My Experiences in Spain

Well, I've been in Spain for just over 2 months now so I thought I?????????d let you know my feelings and experiences of this whole exchange program.

I left Canada on Feb.17. It was difficult leaving because my mom would not stop crying. Oh mom. I had to take the Robert Q shuttle to the Toronto Airport with to other people going on the exchange. One came to Spain and the other went to Germany. In total there were about 40 kids going to Spain and Germany. The flight seemed kind of long but I kept my self busy talking to others. When we got to Paris the people going to Germany left us and went on another flight. We took a 2 hour flght no Madrid.

When we got to Madrid we were transfered to Alcala de Heneres for out orientation. The hotel we stayed at was really nice, although the food was interesting to say the least. even though we were all tired we had to take a long ass tour of the city, which is really nice BTW. We went for a quick seista, ate supper, and then got free time to do whatever we wanted. So of course we hit the bars and had some ?????????fun?????????.

The next day we were picked up by our exchange students and their parents. It sucked for me because I absolutely HATE my partner. . They also won't let him watch CSI; it's too scary. The kid is 15 years old! BTW, I'm living in Madrid.

High scool here starts at grade 7. The kids have very little optional courses and remain in the same room all day. That means that the teachers rotate classes. We have six classes of 45 minutes. Marks are given on a scale from 1 to 10 with ????????? point intervals. Very little is expected of the exchange students at my school, which is fine by me. For the most part, the teachers completely ignore us, allowing us to do pretty much whatever we want. In class here kids take notes for around 2 weeks and then have a test. They are not given any assignments or homework. My school consists of around 700 kids and the entire premise is surrounded by a huge gate, making our school resemble a mental institution. I have to say, school in Canada is way better than school here.

In Madrid there are six universities, four of which are public. Many kids go to university knowing that even though they will have a degree when they graduate, it will be extremely hard to find a job. The population of Spain is approximately 40 million, contained in an area smaller than Ontario.

Spain is the olive capital of the world, so we use olive oil for everything. We use it to cook, fry, and baste. We also eat it on sandwichs and use it as our salad dressing. Olive oil can be put on meat, fish, or pretty much whatever you feel like putting it on. I've even seen it being put on cheese.

My school has 7 exchange students; 4 of us are from the same program. It's great because we already knew each other and we alays have stuff to do.

Thats all I really have for now, but I'll update every so often with stuf I've missed. Adn BTW, the temperature spiked to 28 degrees C today. Nice!

PS - If you ant to see pictures, go to my MSN Space - http://spaces.msn.com/jarretvank/

Interesting stuff, especially the schooling. I'd think the teachers woudl be very interested in exchange students. Obviously not.
Anyways, interesting read, I hope to hear more from you, I find this stuff pretty interesting.