España pt. 1

This year I made an odd decision to participate in the Spanish Exchange. You may be wondering why I said this choice was a strange one, well, at the time I'd taken about zero spanish classes. I was just going into Spanish 1 when I signed up for this trip. Yeah, interesting choice, I know. The reason I signed up for it is pretty obvious, though. It's a Spanish Exchange! meaning I get to go to Spain and host a student from Spain, sounds pretty fun-- and it's a really unique experience. Not one I wanted to pass up. Therefore I signed up to participate in the Spanish Exchange, despite the fact I knew little more than Hola, Gracias and Adios. 
About a week or two before the Spanish students came to America, I received a rather exciting email from my girl-- Adriana Gallego-Heras. It was the first contact I had with my student and it was fun getting to know her. She's the girl standing directly yo my right in the picture above. 
The students were visiting the week before Christmas break started, so a pretty busy time in the school year. I was nervous, very nervous to meet my girl. What if she didn't like me? Well, that would make one awkward week. Luckily, that did not happen.
To prepare for my Spaniard, I tried to tidy up the house (key word: tried). It helped that our cleaner came that week, but still. Somehow my house doesn't stay clean for very long. Probably has something to do with two very busy teenage girls living in it who are too preoccupied to clean up after themselves, but I'm going to blame it all on the cats. 
After what seemed like an eternity of nervous excitement, the night finally came when the Spaniards were scheduled to arrive. That was the night the nervous excitement reached its peak. It was cold, so we all waited inside MPAC, looking out the window and waiting for the bus to arrive. When it finally did, I couldn't believe what was actually happening. We all went outside as the Spaniards climbed from the bus. Adriana found me and almost immediately ran up and hugged me. A bit of a surprise, I have to say, because one, I didn't actually know her that well or at all, aside from a few emails, and two because I am not a hugger. 
My dad and I helped lug her massive suitcases to the car, and then drove her home. By then it was ten-ish at night, so I knew Adriana must be super jet lagged after being on a plane for eight hours and the six hour time difference, but she didn't seem tired at all. In fact, she seemed energetic and excited to meet with me. A bit of a surprise for me, especially since I still had homework to complete that evening. We talked, took some selfies (typical teenage girls, I know.), and she gave me some gifts. Two books-- both in spanish-- one a romance (since I said on my sheet that I loved to read), and a cook book (because she'd seen my pictures on snapchat). Adriana also brought us a bunch of Spanish candies from their Christmas time celebrations, which were very interesting to try. There was a slight language barrier, but it wasn't too bad. By then I'd had three months of Spanish and got to know a lot of basic vocabulary and Adriana's english was pretty good, so we got the gist of what the other was saying. 
After a while, I finally told Adriana I had homework, so we said goodnight and I went back out to my desk to do my homework. 
The next morning I knocked on her door at seven-ish to get up for school. Interestingly enough, the Spaniards don't eat breakfast. Or at least, my Spaniard did not. Instead, she drank a cup of hot chocolate in the morning. So before I ate my breakfast, I'd mix together some hot chocolate in a travel cup for Adriana. This happened every school morning. 
Then we went to school. It was exciting to show my Spaniard what my normal american life was like, especially since she seemed ten times more excited than I was. It was pretty cute actually, Adriana was amazed by what seemed like the smallest of things to me. 
After school ended, I was surprised to find Adriana and I were invited to go along with the rest of the hosts and their exchange students to Starbucks. I guess beforehand I didn't realize / think that we'd (all the hosts and their students) be hanging out nearly as much as we did. 

After Starbucks, we went to Libby Allen's house because there was not enough room for all of us at Starbucks. There we made some cookie dough (to make Christmas cookies for the Spaniards). Then we went to an ice hockey game. It was only the first day of the Exchange and I was already exhausted... I could tell it was going to be a long week, but I was still looking forward to what was to come. 
From the ice hockey game we went to Panera (there was an argument from the boys to go to Chipotle... but seriously we were not going to take Spaniards to get fake Mexican food. It just didn't seem right). This was where some of my FANTASTIC Spanish vocabulary came to use when I had to explain the menu to Adriana. She got mac and cheese and loved it-- no surprise, Panera's mac n cheese is heavenly. 
After Panera, everyone else was going back to Libby's, but I hadn't realized everyone was going to hang out 24/7, so I'd already made plans to do other things with Adriana. That is, we were going hot tubbing at my friend Camryn's house. It was freezing outside and I thought it would be fun for Adriana. So when everyone else left, Adriana and I waited for my dad to pick us up. By then, I'd developed a pretty bad headache and was absolutely exhausted. Both Adriana and I were falling asleep for a while until my dad came. 
Hot tubbing was really fun. It was cute when we had to go out in the cold to get to the hot tub, Adriana just started yelling Corre! Corre! (Run! Run!). Being from Valencia, she already wasn't used to it being so cold... and she was only in a bikini, so I'm sure she felt even more freezing than Camryn, Serena and me. 
While in the hot tub, and then as we were hanging out after, we all had fun talking to each other. I think Adriana enjoyed talking to Camryn and Serena as much as they did. Of course, we all had to speak slow English using as small a vocabulary as possible, but it was all good. 
The next morning (Saturday) we slept in. (One of my favorite past times). Then I made cinnamon rolls (Adriana had never had any!), and for lunch I took Adriana to BeWell-- a place I meet up with my friends a lot for lunch. Something I'd begun to notice was that Adriana ate almost nothing, which was a little bothersome-- like I was worried she was starving to death because she didn't like any of the food, but as I talked to the other hosts, it turned out that most of the girls didn't eat that much so I assumed it was normal. (I learned later that that was not true when I visited Adriana in Spain... Huh. I still don't really know what was going on there... I just hope she wasn't starving to death.) 
Saturday evening Adriana and I walked over to Serena's house for a cute little Christmas party Serena had put together-- there we decorated cookies, exchanged gifts (Serena was nice enough to get Adriana one as well), and watched a Christmas movie. (Well, kind of, it was the Good Luck Charlie movie.) It was fun, though, I felt bad because the other Spaniards and hosts were all hanging out together, but Adriana said it was fine. She was very willing to just do whatever and didn't get overly upset if we weren't with the group at all times, which I appreciated since I'd already planned out the weekend. 
Then on Sunday I took Adriana shopping, but I didn't just want to take her to the small Willow Grove Mall, so I'd been planning for a while for us to go to King of Prussia mall. Serena came along with us, and it was a great deal of fun. We stopped in Hollister a couple of times because, according to Adriana, it was a lot more cheap here than it is in Spain. 
Before leaving, we stopped in at Coldstone and got ice cream. Though it was cold outside, it was totally worth it. On the way home we also got cheesesteaks-- how could we not? It's classic Philly food. 
After KOP we all went to the Tableaux. I'm not really sure how much of it Adriana understood, but I know she already knew the story, so hopefully she got the gist of it from the scenes. 
The two hardest things about hosting a student were these: constantly being tired and trying to find time to fit in homework. Seriously, I was up very late that night doing homework, because I wanted to do stuff with Adriana // also just didn't want her to be bored. 
Monday we went back to school, and Adriana accompanied me to class again. Then after school I'm pretty sure we just hung out-- oh yeah, we watched The Fault in Our Stars (with Spanish Subtitles). It was cute, we did really just hang out. Then I did homework. I can't really remember if we hung out with the group that evening... I think we did. One reason hosting was so tiring was that we hung out in the group every night until later in the evening, so I'd get to bed later. Something that never seemed to bother Adriana much-- I swear they don't sleep. They just simply survive without it. 
Tuesday all the hosts and their Spaniards went to Philly... except for me. Because I'm weird and even though I absolutely abhor school and working, I didn't want to miss a day of school and be behind on work. Trust me, I had several conversations with people that day who were convinced I was crazy for not going. 
That evening I took Adriana out for sushi (something she wasn't very fond of) and then we went to all hang out at Caroline's house. It was interesting how much drama could go down in one night, and also how LOUD they all could be when together. It was funny, most of the Spaniards were all together, tossing cups around and just all together being pretty lively and energetic, while most of the hosts sat tiredly together on the couch or at the table. 
That evening was pretty stressful because I agreed to take Caitlin Irwin's Spaniard, Sara, for the night as well because Caitlin had to get up early in the morning and then both Adriana and Sara went off to another house when my dad was already on his way to pick me up. So I came home alone and was extremely stressed out (even though someone had agreed to give them a ride back to my house, it was still extremely stressful.) See, hosting was kind of like babysitting. It felt like you had to watch the student at all times-- because you were responsible for them. That was definitely the most stressful night. 
Then Wednesday, I don't really recall much. Then on Thursday I was sad knowing that it was Adriana's last day, but a little relieved as well simply because of how tired I was. We went to see the Art's Night and then there was a goodbye party as Libby's house. I'm not really great with parties, so I just basically hid out in the living room with Caitlin and Caroline for most of it. I wasn't the only host who was absolutely exhausted from the week. 
That evening after we got back to my house, I brought Adriana a gift I'd been accumulating for her, filled with little things like chocolates (which she loves), cookies, eos (they don't have it in Spain) etc. She cried when she hugged me. It was really sweet, and I knew I'd miss her. 
The next morning I got up as usual, knocked on her door and then proceeded to get ready for school. Adriana started crying when she said goodbye to Zia (I would be crying as well. Tears of joy. Sibling joke). Then we lugged all her stuff to the front of school, and said goodbye to everyone. A ton of the Spaniards were crying. It was sweet, but hey we were going to see them again in like three months so... Anyway, when we finally saw them off it was sad, but like I said earlier, a little bit of a relief because I could finally rest. All in all, I did actually enjoy hosting and if I get the opportunity to do it again, I think I'll take it. 
(Pt. 2 will be my trip to Spain) 
Thanks for reading, 
Anj <3