I've had a few countdowns going on lately, and I just completed one late last night when I got home from Valencia.

On Friday afternoon after school, 8 of us AFSers caught a bus to Valencia so we could have a weekend on the beach. It was nice to finally get to enjoy the nice weather to its fullest exent. It can be kind of annoying sometimes walking around Madrid when it's 80 degrees outside because walking around the city in nice weather isn't the same as relaxing on the beach in nice weather.

The host family of one of the AFSers, Mackenzie, has a beach house in Valencia, and it was less than a minute walk from the beach. It was really cool to just be able to go 8 of us friends to spend time together alone on a Mediterranean playa.

 International friends+paella valenciana+sangria+sand in between your toes+Mediterranean Sea+sunburn=Love.

And if that's not good enough, here are the 4 main countdowns I'm still working on. As of today, there are:

• 4 days until I go to Barcelona for the weekend
• 11 days left of school. (I actually have a physical countdown for this one. Everyday when I get home from school I tear off a page.)
• 19 days until I leave for Budapest and Prague for a week with my class from school.
• 35 days until the benchmark of being in Spain for 300 days.
• 40 days left in Spain. On day 40 I leave to Portugal for 3 weeks.
• 63 days until I return to the United States.

As the year is coming to a close, it's bittersweet. But I'm ready for what I still get to do, and I think I'll be ready to return when the time comes.

You gotta love English classes in a foreign country.

Better yet, you gotta love the teachers of the classes. They act like they know what they're doing, but more times than not they don't. The majority of the English teachers in my school refuse to talk to me in English. One actually knows English really well. One is American, and the one I have is just so cocky that it doesn't matter to her in her mind that she doesn't speak perfectly. Although I have to admit she does speak really well most of the time. Every once and a while, though, she says something really weird, or pronounces something wrong, and when she does this, I never understand her.

She also has a habit of asking me questions that are impossible to answer. Like for example: "Do you know the famous 18th century quote by the Frenchman by the name of _____________?" It's like...ummmmm. How the hell am I supposed to know stuff like that? And she always looks at me like I'm stupid for not knowing the answer. But whatever. I only have a few more days of seeing her...Thank god.

But other times, it can be more funny. Like the other day when she asked me one of these weird questions.

"Jake. Do you know who is the Commanding Chef in the United States?"

I honestly had no idea how to respond. I had no idea what a commanding chef is. But of course I automatically thought: restaurants. So I said, "Well, there's the chef, and then there's the sous-chef, and then..."

She looked at me (once again like I was stupid) and said "It's Obama."

"Ohhhhhhh!" I said, "You mean the Commander in Chief."

"Chief, chef, it's the same thing."

"Mhmm. Sure it is...."

I'm getting pretty close to my 8 months mark. That means I only have a little bit over 2 months left, and it's starting to scare me because I know how quickly these 2 months are going to pass. But this has also got me to do a lot of reflection on this year, what I've achieved, and what I've learned, and what I still have to or want to complete.

One of the things I thought about was how I remember one time that AFS told us about trying to become more of a global person, a world citizen- being educated in and experiencing other cultures, languages, and parts of the world, instead of being ignorant and only knowing about where you come from.

This reminded me of one time a few months ago. I was with my friend Ben, who's German, and we were watching a soccer game (of course).

I remember that at one point during the game, he started talking to a guy who was sitting on the other side of him.

Picture this: in that moment, we had a German speaking in English to a Japanese speaking in Spanish.

They're from totally different places in the world, they weren't speaking their native languages, and yet they were able to understand eachother, interact, have an enjoyable conversation, and learn about eachother and their respective cultures.

How amazing is that? I think about that moment a lot. And I think everyone could learn a lot from an experience like that. I know I did.

I just got home from the gym, where I went to take a sauna.

Recently, I've gone to do that every Sunday night because it relaxes me, and I always feel better and have more energy Monday morning to start the week on the right foot.

But tonight, I think I got more worked up than relaxed from doing that. But, that hour in the sauna was much more interesting than usual. When I got in, there were about 6 or 7 other guys, all in deep conversion. Absolutely ranking on the United States.

I spent the whole hour in there listening to them, without letting them know that I happened to be American.

Here are some of the more interesting things that they believed:

1. Apparently, Floridians don't care about the rest of the world apart from Florida. Why? Because they have the beach, the good weather, and a dozen theme parks. So, with that, they don't need the rest of the world, and therefore don't care about it.
2. They don't understand four-way stops. They couldn't believe how four people could drive up to the same intersection, and each wait their turn, and that it could function like it's supposed to. They said that in Spain, the people would show up, and just forget about turns and just go, and then a lot of people would die or get hurt. Even though we know that that does happen every once and a while in the U.S, we think of those people that don't wait their turn as assholes or idiots, but these people thought that the people who did that weren't either of those, but instead the intelligent ones.
3. They think we're stupid because the majority of our houses are made of wood, because they're easier to destroy.
4. They think our health system is the worst in the world because it's not universal. I beg to differ. I think I actually prefer our system. Why?  First of all, they pay much more taxes to be able to have universal health care, and then, you see so many people that go to the doctor's because they have a headache. I personally would not feel very good paying for other people to go to the doctor's, just because they had a headache.. Also from what I've seen about doctors here, is that you walk in, tell them your problem and they just give you a prescription of whatever medicine, and call it good. I think that in the U.S, we get what we pay for, and that here, it's not as good as it's said to be.

Even after saying all of this though, I was surprised at how many times they said they've been to the United States, and how many places they've gone, and how they want to go back, what cities and places they still want to see.

The best part, was that just before I left, I called Mary Beth so I could speak in English in front of them, and discreetly let them know I was American.

When I started speaking, they all looked at eachother with scared faces, and kept looking back and forth between me and the others. And then, I left. Without saying a word.

Maybe that will teach them a little something.

Two down, one to go. And I've improved quite a bit since the first trimester, so I'm really happy about that.

Actually, I was really scared as to how my grades for this trimester were going to turn out, because I had a really bad low point in school throughout January and February. I was just starting to get out of it when all of my tests hit. All at once. Which wasn't fun because all of a sudden I had to study for tests in nine classes, of material that took 3 months to learn, all in two weeks, knowing that the grades on the tests would become my grades in the classes. You gotta love a little stress, right?

And afterwards, I couldn't believe how I actually did, and I only failed one class. Once again, grades are given on a scale from 1-10, 10 being the highest, and 5 and up are all passing grades. So, here we go:

1. English:   10 (I love being able to not pay attention a single day, and then just ace the test)
2. Technology:   10 (fun and easy, and something I actually enjoy)
3. Economics:   9 (by far my favorite class, my goal is a 10 for next trimester)
4. Physical Education:   9 (easy enough)
5. Sciences of the Contemporary World:   6 (I just realized we haven't done a single experiment all year. What kind of science class is this? Definitely not very contemporary...)
6. Contemporary World History:   6 (reached my goal of passing this class this semester!)
7. Mathematics:   5 (so.boring. it's a struggle for me to pay attention)
8. Spanish Language & Literature:   5 (I actually earned it this time around)
9. Philosophy:   1 (haha....whatever.)

I love learning another language. It's not easy, but it's a good challenge, and it has its fun. I especially love the moments of mixups. (Why didn't I start a list of this stuff to keep track and remember?)

Today I finally started volunteering, which I've been wanting to do for a while. As of today, I'm giving English classes to elementary school kids 2 hours a week, which I'm really excited about.

It so happened that my first day was the one day that I had to leave early. I had to leave early because I wanted to be able to go to mass for Ash Wednesday. I could've just said that I had to leave early and left it at that, but no, of course I went on to explain why, and in the process I managed to mix up the words for "ash" and "ashtray" leaving me with the need to go to the "Ashtray Wednesday mass."

I think I've sucessfully invented the newest Catholic holiday. If I do say so myself, it's a pretty good one.

Going on to the mass itself, it had some good moments too.

1. I was caught off guard when, instead of drawing a cross on my forehead with ash, the priest sprinkled ash in my hair.
2. At communion, when everyone shakes hands, I, out of second nature, put my hand out to the lady next to me. She grabbed my hand, pulled me in to do the kisses on each cheek. Totally forgot I was in Spain at that moment. The next lady put her hand out to me, I shook it and went in for the kisses, and she was caught off guard by that, but did it anyways. The third person just totally backed off. I guess they didn't want them?? All of this left me confused about what you're actually supposed to do. Why can't you just shake everyone's hand, whether man, woman, old, or young, like in the States?
3. There was no wine for communion. I'm in Spain. Spain is wine. Wine is Spain. I'm lost for words on this one...

Once again, I'm left confused. Welcome to the life of an exchange student.

A little while ago, I had an epiphany.

I spend so much of my time listening to music. To and from school, every other time I'm travelling throughout the city walking, on the bus, or subway, while I'm studying, while I'm cooking, doing chores, in the shower...the list goes on.

I remembered that, two of the biggest reasons I'm here are to learn Spanish, and learn the culture, and what I realized was that I've been here 6 months, listening to music during all of these activities and many more, and I've kept to my American music. The music of the culture I already know. The music in English. Sure, a little bit is fine, the American music has definitely made it's way here anyways, and it's a good portion of what they listen to, but I shouldn't have kept to that this whole time.

With that, my iPod has undergone a transformation. In these last two weeks, I've added almost 100 songs. I've also added the lyrics to almost all of them so I can read them and listen to them at the same time and learn from it. I've added songs from Spain, South America, and Mexico. I've added songs of different genres. I'm enjoying all of it, and I'm learning a lot from it too, and I plan to continue discovering new music, and continue to gain knowledge of the Spanish language and culture from it.

Last month, my halfway mark hit. It's scary to think my year's already on the decline. I know at the end it will feel like the shortest year of my life, but then again, I feel like I say that every year...

It's crazy how quickly and dramatically your mindset changes just in a few days. Every month was "Wow it's been a month already?" "It's alright I still have 9." "Two months now?" "8 long months to go."

Those checkpoints were easy to reach. Halfway through was a "Holy shit!" moment.

With that, I reflected a lot on the first half of the year, and thought about what I wanted for the second half, and my exchange got a little bit of a makeover.

Changes in School
After Christmas, I hit a really bad low point in school. I pretty much went through a period of time where I didn't do anything really, and I hated school. I didn't pay attention, take notes, do the activities...nothing. I basically just played games and did a lot of reading (I'm reading the Harry Potter books in Spanish). There were only 3 or 4 classes out of 9 that I actually kept up with (my favorites). I'm slowly getting out of this rut, and the past two weeks of school things have improved a lot. The only thing now though is, is that I don't know what my report card for this trimester is going to look like, given that I've had to study a few months worth of material in less than a week or two for the tests. My last tests are on Monday, so we'll see how this all turns out.

Changes in After School Activities
Before, I didn't really have a consistent after school activity. I was going twice a week to free Spanish classes to help me along a little bit, but those ended with the New Year. And now, in about a week, I went from doing nothing, to my weeks being completely full.

1) I joined a gym with a friend, and we've been going at least 3 days a week together.
2) Once a week for each I go to a math class and a history/literature class because those three are my hardest classes. It's been helping a lot since it's basically one-on-one help.
3) Starting next week, I'm going to start giving the same type of classes of English to elementary schoolers. I'm really excited to start this, and I think it should be fun.

Changes in Scenery
I have officially signed up to go on el viaje del fin de curso (the end of the year trip) which is a tradition here for the kids in my grade. In June, right after school gets out, I'll be going with some of my friends and classmates for 8 days to Prague, Bratislava, and Budapest.

Changes in Departure Date
Originally my departure date with AFS was July 1st. But now, I've decided that I'm not going to go home with the program, but that I'm going to end my program here and stay a little longer. When all of the other Americans go to the airport to fly home to the States, I'll instead just hop over to Portugal, and stay in Lisbon with Rita and her family for the better part of July. Now I won't be going home until July 25th.

Changes in Appearance
Last month I got my ear pierced. I pierced my tragus, which is the flap that you usually use to close your ears. Rita keeps telling me that with that, and some of the clothes I've bought, that I'm "turning into such a Spanish boy!" Maybe I am. But that wouldn't be so bad.

Changes in Dreams
I've never really remembered my dreams very often. It actually used to be a really rare thing for me, but lately, I don't know what happened, but I've been remembering them almost every night. The coolest thing, is that they're almost always in Spanish now, and I think that's actually one of my favorite things. It's the coolest feeling waking up, and realizing that I was dreaming in Spanish. As far as the language goes, it's amazing how far I've come. I understand almost everything now, and can say pretty much everything that I want to. I'm still not fluent, and there's still a lot to learn, but I'm getting there, poco a poco.

I think that with all of this, my exchange has changed for the better, and I'm excited for what's still to come. May part two be even better than the first.

Just because I'm not in the US, doesn't mean I can't keep to its traditions. And there's just no way I could've gone a year without watching the Super Bowl. I mean, come on. It's the Super Bowl.

I watched the same game that everyone else did, but I was surprised at how different it still managed to be.

I went to a friends house to watch it with him, and the first difference was, was that even though we watched it live, it was on Monday. With the time difference, the game started at 1am Monday morning.

It was also different to not have a big party with a bunch of people over laughing over the commercials, and screaming at eachother over the game with food and drinks everywhere. But we still enjoyed ourselves, and had a more relaxing night, and we actually got to pay attention to the game without getting distracted.

It seemed to get weirder and more different as the time went on, though.

First, it was that the commentary was in Spanish. I just had a really hard time trusting the announcers when they commentated on the game, especially when the average Spaniard honestly thinks that rugby and football are the same sport.

Then, the way they pronounced people's names, and the team names, just made them sound even more unbelievable. But luckily after about the first 10 minutes, we were able to switch it to the English commentary.

The difference that I had the biggest problem with, though, was the commercials.

There weren't any. They didn't even show Spanish commercials!

Everytime the game cut out and where the commercials were supposed to be, we just got a steady bird's-eye view of the stadium. Nothing else.

It was frustrating to sit there looking at the stadium from up above, and thinking about how the rest of the world was laughing their heads off in that moment.

After the first half, still frustrated with the lack of commercials, I set up Skype with Leah, and she set up her camera to the TV so we could watch the commercials.

It didn't really work too well, and it was hard to hear with the party in the background, but we tried.

One thing I noticed during that attempt, though, was that we, here in Spain, got the game more than 30 seconds ahead of the US.

How does that work? Why would the game get broadcasted so much later in its OWN COUNTRY?

That one still boggles me...

But, all in all, I still really enjoyed it, and I was glad to see the Packer's win. Especially since my friend's host sister studied abroad in the US the year that the Steeler's beat the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. So I was glad to see her team lose and make fun of her about it.

And thank God for YouTube so I could watch all the commercials the next morning.

I think the Best Buy one with Justin Bieber and Ozzy Osbourne was my favorite.

The 10 of us that were there. From left to right: Mary Beth (Minnesota), Catherine (New Zealand), Pinja (Finland), Sarah (Portland), Linda (Iceland), Me, Zeke (St. Louis), Danielle (Houston), Caroline (Boston), & Mackenzie (Phoenix).

Saturday, January 22nd, was the 18th birthday of fellow AFSer Linda from Iceland. She, and Sarah from Portland, Oregon, are both in Segovia, a small city 60 miles north of Madrid. Those two frequently take the bus into Madrid for activities that the 17 of us in the Madrid area with AFS are constantly planning. We've done stuff such as go to the Parque de Atracciones, see the premier of the latest Harry Potter movie, and have a white elephant gift exchange, and let me tell you, we still have a long list of things to do together.

We've been talking for a while about how we need to take the trip up to Segovia one day since they're always coming down, plus we wanted to see the city for ourselves, and Linda's birthday ended up being the perfect opportunity.

And she had no idea.

Thanks to Sarah who had the great idea in the first place, we began to plan it out secretly during weeks. We would all meed up in Madrid and catch a bus together Saturday morning, surprise her when we got to Segovia, and spend the whole day together.


We got into Segovia at about 11am, and the plan was to meet in front of the Aqueduct, the most famous landmark of the city that was built the year Jesus was born to move water around the city.


We still didn't know exactly how we were going to surprise her when we arrived. But someone came up with something last minute. We bought a newspaper and split the pages between us. Then, we spread ourselves out around the plaza that's right in front of the Aqueduct, and hid behind the pages. We didn't know which direction she was going to come from (accompanied by Sarah) so the Aqueduct became 12 o clock, and who ever saw her first had to yell out the number she was coming from according to the clock, and we had to yell it between us.

I was sitting on a bench at about 10 o clock, and I while I was sitting there I overheard a man next to me telling someone on the phone that he was scared because the plaza was full of "American spies". Yeah. We're that good.

What ended up happening was the instant she walked into the square with Sarah, she spotted Danielle standing there with a newspaper. We all witnessed it happening, and Danielle played it off like "woah, what are you doing here? I'm here with my host family" type of thing. Meanwhile the rest of us all ran over to where they were. She was SO surprised, and really excited to see us all.

The cathedral

The cathedral from the top of the Alcázar



El Alcázar