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