Christmas vacation!

At 12:10 pm today, I was officially on Christmas break! Starting at this time and ending at 2 pm, there was an Open House for the American families who had come to Spain to see their children. I was able to meet several of my friends' parents and siblings. They were all very nice. It was interesting to see the resemblances between the children and parents. After everyone was able to arrive and settle down, there were presentations. First, different students presented each faculty member. I learned some new things about each of them. Then the videos of the trips to Barcelona and Madrid were shown to the families. Unfortunately the video of Extremadura, which is where I went, wasn't shown. It wasn't available. When it ended, Sr. Morse talked to us for a bit and then it was time for everyone to leave and go their separate ways. 

The parents of one of my friends, Alexandra (Alex) Hanyok, invited me to eat lunch with them, Alex, and her younger brother. We looked for a nearby small restaurant and we chose one that looked promising. It was very good and relatively cheap. We ordered three plates and shared them. I learned that both of the parents had worked in the military and that the son is working on making his own computer. He's buying all the pieces. After we finished eating we stood outside chatting for a bit. The weather was perfect! In the 60's, sunny, no wind. It doesn't feel like winter at all to me, but that's because I'm used to winters in the 30's with snow. Soon I said goodbye to all of them and walked back to my host family's apartment. 

So what am I going to do over Christmas break? Two things: go to the pueblo and go to Valencia. Rosa has told me that every Christmas the family goes to the pueblo. First of all, they have a house there so there's much more room to fit everyone. And second of all that is their original home. Christmas wouldn't be the same anywhere else. There'll be a lot of people: the grandparents, the parents, the four children, several boyfriends, and me. And I can't forget Kim the dog. Aguarón is his original home, too. 

On the 2nd of January I'll return to Zaragoza to catch the bus to Valencia. I'll travel to the city alone and meet two friends there. The hotel we'll be staying at is the Senator Parque Central. It's very well situated. It's between the center of Valencia and the part of the city with the buildings of the arts and sciences. At night when the buildings close, we'll be able to go to the center. To help us plan our trip, we went to Travel Box near the school. It's a company that plans trips and many SYA students have gone there, so the woman who helped us already knew roughly what we were looking for. When we finally had all the tickets and had paid for everything, I felt very relieved. Planning trips can be quite stressful I found out. This is our first independent trip where we have to plan everything for ourselves, which is why it was pretty difficult. In the future we'll be more prepared and know better what we're doing. We'll leave Valencia the 6th of January. I'm very excited to go to Valencia, mainly because it'll be my first time there. It'll be a trip that I remember forever.