Yes, I did finally get a picture up of my family. From left to right it´s Oscar, Teresa, Clara, and Dani(el). Aren´t they just cute? Well everything is going pretty well here. We haven´t had school for the past couple days so that was nice, but then I had to walk to school by myself today. It was ok, just a little scary being out in a city not really knowing exactly where I am. So this weekend was pretty good. On Saturday I went with Clara to her friends house, Violeta, in Somos Aguas, aka we are waters, which is the "rich" part of town. Their apartment was more like a condo, but a really nice one with wood floor and luxurious furniture and painting, and all that jazz. They had a pool table, though I didn´t play any because I was too busy with this game called Singstar, which is like karaoke and DDR put together. You sing into a microphone and you are judged on pitch, length of notes, etc. It can´t tell if you´re really singing the words though.

I decided I love English. Dani, Rosmeri(the maid/nanny person) and I went to a park kind of place to play soccer and when I asked Dani what the word for to kick was, he told me tirar, which is the same verb for to throw, to pull, among other things. I can´t imagine not having a specific word for kick. If I told you I threw the ball, you would assume that I meant with my hand, not my foot. There are such intricacies and subtlties of words, and that´s what I love about it. I was correcting papers today that students turned in about what they think the future would be like. It was funny most of the time. Most people got tenses mixed up and they put a lot of thes in front of words like the life in the future. That reminds me of another thing Pluralizing nouns like life to lives as well as double consonants as in disappearing. In spanish you don´t really have double consonants, you only use one.

Well enough of that, you are probably bored already. My spanish teacher here told me that I don´t have to do what they are doing in class if I don´t want to, I can just write my opinions and impressions of Spain because she is " really interested in hearing them." Works for me. I just have to write some things like I write in here, but in Spanish and I´m home free!

I was talking with Oscat a little bit the other day and he said if I liked, we could make some plans for things for me to see after school. Well of course there are the museums, but there is also great architecture and many other things that I´m sure I would like to see. I also might take a week off and go to Bilbao to visit Monica, if things turn out right. Isabel said she´ll be here from the 21 to the 27, so I´m way excited for that. I haven´t seen my sister in 2 years, or at least one...Well, I think that´s pretty much all I have to say for today. I´ve been writing emails and thus have run out of things to say. I´ll try to get some more pictures and things up soon. Miss you and love you all!

School, I hate it

So I go to school here in España...I hate it, just like I hated school in Utah. At least here I have people to talk to. At west, I didn´t really have classes with people I knew. So, school...one thing I can definately say is that I´ve never seen more mullets in my life! I guess it´s an acceptable style here because there are at least 20 people who have a mullet in my class. There are also more attractive boys....with a school so small, you wouldn´t expect too many. At west, there aren´t as many, and it´s quite the bigger school. The classes....they´re ok, I like art history and music history because, well, I like them. I also like geography just because it´s pretty easy. Their english class is kind of funny. The teacher pretty much wants me to be the teacher. She says things in Spanish and I say things in English. She asked me today if I would like to help teach the younger kids. I don´t mind especially because it probably means less homework for me because I would have to drop at least one of the classes I have now. I understand pretty much everything that the teachers say, unless I don´t know some words. My peers are a little bit harder to understand because they talk so fast, but they are really nice and repeat things for me if I didn´t understand the first time. Most of the people in my classes are really friendly and willing to help. I think they like me, but I don´t know if they´re really just interested in "the American girl". Either way, it´s nice for me....Tomorrow I think there is a party at a classmates house that´s not really FOR me, but Clara and I are going so that I can meet people and get to know people better. Dani, my brother, also wants to go on a bike ride this weekend. I don´t really know. I kind of want to go shopping this weekend because there are still the winter sales so everything will be at least a little cheaper. Their big store here is calls La Corte Inglés, like english court, I don´t know why. It gets a little better every day, though in classes during the morning I have a hard time keeping my eyes open unless I am writing or doing something other than just listening. People probably think that I don´t sleep at night or something. I want to put up a picture of the family, but during the week we´re hardly all here together, the parents don´t usually get home until about 8 or 9, sometimes later. Then we eat and go to bed pretty much. I´ll try to get one this weekend, as well as some of the apartment and whatever else I did. I hope you all are having fun, or at least are well. Love you all!

The first day!

Well, where do I start? I woke up and kind of laid in bed a little because I was just getting used to being somewhere else when I wake up. Then was breakfast. I had an apple while Clara made some fresh orange juice, and boy was it fresh, she didn´t add any sugar or anything so it was pretty sour. I also tried some milk......interesting. There are two kinds of milk they have. One kind of like skim, and another they call ´fat milk´ which I figure is kind of like whole milk. Well I REALLY don´t like skim milk at home, so I decided to have some of the other kind. It was pretty much cream it was so thick, and it didn´t taste ANYTHING like milk. It was pretty disgusting, but I don´t have to drink it. Then, Teresa, the mom, and I went to a farmers market and bought some fruit and then looked around because there were a lot of clothes booths and other things. They have this market every saturday morning so I was just looking but I saw a few things that I liked, so maybe I´ll buy them later. Then we came back and I was just doing nothing for a while and then my bags came. I think I probably brought way too many clothes, but well, I can´t do anything about that now. We started going through the Salt Lake City book I brought with my trying to explain things in my broken Spanish, I´m surprised they even understood what I was trying to say, but they´re very kind about trying to understand me. Then they took me out to see the city. I haven´t really been in other big cities, so I can´t really compare it to an American city, but I assume it´s like New York or Chicago. Most of the streets are just random, and even if I could I wouldn´t want to drive here because I would be very lost. I´m used to a good ol´ grid system. And the drivers are crazy. You can drive pretty much anywhere there isn´t a car and most of the time where there already is. Most people just nose their way in when they want to change lanes so you have to slam on the brakes a lot. There aren´t really many left hand turns, mostly you turn right and then there is a semicircle for you to stop in to go to the other street. Most of the people here, well all really, live in apartments, and below these apartments are stores. There are so many little stores that it would take forever to go to them all, but a lot of them are kind of dirty looking. In the actual city there are so many beautiful buildings. Every other street has a plaza and in the center, like downtonw, the plaza has a beautiful sculpted fountain. There is one of Neptune that I like a lot, but I wasn´t able to get a picture today. We drove around the city a lot and then we got out of the car and walked into this place called the plaza mayor, like the biggest plaza. There was this guy there who was playing what looked like a harpsichord like (wow I´m already loosing my grip on english) like those things you hit with mallets, you know what I mean. I took a video of it and I´ll try to put it up here. Well mostly we just walked around, but we did stop in a shop and had their version of hot chocolate, which really is melted chocolate. I didn´t really drink that much. We walked around more and then we left for the birthday dinner for Teresa´s mom. We ate at a Columbian restaurant and I got SO full.

This is a picture of the city from a satellite I assume.

This is km 0, like mile 0.

I didn´t flip this but this is the cupola, or dome, of the royal cathedral, which is right next to the palace. The architecture and ornamentation on this building is just beautiful.

This is one of the statues that they have in the plazas. This is Fillipe the Fourth I believe.

Well that´s all I have to say for today, plus I´m pretty tired seeing as it is 1:44 here. It´s funny because the digital clocks, when it´s 12:01 just say 0:01, it´s literally one......I love you all and thank you for your comments! Feel free to send me emails too, at kelcy.molyneux@gmail.com. Love you!

Well here I am in Spain! The flights were SO long and quite tedious, but I got here in mostly one piece. My bags actually got left behind somewhere, but they´re supposed to be sending them here....As long as I get them in one piece I´m ok with that. I got here and promptly slept for about 2 hours, and now I feel a lot better. The family is great! I understand pretty much what they´re saying, I just don´t usually say much in return because I don´t know how, or what to say. They live in a pretty small apartment and I share a room with Clara, but as long as I have a bed, I think I can handle it. Sure, I´m homesick, but you always want your own bed! It´ll be okay once I start getting into school and occupying myself with other things. I´ll try to put some pictures up pretty soon. I´m still tired, and my cable to connect the camara was in my luggage that I don´t have. Whomever is reading this, I love you and miss you! Write to me a lot! Talk to you later.

The day before

Well here we are, one day away from THE day! I'm sorry I haven't written anything during the past month, I've been too busy preparing and spending time with friends and family. I also haven't been at work, which means that I don't have access to the internet every day. Yes, I finally have a family in Spain. They have a daughter my age, well 17, and a son who is 11. I actually talked to the daughter today on MSN Messenger, which was awesome. I kept checking my Gmail account to see if there would be any email, but she sent one to my hotmail account, and so I just got it today and decided to see if she was online. She seemed really nice, so I'm not worried about the family anymore. She said she would see to it that I have a good time there.
I packed most of the day yesterday and when I had stuffed everything into a big black bag, the same one logan took on his mission, I realized I still had my toiletries bag as well as shoes and some pants left out.....We'll see what we can do about that today.
I said goodbye to Jon and Jordan yesterday who will be leaving on their missions, Portugal and New Zealand respectively, before I get back, so I won't be seeing them for two years. It is kind of wierd to think of your friends going on missions. You always think about older people going, but I guess I'm getting old now.
Tomorrow I leave mom and dad on their own to redo their bathroom/room. I don't know how they're going to do that, they'll have to hire some help from neighbors or something, now that I'm not there to help hold things up while mom decides how things look from afar. I think they'll get along somehow. Well, wish me luck! Next time you hear from me I'll be (hopefully) happily situated in Spain. Much love to all!