catching up

This is going to be a long one, folks, I have a lot of catching up to do :) I apologize for my inconsistency, but everything is moving pretty quickly here in Spain (and at the same time, incredibly slowly, but read on for more on that) and I'm finding myself scrambling to keep up with... well.... myself. But what else is new? Regardless, here is what I have been doing the past few days:

I had an orientation in Madrid (at el colegio (the high school) SEK which is an international school) this weekend which I left for on Friday. We were told to arrive any time between 6 and 8 pm and so I left my house at about 7 pm. Here's the catch: I left my house alone. My host mother, Ana, had a doctor's appointment and was using the only car possessed by the family so I had to rely on public transportation to get me where I was going. With Bea's help I figured out a bus line that would (hopefully) take me to the correct stop and hopped on a bus, asking the driver to please tell me when we were close to SEK. It was absolutely terrifying and totally invigorating when I, the country savont who could tell you how to shear a sheep but can't navigate to save her own life, arrived at the school fully intact. However, I still had some walking to do to figure out how to get into the actual building, as it is a large, gated establishment which we found out throughout the course of the weekend is sort of "the place to be" in Madrid if you're looking for a good international school- or a good university, as there is one attached to SEK. I walked down one of the streets that had the gates around it and was totally lost. I saw a small, elderly woman standing outside her gate and proceeded to ask her (in Spanish) if she could help me out. She went on about a 10 minute rant about how she was from Italy and worked as a maid at the house she was standing outside of and loved America and wanted to hear all about me and did I know that her son was a baker? Looking back at it now, I'm smiling. At the time, I was also smiling but out of total, overwhelming, shock. Those are the sorts of moments you really couldn't ever forget, or want to forget. The other boy that is living in Majadahonda (Jesse) ended up driving along the same side road that I was on and I hopped in their car and explained my situation to his host parents and waved goodbye to my new friend as we drove around to the correct entrance.
From there, my weekend was glorious. We had meetings about the rules and some general culture points in Spain. We learned that there is no such thing as personal space here (something I've found to be very true) and that we are living in a "politic-driven" society as opposed to a "god-driven" society, where people follow the law more strictly instead of their personal ideals. An interesting concept, one that I hadn't thought about before. We met Tomasso and Eduardo (the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Rotary program in Spain) and a whole slew of Rotex (Spanish exchange students who have been to other places and returned from their exchange years and are here to share their experiences). We also got a chance to exchange pins and business cards with the other exchange students, all of whom (with the exception of Cornelius from Austria and Christian from Germany) are from either the United States or Canada. It was fantastic to be able to talk about some of the things that we're going through with people who are going through the exact same thing. And I could feel my social butterfly wings stretching and reaching to new lengths, as well. Learning all the things I did about my new friends, I, in turn, learned quite a bit about myself in terms of meeting new people and pushing my own limits. I feel very lucky to have had some of the realizations I did so early in my trip.
Though it's early in my trip, it feels as if I've lived in Spain for at least a month. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. I love the feeling of familiarity that I already have with so many of my surroundings and the fact that I have people that I would truly call my Spanish friends, kids that I see regularly and laugh and talk with. But with time moving slowly, when those flashes of homesickness hit, they wallop me pretty hard because I realize how much time I really have here. I'm really looking forward to school for that reason, because I think that a regular schedule and some consistency each day are going to move everything right along. Don't get me wrong, I honestly love Spain. And I love the United States. I have this in common with some friends of my host mother who I went out to eat with yesterday.

Bea and I met up with Ana at a country club of sorts, where Ana (my host mother) was already seated with two women. The first was a small, very tan, and very wrinkled little woman named Pilar who chain smoked and spoke with a slow, raspy wisdom-filled voice. The other woman was an exuberant, elegant woman whose name I can't quite remember that threw her arms around me upon meeting me and immediately told me how much she adored the United States and my long eyelashes. We sat down and ate a delicious meal of gazpacho, pollo frito (fried chicken, which isn't REALLY fried) and cake. The three older women proceeded to discuss everything from dieting to the local gossip to the people at the next table over, but they kept coming back to how much the adored the United States. They told me that they thought of the US as the "valiant" country because wherever there are problems in the world, we show up and try to help. They told me how much they loved Obama and the fact that he was an African-American President because it showed what revolutions are taking place in the states. In retrospect, I find that sitting at that lunch table in Spain surrounded by Spanish-speaking, stereotypically Spanish women, eating a typical Spanish meal, it is the most patriotic and American I have ever felt. That's irony for you. I gave Ana two tins of "Obama Yes We Can-dy" mints to give to the women; she laughed and said she thought they would adore them.
Speaking of adoration, can we please move on to my unbelievable younger host brother Jacobo who returned from his trip to the South of Spain on Sunday? In my house we call him Jacobito (which literally means "little Jacobo" and is a term of endearment), Jacoberto (a silly little nickname), and Amor (which means love and utterly describes him). Jacobo is a very handsome 10-year-old with gorgeous blue eyes and fairly short hair which he sweeps to the side in the morning with water to keep him looking suave. He is hilarious and incredibly well-behaved and greeted me with a shy hello. He and I enjoy speaking english together in broken phrases and hearing him chat away in Spanish makes my heart grow 10 sizes. He is studious and the gem of the family (as Bea told me) and he and I bonded when I showed him that I could make a paper crane and he one-upped me with a paper crane whose wings could flap. Ladies and gentlemen, I have found my one, true Spanish love.
I still close my nights laying in my bed talking to friends on Skype 0r Facebook (friends from here and from back home), curled up with a book and a feeling of total satisfaction. It is getting chilly here, but as I was sitting in the park with a group of friends and they were all shivering, I was giggling in my head thinking "Honey, come back to Minnesota with me and we'll talk frio. You ain't seen nothin". I start school on Wednesday and, as I mentioned, I'm excited for it and also nervous as any new student would be. I'm cherishing my moments here in Spain, whenever I start to feel low or homesick I remind myself how lucky I am to be here, how much I know I'll miss it when I'm gone, and how good it feels to be under the Spanish sun :) I'm going to the cellphone provider here in Spain tomorrow to pick up a SIM chip for my phone so that I can have actual social contact with friends through something other than the internet. The pictures posted are from my orientation weekend, I'll be posting pictures of my house and family very soon, I'm sorry for the delay but I've also got to pick up a voltage converter tomorrow to charge my camera with. Thank you all for your emails and comments, they keep me motivated and feeling completely SURROUNDED by love. In Spain, everyone greets each other with two kisses, one on each cheek. But it is more endearing, you know you are truly loved, when you recieve only one kiss on one cheek. So tonight, I leave you all with one kiss.

Un beso de Espana, Sam