Facebook

Just recently I was on my Gmail thinking about how much  I miss talking to my friends. It was then that I realized that a couple of my friends commented to me that I should get a Facebook account. So I asked my parents if I could get one, they approved, and I went to facebook.com nd created my free account. Right away I already had 4 friend requests from my former classmates asking me to add them as their friend. It was then that I realized that this Facebook thing was pretty fun. After about a day, I was chatting with friends, uploading pictures, commenting on friends' pictures and writing on my friends' "walls". I must admit, Facebook is very addicting, as you always feel that you must comment after someone else on their picture or check your message inbox to see if anyone wrote to you or look at your wall to see if anyone has anything to tell you.

However I realize now that Facebook is a great tool thats available to people all over the world who want to keep in touch with one another. It comes of great use to me because I am so far away from my friends and I sometimes I just need someone to talk to or chat with who is my own age. I also get to see pictures of my friends and upload pictures of myself and videos of myself. But now I'm so glad that I can talk to kids my own age in English and feel like I'm back there in California even if I'm halfway across the world in Málaga, Spain. I can't wait to go back to Monterey.

Christmas Break

Hey! I haven't written in a really really really really long time and I'm sorry for that, (I'm kind of a procrastinator). But the first trimester is finally over and that's a big relief because I finally got my grades back, and I'm not going to lie, I was pretty surprised at how good they were. I got 4 Sobresalientes (As), 6 Notables (Bs), and 1 Bien (B-). But keep in mind that here the grading system is a bit different. It's almost expected for a student to flunk one class, because here in Spain, its only required to go to school up to Cuarto de ESO which is the equivalent of Sophomore in High School. 

But my Christmas Break has been awesome because I've bought some firecrackers from a kid in my class who sells them. But these aren't normal firecrackers, these are cylinders of gunpowder wrapped in paper with a fuse sticking out that, when ignited, sound like bombs. I've been lighting those off with my cousin Santi for the past week. And I've also gone to the firework shops in Málaga to buy more fireworks to set off on New Years Eve (yesterday). I had a ton of fun with my cousins Mateo (7  years old), Santi (13 years old) and Nacho (16 years old) during the week and couple days that they were here.

But something sad and tragic happened today that I was just informed about. My great great uncle, "Tito Pepe" who was 89 years old, passed away today in the hospital. But although I didn't see him very often, he was a super kind man with a heart of gold, who always did things for others and loved children. I remember that we went to visit him and his long time wife, "Tita Lolín" in their 13th floor apartment in Málaga, and he knelt down next to Pablo and brought out some toy cars for him, a big box full of them. But although he's left us, I know that he's in a better place, and that he led a long life full of love and happiness.  Tito Pepe, you will be missed by many people, may you rest in peace.

Antequera

This past weekend my grandpa took me to the town of his birth, Antequera, a small town about 45 minutes from where we live, Rincón de la Victoria. He picked me up at about 9 AM, and he drove me to a cafe where we had churros with hot chocolate. After that, we drove for another 30 minutes to Antequera. What I realized was that in Antequera, about 60% of the buildings were convents for nuns. It's actually pretty cool, during Christmas season they sell these pastries called polvorenes and mantecados for money, they're really good, but kind of expensive. So we visited a couple of really pretty churches and convents, bought some polvorones and mantecados, and we went to the downtown area. There, we saw the hospital that my grandpa was born in, the house that my grandpa lived in, and a lot of really nice houses with huge indoor patios. Then we went to a seminary, but not any old seminary, the seminary of the Capuccinos, the men that went out to colonize America. But unfortunately, we only got to see the outside of it, because the chapel visiting hours were over. By that time, it was about 1 PM, so my grandpa realized that we still had time to visit his friend who's in a nursing home in the next town over. So we drove over there, which took us about 20 minutes, and finally we arrived in the beautiful old town. We then walked along the cobblestone streets until we arrived at the surprisingly very modern resting home, where my grandpa's childhood friend was staying. We walked in, and we found his friend in the smoking room, with a small handheld radio clutched to his ear. He was listening to the winning numbers for the lottery. He recognized Pepe right away, and then Pepe introduced me to him.We talked with him for a while, and then he told my grandpa that he had just won the lottery. He was obviously losing it because that's what happens to old people. My grandpa played along with it, asking him what he's been doing with all the money, and the man responded that he had bought himself a red Ferrari from Italy, and today, he bought himself and expensive Cuban cigar. I thought it was kind of sad that he honestly thought that he had won the lottery, but I guess he's happy, so it's okay. So we left the nursing home and drove over to another tiny village, Casabermeja, where we ate the best migas in the world, from my grandpa's friend Frasquito. Migas are the white part of the bread, the soft part, but fried, and served with chorizo, lomo(pork), and a fried egg. Then with our stomachs full, we drove another 45 minutes home. Ah what a day! 

Madrid

This weekend our family took a trip down to Madrid to visit my aunt Mari Carmen and my uncle Pepito's family. My mom, my brothers, and my cousin Lena all took the AVE, or bullet train, down to Madrid. They only took 2.5 hours to get there because they were traveling at 270 km/hour. However, my dad, my aunt Ana, and I rode in the car with all of the luggage, and we took 6 hours to get there. I however, was smart and I brought my iPod to entertain myself for about 5 hours so I wasn't too miserable for the whole ride. But my dad was kind of upset with me because I barely talked to him for the whole ride because I had my headphones in. But after the long six hour ride, we finally arrived at my aunt Mari Carmen's big house in a small town outside of the city of Madrid at about 11:30 PM. I hadn't seen my cousins Santi and Nacho in about two years so it was fun getting to finally spend some time with them again. But we had to get to bed right away that night because both Santi and Nacho had soccer matches the next day.

My cousin Santi (who's 13) woke me up at 8 that next morning to play XBOX 360, while big Nacho kept sleeping, so we got an early start. Santi was excited to show me his new games HALO 3, Call of Duty 4, and FIFA '08. Then, after about an hour of silent videogaming, we heard that everyone else in the house was already awake, and that Mari Carmen had went out and brought churros for everyone, so we woke up Nacho and went downstairs to the kitchen. Then, my little cosin Mateo rang the doorbell, and ran into the kitchen, in full soccer uniform, asking if we wanted to go see his soccer game at noon. That was only in a little while, so we all went back upstairs to get changed. We then went to 7 year old Mateos game, which was pretty exciting actually. Mateo scored the first goal of the game and led his team to a 7-6 victory over the hometown heroes, Cadaquiz. However, Mateo cried after the game, because he felt a lot of pressure on his shoulders, with the whole family being there and all, because they almost lost. But we all congratulated Mateo on his team victory, letting him know how well he did, to try to cheer him up. Then we had to rush home so that Nacho and Santi could eat something and catch their team buses to the field. After Nacho took the bus with his team to his field, I rode in my uncle Chico's car with Natalia's fiancé Oscar and two of Nacho's friends to the field. However, once we got to our seats, we were a bit disappointed because the coach decided to bench Nacho, only because he had been injured for the past two games. Nacho's team was tied with the home team 1-1 after the first 45 minutes, but then they lost 1-3. When we got back home, after the game, we found out from the rest of the family that Santi's team had reigned victorious over the other team 8-0. 

On Sunday, my dad, mom, and brother David drove down to the city of Madrid to go see EL MUSEO DEL PRADO. Once inside, we saw a bunch of masterpieces by painters like Goya and Velazquez. But the cool thing was that outside, there was a huge parade in the streets celebrating immigrants from Latin America. There was a section of the parade for each spanish speaking country in central and South America. We then ate at a small restaurant, and much to our surprise, there was a STARBUCKS and KFC across the street! How sad. Then we got back into our car that we bought off of Pepito, a Volkswagen Passat, and we drove back home. The next day, we had to get up early, pack our stuff and drive back home.

Physical Education

Today was a fun day at school. We started out the day with P.E., which was really intense. The class began by us running around the futbol sala court for 15 minutes straight, by that time I was already sweating. We then brought the mats out to the court, and laid down on them. Our P.E. teacher, Mario, then told us to do 30 sit ups. We did them, and then we had to do leg lifts, which work your abs. After that he told us to lay down and draw big eyes with our feet, or make big circles with our feet, but slowly, so it burns. Push ups were next, and then Mario told us that we were going to repeat the whole process again. So we finished the "warm up", and then it was time to run again, yippee! But the funny thing was was that whenever Mario would turn around or go inside the gym, everyone would stop running and take a short break. Then he'd walk back outside, and everyone would start running again. Finally the P.E. class was over, and my classmates and I, drenched in sweat, walked on to our next class, English.

Breakfast with Grandpa Pepe

This morning I just had one of the best breakfasts of my life with my brother and my grandpa Pepe. He drove by our house and picked us up in his Benz at about 9:30 AM, and he drove us to a part of the Rincón de la Victoria called El Palo, or the stick. There we got out of the car and walked over to a churrería called El Sauce (pronounced el souw-say) and sat down at an empty table. The waiter then came over and asked my grandpa what we were going to order. He ordered nine churros, three for each of us, two thick hot chocolates, for my brother and I to dip our churros in, and a coffee for Pepe to dip his churros in. About five minutes later, the waiter brought the churros and chocolate, and we began the feast. What we did was break off tiny pieces of the churro and dip it into the warm and rich hot chocolate.

Fifteen minutes later, all the churro goodness was gone, and it was time to head home. So we got back into the black Mercedes, Grandpa Pepe floored the pedal, and he drove out of El Palo, and back to our house.

Gotta love the food!

Yesterday, I got to have fried fish by the sea, at a little restaurant right on the beach, which serves the food its fishermen catch, such as squid, red snapper, sardines, and octopus. The food tastes fresh, and they prepare it for you right away.

We started off by getting in the water, where the waves were huge, and then we showered at my uncle's house that's right on the beach. We dried off, changed our bathing suits, and walked down to the chiringuito, or beachside restaurant, to eat some amazing food. After we finished eating, we ordered desserts, such as arroz con leche, or rice pudding, as well as chocolate mousse, and natillas, which are a type of vanilla pudding.

Then we headed down to the beach once more, to get crushed by the massive waves. My brother had to get out of the water, because a huge wave thrashed him, and he went tumbling. He was more scared than hurt, I think.So then my aunt Cristina went to a local confiteria, or bakery, to get these little pastries for us which are delicious. (My dad also cut himself some Spanish sausage called chorizo.)

We then got into the car and drove home to my grandparents' house, where we swam in my grandpa's pool. What a great day!