Pictures!

Finally :). The first pictures are of other kids in my class (taken at school between classes :) ).

The group picture is of all the exchange students in Spain this year from the orientation in Madrid.

I know its unreleated, but there also is a picture of me walking to the car getting ready to leave :)

(I´m sorry there so small! The internet is a bit slow here, and the program is limiting it too! eek!)

Have a Nice Chair and the Killer Fruit

Aka my first day of school. Actually the day went much better than expected, I´ve heard a lot from different people how the Spanish are slow to warm up to people but that was not my experience. Everyone in my classes was very welcoming (and entertained by my foriegnness and not understanding nearly anything lol). In my class (which I have every subject except with except for Industrial Technology, because some people have Biology and others have technical drawing) there are only 5 other girls! Although that is sort of weird (given that there are other THIRTY people in my class) it´s also nice for me because it means that all the girls stick together. In addition a lot of people are coming to this school for the first time, and its the first time that people seperate themselves out by what they are goin to study in university, so everyone isn´t already farmiliar with themselves. From what I could understand in my classes (not to terribly much lol :) ) they were mostly the same as the first day in the US. Except for last period. Oh man lol, I don´t know what the subject was supposed to be (and neither did any of the kids I asked, something like Social world living or some random thing...I don´t know) but the teacher didn´t seem to either. And I believe she said she didn´t want to be there, and she had absouletely no control over the class (becasue she had nothing interesting to say, no one would listen of course!) finally, after she attempted to start introductions and failed, a Student stood up. I don´t know his name yet, but he was very helpful and kind to me today, he was an exchange student in Michigan last year, so he was able to translate and related to my complete confusion :). So when he stood up, he walked to the front of the class room, nudged the teacher from where she was sitting, and told her to sit down. She obliged, laughing, and took his seat. He then took the roll list from her, went to the front and pretended to be the professor for the last 20minutes fo the period, and through that he actually managed to lead introductions, in addition to providing a lot of entertainment for all. I was laughing nearly all the way home :D.

After school I went shopping with Carmen. At one of the stores called ´Nice Day Nice Things´ there were shirts that said all kinds of things that didn´t really make sense in English using the word nice and lots of fish (your guess is as good as mine about why lots of shirts had fish on them! lol). There were also a lot of shirts with chairs on them that said ´Have a Nice Chair´I found it sound so amusing that I had to buy the button to add to my Rotary jacket. When I got home I organized all the school supplies that I had bought, then Juan decided to go to the Grocery store and I accomanied him. Man was it nice to by some food that seems farmiliar and that will be quick for eating (like SOY MILK :=) and cookies and juice to take as snacks for break at school, Lunch is at home at 2:30 when I get home, School is out at 2, then I have a 25min walk). There are a lot of strange new things here that I have to ask what they are, not only in the prepackaged things, but fruits and vegetables too. In the kitchen I pointed to a bowl of green fruit like things with darker green poky spots and Juan scream ¨DON´T TOUCH THOSE!¨of course I was quite confused. Then he offered me one...which added to my confusion. I accepted and he carefully stabbed it with a fork as he brough it the counter to cut. It turns out that they are not actually poisnouss, and not Killer Fruit either :). They are cactus fruit and have little thorns on them that apperently hurt a lot if they get in your finger.

I´m not sure if that made very much sense, my brain is quite exhausted from all the Spanish today, I hope you enoyed it anyway!
Peace out for now,
Molly

Bannanas Float!

Yes, its true, i just learned that on ´Brianiac´that I´m watching (in Spanish of course lol) (it´s a TV show for those of you who like my parents don´t kow that lol).
I spent this morning at the ´rural house´ patio de tita the families hotel about thiry minutes from here. It´s possitively beautiful there, with a view of the ocean and a bannana plantation to boot! (perhaps I´ll have to try the bannana expirement for myself w- one of the bannanas and the pool! lol). BTW Dad, could you type up a few of the bread recipes from the joy of cooking for me? Like one for the regular white bread and another for whole wheat bread? We´re having a get together at the rural house on Saturday and they just installed a new outside oven and I told Loreto that I´ve made bread before and she got very excited :).
Also, A few book recomendations for everyone! If you are studying Spanish I highly recomend getting the Barrons Spanish Verbs book, in addition to over 300 fully conjugated (in all tenses, there are FOURTEEN in spanish, VS 6 (I think, I know there are only three simple, and I think there are only three complex in English too) in English!). When you get it, follow what is says in the beginning and read the introduction pages where it talks about the verb forms, you won´t believe how helpful it is! It turns out that that the future tense is rediculously simple, as are most of the other ones (if you have them crealy explained!). Dad, if you get this book and study it I´ll bet that within a few months you´ll stop having problems explaining the past present and future in spanish to your guys!
Also, for anyone who likes a good romance book, you absouletely MUST read Dear John the newest book by the guy who wrote the Notebook (which I know is really poorly written, but this one is FABULOUS) I forget his name right now, but go find the book. It was published just last year, and his writing has imporved soooo much you won´t believe it. Normally I wouldn´t have bought it becuase of how bad the Notebook was, but it was the only slightly appealing book in english (there were only like 20 to choose from :O Our assumption that I can just buy english books here was SOOOO WRONG! Or perhaps I just haven´t found the right place too...but I don´t know!). I think I read Dear John faster than I´ve read any book, it gets inside your head, and leaves you constantly wondering whats going to happen next, there are twists and turns that you would never expect, and it deals with real life things. In addition, it has some stuff written from the perspective of a soldier in the Iraq war which I found extremely fascinating (and distrubing!) Nicholas Sparks really did his research this time.
Ok, thats my update for now lol. I´ll try to move the video camera more slowly next time I Vlog (If I can make it work again :O)
Take care,
Molly

Edit: It was Nicholas Sparks the wriiter, not Nick Cage the Actor who wrote Dear John and the Notebook. Thanks Lindsay :) I would be forever further confusing the adult population without you! Loves y Besos

Technical Difficulties

Hah, I have a post saved as a draft saying that I´m planning on switching all my blogging to Vlogging (video blogs) but of course, as soon as I had that written the flip video software won´t open, and everything goes slow when it does, and it takes me forever to get stuff onto here! I guess word blogging will have to do for now. I haven´t tried connecting my regular camera yet, figuring out foriegn technology is a lot of work!
Doing everything is Spanish is EXTREMELY hard. It´s quite strange for me to be the quite one in the corner, especially since I don´t even understand enough to interject (usually, there have been maybe 3 times so far when I have been able to) like the people who are actually just shy! When people speak to me, I understand maybe half of what they say (if they speak slowly). I´m studying, but it doesn´t feel like i´m making any progress! AAaaah. I know I am though, because I can at least make out words, and sometimes even figure out which part of the sentence I don´t know and look it up later and learn it, It´s tough being constantly confused though. In addition, everyone seems to be on one extreme or the other about my language ability (except for my host parents, they have been extremely wonderful about speaking slowly, repeating things, using motions, and clarifying with other words) they either think that I don´t know any Spanish at all, and are SHOCKED when I respond to the question they ask to Juan about whether I understand lol. Others decide that even though I don´t speak much, it must be because I´m shy (hah :D) so they speak just as fast as they do with everyone else, and I smile and try to follow along as best I can.
It was pretty entertaining yesterday, Juan and I were at his Grandpa´s house, and his Grandpa began showing me his house and speaking rapidily about everything, through everyroom. And I bascially understood nothing (though it was cool to see another Spanish house!), afterwards when I was just with Juan again I nearly fell over laughing because it was such a strange experience! I´ve found that Loretto´s aunt (who lives next door with Juan´s other grandpa, who is in the hospital right now because he had a retena transplant, he should be out on Monday though, and hopefully he´ll be able to see!) speaks slowly enough that I can usually understand most of what she´s saying. It works out well because she likes the attention, and I like actually being able to speak in Spanish!

That´s all for now, Take care everyone!
Molly
oooOOoo, one more side note, the dollar has incread in value...YAHOO The exchange rate was at 1.39 dollar for a euro yesterday!

First days video mix

Go here to watch my video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb6f2tbmT3o
Hey everyone, I´m sure there is a lot I could write here, but I´m feeling lazy so I´m just going to let you all watch the video I made :). I´ll do another long post next time I have time and internet! Hope all is well at home,

Molly

(I actually made this video, and this post a view days ago but I didn´t have time to put the two together! :) )

From the beautiful island of Tenerife

I´ve been here just over a day now and Soo much has gone through my mind. From the very tight one way streets with intense driving, to palm trees and european architecure....and oh wait SPANISH. Lots of Spanish. Last night at dinner (we ate out, it was a bit odd though, the restaurant had lots of little rooms with sometimes a few tables, and sometimes just one like the one we ate in, probably so i had some chance of understanding what my host family was saying :) ) everything in regular speed Spanish sounded like jibberish, but finally today i´m starting to be able to make out some words (although i don´t have a big enough vocabulary to understand other peoples conversations generally, just get the gist).
After the family get together today (LOTS of people all speaking extremely fast spanish...mi madre!) Carmen and I went shopping and I got my first spanish shirt from SPAIN. After shopping we hopped on the wawa (what they call there transit here, its Canarian slang) and went to a square in town near my families house (which is amazing by the way but more on that later when I have the time and brain power to figure out uploading pictures and/or videos, one thing right now though, they have a ´solarium´which is bascially just an open roof at the top of their house which is three stories high, from there you can see everything, the view literally made my jaw drop) Carmen had told me that spanish kids do not hang out at houses because its too nice, but I didn´t know how much she meant it until we got to the square. I wish I would have taken a picture or video, it was quite the site! The square was at least twice as full of teenagers as any hallway at Capital High School! We didn´t see Juan though, he must have gone somewhere else with his friends since we talked to him. Carmen spoke english with me this afternoon which was a nice break after all the constant, rapid, multiple people talking spanish. Once I have more vocabulary (like after school starts) we will speak Spanish together). Thats all for now, although this jet lag is killer! I was so tired I nearly fell asleep a lot of times earlier today, and now that its day time at home I´m hyper! Aye, well I´m sure that i´m still secretly tired so i´m going to go read and try to relax. I´m so excited, I am FULLY in love with this city, and all the people I met have been extremely gracious (and yes, everyone does hacer besos (kiss cheeks) I think i´ve touched more cheeks today than I have before in my life :) ).

Tomorrow!

The last few days have been very busy with preparations, and sad with goodbyes. However, I'm also EXTREMELY excited! In 26 hours I will be on the plane, ready to begin my journey to the Canary Islands. It is going to be quite the long haul (22 hours travel time total :O) but I'm positive it will be worth it :). I can't wait to meet my host family and get introduced to their beautiful city, island and country. I have some pretty crazy pictures of the packing adventure (technically it was re-packing! I packed once, then realized that I was 4 pounds over my ONE BAG 44 POUND limit) I'll post them as soon as I get the pictures from dads camera.