So, Sunday at about 8, we arrived at the house after a 35(ish) minute bus ride, and we all thought we would be eating and going to bed. But nope...that was definitely not the case. We arrived, got beds (girls upstairs, guys downstairs) and sat at the tables, waiting for what felt like forever to be able to eat the sandwiches or whatever else we had brought along for dinner that night. Then at about 9:30, we started "games." These games were supposed to serve to get us to talk to people that we usually don't talk to, which didn't really work very well. Then after these games finished (11:30) we had free time until 12, when we finally went to bed.
The next morning, we woke up at 9 and spent the entire day doing activities, listening to lectures, talking in small groups, all of this with meals and free time in between. By the end of the day, though we hadn't done anything particularly productive, we were all exhausted, but nope, we couldn't go to bed. We HAD to stay in either the dining area (where they moved the tables) or outside (where it was freezing cold). We finished everything we had planned by about 9:30-10 so we had to find a way to entertain ourselves for 2 hours until we could finally go to bed.
Then today, we woke up at 9 again and did a small activity together, then we had 1 hour where we couldn't talk to anyone. We had to take that time to "be with ourselves" to reflect on our experience and our life in general. Usually I'm 100% okay with being alone...I actually love being alone to just think or watch a movie or read or do something where I can finally just relax. But it's so weird when there's about 40 some people all walking around outside, laying on benches, sitting in the room, all TOGETHER, but no one talking to each other. It's, what can I say, interesting, I suppose.
Now, to explain a little... there are 4 classes in Primero de Bachillerato (my grade -- "junior year"), but they couldn't possibly fit all of us in the same house, so they took the two biggest classes (Primero C & D) and put them in the bigger house and they put the two smaller classes (Primero A & B) in the smaller house of the two. I am in Primero A, but I ended up going with classes C and D. I've never experienced anything like these "convivencias" because we don't exactly have them at our school, so I went with my host sister and my friends that are in her class.
Though, in the end, I honestly think I would have been 100% comfortable with the other classes too, as I'm starting to get closer with those girls, and I'm comfortable in class with all of them. And I kind of wish I had gone with them because I adore the people in my class and the other class, but the truth is, I don't know them all that well, and it would have been nice to all have a better understanding of each other. But hey, no pasa nada.
I guess in the end it was a pretty good experience. I met people from the other classes that I had never even seen before, people I thought were in the grade above me, I had some good laughs with my friends, and it was an absolutely beautiful location. Not sure I'd do it again, though.
The thing is, I don't think it's necessary to have to be there for 2 1/2 days when we could have done all of the activities in 1 day or maybe 1 1/2 days. We had a ridiculous amount of free time where we were just wandering around doing absolutely nothing. I mean it's not like we could have walked around town....we were in the middle of the mountains...AND it was freezing. It could have been organized better...
But hey, in the end, it was 2 1/2 days that I didn't have to be in class, 2 1/2 days I could spend with some of my friends, and 2 1/2 days that I had to meet and, well, very quickly "get to know" people that I hadn't met before.
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