"What about second breakfast?"

Aragorn: Gentlemen! We do not stop 'til nightfall.

Pippin: But what about breakfast?

Aragorn: You've already had it.

Pippin: We've had one, yes. But what about second breakfast?

Merry: Don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip.

Pippin: What about elevensies? Luncheon? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper? He knows about them, doesn't he?

Merry: I wouldn't count on it

 

  Alright this quote deserves some explanation, but so does my life right now so it works!

 

I am falling into my schedule nicely and it is a crazy schedule.  Who knew a year without having to do homework or work would be so busy.  So my weekly schedule looks something like this:

 

School 8-2 Monday- Friday (fairly normal)

Monday: Free Night

Tuesday: Band Practice 7:30-9

Wednesday: Oboe lessons 6:30-7:30, Soccer practice 8-9:30

Thursday: Free Night

Friday: Soccer Practice 8-9:30

Saturday: Free

Sunday: Soccer Game any time between 10-5

 

Soccer, Band, School and eating seem to define my life right now.  Kind of like my life in the U.S. was just transported to Spain with completely new people. I'm sure you're wondering what the Spanish version of these look like to explanation time:

 

Eating:  Meal times here in Spain are very different than the U.S. and there are 5 of them!  Hence the quote including a massive list of different meals.  I feel like every time I finish eating I sit for five minutes then think okay, now I just have to wait around for the next meal. So they go like this:

 

Breakfast at 7:15 in the morning for me. By myself so I normally have peanut butter toast or cereal with Nesquik to drink.  My host mom buys various pastries and chocolate everything intended to have for breakfast, but often too much sweet stuff in the morning makes me want to throw up so I stick with peanut butter.  Also, my host mom just recently bought multigrain bread for me! I almost wanted to cry at her kindness and I was very happy to see something other than wonder bread with the crust cut off. Now I have multigrain toast with peanut butter which lasts way longer than a chocolate filled croissant.  

 

Lunch (which is not your idea of lunch) is at about 10:30 is during the school day. I'll get to my school schedule later, but basically there are two breaks one at 10:30 and one at 12. Everyone eats a sandwich at the 10:30 break then a few people eat at the 12 o'clock break. What I normally do it make a Nutella sandwich and have an apple at the 10:30 break then noting at 12. The point is you have something small in between Breakfast and the big meal of the day. No idea why they think half of a baguette with ham is small, but whatever.

 

La Comida (which literally means the food) is between 2:30 and 4. This is the big meal of the day, like dinner in the U.S. It's called comida because honestly if you think about it, breakfast, lunch, and dinner are only 3 meals and here we have 5 so you need more names for them.  If you go to a formal meal at this time (like my Rotary meetings) it's a huge 3 course meal.  In my house we always have a cup of gazpacho, which is like cold tomato soup, with croutons and cucumber in it. (We'll stop having this once it gets cold because it's meant to be something refreshing to cool you down from the hot day) We then have the main dish with ranges from pork chops and potatoes to pasta to clams and muscles. My host mom is a great cook and she's very formal about plating stuff and particular silverware, all that stuff.  She also always gives me, my host dad and Santiago (my 20 year old host brother) the same size portions and if not, I get more.  It's crazy cause hers is always less. It's some serve the other before me type thing it's just that she wants less. I want less, but my portion is always massive.  Anyway after the main dish we have some type of fruit. I normally have a peach because I prefer it over melon. Side note but interesting fact: they peel all of their fruit. I eat my peach with the skin on and apparently that's really weird.  They peel pears, apples, peaches, grapes... everything, yes even grapes.

 

Merienda (which means snack) is generally between 5:30-8. We don't always have this. If anything my host mom will offer me ice cream or something small.  Many Spanish people go out to coffee bars and have espresso and a pastry or beer and small appetizers. Depends on what you feel like. This also just meant to be something small to hold you over, not that I'm ever really hungry after these massive meals in the middle of the afternoon. 

 

Dinner between 9:30-11. You may have noticed all of my activities seem to start really late. That's because they're after merienda and for sure before dinner.  Dinner is meant to be something small like a sandwich, frozen people, a variety of small appetizers, French tortilla (a omelet with just cheese, don't know how that resembles a tortilla or how it's French) Dinner is generally when I talk to my family the most so it generally ends around 12.

 

Now soccer, which I'm clearly always well fueled for, is great!  I'm so thankful I had a willing host family who set up all of these activities before I even got here. Soccer is so great. So soccer is Spain's sports. Well it's really the world's sport (everywhere but the U.S. cause we'd rather pay for a ton  of expensive equipment to less people can play because they can't afford it). Anyway soccer is huge here, but for boys.  Kinda like football or wrestling but not so drastic. The girls that do play are generally the ones who played with their bothers or the neighborhood guys all the time when they were growing up.  Lots of tom boys as well and lots of lesbians in turn.  Anyway, because of the lack of girls that broke the barrier, feminine leagues are hard to find.  I am lucky to be a part of league that has 17 teams in in and is for all of the providence of Murcia.  This seems like a lot of teams, but it's for any girl who wants to play age 13-? I heard my coach joking if some 60 year old lady wants to come and play with us she can, right along with the 13 year olds.  This age factor definitely makes it interesting.  I am one of two 18 year olds on my team and we're the youngest. Everyone else is in their 20's and a few of them are married. HOWEVER, it's impossible to tell. The other American girls and I were conversing about how crazy hard it is to tell what age people are.  Pretty much everyone looks way younger than they actually are. But anyway, my team is awesome!  They are all such nice people and have been nothing, but inviting. We played a friendly game on Wednesday and by the end they all thought I was amazing and were already upset I'm leaving in 8 months.  Oh right! and the league goes from October to June! First off, crazy long season compared to what I'm used to but I guess if you can play outside why not? and Second, it's exactly the duration of my exchange! So awesome.  We had our first game on Sunday and I wasn't able to late because I'm still wait for foreigner approval from Madrid to play in the league. Anyway, they lost and now they're all convinced I am the key to success.  We'll see. I am really excited to talk soccer with them though. Most of them don't know a ton about tactics and strategies because they've never played on a team.  My coach says he can tell that I know soccer because of my instruction to the other girls and my actions on the field.  Finally 14 years of standing in the back of the field telling everyone else what to do is appreciated... Just kidding but I do have a better idea of the big picture because of that and I think it will help here!  So excited to get to spend a year with these girls.  Also one last not one the soccer sense: our field is dirt, completely dirt which makes everything a little faster, dirtier and interesting.

 

Band: I am playing in a community style band ranging from 8 years olds to 60 year olds.  Oh! Side bar: music and sports are not through the school system  The schools have no programs or activities so everything is through the community.  Furthermore, the band I play in is made up of people from all over Cartagena that just wanted to pick up an instrument for fun or go to the music conservatory everyday after school and are looking at careers in music. It's pretty cool. I am currently playing with the beginner band of about 15 people. We are really bad and we don't have every part represented so the pieces generally don't sound that great. But, it's fun and they're all really nice.  That said, their is a larger band, the actual band, which is about 35 people.  For performances we all play together and that makes things much more fun because they're really good. I never would've guessed I would have to travel to Spain to march in another parade, but since I've been here I've marched in 3 parades!  During the cities festival (Cartagineses y Romanos) they have 2 parades.  One for all of the people dressed as Romans and the other for all the people dressed at Cartagineses (naturally). We marched in both playing a gladiatorish song and dressed up. 

 

 Me in my marching outfit with my host mom

 

We also had another parade yesterday. I found out about in on Tuesday. This seems to be happening a lot. I've never played the music before and then my host parents are like "you have a parade to march in this Saturday, don't forget you music"  The one we marched in yesterday was f\celebrating 150 of Santa Maria catholic church. It started at 9 and went till 10:30 winding through the small ancient streets of downtown Cartagena. 

All of us outside the church waiting to march

(normally a red tie and blue blazer accompany this lover get-up)

 

Alrighty now school. Shouldn't have left this for last. Alright here goes.  My school is a 7 minute walk from my house and is right in the city.  When you think of a classic "city school" that's what it is.

Inside the first fence but not the second which is locked during the school day so no one can get in or out with out the secretary in the office pressing a button.

Outside both sets of fence and across the street. The 8ft. fence you see goes all around the school. So no escaping allowed, or even possible.

 

I walk there in the morning and school starts at 8. I then have 2 classes, a break, 2 classes, a break, 2 classes then I walk home. For those of you that don't know, my grades this year don't count because I am already graduated. So basically I am enrolled, but it doesn't really matter how I do. This is definitely comforting because the level of classes I'm taking is hard for Spanish kids to pass. If I really try I can understand everything the teacher is saying, but it's quite exhausting and not worth it. Not in a bad way, but its subjects like Philosophy and Economics and Geography so there is a ton of vocabulary I don't know and the teachers talk really, really fast. The teachers mainly just sit at their desks and lecture for a whole hour which makes it even more difficult for me.  So this past week I made the brilliant discovery of reading in class.  I finished the Hunger Games in Spanish and now I'm reading Game of Thrones. So reading gets me through the day. I pay attention in Math and English because those are easier. Math is universal and, well, I speak English so it's easy! Also I really like Gym. It's a great break in my day, a chance to actually move around.  Plus I have played sports before an like trying so it's sets me apart from all the other girls. It's also a chance to meet new people who aren't in my class. We walk from class to class between 4 different buildings. The thing is the teachers don't have their own classrooms. Because of this, the classroom in which we actually have a particular class often change if a different class is using that classroom. Normally it's fine, but when it's the first class in the morning and you can't find the people from your class, you end up in a lower level philosophy class with people you don't know... the people in my class are nice, but I haven't really connected with anyone too well.  I just keep telling myself that everything takes time.  So here are some pictures:

 

Also here are some pictures from my walk home as well.

 

 

Also, When I do this walk in the morning its about 76 degrees and when I come home its a solid 82 degrees and I'm very hungry.

Best thing about this walk home is knowing I'll have a bug meal waiting and my host family to talk to

 

So that should fill some of the gaps left by my other blogs.  It's strange how bored I felt writing this.

But, that explains so much. It means this is becoming my new life and my routine. No one likes giving a detailed description of their day at work because they know it to well and don't want to rehash it after they've just lived it for 8 hours. You'd think that would make me sad, but really it gives me hope that I am fitting in here and making this my life no someone else's I just watching from the outside. I always up for a little abnormality, but now I know my place, or at least I'm slowly arriving at it while still stumbling on the small things. 

 

What more can I say besides I'm doing well!  Also, my week was made incredibly better last week when I got a package from my mom.

This beer box wrapped in Ecano Foods bags didn't have any amazing surprises or expensive gifts, but it was perfect an brought tears to my eyes. It's the little things like colorful socks I'm sure reminded my mom of me as she walked through Target or the Newspaper article on motion sickness that she thought I should definitely read. The small things that remind me of the great home I have waiting for me in Minnesota.

 



It's the little pangs of homesickness that remind me of my purpose here.  I'm not on vacation or renting a room for a month or two.  I am here to feel uncomfortable, out of place, a minority and awkward at times. There are days when I miss everything about Minnesota: cozy coffee shops, passive drivers, clean sidewalks, fall color, my bike, interactive teachers, cool October weather, big sweatshirts, my family and all I want to do is be able to enjoy those things. Each time I get a wave of this I realize no matter how much I want to experience those things just one more time, I don't want to right now.  I've got the rest of my life to enjoy them starting in July when I get home. I miss things, but there is nothing that makes me want to return an sooner. I know my place is here to learn the language, the culture, the people and to start a new life; another life. 

 

 

*If you'd ever like to ask me any specific questions or contact me about anything feel free to at jamieherman13@gmail.com and thanks for reading*