It´s the weekend! I´m so excited to have a few days to take photos and shop and relax. Next weekend the group is going to Segovia. I´m very excited for that. I can´t wait to start traveling and seeing Europe! I´ve been keeping my eye on the 5€ flight deals. Yep, you read that right. Five euro. That´s like six bucks in the US, to fly somewhere and see something amazing. Definitely taking advantage of that and I´m hoping to take my first trip the weekend after next.
Valladolid is a really hard city to find your way around. If we didn´t have maps, we would probably never find our way home at night. The ro
ads are 
very complicated and there are so many plazas that can easily confuse you. We´ve been going out to random plazas and such every night, just because there is really nothing to do at home. We just kind of sit around,especially since we don´t have wi-fi (pronounced [wee-fee] here). So everyone is usually around the city somewhere. Because we usually go out twice per day (after siesta and after dinner) and we walk half an hour to school and back, I now have huge blisters on my feet. Needless to say, we walk A LOT here. There are also dogs EVERYWHERE . I love it. Except it´s not acceptable to go up to someone and pet their dog, so I can only see them, but not play with them. I told my host mom I loved seeing all the dogs here and she replied, ¨I hate dogs.¨ So, no hope for getting a dog. Oh well. Also, everyone smokes here. I thought it was bad in Eau Claire but it´s probably ten times worse here. I can´t leave the apartment without getting a face full of smoke within seconds. I honestly feel like all the secondhand smoke I´m getting is risking my health. Luckily, no one in my family smokes because of my asthma and I am so
glad I requested that. I didn´t realize that non-smoking people would be so rare here.
ads are 
very complicated and there are so many plazas that can easily confuse you. We´ve been going out to random plazas and such every night, just because there is really nothing to do at home. We just kind of sit around,especially since we don´t have wi-fi (pronounced [wee-fee] here). So everyone is usually around the city somewhere. Because we usually go out twice per day (after siesta and after dinner) and we walk half an hour to school and back, I now have huge blisters on my feet. Needless to say, we walk A LOT here. There are also dogs EVERYWHERE . I love it. Except it´s not acceptable to go up to someone and pet their dog, so I can only see them, but not play with them. I told my host mom I loved seeing all the dogs here and she replied, ¨I hate dogs.¨ So, no hope for getting a dog. Oh well. Also, everyone smokes here. I thought it was bad in Eau Claire but it´s probably ten times worse here. I can´t leave the apartment without getting a face full of smoke within seconds. I honestly feel like all the secondhand smoke I´m getting is risking my health. Luckily, no one in my family smokes because of my asthma and I am so
glad I requested that. I didn´t realize that non-smoking people would be so rare here.
I had my Culture class today and learned that Spaniards get really annoyed when you say ¨thank you¨too much. She said it´s acceptable to say it once or twice to the same person but no more than that. That´s going to be a really hard thing to change. My host mom does so much for us and I´m constantly saying ¨thank you.¨ Really, sometimes I feel like I´m living with a maid. She cooks for us, doesn´t let us clean or do our dishes, brings us snacks when we´re sitting around at home, and always has food ready right when we get home. When we leave for school, we always make our beds, but when we´re gone, she remakes them. She also refills my water by my bed, collects our laundry and trash, and replaces our towels every day. When we first got here, she would walk us everywhere to make sure we didn´t get lost. She does so much for us and 
it´s really hard not to say thank you. In this culture, though, she sees it as her job to do all these things and it´s not necessary to thank someone for doing their job. I always feel bad that she´s doing so much work for us, but she does it out of her own free will, regardless of whether we need it. Very different.
it´s really hard not to say thank you. In this culture, though, she sees it as her job to do all these things and it´s not necessary to thank someone for doing their job. I always feel bad that she´s doing so much work for us, but she does it out of her own free will, regardless of whether we need it. Very different.
I have been adjusting well to the culture, though. It´s already much easier than it was just a few days ago. I´m getting a hold on the way they speak Spanish and I understand a lot more of what Dioni is saying. I still am getting lost in the city, but I´m not so sure I´ll ever get to know the streets here.
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