Feliz Navidad

Hello Everyone,

Merry Christmas from Spain! I have not blogged in a really long time. I have been very busy enjoying life here in Spain. I have had so many experiences in the past month and a half.  On December 18th it was my 100th day in Spain and I gave a presentation to my Rotary Club all in Spanish. I have been working so hard on my Spanish and it was so rewarding after I was done to hear the Rotarians tell me I have improved immensely. Now I understand almost everything and can have conversations no problem. I still have a long way to go in order to be fluent, but at the end of the year I am sure I will be. For Thanksgiving I went to Alicante where 3 exchange students from America live. We made Thanksgiving for our host families.   Unfortunately mine couldn't come but I had a great time. It was nice to have Thanksgiving in Spain and teach the families how important this holiday is to Americans. I love telling people about American culture. I also went and had another Thanksgiving with my English teacher from my school. He was an exchange student 20 years ago in Michigan. I had a great time there as well and he and his family are very nice. I just recently got my grades from school and they were all very good. My host family was very proud of me. School is going much better now than the first couple of months.  I think it is because I have made some very good friends here. Two of my closest friends here are possibly coming to spend the month of July in my house! I am really excited for that. Well I have done so much more in the past month and half but it would take me to long to write it all. I will talk about what I did for Christmas. On Christmas Eve I went to my host Aunt's house where a lot of the extended family was. We had a huge dinner, there was so much food I could barely eat it all. Spaniards eat really late, so we ate dinner around 10 and finished everything around 1. We ended up going back to our house at 3 in the morning. The schedule in Spain I have noticed is so different, but it's part of the culture. Today for Christmas my host sister and I made pancakes for my family. They really like pancakes and so do I, so I was happy to make them. After lunch we opened up a few gifts. But opening gifts in Spain on Christmas is not the common thing. My host family only opens gifts on Christmas because my host sister likes to since she lived in America and likes the tradition. They traditionally open their presents on Three Kings Day, which is January 6th. I am excited to see the traditions for this holiday and hopefully next year I can show my family the way the Spanish celebrate the holiday. All in all I had a very good Christmas. Of course it was hard, I missed my family so much but I kept trying to think of how lucky I am to get to experience Christmas in a different country. I will be with my Michigan family next year so I need to enjoy my time here. I am very excited for New Year’s Eve and to see their traditions for that.  My host family has already told me a couple of them. Exchange is all about learning the culture and embracing it and I am so lucky because Spain has so much culture to enjoy. I have been here for 3 months and 2 weeks. My four months will be on January 10th. Time is starting to pass by extremely fast. The past 3 months have been filled with challenges, moments of sadness when I feel a bit homesick and moments of happiness, but I am determined to make these next months amazing. Feliz Navidad!

Brandon Dull

Almost Two Months in Spain

Hello Everyone,

Wow, I can't believe it, in 2 days I will have been here for 8 weeks! Time really is starting to fly by. The first month was so slow and I was wondering why all the exchange students said it was the best but fastest year of their life. Now I can totally understand why they say it goes by fast. After month 1 time is just flying! I haven't posted in 5 weeks so I have a lot to talk about. I have experienced already so many things and most importantly my Spanish is getting better. It's now so much easier to understand people and I can somewhat have a conversation. My Spanish is getting better with every day and now that I have a Spanish tutor, who helps me immensely, I am seeing an improvement.  I know that by the end of the year I will be able to have conversations with people no problem! School is really difficult still because the teachers talk so fast, but I try as hard as I can to understand. Since I last posted I went to a huge party in the city of Petrer. There were so many people there and the music was loud, it was so cool. I went with my friends from school and we all had a good time. I didn't go home till 2 in the morning which was a really different thing for me because in Spain they are all about the night life. I also went to my first Spanish soccer game in Alicante. It was so fun to see and I enjoyed it very much. Spain is crazy about their soccer! I didn't get to see a goal though, because the score ended up being 0-0. Next time! Last weekend I went to Valenica. Valencia is the third biggest city in Spain. It was beautiful.  The buildings are so old and pretty. I went to a place called Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias. The buildings there were so abstract and the way it was laid out was amazing. I will never forget that place and if any of you come to Spain definitely check that out. We also went out to lunch at a nice restaurant and went and checked out a couple of stores. I think I am going back to Valencia later this month, and I am very excited for that. This weekend I spent with my Rotary counselor in Alicante. I had so much fun. We went to a rollercoaster park in Benidorm. Benidorm is about 20-30 minutes away from Alicante and it is such a pretty city. My counselor’s family kept telling me that it is the New York City of Spain because the buildings are so tall. Benidorm is also right on the coast, so when I was riding all the rides the view was amazing. I hung out with my host counselor’s son Fernando and his two friends. We rode just about all the rides there, I had a great time. On Sunday I climbed a mountain and the view was absolutely amazing. I will post the pictures to Facebook. While I was on the top of the mountain I realized how many people would die to be doing what I am doing right now, and how grateful I truly do feel to have this opportunity. I am 16 years old and by the end of this year I will have traveled to over 10 different countries and have had the opportunity to learn a new language and live in a different country for a year. I feel so blessed that Rotary gave me this opportunity and honestly will never forget this year in my life. I can't wait to see what these next 7 months have in store for me. I know these experiences are making me grow and learn in so many ways a year back at home in Midland High couldn't. Don't get me wrong, exchange is so hard. I am 4,000 miles away from my family and my friends and everything I have ever known. Homesickness strikes me every now and then but when I look back at this year I know I am not going to even remember the times I was sad. I will remember how great of a year I had and how many amazing people I met. I hope when I go home I will inspire other kids to do an exchange because honestly nothing compares to it. You develop relationships with people all over the world that will last a lifetime. Let’s see what these next seven months have in store for me!

Hasta Luego,

Brandon Dull

3 Weeks in Spain

Hello Everyone,

      I have been here for 3 weeks now and I am having a very good time. With everyday my Spanish is improving and it is getting easier to understand people. During school I still struggle very much to understand what is going on but when someone talks to me one on one I can understand them very well. Everyday after school I usually have a headache from constantly translating in my head what everyone says to me. I cannot wait for the day when I don't have to translate everything and Spanish just comes natural. I am getting a Spanish tutor and that will hopefully help me a lot. This past week I have joined a gym which I work out at after siesta. For those of you who don't know what siesta is, it's during the afternoon around 2-5 where you just hang out and relax. My host parents come home from work and all the shops in the city close. During siesta I almost always fall asleep because I am always so exhausted. Anyways, after siesta I go to the gym and it feels really nice to work out. My host family also signed me up for a gym team. I am not really sure what this consist of doing but I am excited to find out and I will be with kids my age, so it will be a great way to make more friends.
     This past weekend I went to Santa Pola to my host family's beach house and it was a great weekend. I have always loved the beach and so it was so nice just to lay down at the beach and relax. Their house is about a 20 second walk from the beach so it very easily accessible. This weekend was a little cloudy but the temperature was great. On friday I had my first Paella from Spain. It was so good. Paella is a dish that is very traditional in Spain and it is rice with meat in it. I will upload a picture to Facebook of it along with many other pictures. I also had snails for the first time as well too. They look pretty intimidating but they are actually pretty good. No matter how gross a food sounds or looks I always try it because I want to try everything! Generally I have liked all the food here so far and there hasn't been anything where I absolutely hated it. I do miss American food a lot though. On sunday we went and watched a duathlon. They ran and then biked and it was really cool to watch, everyone was cheering for all the people. If I ever had to do a duathlon, I would want to do that one since they were running along the Mediterranean and it was really pretty. After watching that my Rotary counselor Fernando and his family came to Santa Pola from Alicante to have lunch with me and my host family. It was nice to meet them and they are really nice family. They have a daughter who is 18 and a son who is 14. I will be spending the first saturday of every month with them and I am excited to get to know them.
     As for homesickness, I randomly get it. Sometimes I am really happy and so glad I am here and other times I really miss home. Overall, I am glad that I made the decision to be an exchange student. I have been here for 3 weeks and I already can see myself growing as a person. The things I have had to experience have made me so much stronger. I now know what it's like to not understand what's going on around you, to feel like you don't fit in, to not know whats right from wrong and so many more feelings. Even though all of these feelings are really hard to experience I am so glad I got the chance because it truly has made me a better person. When I go back to my high school in America I will not hesitate to go up to someone and talk to them if they are alone. I know what it feels like to be alone in school and it is a terrible feeling. Although now I am making many friends and have plans to hang out with them on the weekend, it was still difficult in the beginning All of this has happened in 3 weeks, so I am so excited to see what this year has to offer for me. I know it will make me grow as a person, and make me become more mature. Also I have realized how blessed I am to come from the family I do in America. I always have taken for granted the time I spent with them and when I get home I definitely will not do that. I am happy I was raised in Midland, Michigan, and feel so proud to tell people I am American. I have so much more pride in my country now that I am here in Spain, and realize how lucky I am to live there. Until next time!

Adios,
Brandon Dull

Finally Here!

Hello Everyone,

Well I am finally in Spain. I had a lot of complications getting here. I left MBS at 355 to fly to Detroit. As I left my home, I began to think what am I doing? I don’t want to leave all of my friends and family. It was a hard feeling to get but I am sure many exchange students get  this feeling as they leave there homes. I arrived to Detroit and found my gate. I took a sleeping pill so I was not awake for the flight. When I woke up and we were landing in Paris, I grabbed my stuff and left. I was so hungry because I did not eat anything on the plane so I reached inside my backpack for my wallet and couldn’t find it. Thinking maybe I accidentily left it in the plane I went to the Air France front desk and asked them if they could check. They did, and there was no wallet in the plane. I remember I moved my wallet from my pocket to my backpack after I had sat down on the plane and the guy next to me must have seen that and stole it. But, because I was talking at the desk I missed my flight to Madrid. So then I had to reschedule for a later flight. I left Paris at 12:25 and arrived to Madrid around 3:00. I had to grab my bags from baggage claim because I was going on a new airline, so I had to check in again. I had to go to Terminal 4 in Madrid which is about 10 minutes from the Terminal I arrived to. So I got on the bus to Terminal 4 around 3:25 and I was rushing really fast with all my bags. My flight to Alicante left at 3:55. I went up to the front desk to get a boarding pass. The lady told me that I could not go on the plane because I didn’t have a credit card with me to pay for my extra bag and my mom couldn’t pay over the phone. Then she proceded to tell me that boarding was closed anyways. So sadly I went over to the help desk and asked the lady when the next flight was and it was at 7 in the morning and even if I wanted to wait till then I couldn’t because I would have had to have a credit card with me to change my flight. So, panicking I called my Mom not knowing what to do. I told her and she told me to call my host family. So I hung up and she called me back a few minutes later before I called my host family and said that her best friends sister was in the Madrid airport and she most likely would be able to take me to the train station where I could go to Alicante. That ended up not working out so then my host sister arranged for a Rotarian to pick me up and take me to the train station. So they picked me up and I went to the train station and finally I was on my way to my final destination. My host family was waiting for me at the train station and it was so nice to finally meet them. I was so excited to meet them and see my city and everything. I was starving so my family and I went and got pizza. The pizza here is different than in America but it is still very good. My host parents were talking to me in Spanish and I could barely understand anything but Aida my host sister helped a lot with translating since she is very good at English. After we were done about 11:00 pm we went up to there apartment. The apartment is really nice, it is very spacious with an amazing terrace. I love the apartment and my room! The next day it was an unreal feeling waking up in Spain after I had been waiting to be here for so long. Aida showed me the city on my second day. The city is so cool, it is defintley nothing like I have ever seen in America. The city seems really big to me and there is a lot to do here.  Then after seeing the city the whole family came over and we had a barbaque on the terrace. It was so much fun. I got to meeet the whole family and they all mostly speak spanish but some speak english. As I sat down at the dinner table listening to them speak spanish I got a terrible head ache because it is very exhausting trying to translate the words in my head. It was still so much fun. The next few days I went to Alicante and saw more of the city, and many more things. On Friday I went to Madrid for an orientation for some of the inbound students. I went on a train with four other girls who are all staying in Alicante. Alicante is a town about 20 minutes away from me. Its right on the coast and it is such a pretty city. Anyways we went on the train together and I had so much fun getting to know them and I am so excited to know they live so close to me! For the orientatin we had to stay in tents one night and the next a house. It was really fun meeting the other students in Spain. We talked about all the rules, played games, had a party and more! It was a fun weekend but I am so happy I live in the South because it is so cold in Madrid at night and in the morning! When I got home on Sunday I went and saw Las Fallas. It is figures made out of carboard and wood and they represent things that citizens of Elda don’t like or politics. On Sunday night they burn all of the figures so its like you are burning away the bad things. It was really cool to watch and it was very intresting because we don’t have anything like that in America. When I got home on Sunday night it was 12 and I had schoool the next day. I was really excited for school and to meet new people. So I woke up at 7 and got ready for school. My host dad and sister drove me and my host sister who is in the USA has a friend who goes to my schoool so she was waiting for me to get there and she helped me go to my class and tell me where to go. I am very thankful for her. School was not good. I couldn’t understand anything at all. They talk so fast that I could barely even catch words. I didn’t really talk to many kids but one boy who is really nice helped me a lot. I only had schoool for an hour because it was just orientation. I had a full day of school today and it was really hard and exhausting. It's really frustrating not understanding what anyone is saying to you and what is going on in the class. It's also very hard to make friends because of the language barrier. I am trying hard though and tomorrow I have English and I am so excited for that class I will finally be able to understand something. I was feeling really homesick during school and just thinking how if I was back home I would not have any of these problems. I know that school will get better with time.  So if you guys are wondering about how my Spanish is going, its alright. I have learned a lot of words since I got here. If people talk directly at me and slowly, I can understand what they are saying but If they are having a conversation with someone else I can barely understand anything because they talk so fast. My host sister and I went out and got me a notebook so I can write down all the new words I learn in a day. I think that will be helpful for me because I seem to forget the words they teach me. But my Spanish is improving, maybe not as fast as I would like, but I have only been here for 7 days. Overall, I am having a great time, I am so happy I am here in Spain and I know that I am going to grow and mature so much this year, I can already see it happening. This year wont be easy but I know it will be worth it. Until next time!

Adios,

Brandon Dull

Just A Little Bit Longer

Hello Everyone,

A lot has happened since I last posted. I attended the big Calvin College conference. It was amazing. There were about 1,500 people there. It was cool because I got to talk to people from Spain and get advice on things I might need to know.  I was also able to talk to students who just got back from exchange in Spain. At the end of the weekend I was even more excited for my exchange than I was when it started, and I didn't think that was possible. Next, I received my Visa. I had countless paperwork to complete and a trip to Chicago to apply for it. But, there were no big issues with getting my Visa, so I am glad about that. After getting my Visa I had to wait a month till my travel agent gave me my itinerary. I am a little nervous about my itinerary because I have many stops. I am going from MBS to Detroit, Detroit to Paris, Paris to Madrid, and Madrid to Alicante. Needless to say, it will be a long day. I am leaving on Monday September 9th. It is exactly two weeks away from today. Words can't describe how excited I am to leave. I have been waiting for over two years to be an exchange student, and it's an unreal feeling knowing that it's so close. Two of my closest friends are doing exchange with me. One is in Finland and the other is in France. They have both already left and so it just makes me want to be in Spain even more. Honestly, it still doesn't seem real that I am going to spend my whole junior year in Spain and I know it won't until I step foot on the plane. I am getting nervous to say goodbye to friends and family because they mean so much to me. I know it won't be easy but I know that they're all supporting me on my journey. Well, I just wanted to update everyone on what I have been doing and let you know when I leave. September 9th can't come soon enough!

Adios,

Brandon Dull

Introduction To Spain

Hello everybody,

My name is Brandon Dull and I am traveling to Spain with Rotary this year. I am going to do my best to keep this blog updated with all the things I am doing there. I feel so lucky to be able to have this opportunity, and I will embrace every minute of it. I applied to this program in June of 2012 and did a preliminary interview and application. After I passed that I had to fill out a really long application and then I had my district interview. After all this hard work it payed off when I was finally told that I was an outbound for the  upcoming year. I was so ecstatic, and could barely contain my excitement. I was told in November I was a part of the program but I wouldn't find out which country I would be going to until January. That seemed like the longest 3 months of my life. But, when I finally got the call that I was going to Spain, it was all worth it. Spain was my number 1 choice so of course I was really happy. Then after that I had to wait for an email from my host parents or an email from my host district. My district in Michigan told me that it could be anywhere from March-June. This was an even harder wait. I wanted to know what part of Spain I would be spending the next year of my life in so bad. But on May 1st I finally got an email from my host sister.

So, I will be living in Elda, Spain which is located  20 miles from Alicante. Elda has about 60,000 people in it so its just a little bit bigger then what I am used too. I have two host sisters, one who is 25 and the other is 18. My 18 year old host sister will be on exchange to USA so she will not be there while I am there. My other host sister who is 25 years old did an exchange to California when she was in High School and studied at Clemson University so she knows how to speak English fluently. As for my host parents they don't know how to speak any English at all. My host parents own a gourmet food company called  Salazones Serrano. Because they have this company they travel a lot to go to different restaurants to try new foods and such. I will be living with them the whole year instead of having 3 host families. They live in a 2 story apartment downtown with a beautiful view on their terrace. Also the city of Elda is only 20 miles away from the Mediterranean Coast. That will be a big change for me since I'm used to cold Michigan. I am really excited to meet my host family!!

As for right now I just turned in my visa paperwork and am trying to get my visa for Spain. This summer will involve me going to Chicago to pick it up. Also this summer we have a big Central States Rotary Youth Exchange Conference with over 1,000 people there. I am really excited for that and cannot wait. I will post in the summer about how obtaining my visa is going because Spain is really slow and is a hassle with visas. Also when my departure date is. Until then, Adios!

Picture of Elda

Where I am on the map