Press 1 for English

Alright, I know I haven't updated this in forever so this is gonna be a long post :)

soooo remember that Rotary meeting that I talked about in my last post? well let me tell you what happened. I walked in slightly late, without my blazer, and when we were supposed to say our tutors name I said the wrong name!!! asdfsadfasf embarrassing! but i did get to hang out with the other exchange students in host club, which is always fun :)

A couple weeks ago, I went to Segovia with my fellow californian, Lauren! (did that just rhyme?) It was a fun daytrip with our host dads. They hadn't met each other before but I think they bonded. It was a proud moment for Lauren and I. Anyways, We went to the ancient Roman Aqueduct which was super big and cool. It reminded me of one of the things that I love about Europe, which is all the ancient architecture and what not. We basically spent the whole day walking up flights of stairs and looking at castles. We went to one part of a castle exhibit thing we discovered some glass device from the Middle Ages that looked like a bong. Oh and a midevil jock strap as well.....nice

The weekend after that I was off to Jaen once again with my host mom. It was fun cuz i got to see and hang out with my host brother who I hadn't seen since my first week here! As usual we had fun times walking around town, looking at churches and rocking out to Katy Perry (and explaining him what the lyrics meant, let me tell you explaining what "epic fail" means is pretty tough)

This past weekend was a nice long four day weekend. love.
Spain's national day thingy was on Tuesday so i guess the spaniards figured to give us that monday off as well. I hung out with Lauren, went to work on a science project with some classmates and went to the movies to see Saw 6. Freakiest.Thing.EVER.
Despite the fact that it was dubbed in spanish, I could actually understand the majority of it, granted that 99.9 percent of the movie is screaming.

Well yesterday I went to the Piedad (the lady in charge of my host club) 's house. The other exchange students from my area came to chill and talk. I can honestly say I forgot a ton of spanish due the english speaking.
The reason why the meeting was put together is because my host club is planning to make a float for the Three Kings Day parade. I'm super stoked for it!
All of us exchangers are gonna dress up to represent a certain country (the theme of our float is world unity or something like that)
I decided to go back to my roots and represent the Netherlands :) My grandpa is gonna be so happy hahah
Speaking of which, my school is doing an end of the year trip to the Netherlands. I am SO going! I've always wanted to visit the "motherland" and see where my family comes from (cheesy.........)

"So Annelise, hows language coming along?"
Thank for inquiring, devoted blog follower ;)
Language has been improving alot lately. I've been in spain for a little over a month and I feel like i'm actually starting to pick up Castellano. I'm no where close to fluent (there are moments when I think 'ugh why doesn't spain speak english')
As odd as this sounds, I have alot more sympathy for the mexicans in san diego that don't know english well. Alot of people don't realize this but, going to a country that doesn't speak the same language as you is harrrrrrrrrrrd. There are people here that speak english but no one who speaks it as a first language like me (except for the other exchangers)
But I just got to stay focused and motivated to learn so I can get by and become a Spaniard as best I can..
Another difficult thing I've had to deal with here is studying.
Bottom line, Studying sucks. No matter what language you speak, what country you live in, or what kind of school you go to, Studying just flat out SUCKS
But studying in a foreign language is well.....something else
I have some pretty tough topics to study (philosophy, ancient european history, Econ. etc)
Its for sure hard to focus. Thank God I have students in my class that are willing to help me if I have problems with understanding.

Well my fingers hurt from all this typing so I'm gonna conclude this post. I promise i'll upload pictures soon and update this more often. Adios!

Buenas Noches y Buena Suerte

Annelise