Maybe I should just live at the zoo. Hmm. . . .

Hi everyone :)

I would like to begin by saying "thanks" to everyone who left encouraging comments on my blog post from last week. I feel so blessed to have family and friends who speak life into me! I love you all so much.

I think that my "November Blues" have lightened up a bit. I'm trying to stay positive and stay busy, whether it's by exploring the community or just throwing myself into a hardcore Spanish study session (alliteraton - aw yeah!). Molly and I were going to take Flamenco classes together, but they're all either full or too late at night. Boo. So now I'm looking into some art classes. I want to really immerse myself into the culture here, but it has been so difficult to find things to do! I wish that activities were just done through the school like in the US - all the sports, clubs, theater, etc. Actually, I think that my school might be doing a Christmas play, but I'm not really sure. Either way I signed up to act so I guess we'll see where that goes!

This past week hasn't been too terribly busy, but it sure feels like it's been. Here are the highlights...

On Wednesday evening, a friend of Paola's came over and brought her 10-year-old daughter, Clara. Clara was so sweet, and she is sort of like a little sister to me now. I wish I had host siblings so bad! Anyways, we ended up making a video together. Check it out! (It's mostly in Spanish, but that's the fun part!) --->

Good times! xD

On Thursday I read aloud in class from my Economia book, in Spanish of course, and my class clapped for me! Little things like this make me want to dance! It was about three paragraphs and I'm not exactly sure what I read, but I still feel good. The only downer on this incident was afterwards when my class asked me, "Que pasa?" (what's up/what's wrong) because apparently my face and neck got really red as I was reading! Urgh! I explained to them that sometimes I get flushed when I get nervous, and they found this very funny. Oh well. I've been getting compliments on my Spanish improvements lately, and again, it gives me that dancy feeling inside!

On Saturday I explored Marbella and San Pedro with Molly and Gabriel, an exchange student from Canada that currently lives in Fuengirola (a city not too far from Marbella). Yay exchange students! It rained basically the entire day, but we tried to make the most of it. Later in the day Matthew joined us and we all headed over to Nina's (a Rotarian) house for the night. Nina and her husband were so nice! I felt so at home with them. We had an amazing dinner, watched a movie, and went to sleep exaughsted from the chilly, wet day. On Sunday we went to the zoo in  Fuengirola! Yes, I know, my second zoo in one month. It was rainy again, but we still enjoyed ourselves. Molly and I saw a white tiger poop! Okay, maybe you didn't want to know that, but we did. Last weekend sort of reminded me of Rotary weekends back in Iowa, but in a smaller, Spain version.

Matthew, Gabriel, Molly, and me at the zoo!

Today I went to Malaga City with my Rotary Counselor to get my student visa. Well, as it turns out, the police station -- or wherever we were at -- was having problems with the computer today, becuase for some reason or another they couldn't access such and such file and now I have to go back on Friday, hoping that we'll simply have better luck. Okay. I did get to see a little bit of Malaga today though! I saw the cathedral, The Roman theater of Málaga, and I even went to Picasso's house! Well sort of - you see Picasso was born in Malaga and lived there until he was about 10. Now, the home where he grew up in is open to the public and you can see his house, as well as some art pieces by him. It was very cool!

Malaga has so much interesting history, being one of the oldest cities in the world. It is about 2,800 years old! I have touched on this briefely before, but I need to tell you again - I love the history here [in Europe]. Much of what I saw today is older than the U.S. all together. It is one thing to read about history in books, but to see it, to walk in it, to feel it as you pass by is completely different. The kids in Malaga go on field trips to Picasso's house for goodness sakes! Don't get me wrong, I like the pumpkin patch and all, but it can't really compare with Picasso and 400-year-old cathedrals.

Roman theater of Málaga

"Still life with spoon" by Pablo Ruiz Picasso. As soon as I saw a spoon, I knew I had to take a picture for Shelby. Love you, Shelbaby *Hose B!

Part of the Málaga Cathedral. I have found that it is difficult to photograph cathedrals because they're so big!

I was planning on making a Thanksgiving meal for my host family and the other exchange students next weekend, but instead I'm just going to help with Christmas dinner and throw some American food in there. I absolutely love Thanksgiving, and  it makes me sad when I think about not spending it like normal with my family and a big meal and the parade and afternoon napping. Okay well I guess I'll have a siesta, but you get the point.

I think that's all for now. I love and miss you all! If I don't post before Thursday, have a fun and safe Thanksgiving - eat some extra food for me, okay? :)

Love,
Josie

xoxo

Sometimes, I don't know what I think.

Hello. The following message is brought to you by a siesta.

Really though. I had a great siesta today and it continues to energize me! Even though it's 10:30 at night -- later than my usual time to blog it up -- I HAVE THE POWER!

As usual, my sense of time is nearly non-exsistent. Some hours feel like days, but some days only feel like hours. Then there's the "I've almost been here for six weeks" fact. Say what? My friend Hannah (Oregon -->Spain) wrote something in her blog the other day about how when your mind is full of other things, you lose your sense of time perception. I don't know if that's scientifically proven, but if not, exchange students would be living proof. We're surrounded by new culture, language, people, everything - it's kind of a lot to take in. So while we're processing all those things, time somehow gets thrown out of the mix. I still have about eight and a half more months of exchange, but I don't quite know what to think of that. One one hand, I'm thinking: Only eight and half more months?!?! I've only been here for, like, a month and week, so that's like repeating what I've done . . . sevenish more times? However on the other hand, I'm thinking, I'm here for HOW LONG? I could almost have a baby in that time! I miss you so, Iowa!! I hope you're getting what I'm trying to say here. If you don't, that's fine, because I don't think I do!

Remember what I was saying about avoiding the "November Blues" last blog post? Well, they hit me. Sometimes it's homesickness, sometime it's a "there's no hope for me at school" feeling, and sometimes it's just wanting to bite everyone's head off. I have found that the root of these "blues" (sadness, frustration, irritability) is usually somehow linked to Spanish. For example, I might be at school one day and I want to tell my friends a cool story. I start to tell the story in Spanish, but I don't know an essential word.  I improvise with charades and Spanglish, and move on with the story. I end up stopping half-way through because there are too many words I can't think of and trying to share my story has turned out to be far too much work than it's worth, and my class must be thinking how random and strange Americans are. From there, my thought process usually goes something like this: I wish I knew more Spanish. If only my Spanish was as good as my English. I miss just casually talking in English with friends in the U.S. and not have to rethink every word I say. I miss my friends. I miss high school. I miss my family and Iowa and corn and why does my life stink?!?!

I know my life doesn't stink, but do you see how my thoughts led to that? I know I'm in Spain, living up the chance of a lifetime. But sometimes, it's difficult. And sometimes, all I feel like doing is curling up in a ball and drinking hot coco.

Fortunately the hot coco here, Cola Cao, is delicious.

I'm not depressed, but sometimes I have bad days. Even in beautiful Spain, people have bad days. Not all bad though :) As I told you guys last week, Evelyn invited me to her church last weekend! Apparently there is church every day, but I think most people only go on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I went on Friday night, and it turned out pretty cool! We sung some praise and worship songs (in Spanish of course), then everyone introduced themselves with their name and nationality. There were about 30 people, and almost everyone was from Paraguay! After that, a message was given and then we had a meal of pizza and coke and goodness. I really enjoyed myself and I'm hoping to go back this weekend. Apparently they're doing a Christmas play, and I think it'd be really cool to get in on that! Note: Christmas is less than a month and half away! That sounds so crazy!!

Well I'm going to try and catch some Z's now. I love and miss you all!

P.S. It was great chatting with you tonight, Mom! :)

Surprise!

Hey, Devoted Readers!

I hope November is treating everyone well. Apparently many exchange students go though "November Blues", a period of blah-ness in November marking the 2 or 3 month mark of being in one's host country. I haven't quite been hit by them, but I'm thinking that I may get some December Blues, being a month late and all. It has been getting chilly though, here in the Costa Del Sol. *tear. However, I can't really complain when I compare the weather here to other places - it was about 64* F this afternoon, but it sure felt colder! Spain has taught me the art of the scarf though - it keeps you warm and, come'on, completes any outfit.

This past week has been pretty fun! Last Monday was Halloween and I ended up chilling with Jaime and some friends from his school, as a pirate! Most of us were dressed up, so we went trick-or-treating for a little while! Later that night we watched a half-hour long scary movie and then a Christmas movie, and the whole thing was quite strange. Nevertheless, I had a good time! I miss just chilling with friends, watching movies, playing with plastic machetes . . .

 November 1st was All Saints' Day, so no school! This is week five of Spanish school for me, and out of those five weeks, three have had holidays where there's no school. I like how Spain thinks.

On Thursday I had my Iowa Presentation for the Estepona Rotary Club. It went fine - I gave it in bad Spanish/Spanglish, but I think everyone appreciated my efforts. Also, I found out that I was going to Granada on Saturday with the other RYE students in Andalucia! I love good surprises.

Saturday ended up being a lot of meetings, but the RYE kiddies got to explore the city during most of them. We were only able to walk around for an hour and a half or so by the end of the day, but Granada was still beautiful. I do want to go back sometime though and really get to see the city. The group of exchange students that I spent the day with was so different than my exchange group in Iowa last year. In Granada, there were about 11 of us, all American girls except for Molly (being from Australia) and Matthew. I think it's pretty cool that I live in Marbella with the two different people in the group. Apparently there were supposed to be a couple more people in Granada on Saturday, but I don't know where they were . . .

Most of the group in Granada! I blinked :(

Molly and me at the Granada Cathedral!



As we walked around, I felt -- and definitely saw -- Granada's unique history.



Granada was great except for when I had a "stupid-exchange-student" moment and walked into the men's restroom at the hotel - oops. But honestly, I think the "man" on the door was a little misleading . . .

Don't tell me that at a glance, you wouldn't mistake Him for a woman.

Not much else has been going on. My Spanish is slowly progressing, school is fine, and I continue to make friends. The other day, I was going through a one of my classmate's music on her iPod, and I found "Hosanna" by Hillsong! I excitedly told her that I love Hillsong, and after chatting (err, passing notes) for a while, I found out she's Evangelical too! She invited me to her church this weekend, so that should be cool. I can't wait to see how church is here!

Well if anything blog-worthy happens in the next week or two, you'll know about it!

Hasta luego,

Josie