The past two weeks have been polar opposites of each other. First I wrote four tests in one week and the next week I barely had school. But I’ve come to understand that this is totally normal in Spain.

I would just like clarify one thing, since it is the question most people ask me; I write all my tests in Spanish. I do it with the help of an Spanish-English dictionary. It is a huge book and thus far there has only been two or three instances where I could not find a word.

The subjects I had tests for were History, History of Art, Geography and English. As I’ve said before, I enjoy History of Art the most, so I enjoy studying for it the most. This consist mostly of reading, translating, learning the new word in Spanish and then memorising in Spanish. This test was on Pre- and Romanesque art (not to be confused with Roman art). The previous test had been on Roman, Early Christian, Byzantine and Islamic Art and I am proud to say I had received the equivalent of 51% for that test. For the most recent one I had gotten 67%.

Geography was a bit more difficult to study for, partly because I don’t enjoy it as much and partly because my notes aren’t very sufficient (I don’t have a textbook, so I need to write down from slides and learn from that). I learn in much the same way as I do for Historia del Arte and the chapter we were being examined on was town planning, the history thereof and how cities changed through the ages. I don’t quite understand why, but when I got my test back, my teacher hadn’t written down a mark for me. I asked her and didn’t quite catch the reason, but I wanted to know what I would have gotten if I had had a mark. She said the equivalent of 80%! Which is a big deal! Thus, I am very chuffed with myself.

History didn’t go as well, because I can only write half the test seeing as some of the work they are being examined on they did when I wasn’t in Span yet. I still study History in on Wikipedia and summaries I find on the internet, because the sheer load of work in our notes is still too much for my brain to try and translate. I then translate as I answer the paper.

The following weekend was a bit of a shambles in my opinion. Well, that’s what happens when you misunderstand your family’s weekend plans. I thought I had the whole Saturday to be at home and that my family was having dinner at my abuelos’ home, while I went to an international dinner one of the exchange students was hosting. Not so. Turns out we were having lunch and that my parents were going to a birthday party the evening. So, I had to fit in making something for my dinner, go to choir and then the dinner in a very short time, because (as always, it seems) I had left everything to the last minute and didn’t have any ingredients for my peppermint crisp tart. Turns out, peppermint chocolate does not exist in Spain and neither does Caramal Treat. Oh, I guess that’s why peppermint crisp tart is only found in South Africa….. In the end I had to use plain milk chocolate and caramel syrup. Which wasn’t bad, actually.

Also, because choir ended quite late, I was already an hour late to the dinner when I set out from home, and it would take me another hour to get there. It was while I was standing on the platform waiting for the longer distance train to come that I decided it wouldn’t be fair to my friends or to me, to be two hours late to the dinner, so I decided to go home and share the fridge tart with my family instead.
On Sunday we had lunch at our house for the first time, and I got to meet my host-dad’s father and step-mother. We ate chicken paella which my host dad had made. He is quite a whizz in the kitchen, I must add. Later the following week we finished the leftover paella and while my dad was dishing up for me he asked; “Quisiera usted algún pollo y conejo.”
My head shot up and I looked at him shocked, not sure I had heard right.
“Conejo..?”
“Si..” he frowned.
“Conejo” translated into rabbit. The paella was chicken and rabbit paella.
It was very nice and I have nothing against rabbit (in fact, it is very nice), I just thought the first time I ate a new meat, I would know.
Well, I wasn’t really surprised because, for the first two or three years in hostel I had though we got mutton chops every day, instead, it had turned out to be pork chops and I couldn’t tell the difference. Oh well.

The next week was, as I’ve said before, a complete opposite to the one I had just had. On Monday we got off school an hour earlier because our Philosophy teacher was sick. Tuesday we didn’t have the last three classes of the day because all three teachers couldn’t make it to class. Wednesday had two off periods in the middle. Thursday was a full day wherein I almost died and then till had extra Historia del Arte after school for another hour! But Friday made up for it, because we only had the first one and a half classes before we set out on a class excursion to go watch an English theatre piece – Royal Flush. It is a modern retelling of The Taming of the Shrew and Cervante’s The Illustrious Scullery Maid mad into one story. Very entertaining.

The exchange students went bowling Friday night and then walked around Sol for the remainder of the night. Saturday didn’t offer much more.