Time is a scary thing. I compare it to a river of moments- with a strong current, the moment that is brought to sight, no matter how much you would like it to stay forever, is no sooner swept away with another moment taking its place. It seems like just a week ago I was saying to myself, oh just two months until my family comes. Or jeez, I wish summer would get here already. Or thinking, wow, I still have eight more months here in Spain! But, the time is quickly slipping away. Now, just thirteen days until my family comes, yesterday the temperature was seventy five degrees (!!!! Warmer than Florida!!!!) , and just four more very short months until I’m going to find myself sitting on an airplane reminiscing on all of the good and bad times I’ve had and will have had in the past year.
Life is still going great. Even better than before. I changed host families, and I really love my new one. They’re really similar to my family in Florida, which helps me feel more at home. I feel so included in this family, like I actually matter to them! I can talk to them about whatever I want, I spend time with them, I help clean up, I go to church with them, and I go for walks with my host mom. I feel like I’m part of the family! It’s awesome. They took me to Valencia last weekend, and my host dad spent two straight days with me just telling me all these really interesting facts about everything imaginable. It was really fun. Valencia is amazing. Definitely my favorite city in Spain.
Right now, I’m in what my mom calls the “Butt on Stove” phase of my exchange. Now that I think about it I guess the name doesn't really make a ton of sense, but I’m at the point now where I know that I have a very limited amount of time left here in Spain, and I’m trying to get my language skills as good as possible before I leave. I know that there’s a good chance I might not have the opportunity to live in a Spanish-speaking environment anytime soon after this, so I’m just trying to get my Spanish as good as I can, and then hope I won’t forget it when I get back to America. I have completely stopped speaking English here. It’s something I know I should have done a very long time ago. But besides the occasional Skype session with my family or friends, I don’t speak English!
As all of ya’ll could probably guess, there are some differences between here and America. I know I’ve been here six months already, but there are still things that I just am not able to grasp where these things that people believe are coming from. People here believe that oranges are the cure to almost any sickness. My host mother tells me every day, “Lindsay losiento que no tenemos medicinas, pero tenemos naranjas, y esos son mejores que cualquier medicina.” Which translated is Lindsay, sorry that we don’t have medicine, but we do have oranges, and those are better than any medicine. And I’m just in my head thinking, “Honestly… You think that eating an orange will cure nasal congestion?” So my advice to future exchanges, do not depend on your host families for medication. Bring your own and have your parents send you some! Another thing that everyone here strongly believes, not just my host families but literally everyone, is that if you go barefoot in the house, you are at risk of getting very VERY sick. I have been told a few different things, 1) You will get pneumonia 2) You will get an STD 3) You will lose your appetite 4) You will begin to get migraines and they will continue your entire life. Those are just the most memorable risks that I have heard. I have literally been yelled at so many times for not wearing slippers inside. And not just by my parents, or other adults. Also by my friends! Everyone is crazy! Another thing people say here, is that ibuprofen is a miracle drug, and that it actually CURES colds. My mom here, so many times has just handed me ibuprofen and said here, take this or you will be worse in a few days. Or after dinner she’ll say, “Here Lindsay take some Ibuprofen.” And I’ll say “its okay, nothing hurts.” And she’ll say “but if you don’t take it, something WILL hurt tomorrow.” Also, apparently bananas are extremely fattening. I learned that when I was trying to avoid eating the chocolate I got for Valentines Day, so I went and ate two bananas. My host mom walked in on me, gasped and commented, “and you say you want to lose weight!” And I replied, “MOM don’t you know that you cant get fat on fruit?!” And she gives me a weird look and informed me that actually my entire life I’ve been living a lie, and bananas are actually one of the most fattening foods out there. I was skeptical, but eventually after five to ten minutes of straight arguing, I just agreed and said she was right and that I couldn’t believe that my entire life has been wasted eating bananas, thinking they were healthy. Then she handed me a muffin and told me to eat it instead because it was lower in sugar. I still don’t know where people here get ideas like that but I roll with them!
I have been sick a ridiculous amount of times here. In Florida, I would only get sick maybe once a year. But even in just the past few months, I have been sick over ten times. And not just like a “Oh poor me I have a stuffy nose” kind of sick, no. It’s an all out, full blown, in bed for days kind of sick. Maybe it’s the coldness… I don’t know! But I’m so tired of it!
Speaking about fat things, I’ll talk about myself. SEVEN KILOS GAINED. I say that in kilos, because it sounds a lot better than in pounds. Even when I say it to myself in pounds, I’m shocked and weirded out. I’ve been 110 pounds pretty much for the past five years of my life, so this new weight is weird and depressing! But I know that with being an exchange student, gaining weight is inevitable. I know that its not because I eat too much, or don’t exercise, because I run daily and eat less here than I did in the States. I know I’ll lose it all when I come back YAY!!
It’s getting so close to being summer! I am more than ready to go to the beach, wake up whenever I want to, be with friends all the time, tan, go to parties, and just enjoy life. I really cannot explain how excited I am for that. The only bad thing about summer, is going to be knowing that my exchange is almost up. I have met people here that it are going to be absolutely impossible to forget. My heart hurts even thinking about leaving them. I just put the thought of leaving out of my mind when I’m with them. But I know that the time will eventually come, and I’m going to have to leave. But, the thought that’s going to get me through it all, is that I know its not goodbye forever. It’s going to be just like it was when I left my family back in America, one of the most difficult things I ever had to do, but I knew it wasn’t goodbye forever, I knew I would see them again, just like I know I’m going to see the people I’ve met here again. Not a goodbye, just a see you later.
