I’ve made it through the first full week of school! Overall, I’m really enjoying everything. In Spain, kids begin to choose their career path as early as age 15, when they decide if they’d rather study math/science or history/literature for the rest of high school. Because I’m in my last year of high school and have chosen the humanities route, none of my classes involve math or science!! For those of you who know me well, this is a major benefit. This year, I am studying: Philosophy, Castilian, Universal Literature, English, History of Art, Economics, French, and History of Spain. I am interested in all of my classes, and the teachers seem nice. Also, I much prefer waking up at 7 with a 4 minute walk to school, instead of last year’s waking up at 6 for a 25 minute drive :).
Lots of people have asked me if all my classes would be in Spanish, and I’ve said “yes.” However, the true answer should be, “not really.” The city in which I’m living is located in the Valencian region, which has two official languages: castellano (Spanish) and valenciano. Valenciano is incredibly similar to Spanish and French, but it is in fact a language, not a dialect. Although everyone speaks castellano, street signs are written in valenciano. Also, school is taught in both languages… this means that some of my teachers prefer to speak and castellano, while others teach in valenciano. Thus, about half my classes are in Spanish, and the other half are in valenciano.
Examples: old town; sp: pueblo antiguo; val: poble antic
name: nombre, nom
what’s your name; cómo te llamas; com et dius
Valenciano is similar enough that I will understand it once I’m fluent in Spanish, but it’s different enough that I can only understand 30% of it right now.
Aside from that, school isn’t very hard, and I’ll be completely fine once I can understand everything. Yes, I’m making friends, but it’s been a major adjustment moving from a school of 2,800 kids to one of 400. My last year’s junior class had 742 students; my senior class in Spain has less than 40!
Here are some pictures from around Altea:
The view from my bedroom window, facing away from the sea
