The last day of my Spanish exchange was a success. Belén woke me up at 11:30. I was a bit confused about this at first, but then she explained why she was waking me up. We were going to a restaurant, and we were going to go there by ship. This seemed pretty cool. Vicente was busy, Ana had to study, Marta was still in Vigo, and Belén doesn’t like ships, so María picked up Tito and we all drove to the port, where Javier (Belén’s brother) was waiting for us in the boat. It was a nice day today, so it was perfect for riding in a boat. Except I didn’t ride in the boat. Javier had me drive the boat. I’ve never driven a boat before. I can count the number of times on one hand that I have been on a boat, but I found driving it surprisingly easy. Just like a sluggish car. It was probably about a 30 minute ride, and then we arrived at a restaurant, where more of the family was waiting for use. I got Calamaries in ink because that sounded good. Then I drove back, and we all went to Javier’s house to hang out for a bit. I ended up playing Mario Kart with Marina for a little while. I said goodbye to Javier and his family.

María then took Tito and I back to Tito’s house, where Tito showed me his collection of worldly things that he has collected over the years. He has trinkets and paintings from all over the world, and it was pretty cool to see a bunch of authentic things from as far away as Nepal or Bali. I marveled at his trinkets for a bit, and then we went back to the house. I have pictures of everything, from Lugo and today, here. At the house, I packed my last things, as there were still some clothes that had been in the wash. I’ve got my two checked bags packed, but I still have to pack my carry-on. I then spent some time with the family. I haven’t said goodbye to them yet, as I will see all of them in the morning. I will miss the family, and it will be bittersweet to say goodbye to them because they are good people, but I’m very happy to be returning to the US. Also, I know that I will keep in touch with them for a long time, so I will see them again in the future. After about 40 hours of traveling and sightseeing in Frankfurt, I’ll arrive back in the US.

This is where I will end my blogging. While it’s tempting to write about my adventures in Frankfurt, chances are I will be seeing 90% of the people that I write this blog for within a week, and then I can explain all of my stories in much more detail. Blogging actually takes up a lot of time, and I plan on spending that time doing something more productive in the US, but I don’t know what. My whole purpose of writing this blog was to let everyone know what I’m doing in Spain. I’ll be back in the US, returning to a normal life, so chances are I won’t be blogging for a while. Here are some stats from the blog:

140 posts—and I’ve been here 167 days

172 single spaced pages in Word

122, 968 words (as of writing this)

512, 603 characters

6551 paragraphs

That’s a lot of writing I did over the past 5 ½ months, and it’s all for you, the people who read my blog, so you could see what I was up to during my time in Spain. I love you all. Peace.

Friday during the day, I didn’t really do that much. I had to wake up a bit early and take the bus into to town to see Pedro. The meeting with him went well. All I had to do was explain my reasoning for wanting to leave Spain a bit early to him, as he was worried about me and wanted to know if something different could have been done. I explained to him some of the problems I had with Rotary Spain, and what I felt could have been done differently. However, I didn’t mention Tommaso’s inappropriate behavior because I didn’t feel like talking about it, and besides, there’s nothing Pedro can do. He understood everything, took me back to the house, and then wished me farewell. By this time, it was about 1, so I just spent the afternoon hanging out as well as walking around. It was another rainless day, fortunately.

I ate lunch with Ana and María, and then decided to take a nap, so I woke up at 5 feeling rather refreshed. I went for a run, got back to the house, and then talked with Belén until it was time to get ready to go out with Ana. I put on some nice clothes and shoes, and then María took Ana and me into town, along with two more of Ana’s friends, Marta and Claudia. We got to a pizza place at about 10:30. There were six of us, and I’d met all of them before so I felt comfortable around them. Although from my time here, I’ve learned that I have to put all my awkwardness aside and just go into all situations and be prepared to make an ass of myself, which can happen from time to time.

We all got pizza for dinner, and I swear I waited for a half an hour while all the girls went to the bathroom to do whatever girls do in the bathroom. After this, we all started walking in the general direction of the center of Vigo, meeting more friends of Ana along the way. I think there were about 12 of us, although I couldn’t say for sure because I just kept on meeting people I didn’t know and lost count. About this time, Ana explained to me that we would be heading to the “Casco Antiguo” of Vigo. This is the old part of Vigo, and the part of Santiago that I’d been to the other day. I knew that Vigo had one, and I’ve been there before, but it’s pretty run down, and therefore, it doesn’t have the same allure that it does in other cities. Belén explained to me that it’s just gotten out of hand in the past years, and that while they are trying a restoration process, it’s not going that well.

I was not disappointed by the trashiness of the Casco Antiguo. The area smelled of piss and cigarette smoke. Eventually the group stopped at a bar called “Ovo”, which means “egg” in Galician. I don’t even know if you could call this a bar. It was a real dive. Not only was it in a terrible part of town, but this place was about the size of a walk-in closet. It consisted of a counter, and behind the counter was a plethora of alcohol and two men furiously trying to serve the crowd, which was rowdy and spilling out onto the street. I learned that it was 1 Euro for a “chupita”, or a shot. I guarantee you I was the kid closest to 18 there, which is the legal drinking age in Spain, but no one actually gives a shit because it is Spain, after all. Ana doesn’t drink, and I was more content just watching people make asses of themselves and the commotion that was unfolding around me. I really wish I had my camera. I would have taken a picture and subtitled it: “This is our future”. I’m kind of cynical when it comes to this stuff, I guess. After this first pre gaming session, we headed to another bar.

This bar was a little bit classier, but not by much. There wasn’t a mass influx of prepubescent persons, and there was actually room to stand and walk around. Here, I ended up talking to the bartender for a good half hour. He noticed that I was with a bunch of girls (it was me and all girls, after all), and after giving me a hard time, he wanted to know my secret, so I told him that it was probably because I was an exchange student. At first he didn’t believe me because he said I looked more Spanish than some of the girls (who have blond hair and blue eyes). After I convinced him that I am indeed American, he started talking to me in English because he had studied a while in England and Australia. He was a pretty funny guy, and I enjoyed talking to him.

Eventually at about 2 in the morning, we headed to a discoteca to dance the night away. Glancing into the club, I thought that there was a smoke machine inside, which I thought made sense because it adds to the ambiance. But then I realized that each person is their own separate smoke machine, as everyone in this country, even most of the youth, smokes. So in addition to being extremely hot, there was a sickening amount of cigarette smoke. I can’t really describe a discoteca, but I’ll do my best. Take a high school prom, add copious amounts of alcohol both beforehand and during, and then add a lot of cigarette smoke. And don’t forget the music, which somehow manages to be even crappier than the music they normally play at proms. Fortunately for me and my alveoli, Ana had to take a taxi home by 3 o’clock (which is an early curfew here), so I escaped with only an hour of semi-dancing and profuse sweating. I immediately showered when I got home, and then went to sleep.

Belén woke me up at 9 in the morning today to go with the family into Lugo. I wasn’t as tired as I would have thought because I knew that we would be doing something at least semi-interesting. I just slept during most of the two hour car ride there. Lugo is another fairly big city in Galicia, although it is in the Lugo province. There are about 90,000 inhabitants, and we spent our afternoon walking around downtown and the surrounding areas. The unique thing about Lugo is its Roman ruins. Lugo is the only city in Europe where the original Roman wall surrounding the center city is still intact. The walls create a 3 km path that circles the city, and it provides for some fairly good views. For me, it was just cool to be standing on something that is around 2,000 years old. After walking around, we went to Saint Mary’s cathedral, another beautiful cathedral. My favorite thing about the cathedrals is the smell. They all have a very old, earthy smell that is like nothing I’ve smelled before, but I’ll never forget it. I got pictures of all of this, but you’ll have to wait, as it’s late, and I don’t feel like uploading them right now.

We went to some fancy restaurant for lunch. Right about here, while looking at the menu of this fancy restaurant, I had an epiphany as to why I don’t really enjoy the food in Spain. In the US, I’m used to eating things with various sauces and of varying flavors as well. You can go to a restaurant and get “Mango Fish” or something like that. Here, in Spain, the only sort of sauce they seem to like is olive oil, and nothing else. Most of the menu is, very simply, “Grilled Halibut”, or “Boiled Shrimp”. None of these things have any sort of redeeming qualities, and they are just floating in olive oil. That’s why I don’t like the food here, and I feel good now that I’ve realized why. I did have lemon sorbet, though, and that was pretty tasty.

We walked around Lugo a bit more, and then went over to the pool, where Marta was swimming. Now, I’ve been to quite a few swim meets and therefore, pools, in my day. I have to say that this was the most suffocating, humid pool that I have ever been to, hands down. I thought that I was going to die. I could actually taste the chlorine, it was that bad. The good thing was that Marta actually ended up swimming pretty early, so we were only there for around an hour, and then I was able to get some fresh air.

I also slept on the ride back, having nothing else to do. When I got home, I went for a run, and then I watched a bit of “Toy Story” with Ana, and then everyone else went to bed and I started on this massive blog. Tomorrow will be my last day in Spain, and while it will be sad to say goodbye to my family, I’m excited to return to the US! Peace.

I slept in until 11, and then I woke up and got ready for a day of sightseeing in Santiago with Belén. Belén got home around 12, and we left right away. It’s about an hour and a half drive to Santiago, but it seemed shorter because I’d never been to Santiago in the daylight, so there was a lot of new scenery for me to see while we drove. We got very lucky with the rain today. In Santiago, it rains even more than it does in Vigo. I read that they get 150 days of rain a year, and Belén read that they only have 50 some days of sunshine a year. Today it was partly cloudy, but it wasn’t raining, so I was happy.

We arrived in the old part of Santiago. Immediately, I was struck how well preserved everything was. The old part of the city is very pretty, and all the buildings are very ornate. It is certainly prettier than anything I’ve seen in Vigo. After walking around for a little while, we finally arrived at the church. The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is the most famous landmark in all of Galicia, and one of the most famous things in all of Spain, up there with the Plaza Mayor. Every year, thousands of people complete a pilgrimage here by walking the “Camino de Santiago”, which is an ancient trail starting in the north of Spain and ending at the Cathedral. After viewing the Cathedral, I think that it is so well know for a very good reason. It, like everything else in the old part of Santiago, has withstood the test of time, and it is still extremely pretty, both inside and outside.

The church is a mix of both Gothic and Baroque elements, and at some parts, its pure beauty is almost breath taking. I can’t really describe everything that I saw. I uploaded some pictures here, but photos don’t really do it much justice. The Cathedral has the layout of a cross, as was typical in those days. One of the more interesting things that I saw was, at the center of the cross and the apex of the roof, the Eye of Providence. If the name of that doesn’t ring a bell, it’s the pyramid and the eye on the back of the one dollar bill. That’s more proof that the masons rule the world. I also got to see the ruins of Saint James, which I think is the final destination for most of the pilgrims, but I’m not completely sure on that one.

After we went to the Cathedral, we went to lunch at a tiny restaurant that was very close by. I got Caldo and Garlic Shrimp, and both of them were pretty good. We then met Cristina, Belén’s sister, who lives in Santiago, and we walked around all sides of the church. We also went to a “Virtual Galicia” exhibit. This is an exhibit very close to the Cathedral, and it’s a bunch of high tech stuff that serves as a virtual tour of all of Galicia. There were a lot of things to see and do, but unfortunately, they wouldn’t let me take any pictures. We walked around some more, said goodbye to Cristina, and then Belén and I drove back.

On the way back, Belén asked me if I wanted to see Pontevedra, which is the capital of Pontevedra (duh), the province where Vigo is located. Even though I was tired and it was dark, I couldn’t pass this up, so I told her that I was more than willing to go. Pontevedra is another beautiful city. It was dark, so I didn’t take any pictures, but I saw many more ornate looking buildings and the like.

We got back to the house at about 10, and then I went for a run. I spent way too much time labeling the 60+ photos I took, but I didn’t want to forget anything, so I made sure to label them right away. Tomorrow, I’m meeting with Pedro, packing a bit, and then going out with Ana and her friends. I don’t know if I’ll write tomorrow because I’ll be out during the night, but I might just write about Saturday and Sunday all in one day. Peace.

Today, I walked into I.E.S Politecnico de Vigo for the last time. In a way, it was my last day of high school, something that I’ve experienced twice now in two different countries. School was normal, but it seemed bit longer just because of the fact that I knew it was my last day and I was looking forward to that. I left Spanish Lit, shut the door, and called it good. It was a great feeling, that’s for sure, to know that I’m done with something that kind of tortured me every now and then for the past 5 months. This is more or less my last normal day here involving my routine. Tomorrow, it’s a go for Santiago and the Cathedral of Saint James. Friday, I will spend packing and getting stuff ready. Saturday, I’m going to Lugo to see Marta swim, and then Sunday, it’s more packing and spending time with the family. Needless to say, I’m really looking forward to being home. I know I’ll enjoy myself in the next 5 days, but at the same time, I would love to fast-forward just so I can be with my family and friends again back home.

Today was also my last day of swimming. Both tomorrow and Friday I will be busy during the night, so it’s fitting that I end both school and swimming at the same time. Lolo also yelled frequently tonight, so swimming just isn’t really that appealing right now. Tomorrow I’ll sleep in and take pictures. Peace.

I went to school, but I can manage with school now that I’ve gotten rid of all of my school stuff and will probably be going to school for only two more days. I don’t even attempt to try anymore. In biology, I was reading, in English of course. I was in the middle of a sentence, and then my teacher started yelling at me and asking me how my nap was. By this point, I am fed up with her accusations. I told her that I was reading in English, and not sleeping, and that I don’t sleep in class everyday, like she seems to think. Then she just laughed. The only reason I don’t tell her to fuck herself is that Belén has a cousin who works at my school and who knows my biology teacher, and I’m sure that type of information would get back to Belén very quickly. I don’t want to make Belén mad, so I won’t say anything that mean to the tutor. I will, however, walk out of her class and make a bunch of noise on the last day that I am in school and tell her to have a nice life.

I got a 9.2 on my English test, which is the equivalent of a 92%. Here were the two things I was marked off for. The instructions were: Fill in the blank with the appropriate verb form.

1. Justin said that they _______ at the restaurant the other night (eat)

2. Jennifer told us that she ______ shopping yesterday. (go)

I looked at these two sentences and filled in “ate” and then “went”. I know that both of those are correct. My teacher had corrected those and filled out “had eaten” and “had been”. Okay, so both of those are correct as well, albeit a bit more verbose. That means that there are two different correct answers, and I just happened to choose the one that I would use in normal conversation. I thought about arguing with the teacher that the instructions were vague and that I did conjugate the verbs correctly, but it wasn’t worth my time, so I just let it slide, and now I can say I’m an A- student in an ESL class.

Other than that, everything went normally today. I did get a nice e-mail from Tommaso, one of the heads of Rotary Spain, who everyone knows I’m so fond of. Rotary US, throughout this past week as I’ve informed them of my decision, has treated me with respect and understood how I am feeling. Tommaso, on the other hand, sent me an e-mail saying that I was not mature enough for the program, and that “you better return under your mum’s protective wings. And the sooner, the better, since your stay here is an [sic] useless waste of time and money for everybody.” That’s his direct quote from the e-mail, in English, so that’s his tone and his words. There was some other good stuff as well, but it’s not as insulting. He also forwarded this to the head of Rotary US. I don’t know how she will react, but even with the language and cultural barrier, Rotary should not be acting like this. I don’t care what he has to think about me, but you can be sure that when I get home, I will be making some noise about the way I’ve been treated. Even though my flight out of here is already confirmed, I don’t want to upset Rotary until I’m home and don’t have to deal with them anymore. Peace.

There was no school today. Not because of a personal strike, but because the “Xunta de Galicia” had deemed it too dangerous for people to go to school today. This is because there are currently winds of 120 km/h outside. Therefore, I slept in during the morning and lounged around with the girls. I finally got off of my ass and went to swimming in the afternoon.

It’s weird to think that this will be the last Monday that I have a normal routine here in Vigo. But to be honest, it doesn’t really make me sad. I’ve come to terms with my decision, and I know that this is what’s best for me, so I’m not weirded out when I say that this is the last Monday I will ever go to swimming in Vigo. I got my itinerary today. I leave at 9:40 in the morning from Vigo. It’s a one and a half hour flight to Barcelona. I have no idea why I’m flying to Barcelona instead of Madrid, but it doesn’t really matter. There’s about a two hour layover or so, and then I fly to Frankfurt. I arrive in Frankfurt at 3 in the afternoon. Then I have a massive layover until 12 the next day (the 17^th). I’ve already booked a hostel, and I’m going to fit as much as I can in the 24 hours that I have there. After a 10 hour flight, I arrive in Denver at 3 in the afternoon, where I will be greeted by my family.

I have nothing much planned for this week. I am going to try to go to Santiago if the weather isn’t terrible, as the Cathedral of Saint James is there, which is the most important landmark in Galicia. I am going to go out with Ana and her friends on Friday night/Saturday morning, and then just spend the rest of the weekend packing and spending time with the family. It will be a good week. Peace.

Dear family, friends, and any other blog readers who are not included in the past two categories,

I’m not posting this blog on facebook because if anyone is reading this without me telling them to, that means they care about me and that they have been following my Spanish saga from the very beginning without me telling them to. Anyways, this might come as a shock to some of you. Others might have been expecting it for a while, now, either because I’ve talked with them, or they just know me that well. Over the past couple of weeks or so, probably even longer, I have been in the process of making a very hard decision. That decision is whether or not I will stay in Spain for the remainder of my exchange (until June). After a lot of thought, I decided that it would be better for me to come home sooner rather than later, and therefore, I have already contacted Rotary and the process for me to come home has already been set in motion. My host parents, Rotary, and all of the important people have been informed. I will be going home on the 16^th of February, some 5 and a half months after I started my exchange.

Before anyone starts questioning my well thought-out decision, I would just like to state a couple of reasons why I am doing this. I don’t feel the need to justify my decision because there is no one I need to convince that this decision is the right one. I know that in my heart this is the right decision, and that’s what matters. However, I would like to explain a couple of things that led to me making this decision so everyone understands how I arrived to this point.

By far the biggest thing is the issue with my first host family and my subsequent waiting. To anyone who talked to me during the months of November and December, they know that those were very hard times for me. There were times where I questioned whether or not I wanted to end the exchange right there. But I realized that if I did this, I would end up regretting it in the future because I hadn’t explored all the possible options. So I stuck with it, ended up with this new family after 2 months of waiting.

And this new family is very nice to me. I don’t hold them at fault for anything bad about this situation. If I had been with them from the beginning, or even if Rotary had been a bit more proactive in finding me a family, I wouldn’t even be typing this right now. But that’s not the case. During those 2 months, I got so down no matter how hard I tried, and I’m still not completely recovered from it. Sure, I am feeling better than I did, but by no stretch of the imagination do I feel “good” during my exchange in Spain.

By no means would one call my exchange an “easy” exchange. One, not only did I deal with a bad host family and then Rotary’s ineptness in solving the problem, but I also have dealt many other things, both big and small, that have slowly been piling up on one another. I feel as if during my 5 months here, I have already dealt with more adversity than most kids would have to deal with on their entire exchange because of what I have been through. Now, living with this new host family, some of the adversity is gone, but I’m still not enjoying life here in Spain.

For me, this was the deciding factor. There are a lot of things affecting me at this point in time, but I’m not going to list them all. There’s the isolationism that I’m feeling because I am the only other exchange student who is even remotely close to my area. School is mainly in Galician, so I spend 5 hours a day learning a language that doesn’t really matter to me, and not spending time listening to Spanish, another thing. Everything has been piling up on top of one another and I feel as if right now, I have the weight of the world on my shoulders, which is not the way I want to spend my exchange.

Some people might think that later on down the road, maybe a couple of years from now, I will regret making this decision to come home early. If I had gone home in December without trying this new family, then I’m sure I would have regretted it in the future. However, now I know that I have done everything in my power to be happy, I have tried everything over here in Spain, and I am still not having a good exchange, which is a sign that something is wrong. While I don’t know if coming home will solve all of my problems, at least I will be surrounded by my real family and friends who love and support me unconditionally. If in the future, I ever feel a tinge of regret, all I will need to do is look at this blog, my feelings that I have projected into writing, and then I will realize that I did make the right decision. Life is far too short to spend it in agony, and also, it is too short to constantly regret your decision that you make in the past. I have chosen this, and I am happy for it.

I’m sure there are some people who will think that I am not making the right decision. Of course, you have every right to disagree with me. All I ask is that you respect my decision, and that you understand where I am coming from and what I have been through. Some people might think that I didn’t give it enough time, but in my opinion, 5 months is plenty of time to have a worthwhile exchange and to realize, after a while, that coming home is the best option. Others might think that since I didn’t finish what I started, that I am a failure. That’s not the case, either. The end of my exchange was up to me at all points during the exchange—this is the best time for me to come home.

The lesson has been learned, and there is little reason for me to continue. I don’t regret going on this exchange at all. In fact, I’m even happy that I chose to go on the exchange, regardless of all the pain and suffering I have been through. I have learned so much about myself and the world in my 5 months here, more than I would have in any college, that I know, but the time has come for me to pack my bags and return back home. I look forward to seeing all of you very soon.

Peace.

]]> http://afenn.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/farewell/feed/ 1 Fenn http://afenn.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/trip-to-portugal-and-hyde-interview/ http://afenn.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/trip-to-portugal-and-hyde-interview/#comments Sat, 07 Feb 2009 23:44:42 +0000 Alex http://afenn.wordpress.com/?p=443 ]]> Day 159: 2/7/09

Belén woke me up at 12 o’clock. I was a bit confused as to why she was waking me up at first, but then she told me that the family was planning a trip to Portugal today, and of course, she knew that I would be willing to come along. I ate a little bit of breakfast, showered, and then we set off to Portugal. By this time it was about 1, and it was an absolutely beautiful day—something that we all know doesn’t happen very often around here. The skies were blue, and it was only the second time it hasn’t rained in two weeks, I think. We took the scenic route to Portugal, which involved going on the same route that I rode my bike on a couple of weeks ago. It was much less brutal in car. After around an hour of driving, we arrived in Caminha, which is a tiny town right on the border of the Minho River, directly across the river from La Guardia, which I’ve visited before.

We were all hungry, so we went to a little restaurant for lunch called “Adega do Chico”. Apparently, in Portugal, one of the very typical things that they eat is cod, so everyone suggested that I get cod for lunch to enhance my Portuguese experience. I got this along with a typical Portuguese soup. The soup was pretty good, and then they brought out the cod. It was the Portuguese equivalent of Fish and Chips, I guess. It was a big hunk of fried cod with grilled onions, and then some thick potato chips that were halfway between a Potato Chip and French Fries. This was a very heavy meal, to say the least. After we all had eaten our fill, we walked around for a bit in Caminha. We went to a “Chino” store. These stores are the equivalent of dollar stores in the US. It’s a bunch of cheap, crappy things. Tito loves these kinds of stores. The “Engrish” factor is lost on them, but I got a good laugh out of most of the packaging. I also found ripoff perfume, as well as some bolt cutters for 15 Euros.

After this, we piled in the car again and headed to Valença, another town in northern Portugal. The outskirts of the town are pretty ugly, but the “old town” is actually really pretty. It has a long and ancient history, dating back to the first century AD and the Romans. However, in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, a fort was built to protect from the various invading Spanish armies. It’s a fort on top of two hills. If I had to describe it, I’d say it’s two polygons separated by a ditch/moat with four doors on each side. It’s kind of complicated, but it’s very ornate.

The coolest part about this is that you can drive into the fort, and there is a mini village in there, complete with churches, houses, and somewhat touristy shops. We walked around here for a while and I got some good photos of the town and the views of Spain and Portugal. You can view all of my photos, both of Caminha and Valença here.   For some reason, not all of the photos got uploaded, but I’ll try to get the rest of them uploaded later.  We spent an hour here and then drove back to Vigo.

When we got back, I uploaded and named all of the photos, and then I had my Hyde Interview. The person who interviewed me was rather devoid of personality. I’ve decided that I don’t like phone interviews because I can’t read the body personality of the other person. This probably made the interview a lot tougher than it should have been, but I think that I did okay. Of course, there were a lot of weird questions, but I came up with some decent responses, at least in my opinion. I wonder if the lady I interviewed thought any differently.

Then I hung out with the family. I was reading the newspaper and stumbled upon the TV Guide for the day. I started reading it, and I saw that at 1:40 in the morning, there was a TV show called “Larry David”—it’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, here in Spain! So of course, I stayed up to watch that. And then I went to bed. It is supposed to rain tomorrow, so I don’t know if we’ll do anything special. Peace.

Unfortunately, music class is no more. Last week, when I neglected to go because I was feeling bad, one of the kids invited some friends, and they in turn invited some friends, and they began banging on the trap set. With the way the school is set up, the music room is in the equivalent of the basement, away from all the other classes across a courtyard, so normally we can play loud and no one will notice. But apparently these kids were making such a racket for such a long time on the trap set that the principal or someone like that came down and kicked everyone out and banned us from playing music. So I no longer have music class to look forward to.

That being said, everything went normally today. I was pissed off in the morning because I arrived at school to find that my English teacher wasn’t there, meaning that there was no reason for me to have to go to first period. And if I don’t have to go to first period and get a ride from Belén to the bus stop, chances are I will just sleep until 11 and take the 11 o’clock bus to school, because chemistry is boring as all hell, and we had a test in Earth Sciences that I didn’t have to take, of course.

The family and I had a decent lunch today of some broiled fish, which is decent. The fish here can be good as long as it’s cooked right, but more often than not, I have crappily cooked fish and then it kind of grosses me out. I went to swimming as normal, but Belén and Tito were out at a dinner, so Marta and I had to take the bus home. I’m not complaining, though, because that is one hour less of swimming that I have to go to. I don’t know what we have planned for tomorrow. I’ve got my Hyde Interview, though. Peace.

A fairly basic day. School. Lunch. Swimming. Rain. Eating. I don’t know what else to write about—everything has just become a regular routine for the past couple of weeks, and I feel like I would bore people to tears if they had to read about another day where I did the same things as before. Peace.