A typical day

Hey guys!
I have lots of ideas coming on what it's like to make friends here, and how homesickness has affected me and the other exchange students I know here, but I'm going to wait to write about this, because I'll have a better perspective with time.
For now, I thought I would try to give you guys a good idea of what a typical school day is like.
I wake up every morning at about 7:20, and a neighbor (who happened to work at my school) picks me up at 8. Classes start at 8:20 (the school is about 10 minutes away driving), and I have three 55-minute long classes up until 11, when the 30-minute break starts. We're allowed to go out into Santomera (where my institute is), and I usually go to a café with friends and buy myself a ham & cheese pastry or a sandwich with jamón and tomato, which only costs a euro or two. Then the other 3 classes until 2:15, when we all need to run to catch the school-buses (which kind of look like grey-hound buses). I'm usually home by 2:40, but if my friend's dad isn't there to drive us from the bus stop, It'll usually get home at like 2:55.

I have 9 classes in total, from the Primero Bachillerato social sciences track:
Philosophy - my teacher is really nice, but tends to go on some crazy tangents that are hard to understand
History of the Modern World - so far we've been focusing on European history, and we usually just follow the textbook. This professor is hard to understand, too, if you're not paying 100 percent attention
Science for the Modern World - mostly basic stuff I've already learned in Biology, and the professor is very understandable.
English - very boring. For second trimester I'm going to go to a more advanced class, so that should be a lot better.
Information Technology - I share a computer with another American exchange student, and we just go through the book doing little exercises, and it looks like that's all we're going to do all year.
P.E.- lots of running, and the fitness testing is a lot more competitive here.
Greek- just conjugating ancient verbs.
Lengua Castellana - kind of like Language Arts, but we focus a lot on all the parts of a sentence, too, like types of pronouns and that kind of thing,
Math for Social Sciences - sort of like Algebra 2, or the beginnings of Pre-calculus. I have a friend in the math class for the Science track, and it's much more difficult.

The nine classes are spread out over the whole week, and I have one of them just 2 times a week, and others 3 or 4. It's uneven because even though there are 9 classes (8 for Segundo Bachillerato), there are just 6 periods each day. We get out an hour early on Fridays, too. I didn't know this when I picked my track, but the stereotype is that the kids in the social sciences tracks don't tend to work as hard as those in the Science or Technology tracks. Maybe that's why I was able to pass all my classes (doing about the same amount of homework as at home, maybe even a little less), although I don't know of any other exchange students that passed everything. And most of the Spanish students have failed subjects, too. Right now they're doing recuperation tests for everyone that's failed, and the vast majority of students in my school are taking at least 1 or 2.

I know this blog has been a bit neglected during that past few weeks, and I will definitely try to keep you guys updated better when things settle into a routine from after the break.

Ruby

Cultural differences

During the last few weeks, I´ve been noticing some cultural differences between Spain and the United States. Of course, these are just generalizations, and don't apply to everybody.

-First off, the Spanish eating schedule is very different from the American schedule. Instead of eating a large meal for dinner around 6 or 7 o´clock, Spaniards eat their main meal, La Comida, around 3 pm, a smaller snack around 5 or 6, and finally dinner, La Cena, around 9:30 or 10, sometimes later. My host parents had a couple friends over for a dinner last week, and people didn´t even show up until eleven. People don´t tend to eat food at all between meals. My house here has a lot less junk food, and snack food in general - very little that you would just grab out of the fridge or a cupboard and eat whenever you feel like it.

- Jamón (ham) is good. I like to eat it by itself, but apparently it's kind of a crime not to eat it in a bocadillo, a Spanish sandwich.

-iPods and Apple computers aren't nearly as popular here as at home. Lots of people have Macs or iPods, but mp4´s and other kinds of computers in general are more common.

-In school, you stay with mainly the same group of students. In Primero Bachillerato (like junior year), in my school, there are four tracks. I have 3 or 4 classes (out of 8) with about half of the class being from one of the other tracks, but apart from those classes, it's all the same group of other students. We're usually in the same classroom, but I have three classes that are in different rooms. The professors also switch classrooms during passing time, which means that none of the rooms have decorations or anything.

-In Murcia, at the very least, it is incredibly difficult to get textbooks.

-People yell more and tend to be more direct, saying what they think.

- Instead of intersections, there are roundabouts.

- My second weekend here, I got to go to a Spanish wedding. They're very different. http://www.notesfromspain.com/2008/09/10/how-do-spanish-weddings-work/

-In the city center, people tend to dress up more. I think women dress somewhat more conservatively here, but there's not a huge difference.

-Plans tend to be more fluid - changing plans at the last minute seems to happen a lot. Also, people are a lot more likely to go downtown or out with friends rather than going to the house of a friend.

-On Saturday and Friday nights, most people who are going out leave the house around eleven, and stay out a lot later than at home, but of course it depends on the individual person.

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My first day of Spanish school was probably the weirdest day of my life. I had arrived to my host family only one day before, so I hand´t been to the school to get my schedule, gotten any textbooks, figured out how to take the bus, bought a Spanish cell phone, changed money, or done anything, really. Strangely, though, it was really fun just going with the flow, and having no idea what was going on, or to which class I was going next. Starting with actually getting to school, and ending with finding a way home, it was interesting, to say the least. The other students in my school (a public school in a nearby town) were really kind and helpful, though. In class, there´s always someone making sure I understand everything (I can understand like 80 percent on average, but some professors are really difficult to understand), or to take me to the next class. On the second day, I already had a solid group to sit with at lunch, and I know someone in all my classes. Even though I haven´t had the chance to get to know anyone from school really well yet, they seem interested in getting to know me, so I´m sure I won´t have problems making (closer) friends.
I´ve been relying on other people to help me a lot: the kids at school, a friend of my host family to drive me to get school books, another parent in my neighborhood to get me to school in the morning, a friend to help me find my way home from the bus stop, and of course my host family for giving me a place to stay in the first place. It´s a bit of an adjustment to not know how to do normal things, like taking the bus downtown, or cooking myself some pasta.
A lot of people have gotten excited when they hear I´m from the United States. I told one girl that I´m American, and the first thing she asked me was how many celebrities I´ve seen. Yeah, sorry, no celebrities in Oregon.
I was placed just outside Murcia, and I already have a little Murcian tint to my accent (though I´m sure I sound very American). My host parents laughed last night because instead of saying ¨más o menos,¨ I´ve started to say ¨ma o meno,¨ since Murcians don´t pronounce the ¨s¨ sounds at the end of words. I learned Latin American Spanish, so it´s been difficult to adjust to the ¨vosotros¨ form, but other than that, I´ve just had fun pronouncing the word, ¨fácil,¨ like¨fathil¨ instead of ¨fasil.¨
To be honest, I don´t think it´s really hit me that I´m actually here in Spain, and I think this is why I don´t really miss home. Of course, I would love to see my parents, but I´ve been really busy meeting new people, and figuring out all the things I listed in the last paragraph, so I haven´t been sitting around feeling homesick. I´ve been told by other exchange students that keeping busy is the best way not to feel homesick, and so far, that´s working. This week was one of the best weeks I´ve had in a long time, in a weird way, and I already don´t want to think about leaving in June.
I´ve been noticing cultural differences, of course, and I will add them into next week´s blog post, when I´ve noticed more, and I can describe them better.

-Ruby

Leaving

This morning, I left my hometown to live in Murcia, Spain, with a host family. I’ll be staying until June. I know a bit about my host family and my high school, but beyond that, I don´t know much.
My impending move to Spain had been seeping into everyday life. Whenever I went somewhere, I wondered if it will be the last time I go before I leave. Even places that don’t mean a lot to me make me feel a little sentimental.
When I actually get to Spain, I'll have more to write on. I will arrive the 18th of September, and hopefully I can get another sometime post up that week.
-- Ruby