Another AFSer just completed a video that he recorded about the trip from New York to Madrid that I thought I'd share with you guys. So all credits to Jacob Spetzler. Enjoy.

My classroom, chalkboard and all.


My first trimester of school just finished, so I thought I'd share with you all how I did.

I definitely wouldn't be happy with these grades back home, but for here, for having nine classes in another language, in just the first three months, I'm pretty happy with how I did. I even failed a few, so I can cross that one off my bucket list.

The grading system here is 0 through 10, 10 being the best, and 5-10 are passing grades. But it's also different because here, for example, 7 and 8 are considered to be really good grades, because 9's and 10's a really hard to get. But in the States, a 7 would be a C, and an 8 a B, which more average than good.

I passed 6 classes, and failed 3, but I still have the chance to recuperate the failed classes with upcoming tests, or at the end of the year, so it's not set in stone quite yet.

So here are my trimester grades as they stand so far, best to worst (with a little comment):

1. English:   10 (no surprise there)
2. Physical Education:   9 (easy enough)
3. Technology:   9 (easy enough)
4. Economics:   8 (the grade I'm the most proud of)
5. Sciences of the Contemporary World:   5 (scraped by)
6. Spanish Language & Literature:   5 (thank you sympathetic teacher)
7. Mathematics:   4 (the teacher enjoys failing kids)
8. History of the Contemporary World:   4 (just barely, next trimester I'll get it)
9. Philosophy:   4 (what?! complete luck. didn't study once.)

Literally, in English, it means "The Fucking Turkey", but, it's what our Thanksgiving turkey came to be known as. Why? Because after a series of events caused our Thanksgiving dinner date to change a few times, El Puto Pavo came to be more of a liability than something to enjoy.

At first, the dinner was planned for Friday, because I didn't want to take on the challenge on a school night. But then, Thursday night, Alfonso came home with two things- the news that he'd have to travel on Friday for work, and a full chicken. We then had two birds waiting in the fridge, and the date was moved to Saturday. But that was when I dipped out.

I've been spending quite a bit of time lately with the family of Marta's sister, Paula. There's Paula, her husband Miguel, their three kids Claudia (13), Gabriela (10), and Martin (7), and they also have, more or less, and exchange student, Ben, but he's 20, and an intern at the AFS office here in Madrid. He's from Germany and he studied abroad in the San Francisco area a few years ago.

But anyways, they had to go this weekend to Valencia, a city of the eastern coast of Spain, on the Mediterranean, south of Barcelona, and I ended up going with them.

And so again, El Puto Pavo had to wait some more.

But I am so glad that I decided to go with them. Valencia is an absolutely beautiful city.


When we first arrived, the first thing that we did was drive to the beach to eat some paella. Valencia is where the famed Spanish dish originates from, so of course that's what we had to have. It also felt so good to see the ocean again, since the chance of finding a large, natural body of water in Madrid is like...nonexistant.


We ordered two types of paella, the original, and one with arroz negro (black rice), but it's actually colored with squid ink, and that was the best one.



Each pan is for four people. It's a ton of food, and it's traditionally just eaten right out of the pan, without plates, since the pan keeps it warm (I only know this because we had a tablewide argument about the "proper" way to eat paella).


Starting from the left, going around the table: Paula, Martin, Miguel, Gabriela, Claudia, Ben, Me, & Roser (Marta's oldest sister).

 After lunch, the adults and the kids went to an aquarium to watch a dolphin show, while Ben and I went out to wander around the city. At one point we found a bar to watch some soccer, and I found a nice piece of home nailed to the wall that made my night.




The next day was my favorite, though. We got up, and the sun was shining, and it was really warm (something that Madrid has been lacking for me, sufficient warmth) and we took bikes that the hotel had, and biked around the city.

Valencia has a huge park that takes up the space of where the river used to be (it's path got moved at some point), and it was incredible, with fountains, and sculptures, and jogging trails, soccer fields, rugby fields, a mountain biking course, a few skate parks, gardens, and who knows what else. It went on forever it seems like, and we didn't even ride through the whole thing.

Unfortunately though, I didn't fully understand exactly what the plan was before we left, so I left my camera back in the hotel, and don't have a single picture. On the bright side though, we're going back for Easter because Mateo's soccer team has a tournament there. I'm really excited to go back.

Finally on Monday, el Puto Pavo got the attention it deserved from me. I got home from school that day, ate lunch, and then spent the entire rest of the afternoon listening to music and cooking. I made the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, and a pumpkin pie.

I wasn't sure how I was going to get it all done, never cooking a whole Thanksgiving dinner by myself before, but surprisingly it did get done. And, if i do say so myself, it was pretty good.

But let me tell you, I have a whole new respect for everyone who's ever made a Thanksgiving dinner. It is a hell of a lot of work. It's a good thing I'm allowed to drink a glass of wine in this country, because I definitely needed it afterwards... :)

The turkey turned out good, the green bean casserole good, the pumpkin pie was square for lack of a circular dish, I didn't burn the gravy, and the mashed potatoes were..basically good.

The mashed potatoes really were the only thing that didn't turn out how I wanted, which is funny since it's like the easiest part. All I was trying to do was skip out on a little bit of manual labor (the mashing part) so I used this blender tool that Marta has. It turned the potatoes into more of a really thick soupy substance rather than light fluffiness, but whatever. They tasted the same, it was just a matter of texture.

We ate Thanksgiving with three other families, and when we sat down to eat, and everyone tried it, I was showered with compliment after compliment. I couldn't resist to joke with them, so I asked them, "so what other compliments can you give me?"

But they outsmarted me when one of them returned with, "well actually it's not that good, I mean, the stuffing did come out of a box..." But all in all it was a very enjoyable meal.

It could've been more enjoyable though, since we ate it while we watched El Clásico, the king of soccer games in Spain, Real Madrid versus Barcelona. I honestly didn't care who won (even though that's not something I let slip out, for safety reasons, you know..) I just wanted to watch a good game of soccer. And that is the last thing it was. Barcelona won 5-0. We turned it off after 4 because it was just so terrible to watch.

I think my meal made everything better though, and El Puto Pavo ended up being something very enjoyable.