Three Month Mark

After my second month I never thought I would be saying this, but this past month actually went by pretty fast. Things are getting easier and easier. I stopped being so shy and I'm becoming better friends with some girls. The boys are as immature as ever, but I've gotten used to them. School has gotten to where I hardly ever notice that they are speaking in spanish. That's partly because I zone out during some classes, but still. I'm starting to really love the culture. I love how I can wake up and put some sweats on, put my hair in a bun and make it to school in only fifteen minutes. It's great! No one really cares what they look like because after all, it's only school. Everyone is also super blunt and they are not afraid to talk back to the teachers. It's real life television! The best is when my history teacher calls us all idiots and the kids burst out yelling tons of different insults while I just sit there and laugh.
Well this week my parents left for Utah. Surprisingly, I'm ok with it. Of course I miss them, but I'm not going to sit at home and cry all day long like I would have a month ago. Also, I've been keeping myself pretty busy. Tomorrow I'm going to a seminary activity in Vitoria and I'm super super excited! I'll get to see my friends from Bilboa and my american friends that are living in Logrono! It's a three hour activity, but I'm staying the whole day. It's amazing how different I feel when I get to be around mormon kids my age! So much fun! But I need to go study scripture mastery in spanish now.

New Moon/Grades

So yesterday New Moon came out here in Spain and my friends and I went to the first showing. It seems really strange that it would come out in another language before it comes out in English, but oh well. My friends were really concerned that I wouldn't be able to understand the movie, but I assured them that it didn't matter. I mean, I've seen the first movie enough times to know that what the characters say really isn't all that important. I wanted to see the movie because Taylor Lautner plays Jacob and Jacob is in the second book more than Edward! So we went to the theater and apparently one girl was sick and so she gave her ticket to a boy in my class named Alberto. Hahahaha!!! Poor boy! The only boy in a group of 9! During the movie we sat next to each other and we enjoyed watching the faces of the girls when Jacob comes out without a shirt on and with his new haircut. Wow they basically freaked out! After the movie that's all they could talk about! They all said that they are coming to America to meet Taylor Lautner. I unfortunately had to inform him that he's mine and they need to find another celebrity to like. One girl couldn't stop talking about his muscles and today when I came to school, she was still talking about it. Oh boy! Well it turns out that I understood almost the whole movie because it's not hard to understand, "Bella I need you" "Bella I will never hurt you" "No, I will not turn you into a vampire".
Well anyway today the grades came out for first term and I'm kind of upset. I mean I'm in another country and I didn't expect to get as good of grades, but I'm still disappointed. My spanish teacher failed me and I have to idea why because after every test we had he never put a grade on the top. So that was a bit of a shocker! My other grades were these... History B, Economy B-, Spanish F, Tech B, Math A- (best in the class), English A (I would have been really mad if I didn't get that grade!), Science B-, Philosophy B- (that one I'm really proud of!), PE- B (he doesn't ever give out A's). The comments from the teachers were pretty good. Most of them either said that I'm trying and there's room for improvement, or that they love having me in their class. We got our grades and then we had PE right after and that's when the fun started! One girl started yelling at the teacher because she got an 8 (B+)! He started yelling back saying that she got the best grade in the class and she shouldn't be complaining. Then she said that my friends (the rest of the girls) don't do anything and they got the same grade as her (which isn't true). It's always so much fun to watch those kinds of fights between teachers and students! So that's what's been happening around here!

Atapuerca

I have no idea how to spell it, but yesterday my class took a field trip to the oldest place in Europe, Atapuerca. It's only a few miles out of Burgos and it's the oldest part of Europe because they found the oldest human species there. While waiting for the bus to pick us up, this girl named Paula and I listened to my ipod and danced like crazy! It was so nice to be myself again! She was a little embarrassed to dance in front of everyone, but I didn't care. Then when I got on the bus I was a loner like always so the teacher told me to sit next to this girl who was also by herself. I found out her name is Lara and she's also a new student. I talked to her the whole way there and I can tell she's going to be a good friend, even if she's from the other class. When we got there the tour guide showed us the places where they discovered the bones and the tools and little ancient animals. I understood most of what was going on but I was too cold to care. It was pretty cold yesterday, but on top of that it was super windy like always! Oh and we were outside for the whole six hours! We then went to the park where we pretended to be neanderthals and we made tools out of the rock, painted on a wall with the paint that came from a certain type of rock, we made instruments out of wood and string, we hunted with different types of weapons, and then we finally got to make fire! We went into a hut to make the fire and took forever but when it finally started we all swarmed to it because we were so cold! Since the guy only used horse hair and no wood, the fire didn't last very long which made us all mad! The last part of the tour was to learn how to look for fossils and bones. It was super super boring! Then I rode home with the same girl and we got involved in a newspaper throwing fight which didn't make the teacher very happy! Overall it was a pretty fun day and it would have been tons better if I had feeling in my fingers, nose, ears, toes, etc.

End of Finals

This past week I have been swamped with tests! The finals started last thursday and tomorrow I have my last one! I've been studying like crazy and yet I don't think that I passed any of them, except english. The tests are really impossible! Each teacher has their own way of doing things but we are normally given an hour and a half to take the test. In that hour and a half we have to answer 4-5 essay questions and we also have to define some concepts. Definitions are the easy part! It's super hard for me to write an essay on the theory of Kant in philosophy, or the big bang in science! My spanish teacher didn't let me use my dictionary and so I ended up turning in a basically blank test. On friday I had the english test, the only one I didn't study for, and I still found it hard! There were frases that we had to translate from spanish to english, and different activities, one of which we had to know the difference between whom and who and I have no idea! I felt so stupid when 4 boys finished before me! Oh and then I felt even stupider when on Monday Jesus posted the results and quite a few people did better than me! I got a 9.2 which is an A- and a couple of boys got 9.8 which is amazing! In the other subjects, it's basically impossible for anyone to get close to a 9! Well tomorrow I have my math final which should be easier than the rest if my teacher lets me use my calculator!

Porto, Portugal and Santiago, Spain

Well this weekend we had two days off of school so I went on a trip with my family. We left thursday after school and drove straight to Porto. When we got there is took us three long hours to find our hotel and Weston threw up twice. Porto never really figured out how to set up a city, because it was a mess. There was freeways going in every direction and all the signs were in portuguese, pretty bad. When we finally found our hotel we went straight to bed. The next day we rode tour buses all day long. The seats were great and I got to sit on top of a double decker bus, so I'm not complaining! That night we ate seafood in a tiny little restaurant that stayed open just for us. It was pretty good and I got to try some things that I've always thought were unetable. The next day was halloween to we went to the market in the morning and got some fruit. Then we took a tour of an old stock exchange palace building, went to the san francisco church and went to the grocery store to buy lots of candy! When we got back to the hotel I watched the prince and me 2 (awful movie) on my dad's computer while my parents and brother watched scorpian king (another awful movie). Then I studied the american revolution in spanish, in another country. That was a weird feeling! For some reason I don't remember what we did on Sunday, but we ended up in Santiago, where we had more trouble finding our hotel. The hotel was great but the bed covers and curtains had roman figures on them and Weston was disturbed by the naked ladies, which he should be. Also, the sheets were balled up so we were scared we were going to get scabies, but I think we are safe. Today we saw the Santiago cathedral and ate at Doner Kabap which is the most amazing Turkish food! We then drove home and I went on a run. Now it's time to study because this week and next I have finals and they are going to kill me!