Portugal, fascinating theories, and failed burritos

The first Saturday in November my Spanish dad was like, "Let's go to Portugal!" So we went to Portugal.

We went to a town called Valença which is just barely over the border of Galicia and walked around a medieval castle-city area, with fortified walls and cannons and a moat. It was really pretty and interesting. Now it's basically entirely little tourist shops inside the walls. And the old city is really small but there were at least 3 different ancient churches within the walls.  I love that it's no big deal to just head to another country for a few hours. There's not a border beyond a sign that says "Portugal". (I do sort of wish that my passport would get stamped though). I did hear some Portuguese spoken, and it was so strange! Written, it looks fairly similar to Spanish and Galician, but spoken... the pronunciation is crazy. At least that's how it was to my ear. It seemed mostly like Galician spoken in the back of the throat. It was very cool.

stone streets

haha accidental mirror picture, and the ancient wall

And some more news on my cooking adventures... We bought a box burrito kit to try so I could "share some Texan culture". It didn't go great. Actually they were okay and perfectly edible, so I guess I can't really call them a failure, but they weren't exactly authentically delicious tex-mex burritos. Oh well.

The next day my dad took me to the birthplace of Christopher Columbus.  No, we didn't go to Italy... he was born in Galicia. (Also his name is actually Cristobal Colón.) At least according to a fairly well based theory here. (some evidence like the fact that every place he named in the new world coincide with similar Galician areas, he wouldn't have told the truth about being Gallego because the Spanish crown wouldn't have given funding if he had, he never spoke Italian, and several more things as well that support this idea). I'm buying it, although I'm not sure that having him born here is necessarily something to be extremely proud of considering he wasn't all that much of a hero in the end... But still, history is cool.

I told y'all it's fall.

Catching up

Okay, I have a lot to catch up on here, but I don't want to make a giant long post with a thousand pictures so I'll be posting again soon with more updates.

Lugo
Several weeks ago, my family and I went on a trip to Lugo, Galicia for a festival (San Froilan). I don't actually remember the date, but I think it was back at the end of September. Whoops.

on road to Lugo.

"O castineiro" is the chestnut roasting train in the back. And I love the man's face.

awful picture... but it's traditional dancing.

part of the city seen from an ancient Roman wall.

lots and lots of people for the festival

"gaiteros" or bagpipers are in the lights

puplo / octopus

cooking it

again terrible picture, but it's the Roman wall.

Okay, moving on. These next photos are not in an particular order, some are more recent than others.

This is carved in stone at the entrance to "one of the best places in Marin" (according to my sister and most people). It's sort of a playland of cool effects outside. Like the fence is an instrument and makes music when the wind blows. It's fascinating and I'd love to go back because we only say a little bit.
"Park of the Senses- finca de briz
I closed my eyes and imagined a magical place where I was transported by soft waves of my land, where the trees spokes of the smiles of chiles, the waters whisered love stories, and the stones hide the pulse of a people. I opened my eyes, and began to work on this dream. I invite you to enter and enjoy it with me."
(more or less the translation).

Lifelike Portrait of Amy by Elba, age 5 (my niece and nephews aren't shy around me any more, which is really helps me feel like part of the family)

Public transportation = boat from my mom's work to Vigo for Julia's birthday october 22

Marin by night

wild horses on a mountain

View of Vigo (i'll never get tired of the lanscapes here)

da escola, irmás, voos na avións, e visados

(School, Sisters, Planes, and Visas)
   
          Well, first of all, I am officially enrolled in the school IES Illa de Tambo in grade 1° de bachillerato, in the Natural and Health Sciences Course for the next school year! The school is right in the center of town and about 3 km from my house. My host sister also goes there and is in my grade. We won't have classes together (she is taking different courses) but I'm still glad she'll be able to show me around. 

El instituto / my school

Also, my school's list of textbooks

         Speaking of my host sister, I've finally gotten to talk to her! For a long time, I heard nothing from her and it worried me. Finally I added her on Tuenti, the Spanish Facebook, and we got to chat! It was great, she's really nice and cool and I think we'll be good friends. She told me they actually don't have 2 dogs- they have FOUR! :D   Then, I recieved an actual letter from her! She had sent it before we chatted and I was so happy to get it! It was so sweet, and I love mail (who doesn't?). Seriously my host family has been beyond sweet in their emails, I'm SOOOO excited to meet them! 

my host sister is awesome

one of my host dogs ♥

      
Okay, time for the visa story:  
I went to the General Consulate of Spain in Houston this morning to apply for the visa! Houston is about a four hour drive, and the consulate is unusual in that it doesn't accept appointments, you just walk in.  The day started terribly because I overslept by an hour (I was supposed to be up at 4:45... didn't wake up til 5:40), and I had to rush and make a ton of copies at the last second, and we were low on gas and the car's registration was expired and I was certain we'd be stopped and everything would go wrong, but somehow we got to Houston fairly on time. Then we had to find a bank with a notary for one last form, and the first places we tried didn't have one. But we found one eventually, funnily enough in the same building as the Italian consulate... but not the Spanish one. 
At this point things started looking up, it was still pretty early, and we arrived at the consulate just fine. The lady just took my papers, she was extremely nice and thankfully I had all the papers. It ended up perfectly all right! I'm still worried about getting my passport back in time for departure- it will be pretty close, but I am going to try not to stress about it at this point. It's out of my hands and there's nothing I can do except wait and hope for the best!

probably took an entire tree for all the necessary paperwork

The Consulate building

me by the seal thing at the door... haha sorry for the bad quality

     I've booked my ticket out of Austin! I'm going to visit family friends in Boston and then take a train to New York for orientation. I'll be packed and out of here August 29th, although I won't actually be with my host family until September 8th (coincidentally that's also the holiday of the Virxe do Porto, the patron saint of my host town. That's got to be a good sign, right? and assuming the visa does arrive in time... fingers crossed!) Packing is starting to be on my mind... it's just absolutely crazy how fast time has gone. There's still a lot to do here and I really can't even imagine saying my goodbyes, even though at the same time all I do is think about Spain. I don't know how to write what I'm feeling now. It's just crazy.

I actually got this fortune cookie! Pretty decent for once.

TWENTY-FIVE DAYS IN AUSTIN 
 ¡veinte y cinco!

25.   what kind of tiny number is that?!?

Novas xerais / General News

A quick update :)

On June 1st I recieved my travel itinerary!  Spain is usually one of the earliest countries to get that info because there are lots of kids traveling and AFS purchases the tickets as a group. So that's really exciting! I'll arrive in madrid on September 7th with the rest of the kids going to Spain, then I somehow travel the next 650 km to my host city but I don't have information on that part yet.  I can't wait to meet my family in person, although I'll be super nervous at first!

The flags of regions in Spain

Today I had my Pre-Departure Orientation as a conference call. For the most part it was fairly basic stuff going over AFS guidelines and support structure, which is good to know, and I did get some good ideas for host family gifts, but it wasn't super exciting and I may have looked like this a lot of the time (not as cute though):

adorable baby sloth yawn

One thing that stuck with me from the PDO was what the AFS coordinator said about how other countries have complained that Americans never know anything about the rest of the world, and don't care. Well, I do care, or I wouldn't be going to another country for a year.  I decided that it would be a good idea to brush up on my Spanish history though!

not my cutest pic, oh well

I'm still working on all the visa requirements. There are just so many documents to gather and notarize and apostille and translate and mail and deal with etc. I'm also in summer school taking US History to make up for the credits I'll miss in Spain.



Everything feels so much more real now that there's a date, but I still can't really believe it's actually happening.  80 more days in Austin!

Hasta luego!