Andorra and Turning 19

I hope I left you all hanging at the end of my last post : )

Well, after I got back from Dénia, I was having sort of a crappy week. I won’t bother going into details, but basically I was just feeling a little down. But then on Wednesday, I logged into Facebook and saw a message from Mika that said “It is important that you go on Skype right NOW.” So, I got on Skype and Mika immediately called me and asked “Paige, do you want to come to Andorra to ski?” Ummm….YES! What did she think I would say? The catch was that we would be leaving on Sunday, so I needed to get permission that night. After asking my host parents, and quickly calling my real parents and my tutor, it was all set.

Mika’s host parents are good friends with a man named Jesús, who is the principal of a school for students who want to be physical education teachers. Every year, they take a ski trip to Andorra, and since they had extra spots, Mika was invited even though she doesn’t go to that school. Lucky for me, Mika’s host parents thought of me and asked if I could go too : )

crossing the border from Spain to Andorra

We left for Andorra early Sunday morning, but I got to Dénia the day before. Since I obviously didn’t think to bring any ski apparel to Spain, I sported a borrowed assortment of ski clothes that included my host dad’s snow pants and Mika’s host dad’s XL ski jacket (that’s why I look so huge in all the pictures, haha). The bus ride to Andorra took about 9 hours including stops, but even though it was long, it was gorgeous. We drove along the coast for hours, and then started driving through the mountains of Cataluña, where all the street signs and shop names immediately switched to Catalan instead of Spanish. Several hours later we spotted the Pyrenees Mountains, and finally crossed the border into Andorra. (By the way, Andorra is classified as a “micro-country”, for those of you who didn’t know).

Me on the mountain

When we arrived to the ski resort (Arinsal in Vallnord), we got fitted for our ski gear and checked into the hotel. Mika and I shared a room with a girl from Bulgaria and her Belgian boyfriend. What was interesting was that Spanish was the only common language between all of us.

The next day, the skiing began. We had five full days of skiing, with 2 hours of classes included each day. Mika and I were in one of the more “advanced” groups since we had both skied before. Let me just say that our ski instructor, Juan, was certifiably insane. That week, I tried things that I would never in my life have attempted. Juan took us off jumps, down small cliffs, and through clusters of pine trees where we were told it was “cheating” to go down the actual groomed slope. One particularly memorable morning, we went down an extremely steep drop off through the trees, and the five people in front of me tumbled down like bowling pins. I followed suit a few seconds later.

Mika and I

Me in the city

We stopped at a random hotel downtown to use the internet so I could transfer money. It turned out to be the hotel where the Rotary Club of Andorra meets!

An exciting moment of the trip was that I celebrated my 19th birthday on February 2nd. We didn’t really do all that much for it, since we were tired from skiing, but we did go into the city to shop and buy candles, which I squished onto two tiny pieces of cake at dinner that night. The whole group came to sing to me, and overall it was wonderful. I can’t think of a better way to spend my birthday than a ski trip to Andorra.

My birthday!

Mika and I again

Our ski class "super paralelos" (super parallel) with crazy instructor Juan, who's wearing the sunglasses

Well, this is getting extremely long, so I’ll stop now, but I hope you enjoyed the pictures, and check out this video of the crazy wind we experienced one of the days skiing (you'll have to copy and paste it): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuEboHJsA-o


Love always,

Paige

Enero

January flew by at the kind of speed ex-exchange students warn you about, and now I’m sitting at the halfway mark of my exchange year. It’s a strange feeling, and although it’s definitely a bit nostalgic, I’m determined to make the most of the time that’s left.

With that said, here are a few memorable moments of January:

1) Ice Skating: When we were still on vacation from school in early January, my friends and I went ice skating at a new rink that had opened up. Most of my friends had never been ice skating, and although I’d like to say that my Wisconsinite background allowed me to show them all up doing triple axles across the ice, I can’t say I was all that much better. After skating, we went to the mall, where my friend David stopped to point out a “weird” pastry shop that had just opened. It was a cinnamon roll shop! I told my friends what they were called, and they all laughed at how funny the name sounds in English. I suppose “cinnamon roll” does sound a little funny. We tried them and they were quite delicious : )

2) Rotary meeting: I FINALLY met my Rotary club. Valencia Rotary is not exactly what I would call “involved” with the exchange students. My tutor had emailed me at the beginning of the year saying he was my tutor, if I needed anything let him know, and that I would have to come sometime and give a speech to the Rotary club. I have been slightly nagging him about this speech thing all year. Hey, I wanted to meet my host Rotary club, and gosh darn it, I wanted to give the speech I’d prepared. He finally invited me to a meeting last month, and my speech and powerpoint presentation, I must say, went very well. I was even congratulated by the Valencia Rotary club president as having “the best Spanish of all the exchange students who’ve come to Valencia.” (sorry, had to brag there- I’d been feeling a little discouraged with the language, so that vote of confidence cheered me up a bit) The meeting and dinner, despite the fact that it was a Monday, went until well past midnight, but my tutor took me home “early” at 11:45. Typical Spanish.

3) Dénia with Mika: The weekend of the 21st, I went to Dénia to visit Mika. We did our usual drinking of dozens of cafés con leche, staying up until all hours talking, and trying on makeup at every cosmetic store in Dénia (okay, that part was just Mika). One night we even went over to one of her friend’s houses for fondu, which was soooo good. We had a little incident with the gas tank running out at her house on the last day, though, which meant no hot water to shower and no gas for the stove to cook lunch. Since her host parents were gone, we had to take a bus and then walk in the rain looking for somewhere to eat. Since nothing’s open on Sundays in Spain, however, we ended up at a particularly sketchy Doner Kebab with a constant stream of Chinese entering to play the slot machine. I was sad to go, but little did I know, I would be seeing her very soon….(do you like my suspenseful buildup to my next blog?)

Un beso a todos,

Paige
Saying goodbye at the bus station

Café con leche and a pastry that looked a lot better than it was