Letters from Abroad

Dear Patch,

I’ve passed the 5-month mark! January was not a month full of activity, as a week of it was spent at home for the end of winter break and I spent a lot of time studying for finals. This means I don’t have a lot of pictures, but it still was a pretty great month.

First and foremost, my language skills have continued to improve, and I even dreamt again in Spanish. I really do feel as if I can speak Spanish now; it doesn’t take much effort to understand others and most of the time I can talk to someone without having to think about it. Even when I wake up tired in the morning, when I go to greet my host parents, it automatically comes out in Spanish.

I’ve even learned things that I don’t know in English. For example, we recently had to take a written test for P.E., and one of the things we had to learn was the muscles. I knew the basic ones that everyone knows like the triceps, biceps, quadriceps, but I’ve never had to learn all the names and their locations. Plus, the names I did know were in English. But now thanks to P.E., I know at least 30 different muscles in Spanish.

The P.E. test was the first of 9 exams of the second trimester, which I just finished on Tuesday, and it’s amazing how much I’ve learned language-wise and curriculum-wise in the past few months. This last set of exams I didn’t feel as disadvantaged as I did in the first set. The hardest of all the tests, for me at least, was Spanish Language (Lengua). In my other classes, I use Spanish to explain other things but in Lengua, I have to use Spanish to write a page-long commentary and explain the Spanish language. I don’t even know half of the grammatical terminology in English!

Outside of school, I’ve been doing great, but January seemed to pass in the blink of an eye! I did get to go hiking twice with my new hiking boots I got for Reyes before I had to go back to school on the 11th though. I feel as though I say this all the time, but Spain is such a beautiful country. I continue to take lots of pictures [pictures 1-3].

The following weekend, I got to visit Logroño for the first time to meet up with my best friend that I met in Madrid at the beginning of the year [4-5]. Being on exchange has really shown me that how close you are to someone does not depend on how long you’ve know them. Sometimes, you can be closer to someone you’ve only know for a few months than someone you’ve known for your entire life.

In other good news, I finally received the christmas package my parents had sent almost two and a half months earlier. Warning to all parents with kids overseas: send things early and be prepared to wait.

One thing that’s coming up this weekend that I’m really excited about is Carnavales. I’m not really sure what the origin of it is, but everyone dresses up in costumes to go out and party. A lot of people were surprised when I told them that we don’t have in the States, and that this will be my first time ever experiencing it.

This month, I don’t have a lot of news about my favorite topic, food. But one notable food that we don’t have in the U.S. is “Roscón de Reyes.” [6] It’s a round cake with cream sandwiched in the middle that everyone eats to celebrate “Día de Los Reyes Magos.” The top is decorated with dry, colorful fruit, and somewhere in the cream, there is a little figurine of one of the kings and his camel and what’s called a “haba”. If you happen to get the figurine, you get to wear the paper crown that comes with the dessert, and if you get the “haba,” you have to pay for the dessert. I didn’t get either one, but my grandma here insisted I keep the little figurine as a memory.

For my religion class, I have been making a short video about multiculturalism and acceptance. I started asking friends of mine to write me the same phrase but each in their own language, and it amazes me how many people I know from different countries and cultures. Since last year when I first started getting involved in Rotary Youth Exchange, I’ve made friends from Japan, Italy, Germany, Belgium, France, Austria, South Africa, Taiwan, Australia, Denmark, Canada, Brazil, India, and of course Spain and different parts of the U.S. I’m so happy to be on exchange and making connections around the world.

Also, I still haven’t had any Rotary events, so my blazer looks pretty consistent with last month’s blazer[7].

Until next time,

Nagisa