love from marbella: Labels and Pumpkin Pie

I wore my Rotary Exchange shirt to school yesterday and was pleasantly surprised when a friend from my class asked me where I had gone on exchange. Laughing quite a bit, I replied, "um... Spain?" It took her a second, but she figured it out and we enjoyed a good laugh over it. I found it hard to believe that she didn't remember that I was on exchange from California, but was pleased that my "exchange student" label was starting to wear off. In the beginning, I felt like I had a big "Made in the USA" label stamped onto my forehead. While it was useful when I needed extra help, my obvious foreignness was a bit of a barrier between myself and the other students. My status as "extranjero" isn't gone completely, it's faded to the point where I feel as if I fit in here. My Spanish isn't superb, but I understand the teachers and can hold a good conversation. I have friends who seek me out for help and ask me to wait for them so we might walk together, who are proud of my high test scores and laugh with me when I miserably fail. The teachers generally expect me to do the homework and participate in class, though I suspect they give me a bit of slack on the exams (I don't get docked points for spelling and grammar, thank goodness!!). I'm pulling high scores in Latin, Greek, and French, improving slowly in Science and History, hopefully passing PE (learned how to do a cartwheel in class the other day!) and full out failing Philosophy (a girl can only do so much haha). These past few weeks we've had a lot of free classes do to teacher absences; they give me more time to work on my conversational skills with my peers, which I love. My friend Claudia (from Australia) and I get together most Wednesdays after school to study, which is incredibly helpful because she knows way more Spanish than I do. We've become Wednesday regulars at a local restaurant, though the guy who calls out names still can't pronounce my name correctly! Oh well, he's got seven more months to get it right!!

These past couple of days have been incredibly cold, only a little above freezing in the morning, plus high humidity and sharp winds. Most days I do my homework while curled up in my bed and drinking Nutella soy milk.

I'm realizing that I didn't post about my Thanksgiving: to sum it up, my exchange friend and I made it up, my exchange friends and I made dinner for ourselves and some local rotarians. We, the exchange students, got permission to take friday off and spent it in Gibraltar! As the only one of us who'd been there before, I attempted to tour us around (which mostly consisted of searching for monkeys). I'm proud to say we made it all the way around and a ways up the rock without becoming helplessly loss!

Besides that, life here is pretty normal! My new yoga class is awesome, I really need to do some laundry, and I think I may be getting a cold (bring on the mandarins, kiwis, and orange juice!). I'm missing home quite a bit since it's the holidays, but I'm looking forward to spending Christmas in England!!

I hope everyone at home had a wonderful Thanksgiving <3 I'm thankful for all of you and your support!

Love from Marbella,
Shonabell