Birthday! Carnival!

            We have been here in La Herradura for about a month now and I have some updates to tell you about! I hope you like them!

            Carnival is a big celebration here in Spain that lasts for about a week. Here in La Herradura it was a huge deal! Carnival was awesome! Kids and adults were supposed to dress up in costumes. My friend Stella (who was visiting at the time from Switzerland) and I dressed up as cats.

 

Then we marched along the street beside the beach. At one point we got separated from our moms and we were shepherded into a group of little kids who spoke Spanish.

 We thought this was kind of funny, seeing that these kids were about four so therefore we were a lot taller and bigger than them. But also my dad was standing on the outside so he got a picture of us trying to sneak away from the group. Saturday was the last day and there were so many costumes! Crayons, Dorothy with the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, the Lion, and Toto, Lady Gaga Disney princesses, angels, brides, and Barbies with a dog.

              In my school at La Herradura I have made some new friends and I have a surprising discovery to tell you, you are allowed to chew gum at recess whereas at Grout, it is forbidden to chew gum. And speaking of Grout, I have recently received some letters from my classmates about my blog. Thanks guys!!  You’re really cool! One thing that isn’t so cool here in Las Gaviotas (my school) is, you don’t have cubbies for your books so every day I have to haul home a 2-ton backpack. We also don’t have lockers for our jackets so I have to put that on the back of my chair.

             A few weeks ago I went to a birthday party and we had dinner and talked for a bit and then, finally, CAKE!!!!!!! We sang happy birthday in Spanish and then we ate the cake. The only difference was, at the end instead of just saying thank you, we shoved the leftovers of our cake in each others faces as a way of saying, “ thank you for being here, TAKE THAT!!!!!!” That was the funniest part, I have to say.

            Here are some observations that I have made about La Herradura! I find these things very interesting! I hope you enjoyed this blog post.

School School, School--FUN!

         Right now I am in a little village called La Herradura close to the Mediterranean Sea and literally right across from Africa! At night, if you have the perfect light, you can see Africa, that’s how close it is! On the beach there are heart shaped rocks, 3-4 playgrounds, a mini soccer field, and 2 exercising places!

The two schools (one in Portland, the other in La Herradura) that I go to are completely different! Here are some differences about them. One funny thing is, the mascots rhyme in English but not in Spanish!

 GROUT (THE EAGLES)

Grout is the first school I went to and am coming back to in July. It is in Portland and it has a cafeteria so you have about 15 minutes to eat lunch first and then 45 minutes of recess. There is only one teacher for all the subjects so you get to know that teacher pretty well. You have at least three days to get your homework done and turned in. The homework is spread out, not everyday so you aren’t too rushed to get it turned in unless you save the homework until the day before when you have to have it turned in.

  

         LAS GAVIOTAS (Spanish school in La Herradura) (THE SEAGULLS)

         Las Gaviotas is a school that doesn’t have a cafeteria because you eat lunch at home and have a snack at school, which means that you have an hour to play, talk and eat. There are multiple teachers for the subjects, so I have one teacher for math (Matemáticas in Spanish), another teacher for science (Conocimiento del Medio in Spanish) etc. You only have one day to finish your homework and turn it in the next day. Otherwise you have to do that homework plus the homework that you get that day. Everyone there speaks Spanish, but some of the kids speak some English so we can communicate pretty well, them speaking some English, me speaking some Spanish.

         There are some differences about both my schools! They’re pretty different aren’t they? I was surprised when I was told that my homework had to be turned in the next day!