El Primero Día de Escuela

Wow. Uhhhh.. One word pops into mind when I think of today. That word? Different. Their schooling here is so much different than ours in the US. Classes start at 9am. You have two one-hour long classes and then a break which is recess essentially. Everyone goes outside and hangs out in the patio/courtyard surrounding the school. That's for a half an hour I think. At 1130, we went back into the building and had two more hour-long classes, then it was lunch time!! Lunch here is very important so the school gives students an hour and a half for it meaning classes resume again at 3. (Sidebar- Aleks and I walk back to her house to eat lunch everyday.) There are two more classes after lunch so school ends at 5. I'm pretty sure the classes differ everyday, too, which is kind of cool. However...... We stay in the same classroom. All day. For every class. I'm the kind of person who likes moving around and can't sit still for too long. Even though we have a few minutes between classes, it's not enough. Oh well. The English teacher made each of us Americans get up and introduce ourselves in English first, then in Spanish. When I went up to introduce myself I think the class was most amazed by the fact that I said I had my license. They all oooohed and aaahhed at that one. In Spain you can't drive a car until you're 18. The geography teacher (I swear it was not geography, we were doing economics) told us we had to bring notebooks to take notes. Someone want to tell me the point of that? I'm not taking tests in your class. When I told her my name she said "Mackenzie, es un nombre feo, no?" or "Mackenzie, es un rio, no?" So she either said I had an ugly name or that my name is the name of a river (which it is, Mackenzie River in Canada) but Grace, Danny and I swear we heard her say feo. Either way I think I've decided that class will be my least favorite. In Spanish class we had to do some activity and of course out of all the Americans she decided to have mine read out loud by another student. Awesome. At this point everyone in the class laughs at me because of all the faces I make and how embarrassed I get. Oh well. At least it makes it interesting. Also... today I felt a little tug on my hair during class. What was it you may ask? Oh nothing important.. It was just the girl behind me (whose name I still don't know) playing with my hair. Normal. They're obsessed with it here. "Qué suave!" I think I get that almost every day. It's really nothing special? Another random fact.. Everyone stares at us. At "recess" all the Americans hung out and everywhere we walked, eyes followed. I don't know how we seem so different. I mean we clearly all look Spanish!! The uniforms, of course, are a dead giveaway that proves we're outsiders and that's also accompanied by the fact that we don't in fact actually look Spanish. (Bummer!) They're not dirty looks though.. More like, interested, "I-want-to-get-to-know-you" sort of looks. Fine by us. Somos muy populares!!! Anyway, although it's much different here, I do like it and I'm having a great time. I think everyone else is too. Can't wait to see what happens tomorrow. We have gym class. That should be interesting. Deséame suerte!!

PS. I think today what made me the most excited was that I understood the classes. Well.. a majority. I definitely understood what was going on and what people were saying. Yay me!! :)