Hillary Unger

Mr. Maslonka
11 November 2014
Portfolio

I finally got to experience Spain in the way I never thought I would before. I got to
go over to the country with the Spanish club for two weeks. I was able to understand the
language from my years of preparation. The first night it was hard to get a good nights
rest cause of the six hour time change. But that way it was easy to keep track of the
time back here in the United States. It was hard converting my cashier checks into
pacos. The country was different from here in the states. The city want much different.
The city I kept calling it New York just in Spanish. You could buy anything you wanted
from the states right there in the city. When we got to the smaller towns it was more like
a foreign country. There were shacks that people were living in and kids begging on the
streets for money to feed their families.

The food was not the best in the world. I like the American food cuisine
over the Spanish foods. I ate a lot at McDonalds over there in Spain. The conversion of
money to buy food was a dollar twenty for one paco. So the three hundred we dollars I
took with me was really only like one hundred and thirty dollars. It was not enough to
live off of for two weeks. Luckily my roommate had extra money that she left me use

until we got back and then I could repay her for the money I used. It was a great
experience that i never regretted.

After the first week we moved in to another town that we were not o familiar with.
We ended up getting lost and not knowing how to get back to the hotel. We walked
aimlessly thru the town until a nice man said he would lead us back to the hotel. We
were unsure if we were ok with following a stranger around a town we did not know but
we left him lead the way and we got to the hotel just in time before the teacher called
the police to report us missing cause we missed bed check time.
The weeks turned into days that flew by so fast. There is not anything in the
world i would do that would change my time there. The last day that we were there my
roommate and I overslept by a lot. We got woken up by our friends that were staying
across the hall. We figured since it was a free day and we could just roam the streets of
Spain that we would not set an alarm clock to wake up. We ended up sleeping thru
breakfast, and lunch and it was an hour before dinner was going to be served. Due to
the fact that we overslept they got worried that something was wrong so they had the
housekeeper open our door so they could make sure we were ok and safe. That night
we got permission from the teacher to go out on the town. We were out till it was time to
get our flight home.
Some fun facts about Spain are The Spanish name for Spain is Espaa. The
Spanish language is spoken in many areas of the world due to the early influence of the
Spanish Empire. Spain is located in Europe .It is a developed country with a high quality
of life. The largest city and capital of Spain is Madrid. The second largest city is
Barcelona, which is located in Catalonia .The population of Spain in 2012 was around

47 million. The currency used in Spain is the Euro. In Spain they drive on the right-hand
side of the road. It is believed that modern humans first arrived in Spain around 32000
years ago .Mount Teide is the highest mountain in Spain (3718 m, 12198 ft) and an
active volcano. The Pyrenees is a mountain range that divides Spain and France. Spain
includes a number of islands including Mallorca, Tenerife, Ibiza and Gran Canaria.
Many can be found in the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the northwest coast of
Africa. The Spanish tourism industry is one of the largest in the world, bringing in billions
of Euros into the Spanish economy. Spain produces a large amount of renewable
energy, including wind power and solar power. Spain has a variety of foods and unique
dishes such as paella (a type of rice dish) and tapas (a range of small snacks or
appetizers).Football (soccer) is the most popular sport in Spain. The 1992 Summer
Olympic Games were held in Barcelona.
Spain is a great country that I would go visit again and consider living there.

work cited
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/countries/spain.html
http://www.factmonster.com/country/spain.html