which is an accomplishment! For those of you who don't know, I got terrible sunburns this summer because I hate using sunscreen. That may have to change... So my day so far has consisted of sleeping in until 10:00AM, getting to the beach by 1:00PM and while I am at the beach I made a sand castle, took a walk, did my devotional, and found more shells to add to my collection!
¡Qué bonita mi colección!
My day probably could have stopped there and I would have been incredibly happy, but it gets better. Yago told me I was going to meet Eloisa in Ferrol (one hour bus ride away) and I had to take the bus to meet her... Without him... So alone. He explained to me several times where I needed to get off, and I hoped I would get off at the right spot. I successfully navigated the system and met my host mom and the right stop! Woop woop! We then proceeded to meet a friend of her son, who is taking a gap year in California right now. Nuria, the friend, speaks really fast and honestly I really didn't understand most of what she said, but she is my age and really friendly so Eloisa left for home and Nuria and I went walking around Ferrol. I got a capo and picks for my guitar (oh, did I mention that my family had a guitar for me when I got here?! I adore it!) and then we met some of her friends, who were also very nice! And spoke really fast too. All four of us stopped to sit down and get this:
Vanilla frozen yogurt with crumbled cookie
Oh my. It was so good. It was very similar to Yogurt Lab back home, but I only got to choose one topping and flavor instead of 35. Nevertheless, it was still delicious. We all sat and talked, I just listened for a while and chimed in when I could insert something actually meaningful to the conversation or understood what they were saying. Another friend, Yago, came up and I also met him. He happened to be going back to Cedeira too so he sat next to me on the bus ride home and we talked about everything from music to TV to varying accents of English. He spoke really good English with a very unique accent (British mix Spanish mix... Some other European accent.) I got home and ate almost every snack I could find in my room because I was starving (feel free to send me some more,) but my host mom made me soup and a sandwich, which quickly put to rest my hunger. And here I am now! Writing in my blog!
It feels like I have been here more than a week and to be honest, the language is frustrating me because I forget words frequently and can't speak as quickly as I would like, but in all due time and a positive attitude will change that! My family is patient with me as well as everyone surrounding me so I am thankful for that!
God is doing wonders with me in my devotional time and I am learning to embrace my quiet time so I can spend it with Him. I have learned that God speaks best to us when we dwell in silence so we can talk to Him and we have no distractions. Almost always, God does not speak in a thunderous voice, but in a gentle whisper in the wind. Just as God told Jacob to leave to a foreign land, He guided him through it; God promises me the exact same thing in my new country.
~Ashlyn
No comments:
Post a Comment