First Day of School

Hey there everyone! I like to thank you all for your emails and messages. It’s wonderful to hear news of home and that you are all doing well. Your advice and updates are much appreciated and something that makes each day that much brighter. Do please continue and I will try to keep you all updated as well.

So today I went to my first day of school. I would have to say it went fairly well. Most of what was being said was lost on me but I think I got the general jist of things. I managed to find my first class with a little help and luckily the rest of my classes for the day were in the same room. Made it easy on little old confused me.

The school works in a way that I think more fits my liking. You have eight classes in all but only do six of them each day. The school starts at 8:30 and goes until 2 in the afternoon. You do three classes then take about a 20 minute break then go back for your last 3 classes. Being that lunch is commonly eaten at 3 or 4 in the afternoon in Spain you return home after school to eat with your family. Many students eat a little snack however during the 20 minute break so as to make it until school is out. My mom in Spain put together a nice little sandwich for me to have. It was very nice.

A little problem happened during this break though that maybe wasn’t the best. So I’ve become good friends with David’s, my host brothers, friends while he’s been gone. During this break I met up with them and they took me out of the school. We followed a large crowd of students heading toward a collection of bars by the schools. Now before you jump to conclusions I will let you know that no one drinks at these bars. What they all do is buy Bocadillos or a sort of Spanish sub sandwich. It is very good and I advice you all to get one. This leaving of the school during the break is common place and I am told “very Spain” being that the entire school was basically occupying these bars around the school.

So we hung out for a while until everyone got their Bocadillo and were set to go. I asked when we had to be back and they sort of shrugged off the question with a Spanish “tranquilo, no problema.” I thought this was sort of odd being that everyone else had already left. The one who was telling me this actually has a father who works at the school as a teacher so I thought he must know what he’s talking about.

We started to head back when I occurred to me that we are actually quite late now for our next class. Now I’m new to Spain but I’m guessing that even in this laid back country tardiness in school is probably still looked down upon. We tried a series of doors but it turned out we were now locked out of the school and had to go around the entire school to get back in.

When we get back in we were met by some stern looking people telling us to go the principal. Now my Spanish is absolutely awful but I could understand the fact that they weren’t really pumped about us being late on the first day of school. So we went to see the principal.

Now at this point I’m feelin’ kind of bummed about the whole situation. The principal is a very nice lady who had actually done a lot to make it so I was aloud to go to this school in the first place. I’m thinking that this wasn’t a great way to start off our year together and not a good way to repay her kindness.

These kids I was hanging out with are actually really nice people and have been a huge help to me while I’ve been here. They’ve all been great to me and make sure that I feel very accepted but still I wasn’t quite planning on getting in trouble with them. Next thing they do is turn to me and say “Oh by the way we need for you to pretend that you were lost and so we had to come find you. That is why we were late.”

At this point I do a “Say Wha!” So then they proceed to tell the principal that the American was confused and got lost so they (the heroic students) came to save him and had to sacrifice their ability to be on time. Now at this point I think it was a good thing that I can’t speak well enough to even begin to correct them. So I had to sit there and endure them all looking at me like I’m this confused child who doesn’t know how to see the three large smoke stacks that are coming out of the school and that can be seen from anywhere in the town.

Then the principal led us all back to our classes. Luckily my teacher was missing that day so it was just a sub. Turns out when teachers are absent the class more so just turns into a study hall. I was very lucky that the principal was unable to apologize to my new teacher for me and the only thing I was interrupting was my classmates mingling.

It’s all good now though. The mother of one of the students I was late with called my parents about my tardiness and it took awhile to explain to them I am not a complete idiot who can manage to get lost in a town that is composed of mostly wheat fields. My parents are very good family friends of the teacher who is the father of my new tardiness buddy and they all actually thought the whole thing a little funny. In the school the father came up to me and made sure I know the name of the school if I tend to get lost again and can ask directions. I consider this just one more push toward me needing to learn Spanish so I can’t become anyone’s confused American scapegoat. On the whole I think its only fitting that I start off my high school experience with a bang and now that I’ve done so can settle down and try to be less of an impact.

But other then that whole dealeo the day went great. I like all my teachers and actually managed to get to know most of my class mates. They’re all very friendly and very easy to talk to. I have this one econ teacher that is absolutely amazing and reminds me a great deal of our econ teacher back home. I think a year in Virgen de la Calle will go great and there shouldn’t be any problem from here on out ( see I do know the name of the school thank you very much).

On another note I just returned from a 3 day trip in Madrid. All the rotary students from around Spain went to Madrid to meet each other and have an orientation or sorts. I was an absolutely amazing time and one that I will not soon forget.

The other students are all great and it was such a dirty pleasure to be able to speak English to them all for 3 days. There were roughly 60 of them with all but four from the United States. There was also a German, Austrian, and two Canadians. They were all very excited to be in Spain and we all had a wonderful time together. Sadly every last one of them is from the South or East of Spain. Turns out I am the only student that is above Madrid, and I’m not even near Madrid, but I’ve come to peace with that at this point. They were all wonderful but the experience reminded me to much of American High School, something that I thought I’d graduated from. So I’ve come to peace with my personal isolation and am content with my Alcatraz of wheat fields.

Madrid was absolutely amazing. We visited the royal palace and got to see a whole bunch of statues and fountains. I was very cool and I can’t wait to go back so as to explore even more. I will at some point get to post some pictures when I am in a place that my internet abilities are not so limited.

Thank you all again and I hope you are all well and holding strong. You are all in my thoughts and prayers since it turns out that I now have a whole slue of things to pray about these days. Keep in touch!

Cody