Tuesday, May 28, 2013

#2: What foods are you going to miss from Spain?

Question of the Day #2!

Answers (and a brief description of the foods):
-Paella- spiced rice with chicken, seafood (typically shrimp), and peppers (and other vegetables) that is cooked in a large, open pan
-Tortilla de Patata- Chopped up, fried potatoes that are then fried with eggs. Basically a big, thick, potato omlette.
-Spanish Bread- This speaks for itself
-Jamon Serrano- I'm not entirely sure how to translate this but basically ham cut straight off the leg. Its good.


These are the basic, general things. Also things like certain spanish foods more eaten at home, and definitely host moms' cooking.


Enjoy! 

Adios!

Benjamin

Monday, May 27, 2013

#1: What foods are you looking forward to eating when you return to your home country?

Question of the Day #1!

Answers: Chipotle, Mexican Food, Dairy Queen, Apple Pancakes, Walmart (not a food...), Pizza from Dominos, Nutter Butter Cookies, and homemade chocolate chip cookies.

That's all! Tomorrow's question is: What foods are you going to miss from Spain?

Adios!

Benjamin

Long Time, No See!

Well it's been awhile. Like a long while. So basically a lot has happened. Let's get started!

Since my last post I…

1. …Hiked 75 miles through northern Spain: In March I participated, along with around 40 other AFSers, on a journey called "El Camino de Santiago." (known as St. James' Way in English). On Thursday (the second day of Spring Break) a friend came over to spend the night because on Friday we woke up and left the house by 4.30 (yes, in the morning) to catch our 6 a.m. flight to Santiago, in the province of Galicia, in Northwest Spain. In the airport we met up with some other Madrid AFSers and together we made it to Santiago by the lovely ol' time of 8 o'clock in the morning. We then wandered around Santiago all day (without seeing the cathedral, of course (more on that later)) and met up with a few others. We then caught two buses to reach our starting point in the little town of Sarria. In Sarria, we met up with everyone that was going on the trip. That was a great moment, when we pulled into the bus station in Sarria and got to see all of our friends, many of whom we had not seen since the arrival orientation in September. The next five days were spent walking through the Galician countryside. It rained on us the whole time but that really didn't matter, we all had a good time seeing old friends and making new ones. In every little "Pueblo" (village) we would stop and get a stamp for our "Passport", our papers that contained all our stamps and showed all of the places we had been (I, along with one other friend, was the only one who filled up their passport completely with stamps). On Wednesday, the last day, we woke up really early to start walking to ensure that we made it to the Cathedral in Santiago before 12 so we could attend the Pilgrim's Mass (the people that make the journey are called Pilgrims). After the mass we showed our Passports and received our Diploma certifying that we had complete the journey. The rest of the day was spent hanging out and buying souvenirs before everyone started leaving the next day for home.

2. …Showed 20 Bear Creeker's around Madrid: Literally the day after I returned from the Camino, I woke up at 7 to get to the airport in time to welcome Bear Creek's Spanish Trip to Madrid! I had a great time! That Friday we toured Madrid and saw some of the main things here, such as the Mueso del Prado and the Puerta del Sol (the Prado Museum and the Center Plaza in Madrid). The day after we went to Toledo where we got to see some of the many sights there, including architecture from three different cultures that all, at one point in time, had control of the city. I even got to see some things that I had never seen before, such as the Museo del Prado and different places in Toledo.

3. …Walked where they filmed Star Wars: After the Spanish Group left on Monday, I woke up on Tuesday and, instead of going to school, I went to the local train station here in Tres Cantos. There I met up with all of my friends and a bunch of other kids from my school. We then caught the train to downtown Madrid, where we caught the AVE (the high-speed train) to Sevilla (Seville) in the south of Spain for our class trip! We arrived in Sevilla at around 12.30-1.00 and then spent the afternoon touring around Sevilla. We got to see the Cathedral and the Plaza de España, which is where a scene from Star Wars was filmed! Then we all boarded the buses and headed out to our campground on the beach. We stayed in cabins for the week and during the day we would go to different places and do exciting things! We got to go spelunking and bird-watching, ride all-terrain vehicles on the beach and through the forest, and go surfing!

4. ...Saw Real Madrid play in their home stadium: I recently went, along with two friends, to a Real Madrid game! I had such a great time. We got some fairly cheap tickets (40 Euros or so) and even though we were in the cheap seats way in the back we had a great time! The whole experience was just amazing, and we even won 3-1. It was amazing! 

5. …Wore a suit two days in a row: I recently had three first communions in a period of two weeks. First I had my host sister’s in the middle of May. We all got dressed up fancy, went to the Mass, and then had the party afterward. The week after, on Saturday, I had the first communion for one of my host cousins. We did the same process (woke up, got dressed, went to mass, had the party) except we had to wake up way earlier because his started at 10.30 not 1.00 like my host sister’s. Then the next day, Sunday, we woke up even earlier for the communion for a different host cousin. This time we definitely didn’t follow the same procedure. We woke up around 7.00 and were out of the house by 8. We caught our train at 8.40 and made it to Valencia by 10.30. We then went to Mass in the city and then had the party outside the city in this restaurant on the beach! We got to go swimming and play in the sand. Then afterward we made our way back to Valencia, saw a bit of this cool museum, and then caught our train back home to Madrid around 9. Our train arrived in Madrid at 11.00 and we got home around midnight. We had school the next day.


So that’s all the fun, exciting things that have been happening over the past few months. Coming up I have an orientation this weekend, the weekend after I might go to the beach to see a friend (literally the EXACT place where I went on my school trip), and then after that I only have a few more weeks before I leave! ITS CRAZY!


Enjoy a few pictures: (Some of them aren't mine...)

At the airport at 5.30 in the morning!

 The day we arrived!

 About to start on the first day!

 This is one of the signs that marks the trail

 Me and a friend after one day of walking!
 Photobombing! Can you find all four people?


 These last two are just proof of the rain.

 The view from my hostel window on the last night! That is the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.

 Flight home!

 Plaza de Espana in Sevilla!

Sevilla!

 Alexis, Ana, and I

 Alexis and I!

The Soccer Stadium!

Valencia!


Adios!

Benjamin

P.S. I am going to try to start this thing called "Question of the Day." I will pick a question (or my mom will give me one) and I will ask my exchange friends for their opinions the day before. Then on weekdays I will post the question with our answers! Enjoy! Stay tuned for the first one later today!

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Exchange Friends.

One of the best things about exchange is meeting people. Before leaving I could say that I had friends from 4 countries. The US, Korea, China and Chile. Now I can say I have friends from at least 14 different countries. Included: Thailand, Turkey, Japan, Canada, Austria, Germany, the US, China, Chile, and others. So I took the opportunity to invite a friend from Finland over while she was staying in my town. We made a video and she taught me some Finnish. :) Enjoy!



Adios!

Benjamin

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Didn't you just SNOW there would be another video?

So in case you didn't catch from the title, it snowed here. :)
Watch the video to hear the whole story!



Miss you all! Hope everything is going great!

Adios!
Benjamin

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Christmas Break!

I made this video almost a week ago and I posted it on Tuesday but I forgot to post it here. So here it is. :) Enjoy!

Spanish Class, I am looking forward to Skyping with you guys today!
Miss you all!

Adios!

Benjamin

Friday, January 11, 2013

PICTURES!

So I am actually putting pictures up on my Tumblr. So if you want to check that out. :)

PICTURES! YAY!

Hope you enjoy!

Oh, and just FYI not nearly all of them are up, i am going to do it chunks at a time as it takes a while... :)


Saturday, January 5, 2013

Ya vienen los Reyes Magos!

I thought I might take 5 minutes to describe this holiday more in depth. Tomorrow/Today is el Dia de los Reyes Magos. It celebrates when the Magi came to visit the baby Jesus and bring him gifts. On this day (tomorrow) we open gifts. Not on Christmas. And it is a big deal. Yesterday and the day before we (being my host family and I) went to two different plays. The one on Thursday was in Colmenar Viejo (look it up on Google maps if you want, it is just north of us in Tres Cantos) and it celebrated the Magi coming and that whole story with Herod. And apparently some of the actors are actually famous actors that are known throughout Spain. I didn't know any of them. And then yesterday we went to the Christmas play of the church. It was quite well done and I enjoyed it. Today we went to a parade! We left around 5 in Train for Madrid and saw the Cabalgata (parade kinda deal) there. There were TONS of people and it kinda made me think of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. But less huge. But still huge. We had an Ok spot but we couldn't see all of the stuff between the floats. Just the stuff on the floats. But i had a good time. And then we came home and had dinner and are about to go to bed. And then tomorrow we are going to about 5 different peoples houses (ok only 2 or 3, but still a lot) and bringing them the gifts from us. Oh, and one other thing. Here, the Reyes Magos bring EVERYTHING. So tomorrow we will be bringing people the gifts the Reyes left at our house for them. So know all of you know everything about this holiday. Now off to sleep. Good-Night!

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Reflections...

I have been meaning to do this post for about 4 days now, but it hasn't happened until now. Monday i was just plain lazy and didn't do it. Tuesday was a long day and I was worrying about other things. Yesterday I hung out with Robert (another kid from AFS) who is in Tres Cantos because he is switching families to Barcelona (crazy, i know) and was staying with my Tutor. So I am writing it today.

Ok, so normally I would do a video post, those being more fun for me to make and y'all to watch, but today (or Monday, you pick) I decided to do a more serious blog post reflecting on life here, these whole three months, things I have noticed, and just things like that. So prepare yourselves.

Reflection Number 1: One thing I find interesting is how much I am learning about English while learning Spanish. This might sound weird, but let me explain. First thing I learned: How confusing of a language English is. I mean, OK, everyone always says English is a hard language to learn, but what I realized is that they were right. I am not saying I didn't believe them, I am just saying I didn't realize how right they were. We have so many words that mean three or four different things, and there is no way we can tell them apart besides context. For example, Have. You could say "I have three apples" and it is possessive, saying you are in possession of three apples. Or you could say "I have been to the park" and it is not possessive (I don't know what it is) but it means something completely different and there is no way to distinguish between the two. But in Spanish, they have two words (haber and tener). Haber is have (as in have been, have eaten) and tener is have possession. And if there are two words that are spelled the same way in Spanish, they have accents (usually, there are few that don't, and those are usually the same word but between verb and noun form. i can only think of one word that isnt: Como. which means i eat and how). For example, two words spelled with the same letters in the same order but with an accent on one to distinguish it from the other: está and ésta and esta. Está means he, she, or it is. Ésta means this (used as a noun, for example this is blue). Esta means this, as an adjective (this book). Another thing I learned about English is how little we know our grammar. Ok, we know this is the noun in the sentence, this the the verb, and stuff like that. But here (in Spanish) we learn so much more about the grammar. Some of these things I knew before, others no. For example, we learn about these things called Complementos Directos y Indirectos (indirect and direct object, I knew that one), Complemento de Regimen (I dont know what this is exactly in English, and i am still kinda confused on it in Spanish), and Complemento Circunstancial. I will explain this one. These are kind of like a prepositional frase phrase, but they don't have to be. There are 2 major types of these, Adverbial ones and In-adverbial ones. The Adverbial ones you can substitute and adverb for, for example, instead of saying "I went to the park yesterday, you say I went to the park then. That is also an example of a one that is not a prepositional phrase. And In-Adverbial ones you can't substitute an adverb for, for example, "I gave a present to John" you can't put an adverb in in place of "to John." And then there are about 10 different sub-categories, and it just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and you get my point.

Another thing i learn about English is why some words are the way they are. For example, Pulmonary Artery. In Spanish, it is called the Pulmonary Artery tambien also, but in Spanish it makes more sense, because lungs are "pulmones" and the Pulmonary artery goes to the Pulmones. So yay for learning.

Reflection Number 2: I have realized just how privelegded privledged privelged priveleged *anger* privileged I am to be an American (see below) from the US. I mean I always new knew this, but being here makes me realize just how much I love the good ol' US of A. I am not saying that other countries are bad, on the contrary, I am not saying anything against them. I am just saying that I for one prefer the United States of America and the amount of Patriotism we have. Just to compare, lets use Spain (and to make it clear, I am not trying to say anything against Spain, and if it is perceived that way, that was not my intention).
Both Spain and the US have a National Anthem. The Spanish National Anthem does not have official lyrics (it is one of two in the world that doesn't have official lyrics), our's does. But what really differentiates the two is the usage. We use the National Anthem to start every and all professional sports game, and for a fair amount of other organized sports games (ok, not kiddy soccer, but, for example, a high school basketball game or something, yes). And every child older than about 8 knows the lyrics. And then the Pledge of Allegiance. I didn't realize (although I had never really thought about it before) that other countries don't have a Pledge of Allegiance. And while this isn't bad or anything, I find it a little strange. Here in Spain there is not as much patriotism as in the US. Ok, it isn't like people just walk around all day in the US with flags and stuff, but we have the Pledge of Allegiance and, I don't know, it is just different. But here, that doesn't exist. There is not a flag in every classroom, there is not a Pledge of Allegiance, and people don't have nearly as much pride in their country as in the US. And I am not saying that no one here has pride in their country, I am just saying that it is not the ever present constant that it is in the US. Take the Catalunya situation as an example. While it is still a part of Spain, it is mentally apart from Spain. In history we talked about the difference between a Nation and a State (like a political entity). A nation is a group of people that have the same culture, language, history, and things like that, while a State is all the people under the same ruler or rulers. And a State could be made up of one Nation, for example the US, or made up of many, for example Spain (Catalunya, Pais Vasco, Spain...), or made up of part of a nation, with the rest of the nation in another State, for example Ireland and Northern Ireland. So while Spain is a State, it will never have the same level of unity because it is made up of different Nations. And thus there is not the same amount of patriotism.

Reflection Number 3: Confession time. Reading other peoples blogs, they mention that they chose year programs to build a stronger relationship with one family by living with them for a year, or to get the full depth of the language, or for some other deep thoughtful reason. I didn't. To be honest, I don't know why I chose the year program, or Spain for that matter. Or why I wanted to go on exchange. I still don't know why I wanted to go on exchange. I think I picked Spain because I already knew some of the language, and I just thought that it sounded cool. So that led to the year program, because Spain only has a year program. But that may seem like I was forced into the year program when in reality, I never really thought about not going for a year. It was never even a thought. I just was going to go for the year.

Reflection Number 4: The word American can be way more than we mean it to be. When asked our nationality, we typically respond "American" and while we do not mean to offend, we very well might. Because while you aren't a United Statesian or a United Statesite (which I do think is a flaw in the English language, the lack of a Demonym (I just learned that word right now. How fun.) for a person from the United States of America), people from Canada, or Panama, or Chile, or Brazil, or Mexico or any other place in North and South America also consider themselves Americans, too. So just a warning that you should be careful when and where and how you use it. Because while I am sure you don't mean to offend, you might. And as you see above, I am trying to be careful where I use it and use other words if I can.

Well that about sums it up. And if this seems a little disjointed around the spanish/english grammar connection part, that is because i started this two weeks ago and am just now finishing it. And you may have noticed, but i left all of my spelling mistakes in for your entertainment.

A little update, tomorrow I am going to this monastery. Pictures soon.

Miss you all!!!

Merry Christmas! (It's not too late, right?)

Benjamin