No more Usted form and Cadiz = Successful Day

Today was a big big day for me.  This may sound nerdy, but it has some significance for me.  I was told by my host mother that I don't have to use the Usted form with my host parents!  Yay!  For those of you who have never studied the Spanish language, the Usted form is like saying "you," only it is a more formal way of talking.  It is usually used for people who are older than you, thus I have used the Usted form with my host parents.  Today my mother corrected me and said that I could switch to the tú form (more personal).  I think she didn't realize that I had been using this formal way of talking with her until today because she laughed at me when I said Usted to her.  What a relief.  I can conjugate verbs better in the tü form, so this makes me very happy.  It's funny how the little things like changing a verb tense can make me happy.  Too much Spanish on the mind.

Also, I booked my first trip today!  On Feb. 11, I am taking an 8 hour bus ride through the night to Jerez de la Frontera for the weekend.  Jerez de la Frontera is not significant however the town of Cadiz is.  My friend Nina informed me that the city is having "La Carnaval," which according to Wikipedia (yes I did reference Wikipedia, don't judge me) is "one of the best known carnivals in the world."  And I get to go!  My host mom said that Cadiz is similar to Hawaii in the United States.  I'm not sure about that, but I'm very very excited to start traveling!  Originally, I wanted to go all over Europe, but now I'm thinking that I'd rather stay in Spain.  For this trip, I'm sharing a hostel with Nina and it was rated as being very clean, so I guess that's all that's important.  My two friends from Albion are also staying in Jerez in another hotel close to ours, so it will be nice to do things together.  I think it takes half an hour to get to Cadiz, but all the hotels in Cadiz have been booked for months, so this was really the best we could do.  It is a pretty good find I must say and I'm so glad Nina told me about the trip!  I have that to look forward to, and we're still in the process of making Portugal arrangements.  Life is so so good!