Author: Kaitlyn Wolin

Yesterday we went on a school field trip to the city of Mérida. It was founded in 25 BC and has a Riman influence so it is a lot different than the cities of Cordaba and Seville.

While there we went to the Roman Theatre and watched a play, which I am pretty sure was about a girl who loved a boy that was poor and her mom said that she couldn’t be with him. There was no subtitle option, so I defiantly did not understand everything, but just watching the characters in the theater was interesting enough for me!

After, we had free time to go and tour the city and have lunch. Like normal teenagers in America would do, we all choose pizza!

In the afternoon we went on a tour of a museum after the history of Mérida. There were so many works of art made out of tiny rocks pieced together to form a beautiful picture and tell a story. There also were the famous status of the Greek gods and goddesses, that college students were drawing.

On the way home the bus driver played flamingo music and everyone was dancing and singing along, and I felt like I had grew up with the other students my whole life! It’s very strange for me because I have a whole other life in America that they don’t know about or can even imagine to understand! 

During break, everyone in Spain goes to the country side for 2 or 3 days with friends or family. And by everyone, I literally mean everyone! Babies, kids, teenagers, parents, and even grandparents! In my family, we all separated and went to different houses for 3 days. The parents go with all of their friends except they are a little smarter and come home every night to sleep.

I went with my sister Maria to our friend Pedro’s house in the country. He has dogs, cats, goats, sheep, chickens, a donkey and pigs, so the whole entire time it smelled like poop. There was no shower so it masked the smell of everyone else not bathing!

Everyone was in charge of bringing food and we all put in a couple of euros to buy meets and drinks. There was so so much food! We went on walks every day in the country so we would be hungry later to eat more food because we literally were eating the entire time and not making a dent in the food supply! We cooked everything over a fire and it all tasted amazing! For some reason food always tasted better when prepared this way.

Our daily routine every day was waking up around 12, eating, playing card games, eating, cleaning, walking, eating, listening and dancing to flamenco music, eating, playing more games and going to bed around 5 am.

These days made me realize that I can not speak any Spanish when I am tired! By the last day my mind was fried and I went back to just saying si to every question!

It was a nice break to be in the country side without anything and just hangout with friends, but I have to admit, I was pretty excited to take and shower and sleep in an actual bed again! 

Happy Easter to everyone in America!

Here in Spain they celebrate Easter in a different way that we do. For example, the Spanish find excuses to have parties, so instead of only being one day, Semana Santa (Easter) lasts a whole week!

My family and I returned to Rota for five days, and experience all Semana Santa has to offer! Every night there is a procession that walks through the streets very very slowly in almost every town in Spain. There are people dressed up in outfits called capirote, and every night is a different color. You can not see any part of there body, so for me it was like a horror movie, but to everyone else it was normal and beautiful!

In the procession men carry these gigantic floats that represent Jesus and different parts of his life. These floats weigh hundreds of pounds and are different every night! There is also a band with drums, trumpets, flutes, clarinet, ext. This was my favorite part of the procession because theres no words, so I was understanding the music the same as everyone else! It made me feel somewhat normal because I am always different than everyone else! My blonde hair and blue eyes are a big give away that I am American, or at least not from Spain!

The procession starts around 8 and usually does not end until 3 in the morning! The people get dressed up in dresses and heels every night to watch this. It is a beautiful thing to see yes, but I don’t understand the need to suffer in heels for 7 hours to see the same exact thing at every street!

It is odd that this year I didn’t dye a single Easter egg, or eat peanut butter eggs. I think I might celebrate Easter in June when I return and recreate a little Easter breakfast.

Today marks 100 more days in Spain, and my emotions are everywhere!

First, I do miss my friends and family at home, but at the same time I can’t even remember what life is like at home! I feel so comfortable here in Spain, and couldn’t picture myself anywhere else right now! 100 days seems like so long until I’ll be back home.

Second, I am having an amazing time here in Spain. I’m so happy with my new friends and family and can’t imagine being thousands of miles away from them! 1oo more days seems like such a short amount of time for me to be in Spain and experience everything it has to offer!

I decided that I most deffinatly like the education system in America better because here the teachers do not really teach! You just have to listen to what they say, copy it down on a piece of paper, and study a lot! Even after all of that a lot of students still fail the classes! Also, America has a lot better tv shows and movies. I don’t think I have ever seen worse acting in my life!

My favorite part about Spain is how happy and relaxed the people always are. They never worry about the work they have to do the next day, and instead live in the moment! The eating schedule here also makes a lot more sense, because you not eating your biggest meal right before you go to bed! I already know I’m going to miss my daily siesta.

I’m going to try to make the most out these last 100 days. Say yes to every opportunity presented to me, always be happy, talk as much as possible and make amazing memories. I can already tell its going to be a hard and bitter sweat goodbye.

My family lives outside of the town of Granja in the country, but it is only about a 2 minute drive. The house is a beautiful one story house made out of stone. Most families in Spain wear slippers inside at all times, but my host parents didn’t like that so the heating system in the house actually comes from the floor tiles, and it is powered by solar panels on the roof! So, there is no need for indoor shoes. There is also a garage attached to the house, a separate garage with different equipment, and a small building with a bathroom for the pool, a room with a pool table, and another large room with and fire place and a huge table for parties and family events! They also have 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 horses, and a deer! Sounds exactly like my family and my house? This has made adjusting a lot easier for me because in some ways its just like home! On the weekends there are always friends and family over for huge lunches. On top of all of that, my host parents love wine so they built a wine cellar and make their own wine every September. I don’t think I will be suffering living here for the next few months!

In Spain everything is made homemade. I experienced this first hand when my family bought a pig, had it butchered, cleaned, and packaged right at their house! First, their friend butchered the pig and separated it into different parts. Some of them were ready to eat right away in pork chops and ribs, but others took a long long time. The day started around 8 am and we did not finish everything until 7 at night! After the left over parts were separated, they were then put into a meat grinder and divided between different types of sausages, such as chorizo, salchichon, sobrasada, blood sausage and morchilla. Each type had specific things adding to give distinct flavors like salt, garlic, spices, herbs, onions, potatoes and rice. Inside of using a spoon like you would think someone would use to mix it all, we used our hands. At one point I actually thought I was going to vomit when mixing the blood into the sausage. After this was done, we used a machine to fill small little tubs and some of the pigs clean intestines with the sausages. I for one love animals so this was a very hard for me, but I am in Spain so I decided to give it a try! Was it a good experience… yes. Will I do it again… hopefully not! I’m not really sure if I’ll ever be able to eat sausage again but now if I ever will need to in my life, I know how kill and cook a pig.