Christmas Break

Well school got out on the 22nd just like in Utah. The next day I finished my christmas shopping and before I knew it, it was christmas eve. We went to Pachi's mom's house to eat dinner. To be honest, I was dreading going over there because almost every member of that family smokes and I still can't handle it. I'm getting better, but I'm still not good enough to sit through 3 hours of constant smoke. So I wore some nice clothes, but ones that were a little dirty so that I had an excuse to wash them afterwards. My family got there about an hour early to help Pachi's mom with the dinner and so the room was smoke free. When people finally showed up we sat down and ate a huge meal with octopus, clams, prawns, fish, fish, and more fish. Everything was delicious, but I was so sick of fish! Then we had desert which was turrones and polvorones (typical for the holidays). That's when everyone started to smoke and I knew that I had to get out of there. So I went with Pachi, Miguel, and an aunt and uncle to midnight mass. To my surprise, it was basically the same as the other mass I went to, just it was at mignight. Oh and they had some people that were kind of acting out the manger scene. After mass, we went back to pachi's mom's house to pick of alvaro and cristina and then we left! I guess you could say I lucked out big time!
The next day was christmas, of course, and for the first time I slept in. Usually Weston bounces on my bed until I get up at 6 in the morning, but this year everyone was asleep. I ended up waking up at 11:30 and went downstairs. We ate breakfast first which was the typical spanish hot chocolate with churros and then we opened presents. Then at 2 we went to Pachi's mom's house again because pachi and cristina had to work (well I'm convinced that they didn't have to, they're just too much of workaholics to not). So we ate leftovers from the night before, and basically everything was nasty. So I excused myself at 4:30 and went home to talk to my family by bus. The rest of the day was normal and uneventful, but it was better than staying in a house that smells like smoke!
Since christmas I've been trying to study, but I'm finding it hard. I made a schedule for myself, but it isn't working. I think it's so hard because I know that I have a week and a half left to study. Ya we get an extra week of break here thanks to los reyes magos!!! Well it's time to eat so I better go. I miss everyone!

Snow!

So wednesday night it started to snow, but I didn't get my hopes up yet because it had only snowed a little bit in the past. However, all that night I couldn't sleep and I kept waking up and seeing snow falling outside my window! When I woke up thursday morning there was almost a foot on the ground! I was so so so excited! So I quickly put on my sweats (I have P.E. on thursdays) and ran downstairs. Miguel and I then went to school and we were right on time. When I walked upstairs (where my class is) there was only one other person from my grade there! Within a couple of minutes, three more people showed up but that's it! I was so shocked! Apparently it's normal to not show up to school if there's snow outside? Weird, I know! After 45 minutes we had half of our class and my teacher finally showed up.
Then the hour right before recreo we had catholic mass instead of philosophy. So the day just kept getting better and better!
During recreo the boys in my class started throwing snowballs at me saying "hit the american, hit the american! She took Cuba and the phillappines from us! Not to mention Florida!" Ya, they're still bitter about that. So the girls I eat lunch with weren't into the snow so I ditched them and got into a snowball fight with Gonzalo and Guillermo and Miguel. So much fun!!!
Then after school I got into a bigger snowball fight with Miguel, his friend Alvar, and his other friend Carlota. We were having so much fun when the boys from my class caught up to us! I really don't think I've had as much fun in the snow before! Oh and this definitely was the best day I've had here so far!

Being Sick

So while we were in Madrid we had lunch with some other friends, who happened to be smokers. So I about died after two and a half hours, plus I already wasn't feeling well. So when they invited us up to their flat I made a quick escape and went back to where we were staying. Good thing too becuase they were there for another hour and a half.
So then we got home and we had one more day without school. I stayed in bed all day and didn't eat anything. The next day was a wednesday so I had school for 7 hours instead of 6. I went for the first three, then after recreo I called Pachi and went home. Pachi and Cristina kept asking me whether I needed to go to the hospital or not and I kind of laughed. Hospital? Ha my mom wouldn't even take me to the hospital if I cracked my head open. Maybe she would take me to instacare, maybe. And all I had was a cold!
The next day I didn't go to school, but I was feeling a lot better. What I really wanted was to be home in Utah, curled up on the couch, watching cinderella rodgers and hammerstein's verson, like I always do when I'm sick, and having my mom make me hot soup.
By friday I was still feeling weak, but I went to school and that was basically the end of my sickness.

Madrid

So a lot has happened in the past week and a half so I'm going to split it up so I don't spend so much time writing, because afterall I am here to work hard in school.
So the weekend of my birthday I went to Madrid with my host family. They have some friends that came to Burgos about a month ago, so we stayed with them. Their apartment was amazing! From one of the many balconies you could see the capital building and the palace. You walk outside and there's the opera house and you walk a little more and there's the shopping street. It was in the middle of everything! So pretty!
The first day we got there we had an amazing meal and then we went to the Prado which is an art museum if you didn't know. I saw painting from el Greco, Goya, and Velazquez. Most were very disturbing, but hey they're famous. I have to say my favorite was Saturn devouring his Child. I mean what kind of sick mind creates something like that?
The next day we didn't really do anything, which was nice. We walked down to el museo de romanticismo, but the line was way too long, so we just took a little walk and then went home. On Monday we went to a violin concert in the morning, which was the best part of the trip. It was at a music school right across the street from where we were staying (surprise, surprise). Then I ended up getting sick which will be my next post, but now I have to study philosophy.

My Birthday

First of all I want to thank everyone that wished me a happy birthday! I woke up thinking it was just going to be another day, but it actually turned out to be way fun. When I went to school I found a happy birthday Madi sign above the board that made me way embarrassed! The first people that walked into the classroom after me started to say felicidades and then give me two kisses. To my delight, Juan from the other class was the third person to give me two kisses!!!! Ha that alone would have made my day! Ha and then some girls walked in and one of them started to tug on my ears. Ha apparently that´s their way of giving birthday spanks. By the end of the school day, my ears hurt. So the day went on like that, even people that I don´t know wished me happy birthday. During recreo a girl bought me some candy. What surprised me the most is what one girl two years younger than me did. She came up to me with a card that was the sweetest thing ever and then gave me a bracelet! And I barely know her! I go into her class every tuesday while my class has english! Crazy! After school I talked to my family and Karli and my host family gave me some presents and we ate cake. Then things got depressing. I watched radio because I was bored and so I naturally started to cry because that movie´s sad. Then someone rang the doorbell and when I went downstairs to see who it was I found the missionaries! They made me brownie-cake thing and an awesome card and they sang happy birthday! It was soooo cool! The missionaries are the best! Well then after dinner I started to talk to my friends but the connection was really bad because Cristina was on the phone. I got really mad when she continued to talk for an hour and a half and she knew how much I wanted to talk to my friends! I was about to kill her when she finally hung up and three-fourths of the friends that were orginally there to talk to me were gone. But I cheered up while talking to Alyssa, Carolyn, and Brittany. Overall, it was an awesome day! Now I´m in Madrid ready for a long weekend!

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!