Sam Cooper - NSW to Spain

Mon 31 Dec 2007

Samantha Cooper, from Northern Beaches Secondary College in NSW departed for Spain in September 2007 on our 5 month program. Here is her latest news.

Hola from Spain!

I've been here for nine weeks now, and although I'm missing out on summer and the beach, I've replaced them with Spain, siestas, Sevillanas, Segovia, Juanes, Madrid, madalenas, paella, churros, chestnuts and mountains of other food that I never would have tried and other things that I never would have experienced if I hadn't strayed off the normal path and decided to participate in a five month exchange to the other side of the world.

The Three Main Elements of My Spanish Weekends

SLEEP

I have adopted the Spanish habit of taking a "siesta with pyjamas and a chamber pot" (only without the chamber pot part). Along with that very extended nap and the morning sleep-in (the town where I live, and Madrid as well, doesn't wake up until 10 at the earliest), I nearly recover from digesting all that...

FOOD

Before I left Australia, I promised I would try every thing I could. First piece of advice if you are going to go on exchange - make that promise. Second piece of advice - DO NOT ASK what you are eating.

You will need that promise to encourage yourself to try that prawn head, or that soup you're certain has some sort of pigs innards, or that weird brown thing that looks like something I don't think I can name here. But then after you taste it, you never know, it might become one of your favouite foods (like the prawn heads have for me), or something you eat whenever you get the chance (like those weird brown things that turned out to be sheep's kidneys).

It has to be admitted though, it might not be so great (like the soup, which did turn out to have pigs innards).

SOMETHING TO MAKE A STORY OF (normally a story involving lots of embarrasing moments, but also a lot of laughter or something amazing)

My promise to try everything I could, and to take every oppurtunity to do or learn something so far has extended to
- dressing up as a sevillana,
- having a tapas bartender think I understood Spanish and start telling jokes
- being taught to spell duck, bed, frog and so on by a three-year-old
- being taught (in Spanish) how to feed a baby a bottle
- racing to eat finger-burning-hot chestnuts
- singing karaoke in Spanish to Juanes - "Me Enamora"(unbeknownst to me, with a video camera recording)
- visiting castles
- standing in the middle of the softball field trying to figure out what the umpire was saying - it was something like "ow-woot" before realising that he was speaking English and was trying to say that after three strikes, well you're out!
- standing under a two thousand year old, 720m long aqueduct with arches, which was built without mortar (here is the conversation - Host mum - did you know Sam that this is built without mortar? Host sister -So there is nothing holding those rocks neither up nor together that are at the top of this arch...? Sam - that we are standing under? Host sister and Sam slowly step backwards, before turning and running to the other side of the square.

... and so many more things that it is impossible to describe, like the feeling when you understand your first tv ad, which can only be surpassed by the feeling when you have your first whole entire conversation in Spanish without the use of a dictionary.

I am having the time of my life, and it is only getting better as I learn more Spanish, make even closer friendships with everybody and see more of Spain. Right now I am really excited at the thought that Christmas and New Year is so close - from the stories I've been told it should be amazing!

Adios!
Sam