PICTURES FINALLY!

Well here are some pictures, they are backwards so start from the bottom and work to the top!! ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The morning after, Oregon Blueberry pancakes. There is nothing like pancakes and friends to cure homesickness!
Alicia and I at a nice place called Dos Lunas (two moons)
I was in the local paper!! This is an article about my art class, i am on the right in my AHS Dance Team sweatshirt... hahah way to represent!
Kaitlyn and I proud of our Oregon Liscences considering when we go to pubs we can get in because we are 18, always funny to see a spanish bouncers face when you hand him an OR ID

Second watercolor....
I absolutly love the fair, even when it is raining i will go on the rides!
the american ride at the fair, bucking broncos, pay close attention the the background, haha
the fair!!
Starbucks in Valencia, best soy chai of my life

Spain and Valencia´s flag
España Flag
Cathedral, so beautiful
Sweet castle to climb in Valencia
Flamenco

museum in valencia
Kaitlyn and I in front of the post office in Valencia
Host parents, Isabel and Tomas, YES it can be cold in spain!!
windy stormy wind surfers...
My first watercolor art project

view of the castle from my art class
inside the sea cave
view from my future summer home
on the hike
Alicia and I

Arroz negro, always to be eaten with lemon, or some delicious allioli (whipped garlic olive oil)
During the Valencia celebrations, these are traditional spanish costumes, we say ¡Que mona! which means how cute!
The sunset, soooo nice
A new friend Elena
Jamón, this is salted pig leg that has been curing for 2 years, not my favorite but it is very typical spanish.

a day on the town, i am eating a gofre (little waffle-y thing) with chocolate
My bedroom Olives galore, if all else fails, I can always eat more olives!
queso! cheese! this was an open air market for a 4 day weekend fiesta celebrating the Valencian Community
oreos and peanut butter, so american, so good.

2nd first day of school
outside the castle
the pool, i have yet to swim in it, it is too cold!

nemo the dog my sweet house shoes

the beach

OVERDUE UPDATE

SOOO! this is so overdue, but nonetheless an update.

first things first, I AM DOING FINE!

actually after 5 weeks of being here, i can confidently say that i feel pretty good here, don't get me wrong there are hard parts to come, but for the time being i am feeling pretty good. This experience has been so crazy, they always use the "roller coaster" metaphor, but what they forget to tell you is that this roller coaster is like the craziest one at the fair that your friends double dog dare you to go on, it can change from laughing with my host mom making lunch on Saturday listening to the British radio station chalk full of old American tunes, to feeling anxious and starting to cry when i hear a song like Bette Midler´s wind beneath my wings and all i want to do is hug and kiss my parents. even now as i just wrote those sentences its hard to hold back the tears. PLEASE don't get me wrong, nothing is wrong here, i am making friends, i am getting invited to birthday parties, i am getting used to the music and food and it is almost scary how normal and comfortable i feel here, but being gone i have really realized what a wonderful community i come from and really what a great family i have. it´s half happiness that i am so proud of my parents (i know that is usually said in the opposite direction, but its true) and half sadness that i don't get to share every tiny moment of this incredible experience with them.

So I am taking some classes, and art class two times a week for 2 hours each, i have been working with watercolors but i have discovered i am not a patient artist, which is necessary when your paper is soaking wet... i think i will begin oils soon. I am also taking a Spanish grammar class. I bought an exercise book and it has been helping tremendously. It feels so good to know what your saying is correct!

Sooo, I know I am supposed to be separating from Ashland but i love so look at Ashland Daily Tidings online, It is a guilty pleasure... About a week and a half ago I received my first package from my parents with the Sunday comics included, what a treat! The day that I received my package I had stayed home from school, still trying to kick the sickness thing... Just seeing my mom and dad´s handwriting made me cry, but sometimes you just need to! I ended up going back and reading all the letters that i had been given before I left and cried some more. THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR ADVICE AND KIND WORDS emails count too!

My biggest challenge is dreaming and waking up. I can fall asleep fine, i drink some sleepy time tea (also included in the package!) and read a few pages of children's books in Spanish, and go off to sleep. The problem is how realistic my dreams are, even if they are bizarre they still feel so real. The worst so far was a dream where i went home for the weekend and i had all my stuff and mom and dad but they had moved into a different house, and i didn't have a return ticket so I had to find one quickly and get back before anyone noticed! The other more recent and weird one was getting a surprise visit from my parents and my Grandma Janet and Grandpa Ron, then all of us going to a casino and meeting chad and meeting a pregnant Michelle Phifer who apparently was a good friend of my moms and they used to work at that same casino together years ago before she was famous. Obviously these are insane. But when I wake up and I am in Spain, they feel even weirder. I am learning to get from my dreamy American head into my exchange student Spanish brain quicker in the morning. It is taking some effort. HAH! RIDICULOUS!

SO my best connections here are Alicia who is Spanish but spent last year in Ashland who lives in Valencia (hour away by train) and Kaitlyn Heater who is from Newport OR who i met before i left and she is also living in Valencia. It is so nice to hangout and talk with them, it isn´t long distance to call so they are such good supports. Its not even being able to speak English its just knowing that all the feelings that you have felt and thought were weird they have felt them too. A few weekends Alicia and her family and neighbors came to my city for a Sunday and we went out to lunch and ate arroz negro, black rice, which is a paella which consists of rice squid flesh and then the whole thing is squirted with the squids ink, hence the black color. I am getting used to the strong flavors here and finding out what i like. it was explained to me by Alicia that the flavors are so strong because here they have the idea that if the flavor isn't strong then what are you paying for? interesting..... anyway after lunch we took this AWESOME hike along the coastline of "las rotas" you have the rocky coast on one side and a mountain on the other, and at the end of the hike is the SWEETEST ocean cave, like pirates of the Caribbean and the count of monte cristo combined, SO NICE i will defiantly be taking my family on this hike. Another Sunday I had the opportunity to go visit Kaitlyn in Valencia my host mom and I went by train and met Kaitlyn and her host mom at the train station, we spent all day exploring museums and old churches and just walking around the city. This was one of the low days on my roller coaster, I'm not sure why because it was an awesome day but somethings like ancient cathedrals overflowing with choral harmony just make you cry and miss things. This weekend Alicia and Kaitlyn took the bus together and came to my house last night and we went to a birthday dinner then to a pub/disco and then came home and talked until 5 in the morning, I haven't really figured out the sleeping thing yet so I am updating you while they are shnoozin´Anyway they will stay the day here and we are going to make Oregon Blueberry pancakes today, I AM SO EXCITED! Next week is fiesta on Thursday and Friday so I will be spending 3 nights in Valencia with Kaitlyn just chillin and going out and doing whatever. My host parents are really good and logical about travel. They know Alicia and Kaitlyn´s parents and as long as we will be dropped off and picked up on each end they are good about letting us see one another.

My host parents. After re-reading my last blog I am surprised at how negative I sounded. After a semester of Philosophy and Lit I cant believe I forgot my favorite idea, its so simple but SO TRUE "attitude is everything" I am learning to have different bonding experiences with my host parents, i just sometimes get caught up in observing that I forget to be myself i just turn into a fly on the wall and i am learning to morph into me more often, when i do, the results are amazing my host parents like me and think I'm funny, and the more honest i am the more comfortable i feel and the more comfortable they feel with me. My host mom talks a lot about taking advantage of travel. She talks about maybe a Paris trip and then we could go see my friends Laurel Mehaffey (she is an au pair this year) and Janai Deckwar (who is doing a 5th year exchange through a different program). She talks about a possible trip to Milan and Italy to visitor her daughter who will be working there after the new year. She is also fine with any of my friends who are in Europe coming to see me. After the new year Miles Rooklyn will be in Grenada and she is already excited about a February trip! But I´m getting ahead of myself.

They say December and Christmas time is the hardest part of the whole exchange, well knowing that fact I am doing everything in my power to distract me from that. On December 14th my brother is coming to visit me until the 20th, hes got his tickets and now we have just got to plan what we want to do, i think he wants his trip to be a Hawaiian vacation, but ill be honest humidity whether in heat or cold makes everything worse, it is not hot here by any means. The sun is much more intense when it comes out, but when it is hidden by the clouds, its chilly. Plus when it rains it really pours, its like the sky just decides to pick up a chunk of the Mediterranean and spills is all over Dénia.... ANYWAY Chad gets to visit and I am so excited! Also my good friend Alex Amarotico will be spending a month in Europe visiting her old host families in Denmark and also sometime visiting me! And I definitely saved the most incredible for last....... drum roll please........... I GET TO SEE THE FREAKING SPICE GIRLS IN MADRID ON DECEMBER 23RD WITH KAITLYN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I could write exclamation points for days. It may not seem that exciting, but to me this is once in a lifetime!

Just had DELICIOUS Oregon Blueberry Pancakes. My host mother loved them, and the dog loved the leftovers. No syrup but nonetheless wonderful.

Well I know the last question is where are all the pictures, i have no excuses, i will work on those next.

Love and Blessings, feel free to write emails or letters or anything, a touch of home never hurts.

Shanay

FIRST GLANCE

Hello everyone,

Sorry that this took forever, it is a long story involving the computer here crashing and me totally forgetting my user name, not my password, just the user name, which is surprisingly hard to get back! ANYWAY things are absolutely incredible, but I´ll start at the beginning:

1 Said a terribly sad goodbye to my home and pretty much all I have ever know and headed to Portland, had an incredible "last night" my the parents and the next morning headed to the airport.
2 COULDN´T FIND MY PASSPORT!! Searched through everything I packed, which was A LOT, and couldn´t find it, it was a quiet ride back to Ashland.
3 Found the passport, made another flight arrangement and paid a whopping $411.
4 Spent a few weird days at home then left still a very sad goodbye from the more homey Medford Airport, cried all the way to Seattle then sucked it up a bit. Seattle to Denmark Copenhagen, Denmark to Barcelona and Barcelona to Valencia, meet host mom and dad and drive an hour to Dénia. (Yeah, that´s right, I know how to use the accent button, and I just learned how to get to the at symbol, you have to use alt because there are three symbols on many keys here, and there are many more cool ones here too!! Ñ Ç !¡ ¿? ª º ¨ I don´t know what they mean yet)

Okay, then I´m here I pass out and wake up the next morning about 11 and I was freaking tired. I woke up only because I heard a motorcycle and it was very loud, but anyway I got up to find my backpack was covered in my soap, grrrrreeeaaaatt, the joys of travelling!! The first thing Isabel says is, do you have house shoes? and I said nooo..... so she went to her closet and gave me a pair of sequin neon green pointed toe slipper/shoes, and i have worn them all around the house since. I guess cold toes on the marble floor is unacceptable. ANYWAY Isabel doesn´t drink milk either (I´m lactose-intollereant) so for breakfast i had almond milk, some Graham cracker like galletas (cookies) and some other carby snacky things. Then I showered/bathed, i couldn´t really figure it out because there isn´t a shower curtain, but i didn´t want to waste water so i sort of sat in the cold bath and tried to get clean.

830, we had dinner, salmon steaks in garlic and olive oil, with a salad, chopped up lettuce, olives, onion, tomato and anchovies in olive oil, we had that and bread with lunch too. then tonight we had jamón (that salted cured it sat for over 2 years buy it by the leg pork) which was interesting aka so weird I probably won´t eat it again, and some sheep cheese, which was REALLY good. Here´s a little secret, during lunch they showed me how to put the ensalada on my bread and i didn´t get that they were anchovies until i tasted them, not only did that make me a little sick, but then the tomatoes too (and I don´t eat tomatoes!) I was just trying to be polite. LUCKILY the dog Nemo got out and they had to chase after him, so I got to spit out and secretly throw the rest away, I don´t think i´ll be able to get away with this again.

Okay I can see this is going to be very long if I don´t summarize a bit.

First informal day of school, met with the English teacher, Julia (hulia), and talked about classes, went to 2 of them and met a nice girl Elena half German half Spanish, AND she speaks a little English, WAHOO! After one class I started to really not feel good, heart mind and stomach, and I went to Julia´s office and cried and talked then I went to one more class, and I still didn´t feel better, I was really confused because you aren´t supposed to be so sad right away, so we come home, I told my host mom I wasn´t feeling good but she just said it was nerves. Then we went for a 3 hour ridiculous walk with there testosterone infested not neutered dog Nemo who dragged me to every pole tree bush and animal all around the town. It´s not like I know dog commands in Spanish, and my host mom just laughed when he would misbehave, my hands were so red and raw from the leash it was unbelievable.

Next day, slept and went to the market for apples and a cake for this get together of my host mom´s, it was 8 older women from a theatre group, it felt like golden girls in español. By that night I was really feeling terrible shaky cold and then hot and just really terrible. Went home and soon after went to the doctor after we took my temperature and realized it was 104ºF RIDICULOUS, NERVES MY ASS! Got some meds, couldn´t go to school and rested for quite a while.

The days alone in my house with just my host mom were hard, she is home all the time because she can´t work anymore due to a car accident. She is one yappy loud stands (in my opinion) WAY to close when we talk woman! Plus it was just about the combination of things: culture shock, homesickness, missing my parents, bed, cat, food, hugs kisses and cuddles, and not really knowing what is going on. It is really true "You don´t know whatcha got till it´s gone" Oregon is way cool, so diverse and open and beautiful, and dry! and clean!

Friday I went to my first Rotary meeting with my liaison, Paco. It was just funny really, in Spain to say hello you kiss once on both cheeks but there are so many old men in rotary my face got irritated from their scruff! Also everyone one was smoking during the meeting, it gave me quiet a headache, but the good thing was I got to sit next to the coolest old guy. His name is Peter and he is German but lived mostly his adult life in South Africa and knows English and now at 85 is trying to learn Spanish, bless his heart, he was hilarious and lively and talked about his windsurfing class, FABULOUS.

Hardest thing so far, and you won´t believe it, is food. I am just picky and that is hard to explain in a different language to a woman who believes everything that she does is the best and there is no questioning it. I am just being honest with them and being polite too by trying things. I am not expected to like everything I put in my mouth. I´ll be honest though, my secret stash of oreos and peanut butter (thanks Chad) are wonderful, if I have a bad taste in my mouth after lunch I know what will knock it right out!

Best things so far, so many, exploring, taking pictures, getting emails, HINT HINT, and school and friends. Oh yeah, and the beach full of shells! School is very different here, I have 6 classes a day all 50min long. I start at 8 in the morning and have 3 classes then at 10 a 30min break to snack because no one eats breakfast here, then 3 more classes and I´m off at 130 to go eat lunch and siesta at home. The oddest part is the organization of it all, I have 8 different classes each 3 times a week, but every day a different time in a different classroom, it is wacky. But the kids there are great, they all have so many questions for me and English class is the best because they love to hear me speak which I love to do, and they all giggle at my accent, it´s cute. I even help the teacher a lot because she says she is getting rusty!

Well there are many things yet to do here, I know my year will be full. Soon I will get into some after school activities, dance, painting, ceramics, hopefully an English to Spanish grammar class, and then spend less time at home and more time living! I hope all is well with everyone. I love updates and emails and pictures, they don´t have to be specific to my life, just hearing from someone who actually knows who you are and your spirit is wonderful. BLESSINGS!!

Shanay