Rotary Orientation

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This weekend I went to Madrid for a orientation with all the other Spain inbounds (it’s weird that I’m now an inbound….). I flew from Valencia to Madrid with the other exchange student in Valencia and her host brother. It was an easy 45 minute flight…I felt bad for a lot of the other exchange students who had to take 6 and 7 hour bus rides.

The weekend made me realize how lucky I am for three reasons:
1. I met a couple students who already are having host family and school problems, and so I feel very thankful to be having no such problems.
2. There are also some students in the Barcelona area whose family and friends mainly speak Catalan. I feel lucky because I don’t think my Castellano (Spanish) would get nearly as good as I want it to be if I lived in Cataluña.
3. There are some students with other exchange students at their school and in their classes. Although it would make things easier initially, I’m glad I’m the only exchange student at my school because I am truly immersed- there are no American friends to rely on.

Basically, we were given a presentation on differences we might notice in Spain, and then got yet another presentation on the 4 D’s (no drinking, driving, drugs, dating). Here, however, they changed the “No Drinking” rule to “No Drunk.” Haha. It was fun to meet everyone, but overall we didn’t do much. We stayed at a university campus about 30 minutes outside of Madrid, but we never actually went into the city. Apparently last year they took everyone to sightsee and some kids got lost so this year they didn’t do it. Thanks a lot, last year’s inbounds. My host parents were disappointed that I didn’t see much of Madrid, so they said we’d take a trip there sometime since my host dad is from Madrid.

Since most of the exchange students are from the U.S., we spoke English the whole weekend. However, even though my Spanish obviously did not improve, it was incredibly fun to laugh about all of our experiences so far. Some of my favorite conversations included:
1. customs officers examining a stuffed penguin for drugs,
2. the obsessive amount of fruit peeling in Spain, and
3. agreeing to unknown things because you just say “vale” and “sí” to everything.

I talked so much that my throat actually started hurting. I hadn’t realized how little I’ve been talking here. Next week that’s my goal- to talk more. I bet a lot of people are laughing right now as they read this, since talking has never exactly been difficult for me. But honestly, a lot of the time I’m too scared to talk because I’m afraid it will be wrong. But this week I’m just going to talk and not worry about correctness.

So that’s the plan. Until later- besitos.

XOXO Paige

P.S. For my family who’s reading this- I met a girl from WARRENTON, VA!!! How crazy is that? I don't have a picture of us posted, but I'll email one later.