2 Months!! :D

In two months from today I will have arrived in New York and will be at the Departure Orientation!!! That is super-duper exciting but also makes me a little nervous because there is so much that still needs to be done! I have to get my visa (which is a process in and of itself), learn more Spanish (haha, yeah right) and do everything that has to be done right before I leave (packing, making long lists of everything I will need, etc.). But I CAN'T WAIT!!!! I am also really excited to fly by myself because I have never done this before. This might seem lame but I am excited. Here are some random things that have occurred since the last post:

1. I got accepted into School!! :) I will be attending IES (that stands for Instituto de Enseñanza Secundaria) Jorge Marique in Tres Cantos. It is about a 10 minutes walk from the house and I think that Pablo will be going there, too. I got a student ID card, too:

2. There are tons of other people going to Spain from the US and other countries. A girl from the US made this map on Google showing all of the places everyone is going:

View AFS Spain Placements in a larger map

Thanks to Amy King for telling me how to put a preview of it up! (If you want to see her blog (she is also going to Spain) here is the link: http://amymargaret.blogspot.com/

3. I have received the majority of the documents that I need for my Visa!! I am now only waiting for the stuff from AFS and then I am good!! Yay! I am super excited to go to San Francisco for many reasons, some being 1) I have never been to California, 2) I just want to get all of the visa stuff sent off, 3) I will hopefully get to meet another AFSer going to Spain whose visa appointment is right before mine, and 4) I am going to do a bunch of fun stuff (like visit Alcatraz and ride bikes across the golden gate bridge)! (although i am not to excited about driving there... :P).

4. I had a really fun 4th of July and did a bunch of fireworks at a friends house! It was super fun!!! (Yay for fire! :D)

So that was a pretty quick summary of what has happened! My summer is going to be super busy until the beginning/middle of August (I go to a wedding, the to Alaska, then to California all within three weeks). But hopefully that will make the summer all that much better!! :) I can't wait!!! There is only 60 days, 16 hours and 48 minutes until my flight to New York leaves! (not like I am counting or anything.)

Visas (AHHHHH!!)

The Definition of Visa:
Visa: (noun)  1. The word that brings confusion (and annoyance)  to every person going to Spain for the year. 2. The annoying little stamp (I think its a stamp... Not sure.) that is so hard to get and costs way too much money (the visa does not cost that much but the whole process of going and getting it cost too much).

 And if you are going to Spain for the year and you are not confused (or annoyed) about your visa one of two things is occurring:
1. (Most likely) You are lying.
2. You have no brain.

Here is the basic gist of our problem:

First of all you should know that the visa process for Spain is long and complex. There are about 15 required documents you have to have and then once you have all of these papers you have to go to the consulate that "governs" your area. For some people it is like, "Yay! We get to go on a 4 hour drive to Houston!" or something to that effect. But for others (like me) we get to go, "Yay! We get to go on a 12 hour drive to San Francisco!" Super annoying. Or we could fly but it is really expensive (like my ticket to NYC in September was cheaper. Yes it is one-way but still...). And then you have to rent a car and do all of that fun stuff. Anyway, we had to get about a bazillion papers including, but not limited to an FBI background check (now I am in the system. Dangit.) and Application forms and acceptance letters from Spain and proof of Insurance and a medical thingy ( I still need to do that...) and pay the people money. And there is still more I just got tired of listing stuff. Oh, and a bunch of that stuff needs an Apostille, which as far as I know is some sort of authentication thing that says it is real, and you have to get these from your State Government and the US Government (it depends on the paper who you send it to...). And I am not saying it is wrong or overly complex; it is just hard.

Now the problem. We had to get Passport copies and parental consent forms and get those notarized and "apostilled" (i made that word up. :)  ) and then send them to AFS. But we didn't know if AFS was sending them back or not and then whether we had to get new ones or if we still had some or what. (And it turns out that the requirements for a Visa might be different depending on the consulate (which is dumb, they should all be the same)) So now we still have papers to get and other stuff to do before I can go to the Consulate.

Oh, and speaking of Consulates:

You have to go in person to a Consulate and you have to have an appointment, bring all of the documents and stuff like that. And then it takes 4 weeks for them to process you visa paperwork and mail you visa to you with you passport (they keep your passport and then mail it to you with the visa in it). And you have to make your visa appointment early because the fill up. So I made my visa appointment for July 26th (which is only in 5 weeks) and I still have stuff I need from Spain but they can't send that to me until I send them stuff from school that I still don't have that still needs to be translated before I can send it to them.

But we'll manage. I hope.

And on a completely unrelated note I have my first spanish lesson tomorrow! Yay! I am excited but I need to go study...

So basically, visas are one of the most annoying things on the planet.

Summer!

Today was the last day of school!! The next time I will be in school will be in Spain! I can't wait, it is going to be a great year!

But this summer is going to be crazy. I am going to 5 different states (6 if you count Washington...) and I still need paperwork for my visa. I need the paperwork before I can go to San Francisco, so i still don't know when I am going. But I'm going! I have never been to California and i am excited! Also, I three months i will (hopefully) be asleep after my first afternoon is Spain! YAY! (By hopefully I mean that I will hopefully be asleep, not hopefully be in Spain...) But yeah, this summer is going to be BUSY!

But it will be fun! Now only 90 days! :)

Flight Info!!!

So today started out as a normal day. The key word in that sentence was started.

When I was putting on my uniform for school my mom yelled at me. I wasn't really paying attention so i didn't hear what she said. I yelled at her to tell me what she said and it turns out MY FLIGHT INFO HAD COME!!!! and I wasn't expecting that until mid-June early-July ish. So i was REALLY EXCITED!!! :)

I went downstairs and opened my email and looked at the thingy. I get to go to Switzerland!!! :) (even if it is only for 3 hours...) Pretty cool. And I have to be in New York at 4 p.m. on September 5th, although i am still trying to convince my mom that we should go a couple of days early... I have an orientation until the 6th and our flight to Zurich leaves at 8:55. We arrive in Zurich at 10:45 the next day and at 12:25 WE LEAVE FOR MADRID!! :) We arrive in Madrid on the 7th at 2:45 pm and we go to our host families the next day! So yeah! I am now SUPER EXCITED (even more than i was before which i didn't think was possible) except i still don't know when i am going to San Francisco to get my visa. Visas are a pain.

But still, i got my flight info!!! :)

Host Families...

So last night I got an email from AFS about a departing students fall 2012 group. I then proceeded to join this group and learned of a Spain 2012-2013 group. I then proceeded to join that group (and for all you Bear Creek Freshman out there that was anaphora. :) :) ). And i learned that many people still did not have their host families. Which would stink. I was reading this blog and some girl who was going to Spain didn't know her host family until less than 6 weeks before she left(ish). THAT WOULD STINK!!! I knew mine within 5 days of being accepted. :) But I feel bad for those people that don't know their host family still. :(

Anyway, I then proceeded ( :D ) to waste a bunch of time talking to all of the other people going to Spain and studying for the history final was thrown out the window.

I love exchange. (and I haven't even left yet!)

The Beginning.

Google is REALLY annoying. I just spent at least 30 minutes trying to recover my password. It kept on giving me the security question "Name of Company" which is really annoying because 1) I don't work and 2) I never even was asked to give an answer for a security question. hmph. Anyway, the real point of this blog is to share my life next year in Spain. Here is a brief summary of what has happened so far:

I have been on 3 mission trips to Santiago, Chile, and have always felt that it would be cool to live in another country, but I never really thought that I would ever end up doing it. I saw the exchange students and wondered what life was like for them, living in another country. When I heard that Isabelle Shively was going to Italy, I thought more about it and explored the idea. In November, I submitted my Pre-Application to AFS (the American Field Service) and started working on my full application. IN the beginning of January, I submitted my full application and in March, I got the email saying I had been accepted by AFS Spain!!!! :) I received my host-family placement 5 days later in late March (which i heard later is REALLY EARLY, most people don't get their host family placements until May-June... ). I learned that I would be living in Tres Cantos, a planned community north of Madrid, and I was going to have 3 "siblings:" Pablo (14), Luis (11), and Elisa (9). I had gotten the email during school and my mom had texted me during class, so I went over during lunch to see where it was and learn about them. I didn't learn much, though, because it was during school, but after school I learned a bunch more and kinda stalked them in a totally non-creepy way. Now, in the past few months, I have been doing random paper work for my visa, other paperwork for AFS, and I have been counting down the days until I leave (I don't know the exact day but it is sometime around September 4th... only 100 MORE DAYS!!! AHHHH!!!!). The closer I get the more excited I get, but also nervous about the whole thing... But I guess that is to be expected. I  still can't believe that I am going and I don't think it will totally sink in until I am on the plane to New York...

My host family is SUPER COOL! The dad, Fernando, is an architect (something I think it would be cool to do) and the mom, Carmen, works for GSK. I am hopefully going to go to the same school Pablo goes to but I don't really know yet... They also have a cat and down the street from their house (yes, i did look it up on Bing maps) there is a pool, a basketball court, some tennis courts, and a playground. I will be living about 15 miles outside of Madrid and I CANT WAIT!!

Also, these blogs posts take forever to write... Holy cow! Anyway, I am SUPER excited and nervous but I know it will be a GREAT year!!! :)