THE END

So I guess this is the end. My last blog post before I return to California, or until I go on another adventure worth reading about. These past two weeks have been a sort of blur, the first week was great. I was with Lazaro most of the time until he left on Saturday. My friend from Poland, Kate left on Thursday. The last hour we spent together we talked about the summer, what we had learned and how we had grown. Kate who is literally the complete opposite of me had broken out of her shell a little bit and when she returns to Poland she has already planned to get her skydiving license (you jump 10 times and learn to do tricks so you no longer have to go with an assistant ). We laughed as we both came to the conclusion that if we had met anywhere else we would have never been friends… But somehow we were able to get super close despite our completely contrasting personalities. Lazaro took me out to dinner before he left Saturday morning. It was fun!

Me and Lazaro

This past week I also went to Jerez with the family. This awesome hybrid between a city and a village. It was so pretty!! I got some awesome pictures with the church.

Then on Saturday almost everyone left, the majority of the families and all of my friends as well, even the hotels were pretty empty. So now it’s pretty lonely, I have gone into hard core teaching mode with the kids. I make them write stories and correct them on their grammar. These past few weeks I have been working on a play with the kids, the kids performed it last week. They had written it and made props and everything. I guess I understand why I never succeeded in Drama. I kinda managed to ruin the play. I forgot pretty much all my lines and what I was supposed to do. At least the English was good. 

We went back to the main city of Cadiz one more time before I left. Here are some pictures!! 

Since we are on a penisula I am standing in
front of the majority of the south of Spain but
you can't really see it too well.

If anyone has seen that James Bond movie
( the one with Halle Berry)
In the beginning of the movie
he is supposed to be in Cuba,
well this is actually where the scene was shot in Cadiz
And thats the building where he was eating,
I am standing on the "Island"
where the bad guys were. 

 

People here keep asking me the question if I am ready to go home? I think that is a loaded question. I mean yes of course I am ready to see my friends, and be able to use American slang words without getting a look like I am out of my mind, but I know I am going to miss it here. Miss the stress free environment, my Spanish family, sleeping 9-10 hours EVERY night, I will defintely miss all the thinking time. I feel like I have a lot of stuff figured out now. I mean I think I do. I guess I don’t really know where to begin. I kind of want to sum up everything I have learned. At the beginning of this adventure I had some goals. Make friends, read, get tan, become more mature, fight the American stereotypes and lastly be inspired. I now have friends from all over the world, in Ireland, England, Portugal, Poland, and all over Spain. Check! I read 5 books. Check! I am very tan for me, unfortunately half way through the summer my skin reached its maximum level and I stopped getting tan, but at least now I am off-white. Check! Maturity? Well I personally think I have become more mature but my parents will probably have to be the judge of that when I return. Check! As for Inspiration, I got a lot of that, from proving to myself that I could somehow run 3 miles everyday despite my hostile relationship with running, to hearing about cultures from all over the world, to watching the sunrise on the beach, and counting shooting stars at night. Check!!

(WARNING: the following paragraph is about feelings. You may get bored, I will not be offended if you skip it). 

The number one response I always get when people have talked to me when I am in Spain or before I left for Spain is, “Wow, I bet you are having(or going to have) the time of your life.” I already know the first thing my dad is going to say after I get off the plane, “was it everything you hoped and dreamed for (but in his sarcastic tone ). To answer the question I guess it was, but it was way different than I expected I don’t really know exactly what I had expected, but if anything this wasn’t it. Not that that is a bad thing. Not at all. But “the time of my life” I define differently then I think a lot of people meant it. You see this experience wasn’t exactly super fun. Yes it was fun, but my everyday life is fun. I think that was why it will effect me for the rest of my life. It was the COMPLETE opposite of how I have lived my life ever since I can remember. Anyone who knows me knows that I thrive on being as busy as possible. For the most part I don’t breath. This has taken a toll on many relationships in my life, as people sometimes can’t handle my over powering stress. For the most part I am a very positive person, but I think that a lot of the time I let stress rule my life.  I think the majority of the time we rely on the people in our life for happiness. That is something I discovered my first few weeks here. Without my friends and family and my constant busy schedule my life felt pretty useless. Many people would 

love three months of doing nothing, but for me it was very difficult. I had to learn to find happiness even when I was having the worst of days, when the kids were being horrible, and all of my friends at home were asleep. I learned to rely on God so much more, and even though I thought I would feel lonely, thanks to my strengthened relationship with God and the new security I found in myself, I managed to keep a smile on my face even on days when I was pretty much completely alone. I think that few people actually get the opputnuity to be away from everything that defines who they are. I think for the majority of my life I got caught up in other peoples expectations and the reputation I had created for myself. But here no one knew me, it was kind of like starting college, the only difference was I didn’t have anyone to impress and I didn’t have to do anything to try to fit in. I think this was the realist version of myself that I will ever be. It wouldn’t say I was a different person but without the stress of school and friends I had time to think about who I wanted to be. I feel torn because as much as I am ready to go home and see my friends and family and eat innout, I know how much I am going to miss spain and I worry that I will forget everything I’ve learned here.

So now some of you who have read my blog have daughters, cousins, nieces, and friends who are interested in being an Au Pair! That’s great! It is an experience that I wish everyone got to have, and I would be more than happy to talk to them. But as a warning they need to be ready to be completely independent. I got lucky and got a family that made me feel like their daughter, but it was still hard. Make sure they do their research, and I would really encourage them to talk to me or someone else who has had an Au pair experience! 

Thank you to everyone who kept up with my blog, and kept me in their prayers. I hope it inspired you to go out and explore the world and experience what you have always wanted to experience, because there is so much out there that God has created for us to enjoy, and as I experienced first hand with how quickly this summer passed, life really is very short. 

 “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” 

― Eleanor Roosevelt

 

The Falling Action

A few people have told me that my life reminds them of a movie, like Eat, Pray, Love or something like that. Well if my life were a movie this past week would have been the climax, right now is the falling action, and these next two weeks are the resolution.

            These past couple months have been full of events but compared to my normal life they have been relatively calm. However things sped up a little bit this past Monday. I met a new friend named Lazaro, and that night he invited me to join his family at their uncles house for dinner. So I went. I had a great time, he has a girl cousin who is my age, they had this massive BBQ with every type of meat in the world. Like really. They had all these sausages and ribs, and steak and chicken. It was delicious. It was all fun and games until I realized I forgot my keys.

            When I returned home at around 1:30 in the morning my first dumb idea (of many that would come that night) was to hop the extremely tall fence. So I threw my sandals and the rest of my stuff into the yard and attempted and failed. After many other failed attempts, instead of just knocking and waking up the family, or using someone’s phone to call May and Ignacio, I decided there was no possible way I could get into the house (I think my brain had turned off), so I took up Lazaro’s family on their offer to sleep in the guest bedroom. The next day I asked the gardener to let me into the outside gate and then I attempted to break in through the window. May appeared on the other side looking very upset. She told me (in angry Spanish) that is was 9 in the morning and they had been waiting for me all night and why were my sandals and flip flops in the yard but I never returned home. Then she marched upstairs. I probably sat for a good two hours doing absolutely nothing but feeling sick in my stomach. When they finally came downstairs I rushed to explain, but the damage was done. They didn’t understand why I didn’t facebook message them or call them. I didn’t know why either, I guess I am used to college where I never tell anyone where I am.

            The next two days were not very great, conversation was to a minimum and although I had said sorry I still felt there was tension. Fortunately for me by the third day all was forgotten and things went back to normal. Except for the fact that I had a new friend who according to all the children in the neighborhood was my new “novio”(boyfriend). I have definitely encountered one to many awkward moments concerning this situation. For instance, yesterday one of the older girls, with 5 other children, right in front of Lazaro, asked me if he was my boyfriend. “No he is just my friend”, kids cannot seem to understand that.

Yesterday I went Kayaking down at the bay with Lazaro (it wasn’t a date I swear), we got to kayak to this little island that was across from this historic castle, that was on an island farther out. It was fun to get out of my normal neighborhood. That night he came over to watch a movie with me and the kids, which was probably a bad idea because the whole entire night the kids were singing “What Is Love” from the Coca Cola commercials. Either way it is nice to have another friend that lives in the neighborhood.

We went to a pizzeria the other night, the family decided it was finally a good time to correct my table manners. The whole entire summer, THE WHOLE ENTIRE SUMMER, I had believed that it was acceptable to begin eating before everyone else had been served food. I had thought this because the first week I arrived at lunch, the whole family started eating right when they got their food, I had asked in Spanish (well I thought that is what I was asking) if that was acceptable in Spain. They said yes! So I went about thinking that it was normal manners to eat right when you got your food rather than waiting for everyone to be served. They finally told me that it was not acceptable and this whole time, at all the family gatherings and restaurants we had gone to I just looked plain rude. Miscommunication problems I guess.

So now I am at the falling action of my story, in which I get to decide what the resolution is going to be. I can’t believe I only have two weeks left before it is time for me to return to California. Back to my cell phone constantly ringing, things to do, people to see, and places to go. I have read a lot of good books, wrote a lot, I have even written some poetry! Haha. Through it all I have discovered a lot about myself and I am trying to put the pieces together to try to form the final conclusions of who I want to be when I return to California. Only one more blog post left.

See you soon California.

                                    

Fun Facts!

Thank you for all your prayers everyone! This past week and a half went a lot better.

I feel as if I was riding my bike up a really huge hill and last week I was at the hardest part, but I finally reached the top and now I’m gliding downhill. Not that everything with the kids is easy now, but it is not as difficult because the kids have finally become attached to me! A couple weeks ago all I could think about was how much I missed home, but now that I’m over the 1 ½ month slump, I feel perfectly content here. I realized that here I am living in this care free paradise, where I don’t have a lot of friends, therefore I don’t have a lot of problems, and then I think about going home and how I will have all my friends and family back, but I will be back to reality, back to the problems that everyday life entails, back to studying 24/7 for school, and dealing with all the people that I do not wish to deal with. When I think about that I realize how truly blessed I am! Most of my friends at home have been great! My best friend from college even sent me a package with a little birthday present!

Now for some fun facts about Spain!

-These facts are only about the south of Spain because the north and the south consider themselves completely different. Those from the north who live in places such as Barcelona and Bilbao don’t like to consider themselves from Spain, they consider themselves from Bilbao. In fact they even speak another language called Catalán on top of Spanish. I have been told that eventually Barcelona wants to become independent of Spain. Just a little Spanish politics if you’re interested.

-Almost everyone in Spain is named after a Catholic Saint. I know about 5 Ana’s, 4 Maria’s, and 3 Pablo’s.

-Because everyone is named after a Saint, everyone gets two days to celebrate themselves. Their birthday, and their Saint Day. For example, a couple of weeks ago was the day of Saint Ignacio. They don’t receive presents but a nice dinner is normal.

-They don’t use air conditioning. It is awful.  I am always hot. I have only taken two hot showers since I have been here, all the others have been cold showers. When I explained to them that in California we always use air conditioning, they looked at me like I was crazy, "So you like it being cold all the time?” They asked. They explained to me that air conditioning was very bad for the lungs…I tried explaining to one guy that he probably wasn’t coughing because of the air conditioning but because he smokes a pack of cigarettes a day….but apparently I was wrong(sarcasm).

-Something that continues to surprise me is the difference in religion here. In America we have two main religions Catholicism and Christianity. The two are not vastly different and for the most part have the same core values. But Catholicism here is just weird. They don’t really even have Christian churches here. The only one I have seen was in this village we went to where a lot of people from around the world lived. It was called the international Christian church. Ignacio my host family told me the other day that he didn’t believe in Adam and Eve, but believed in Darwinism. I thought that was very interesting and found it even more interesting when he told me that many Catholics shared the same belief as him. When I told them I felt it was important to save sex for marriage and that the Christian church strongly believed that, they looked at me like I was crazy. It’s in the bible I said. “No it’s not! we have never heard of such a thing” They said. The Irish girl (who was present at the time) told me that she has never heard of such a thing either. Whattt!? I mean even if your not religious Abstinence is something a lot of parents want for their kids so that they don’t get pregnant of anything. It was just strange.

-This fact isn’t about Spain, but the Irish girl (Jessica) told me that in her country they only have two churches. Protestant and Catholic. Almost everyone is catholic, but those who are protestant apparently only go to church once a year because the protestant church only opens once a year. I have realized that living in America we have a completely different view of what religion is like in the rest of the world!!

Sunday I went to my first Catholic baptism. It was for the a cousin of the family. It was great seeing the extended family. They are awesome and I really do feel like I am part of their family!

Imagine having your baptism in this church… it was pretty cool.

 

 

After we went outside the church, which overlooked the whole valley, there were these people there with a pet raccoon and a wide variety of exotic birds (I mean I thought they were exotic). Totally normal to have a pet raccoon. I mean totally normal.

After we ate at this bar with the family, all of the women pulled out their fans, and there was some guy walking around playing Spanish music on his guitar I felt like I was in a movie. Until I tried using a fan to fit in and it took my five minutes to figure out how to smoothly open it.

At the end of the meal the cute 19 year old cousin came over and talked to me. Unfortunately he didn’t speak English so I could only talk Spanish. The whole family was just standing in a circle around us, trying to wingman him. It was pretty awkward. I think he asked me to hangout sometime, but I really have no idea. I’m pretty sure I said yes. But nothing has come of it other than we’re Facebook friends. I can always use more of those.

Yesterday me and the little girl played dress up...in my closet haha. She definitely pulls off my clothes better than I do.

Continue to keep me in your prayers and thanks for reading my blog. I hope your enjoying your In-n-out California, I sure do miss it.

#AuPairProblems #Itsasmallworldafterall #OneandahalfmonthSlump

            So I guess I’m not supposed to eat French fries with my hands here. I guess they’re not technically French Fries… My family tells me their Papas Fritas, which are Spanish fried potatoes. I don’t really understand because they taste and look exactly like French fries. Anyways, I always eat them with my hands and then finally I realized that everyone else ate them with a fork. I asked and they told me that it was bad manners to eat them with your hands. I wish they had told me sooner, all the Spanish people probably think I’m a barbarian.

            Well I haven’t blogged in a while. I don’t really know why. I mean I can’t exactly say I have been busy. I guess it’s more that I haven’t had the motivation. These past few weeks have had a lot of ups and downs with mostly downs. Be prepared this following post is pretty long…

            Lets see I haven’t posted in about a week and a half! Since then we have traveled, had family come, and of course had many beach days(I’m looking quite tan). We traveled to a city called Marbella. It is one of the wealthiest cities in Spain. Rumor has it George Clooney has a house there. Pretty much every other car in the city was a Porch, Lamborghini or Ferrari. When we got out and walked around we were stopping constantly so the kids could take pictures with the cars. Not only that, the city is a huge yacht port. We got to walk around and check out the beautiful yachts. There were tons of streets full of clothing stores. Apparently it is one of the best places to buy shoes in all of Spain. Unfortunately I was unable to enjoy the city to its full extent because I was in a horrible mood (so much so I only said a few words the whole day). That day the kids were being exceptionally mean to me. They wouldn’t talk to me and when I tried to talk to them they would give me a dirty look or snap at me. I felt like such an outcast as we walked up and down the streets of Marbella, the kids clung to their parents, gave me the cold shoulder and I walked alone. I guess it just set me off. I had been putting up with the rudeness and disrespect of the kids for over a month. And well I was just over it. Frustrated and ready to go home I held back tears the whole day. Fortunately I was able to get some alone time, I bought myself some chocolate Ice cream and pulled myself together.

I wish I took this.....

            I feel like I have a lot of those days…. The kids are good sometimes, but other days they are just awful. I didn’t even know kids could be so mean, especially because I am so nice to them. They also always try to tell me what to do. I respond horribly to authority in the first place (I was never a favorite of my teachers in high school. ), so when a twelve year old and a 6 year old try to boss me around, it takes all the patience within me to not yell and throw things at them. Don’t get me wrong, the kids have their good moments too, sometimes they are really sweet. For example this morning the boys wanted to wake up early to go on my morning jog with me (unfortunately we only ran 10 minutes before the boys were too tired to continue).

            My friend from Poland and I have been running everyday, lately she hasn’t asked me to go, but I still run anyways. I hate running. But then again I like to be in shape. So everyday I run 5 kilometers and do ab workouts for around 15 minutes! I feel proud of my self but the carb-loaded food here balances it out a little too much.

I have come to the conclusion that there is no magic diet that makes you loose weight. My parents are pretty set on the Paleo diet. But in Spain everyone eats so many carbs it is ridiculous. In fact for breakfast sometimes they have COOKIES AND MILK!! But some how everyone here is really skinny, and they are not even as workout obsessed as American’s are! I don’t really understand it, maybe Spanish bodies have just learned to process the food differently? May says its because food in Spain isn’t processed and full of extra ingredients like American food is.  

            In Spain it is important you like your in-laws, because once you are married you will most likely never get away from you family or your husband’s/ wife’s family. You almost always live in the same city your whole life. For example, May’s three brothers and parents all live in Cadiz, where they were born. Ignacio’s family all lives in Cadiz as well with only one sister living 20 minutes away from the main city. Family is very important in the Spanish culture. The other day all of May’s family came over for lunch. All three brothers are married and each couple has a kid. It was quite the event and I loved the family! They were so sweet and helped me work on my Spanish a lot. Later that night they got to talking about politics. I have seen people talk passionately about politics, but the Spanish take it to a whole ‘notha level. Half of them were standing up waving their hands about, and the others were yelling trying to get a word in. All the while I was just sitting there nodding my head trying to figure out what on earth they were talking about (every once in a while I would here Americano and Estados Unidos).  Politics and Spanish people do not mix well.

            Last Sunday I spent my free day with the other Polish Au Pair. We went to the beach and shopping and to a bar later that night. It was pretty fun. But it made me miss my friends a lot. This past Sunday I went to the beach by myself all day and later that night traveled to a nearby city with Kate (the polish girl) and had dinner and went to some bars. It was fun, but unfortunately Kate is having a harder time than me. She really misses her friends and family because even though she is the same age as me, the Polish High School goes one year longer, so she has not gone to the university yet. This is the longest she has been away from her parents! I totally understand her, but I know I have to keep a positive attitude to make the best of my last month here.

            Talk about a small world. I heard word of two American boys around my age living in the same residential as me. When I finally ran into them I was shocked that one of them was from San Luis Obispo! The other boy was Spanish and had studied for a year at Mission High School in San Luis Obispo, which is where he met Trevor ( the American Boy) and they became best friends! Trevor was visiting David (Spanish Boy) for a couple weeks before returning to England where some of his extended family lives. He is a year younger than me but plans on going to the community college (Cuesta) that is in SLO and later on Cal Poly. It was great having two people around that were fluent in English, even though they didn’t seem interested in taking our friendly relations past small talk by the pool. When I finally had a night off (my first free Saturday night in a while ) I was stoked to go to a disco, so I invited Trevor (David was working), and this is where I had my second breaking point of the summer… It had been a hard week with the kids and I was so excited to finally put on make up and get ready and hangout with people my own age. I went to Trevor’s house to pick him up only to find him sleeping because he had gotten a migraine. Not only did he fail to tell me, but also I had gotten ready for nothing. I was feeling hopeless once again and wishing more than anything one of my friends could be here with me.

            A new family has been here these past couple weeks. They have a teenaged daughter who is 13 who has an Irish Exchange Student for the summer! The Irish girl(14) took a liking to me because her host family is quiet and she doesn’t speak any Spanish and apparently isn’t interested in learning. So on top of learning about Polish culture and Spanish culture, I get to learn about Irish culture! I love to hear Jessica’s impressions of America, “America is like a movie!” she told me the other day.

            Some days are bad and some days are good. Some days I have to hold back the tears because I am so home sick and so frustrated and I can’t call anyone because California is sleeping. But other times I’m laughing and I’m happy. It’s a different experience for me because generally I am always having fun. But here I just sit and think a lot. On my bad days I don’t have friends or family to cheer me up and vent to like I am used to. I have had to learn to cheer my self up by finding some type of inspiration. What has my inspiration been? Making everyone back in Cali proud, and making my self proud. On the bad days I just envision myself stepping out of the airport and seeing my parents. And realizing how proud of my self I will be because I did it. In a month from now I will have become fluent in another language, developed myself as a person, hopefully have gotten my dream body. I call this the

1 ½  month slump. I am almost out of it, and when I am I know I will be able to greatly enjoy my last month here! 

It’s been hard lately, but I am going to try to keep having a positive attitude because I know I am so blessed to be able to have this oppurtunity! Keep me in your prayers please!