Jose's Youth Exchange to Spain: January 2013

Fish and Chips from England

After a week of going clubbing and touring the beautiful country of Italy I was completely exhausted. Upon arrival in Granada, a friend picked me up and let me spend the night at her house. I used the following day to catch up on all of the sleep that I had missed. When I woke up I got all my bags ready again, because I was a day away from taking off on an other week long trip to London.


My friend Rosa, who picked me up at the bus station

I woke up at 5 in the morning April 17th with all my luggage ready to go. My host mother then dropped me off at the school where a bus would later pick up our class to head to Malaga. From the airport of Malaga we went on a 2 hour flight all the way to London. Later that day we arrived in our hotel and settled our stuff in.


Me and my Spaniard friends on the plane

After we were all settled, our chaperons gathered us all together to do our first tour of London. As we left the hotel we went to take the metro system. I honestly have to say London's metro system is incredible; there was a ton of people all over the place. At this point the chaperons let us divide into our own groups having a place to meet up later on. So a group of friends and I ventured off exploring the city. The city was dazzling, with people all around of all colors and ethnic background. I know this sounds obvious but they were all speaking with an English accent! It was so cool listening to it. A few times while we were walking down the streets of London I tried talking to the people with a British accent. A few of them actually believed that I was English! I felt like I could blend in without any problem. Also being able to speak English made me an official interpreter/ translator for my Spaniard friends.They would tell me from time to time, "Hey we are lost, ask this guy how to get back back", or "Tell this guy that I want to buy these shoes; ask him how much they cost."

The funniest thing about my Spaniard friends was how they bartered with people. We walked into a store and a couple friends of mine saw these really cool headphones. They decided that they wanted to buy them, so they told me to ask the owner how much they cost. So I ask and the guy and tells me they are 50 pounds. My friends were not willing to buy a pair of head phones for 50 pounds, so they continued to ask the guy to drop the price. They said we will buy them for 30, then the guy said that they were worth much more than 30 pounds. So my friends told me to tell him the weren't going to buy them, and decided they were going to leave. Right as they began to leave the guy agreed to sell the head phones for 30. Then my friends told me to ask the guy to sell them the headphones for 15 pounds. I was positive the guy was going to throw us out, because I didn't think there was any way he would sell it to them for 15 pounds. And of course the guy said no, he would not sell them for 15 pounds, so my friends decided to "pretend to leave" again. Sure enough right after, the guy agreed to sell them the headphones for 15 pounds! I was shocked, there was no way I could have done that. They saved themselves 35 pounds, it was amazing actually.

Here are some pictures of me in London