Spring Break

Hey guys,

Sorry about not updating in a while, but here we are now.

Let's begin with Semana Santa, or Holy Week/Easter. On the first day of vacation (Semana Santa is our week-long spring break), my friends and I threw a surprise birthday party for a friend, Alfonso. The highlight of this day may have been seeing REC 3 at the movie theater, the third film in a Spanish movie series about zombies. Apparently the first one was good, and the second one was worse but still okay (I haven't seen them). However, the third one was terrible and I'm a bit sad that I paid to see it. It may have been so bad that it was good, but then again, it may have just been that bad.

It was just that bad.

A different day of Semana Santa, I went to Fuengirola and spent the day with Hannah, a foreign exchange student from Oregon (I've mentioned her before). We had a lovely day at the zoo, at the beach eating pizza, in a castle, in a candy store, on a bench putting together my toy boat from the Kinder egg I got from the candy store, and wandering around (surely looking like some hot guiris).

Sand castles brought to a new level in Fuengirola

Views from the castle

TEAMWORK

On Wednesday I went to see the Semana Santa parades in Marbella. There were parades/processions every day of the week in nearly every city in Spain. It really is something incredible. Wikipedia explains what exactly happens at the processions pretty well:  

Málaga, Seville, Madrid, Valladolid, Zamora and León hold elaborate processions for Holy Week. A tradition that dates from medieval timeswhich has spread to other cities in Andalusia, the "Semana Santa en Sevilla" is notable for featuring the procession of "pasos", lifelike wood or plaster sculptures of individual scenes of the events that happened between Jesus' arrest and his burial, or images of the Virgin Mary showing grief for the torture and killing of her son. In Málaga the lifelike wooden or plaster sculptures are called "tronos" and they are carried through the streets by penitents dressed in long purple robes, often with pointed hats, followed by women in black carrying candles for up to 11 hours. These pasos and tronos are physically carried on the necks of costaleros (literally "sack men", because of the costal, a sack-like cloth that they wear over their neck, to soften the burden) or "braceros" (this name is popular in Leon), and can weigh up to five metric tonnes. The pasos are set up and maintained by hermandades and cofradías, religious brotherhoods that are common to a specific area of the city, whose precede the paso dressed in Roman military costumes or penitential robes. Those members who wish to do so wear these penitential robes with conical hats, or capirotes, used to conceal the face of the wearer. These "Nazarenos" or "Papones" (this word it´s typical from Leon) carry processional candles, may walk the city streets barefoot, and may carry shackles and chains in their feet as penance. A brass band, marching band, a drum and bugle band, or in Málaga's case a military band (such as that of the Spanish Legion or other military units) may accompany the group, playing funeral marches, religious hymns or "marchas" written for the occasion.

 Here are some photos that might help you better understand what was going on. (Sorry they didn't turn out that well!)

I had never seen anything like the processions before, and it was really interesting. I only ended up going to see them on one night, but I'm glad I got to see them then.

A different day of Semana Santa, I saw Titanic 3D with my friend Georgia (in Spanish of course). I would definitely recommend seeing it. Also that day, Georgia and I went to this shop called "Iceland" in Marbella that has all this food from England, and Georgia ended up having her first pop tart ever!! (She's from England but has lived in Spain for 6 or so years.) Spain doesn't normally have pop tarts, so it was quite an experience fro me to eat them after so long, even though I don't have them very often in the US. While we were in the theater, Georgia pulled the pop tarts out of her bag and, not having had them before, ate the two pop tarts that were in the wrapper together and was later very surprised when I told her that there are two in each wrapper and they're better when you toast them!! It was a hilarious, first-for-everything, moment! (I hope that all made sense.) I think we're going to go see The Hunger Games this weekend since that's when it finally comes out in Spain! Except, I still have to read the books -- or at least the first book -- before then so this week is crunch time!!

Not much happened last week. It was a little bit difficult getting back into the hang of things after nine days of vacation, but I survived. Today I brought my yearbook to school, and everyone always loves looking at it. (They don't have year books here.) If you're reading this and are planning on going on exchange (from the US), bring your yearbook!! It is perfect to show what school is like back home.

And now, please enjoy these random photos from the past two and a half weeks :)

Delicious tapas before seeing the processions

Playing Guitar Hero with my host family and some friends :)

An afternoon visiting Paula and Abuelo

Semana Santa was nice, but Spring Break always reminds you that the end of the school year is coming. It's already April 18th and I'm freaking out. I only have about three and a half months here before I must return to Iowa. It's difficult to wrap my mind around. I'm going to make the most of the time I have left :)

Report Card Time

Well it's April 1st, but April Fool's Day doesn't exist in Spain. Instead, Spain has their April Fool's Day equivalent on December 28th. I think it's called El Dia de los Santos Inocentes (The Day of the Innocent Saints). The only "prank" I remember from that day was that our water (at the house, and all the houses in the neighborhood) was turned off. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but I remember being upset because I felt gross and needed to shower, but none of the water would work. Luckily the water was turned on later. However, if that was someone's idea of a prank, it was quite cruel. Somewhat clever, but cruel.

Anyways, there was a nation-wide strike ("huelga") on Thursday -- I'm still not 100% sure why -- and we had the option of whether or not to go to school. With that being said, nearly everyone stayed home that day. :) Here's an article I found about the strike: http://www.eitb.com/en/news/detail/859542/spain--unions-wage-general-strike-protest-labour-reform/ . Everyone probably would have stayed home on Friday too if it weren't for the fact that 2nd trimester grades were handed out that day. Here's my report card...

As you can see, I have either maintained or improved every grade except for English, which went from a 10 to a 9! I'm pretty pleased with that. I'd really like to do better this final trimester. However, I won't be at school for a while because it's Semana Santa (Holy Week)! A.K.A. Our spring break until next Monday! Apparently there are parades and other things every day in every city, so I'm looking forward to that. Semana Santa is very important in Spain, and so it'll be interesting seeing another part of their culture throughout the coming week.

I forgot to tell you a few things about school here in my last post, mostly about the teachers. First off, whenever our teachers don't come, we just don't have class. An adult comes in to supervise the classroom, but we don't get a substitute or anything! Also, when a teacher knows they'll be gone the next day and there class is the first hour, they usually kindly inform us so we can have an extra hour of sleep. It works quite well, I think. The other thing is that the classroom is much more open here -- teachers usually just read all the exam scores aloud, and they'll make comments about your grades in front of the whole class. There's not much babying with the professors. Students here have to be much more independent than in the US. They're usually not told what exactly to study, and they're certainly not given nifty worksheets to practice with, but instead they're told what chapters the exams are over, and then expected to know it when the time comes to be tested.

I don't really have much else to tell you all, so please enjoy this photo of the Marbella sun set a few nights ago.

That's all for now,
Josie