Lots of great things have happened since my last blog post! I had an amazing night out with my friends on New Years Eve, many walks to the beach in the warm weather, a Kings Day I'll never forget, the beginning of the new school year (not so great) and being a podium girl in the national bike race here in Navia. These past 13 days of the New Year have flown by and with so many things to look forward to in the next two months, I'm sure things will continue to fly.
What would the holidays be without a little competition? Maybe that's just my O'Brien side coming out, but I've always loved a little competition. When my friends and family noticed that I like to run so much, they told me about a race here in Navia on New Years Eve and insisted that I had to enter. Going into it, I knew absolutely nothing. I'm kind of used to that now though, getting into a car and having no idea where you're going, or being told that you're spending the day in the city 20 minutes before you have to leave, or sitting through hours of classes understanding anything, yeah.. I've definitely been there. Being an exchange student definitely makes you flexible and adapt to constant change, and you just get used to things constantly surprising you. So anyway, I didn't find out that the race was a 3k until I was standing on the starting line. I didn't really know the route either but I figured I would just follow whoever was in front of me. I ended up beating a girl in the last straightaway to take second place overall out of about 10 other girls my age. I felt pretty good but I felt even better after, when I found out the first place girl, and the girl I pulled ahead of, were both part of the regional Asturias running team. My favorite part, was the awards ceremony when they called my name with the introduction, "and in second place, an american exchange student, Martha O'Brien." I got some pretty funny looks from the crowd but I think now, half the town knows who I am. The awards ceremony ended around 8, and I had to run home (literally), shower, blow dry and straighten my hair, and get everything together before going out that night.
New Years Eve remains to be one of my favorite nights in Spain. Weeks of planning outfits, talking about who's going where, and trying to convince the parents to let us stay out one hour longer, led up to a night I will never forget. I had an amazingly delicious family dinner, similar to Christmas Eve, and then counted down to the New Year by shoving 12 grapes in my mouth for every strike of the bell. My host sister and I got ready and met our group of friends at 1:00. We had a great time just talking, dancing, and taking pictures until 4:00 when we had to go back home. Although I could've stayed for another hour or two, by feet were basically falling off by the time I got home, and I literally fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.
Santa Clause didn't come to my house here on Christmas Day, but on January 6th, the three wise men stopped by! It felt like the closest one could get to Christmas without it being Christmas. I woke up and joined my family in the living room that was filled with presents. What I found interesting was that they don't only put their presents under the tree like we do at home. It was almost like a hid and go seek edition of Christmas. There were presents in the bookcase, on the couches, and even on the bottom selves of tables. The kings brought me a beautiful bracelet, a recipe book to write down all my favorite recipes so I can bring them home and cook spanish food all the time (that's also a present for Mom :) lentils!) and an adorable jacket/sweater that I had found in a store earlier but hadn't bought because it was too expensive.
Although I loved my gifts, the best part was watching the faces of my family as they opened mine. For Lucia, I asked my parents to send one of those party sized M&M bags because she's in love with them, and I bought her pajama pants from her favorite store. As she said, she'll be eating M&Ms for the rest of her life. For my host dad, I bought him a disk of Philadelphia Jazz music because he once told me he wants to go to Philadelphia one day and play his saxophone in a Jazz club there because he's heard such great things about it. My host brother was the hardest to find something for because I only met him a week before Kings Day. He just so happened to mention to me one time though, that he loved the NBA and he usually would stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning just to watch the live games on his laptop. So for him, I bought a 76ers flag for him to hang in his madrid dorm room. And lastly, for my host mom, I bought her two walking dead comic books of the season that's about to come out. Ever since I first got here, we've spent out Monday nights together watching the new episodes and then she would spend the whole week looking up videos and comic strips of things that were going to happen in the following one. She spent the whole day, and night, on kings day reading them and she finished the first one in just two days.
After all the gifts were unwrapped, we had the typical Kings Day breakfast. We ate a round cake called "Roscon" and hot chocolate. The Roscon cake is similar to the kings cake at Mardi Gras in the US. It has an object hidden in the cake somewhere and whoever gets it has to pay for the cake the following year. Of course since we're all family, that doesn't really matter because the parents end up paying for it anyway. My host brother got the little doll this year but he gave it to me to keep as a memory of the day. Kings Day meant that we only had one day left of the winter vacations and that soon enough school would be starting again. It was a bittersweet day. The holidays in Spain were overall very different. Different than what I expected, different than home, but not a bad different. I had amazing times with my friends, and I got to bond more with my family, and by the end, I even could tell that my Spanish had improved.
That first week of school was rough. Going from sleeping in until 11:30/12 everyday to waking up at 7:30 and going to classes was the worst. Teachers slammed us right back into everything, as if we hadn't been gone a day. Most teachers gave out tons of handouts and talked about the big projects and plans they had for the new semester which just stressed me out thinking about all the things I would have to do. During breaks, no one was in the mood to talk because everyone was still half asleep so we would all eat in silence. That first week was hard, but the weekend brought an interesting change of moods.
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were cyclocross bike races in Navia. These weren't just a "grab your bike from the garage and bring your kids out on a nice day," bike rides, these were national competitions. It wasn't a typical rode race either. Cyclocross is, as wikipedia says, a bike race that consist of many laps of a short course (2-3km) featuring pavement, wooded trails, grass, steep hills and obstacles requiring the rider to quickly dismount, carrying the bike while navigating the obstical and remount. In this particular course, there was a heavy sand part, two staircases, and tons and tons of mud because it had rained all day. There were riders from Asturias, but also from Madrid, Andalucia (the south), and Barcelona. All the hotels in Navia were jam packed and there were press cameras and reporters walking around the streets. I was surprised that such a small town would be hosting such an important competition but my host family told me that Navia is known for their sports programs and availability which is not always so good in other parts of Spain. My host sister Lucia had to go on Saturday to give the prizes out to the winning cyclists so my host mom and I went to take pictures. The ceremony was just about to start when a women I had never seen before came up to me and said, "Are you Martha?" and I responded, "uh.. yes?" and she said, "Would you like to help give out prizes?" I looked at my host mom, we were both so surprised, and I just smiled and nodded. One of the things I've really taken into account here in Spain is to try everything and to do everything. I'm only here once so why not!? I went backstage and the gave me a bouquet of flowers and it was my job to go up to the first place cyclist and hand them the flowers and then kiss them two times on the cheek, the normal greeting in most european countries. I had a great time, and the neighbor of my host family, who's an amazing photographer, took a ton of pictures so I can't wait to see them. I guess I didn't mess up because they invited me back the next day for the final, most important races. As the lady in charge told me, "There will be a ton of people, and a lot of cameras, you should come!" So that's exactly what I did. Guess I can check that off my bucket list not once, but twice! I was a podium girl :)
The past month has consisted of some of my favorite memories in Spain and it's bittersweet that in just two short weeks, I'll be at my half way point in my journey here. It's not here yet though so I'm not going to go into some deep refection about what I've learned and how grateful I am right now, but you can be sure that post will be coming sooner or later ;) I do want to say though thank you to everyone who reached out to me over the holiday season. Being away from home for the holidays isn't easy, but it's made easier by the people who make you feel like you're at home, when you're thousands of miles away.
There's a common expression for the new years that goes, "New Year, new me." and even though I think it's a good way to look at things from a clean slate, starting new, I think a better saying would be, "New Year, a step closer to the real me." It's not as clean and neat, but in my case, it works better. I'm not some strange person that no one back home would recognize here, I'm still me. When I come home, I won't be the same person I was when I left, I'll just be more me.
Check out my picture blog! http://marthainspain2012.tumblr.com
un besito <3
