Campbell in Spain!!!

¡Un fin de semana de Cumpleaños y Cinco Meses! :)

A couple of days ago I not only celebrated 5 months here, but also my 19th Birthday!!! 

The past month has been really relaxing. I’ve got a pretty regular schedule down as I go to school during the week and am mostly busy on the weekends so life seems to be quite normal for the moment. A couple of weeks ago a new exchange student named Molly moved over from Australia. She’ll be staying here until next January because that’s when the school year begins over there. It was a wonderful new experience having someone less experienced with Spanish over here and in my class because I’m so used to being the one who needs help with translation. It’s really helped me notice how much it’s progressed and how much I’ve learned. I’m also super excited because my family is planning to visit me in a month so I can’t wait to be able to show them! 

My Birthday was on Friday and I can’t say that I could’ve wanted more. My family had planned a whole menu for the weekend and I had the chance to invite some friends over and to go out to dinner. But my absolute favorite part of my birthday was when some of friends from school surprised me at lunch with a cake, some candles and singing. It’s funny how gestures so small can touch someone so much. I’ll never forget such an amazing weekend filled with lots of love and great memories!

Next month the Rotary have planned a 10 day trip through the south of Spain and up into Portugal. I know a bunch of students who are going that I haven’t seen since the Madrid orientation so it’ll be really great to catch up and see how they’re all doing. Can’t wait so see how everyone’s doing and hear all the different stories from the different parts of the country that we live in! :)

¡Feliz cuatro meses España!

That means that I’ve officially been here for 4 months! (as of a couple of days ago actually. I’m a little late on the update :S) I can’t possibly try to explain in detail all of the things that I’ve done in the past month but there are a few things that I think are just too great to be left out. 

Christmas was a lot of fun. It was a special time of family, friends and lots and lots and LOTS of food. I hadn’t realized before coming over here, but the Spanish really like their chocolate. It’s delicious! As a lover of chocolate myself, I was delighted to see that my family had put out a tray of pieces of all different types of chocolate cut from larger bars of chocolate called Turrón. Turrón is traditionally made from egg whites, sugar, nuts of some sort like toasted almonds, and honey but every year they come out with different new flavors. My favorite was “Arroz con Leche” flavored (rice with Milk). It tasted just like the desert that my host mum makes except covered in chocolate. Another sweet that is popular around Christmas time is the “Mantecado” the Spanish version of shortbread. They basically melt in your mouth they’re so crumbly and delicious. 

Everything in the house around Christmas was done with the family including setting up the decorations. A bunch of people came over for afternoon tea one day and helped set up the tree and put trimmings around the house. When the time came to make decisions for what we were going to eat for Christmas dinner we had a family vote and then handed out Secret Santas. I ended up getting my host mum and bought her a nice mug but I got a little confused about when to give it to her because there are two gift-giving days in Spain - the other being on the 6th of January to signify the end of the “12 days of Christmas.”  We ended up giving our gifts on the actual day of Christmas and then gave others on the day that they call “Dia de Los Reyes Magos” which are the tree wise men. 

After Christmas passed, all I heard about was New Years and all the traditions there are here. I didn’t catch all of them but the ones I participated in were very different to how I’ve celebrated in the past. The one that stood out the most was the eating of 12 grapes at midnight. At each strike of 12, a grape is eaten which is said to bring prosperity. The supermarkets all sold pre-peeled and de-seeded grapes in little cans of 12 however, my family preferred to buy them fresh and then peel and de-seed them themselves. My host mum made a creamy shrimp soup and put out an ice cream cake for dinner and then we all got dressed up and rung in the new year together.  It was certainly a New Years to remember.

A couple of days after new years a HUGE parade named the “Cabalgata de Reyes” was held in the centre of town. Until then, I had never seen so many people in Málaga before. The street was marked off and people lined up with bags ready to catch the sweets that the people in the floats would be throwing to the crowd. Sometimes there’s so much going on that people get hit with it and because it’s hard candy it can hurt. My friend and I ended up catching a bunch of candy and luckily no one was injured.

So now it’s back to school and routine but it was so much fun experiencing a different cultures way celebrating and traditions around the holidays. With Christmas and New years having passed I’m super excited about all these new traditions that I’ve learned. So many wonderful things to teach others when I get back home! ¡Feliz Navidad y Año Nuevo a todos! :)