Rhiannon Rennie - VIC to Spain

Thu 25 Jan 2007

Rhiannon Rennie from Lyndale Secondary College in VIC, has just returned home from her semester program in Spain. Here is her last email from Spain.

Hola!

I had an awesome Christmas, birthday, New Year and Los Reyes. I got presents from my family for my birthday, Christmas and Los Reyes, which was really nice of them. I also bought a few things for them like DVDs for the kids and a "Sargadelo" for the parents, a typical Spanish ornament. The last day of school before the Christmas holidays, my friends in my class wrote HAPPY BIRTHDAY in huge letters on the blackboard and one of my friends gave me a present of a little ornament bull. My host grandma called to say happy birthday to me and I got messages from all my friends here.

We had a big Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas lunch with my host dad's family. There were about 20 people altogether. It was really good. Then for New Year we went to Coruña for 5 or 6 days and spent it with my host mum's family. Man, Spanish families are so big! Again, there were about 20 of us altogether and it was really fun.

The meals were sooooo big for Christmas and New Year - all three course meals. I'm pretty sure I've gained weight here but - ah well - it's not everyday you're in Spain.

In Spain they eat one grape for every chime of the clock in Madrid. There are 12 chimes in the first minute of the new year, so you have to eat 12 grapes in 1 minute! It's supposed to bring you good luck for the new year. I ate all the grapes in the minute and so did my 11 year old host sister but my host mum could only eat 3!

Then, after mid night at about 2am we went for a walk around the city and the whole city was awake! There were people everywhere all dressed up and going out to celebrate the new year, but unfortunately it was also raining but it was good. We went out to dinner a couple of times in Coruña and we didn't leave the restaurants till about 12:30am and there were people again, everywhere. Spanish people do everything late, and I love that!

Also in the Christmas holidays I went to Portugal again with my family and to Santiago and Pontevedra. And we went for MANY MANY walks. My family walk everywhere. Once we went for a 3 hour walk in Coruña. I've taken so many photos. I have over 300 now.

Tomorrow is my last day of school and on Thursday I'm leaving Vigo. Then on Friday I'm leaving Spain, so not many days left now! I don't really want to leave yet, the time went so fast. Semester programs are WAY too short. I am going to miss everything about Vigo, because it's such an awesome city. Whenever we go for walks it never ceases to amaze me, just the people the buildings, the unbelievably narrow streets everything. And my family has been absolutely incredible, I really couldn't have asked for a better one. I feel really lucky to be put in this city with this family. I've also made some awesome friends here as well that I really don't want to leave. The school part is a bit boring but the friends are great, and now they want to come to Australia, because Australia is "guai", they say. It really saddens me to leave, but I'm really looking forward to coming back to Australia as well.

During the past 4 months I think I was only homesick for the first week, around Christmas and my birthday. I wasn't as homesick as I thought I would be coz I was having WAY too much fun.

My Spanish has improved more than I expected or hoped for, and I love speaking and understanding another language. I'm definitely coming back to Spain one day. Thanks for everything!

Ria