Table Talk

It's 4:12 here. Me and Sarah didnt wake up until 2 PM (for lunch) today, thanks to "los mirrores" last night but we'll get to that story later. Right now we're both sitting on our computers, wearing sweatpants, sweatshirt, wool socks, and sarah has on underarmour (sp?) because our madre keeps the apartment at a brisk 52 degrees. INSIDE. We literally sit there at the table shivering while we eat but i dont think she even notices. yesterday we asked her to turn the heat on in our room (she harbors the remote to the heater in a secret place) and it was so nice and t o a s t y in our room for two hours until we left. only to find when we came home it was turned off again & 52 degrees again. brr.

another note about our madre...on the first day (i guess that was only like 2 days ago?), sarah and i thought our madre was going to be this really talkative lady who had a lot to say and a lot of questions. perfect for our spanish, si?? Well our madre certainly has a lot to say....not so many questions. at all. the past times we've sat down for a meal, sarah and i try to talk about what we did that day or make a comment about the food, school, city, etc and our madre has about 5 words to say and then watches the TV for the remainder. When she's cleaned her plate (always about 5-7 minutes after sarah and i do...) she puts down her fork and begins what sarah has now coined "The Feli Show." Yesterday we had the pleasure of learning about the Spanish economy for a solid 45 minutes. Extremely jet-lagged and fatigued (not to mention not our favorite topic..) Sarah and i had a really tough time keeping our eyes open let alone follow what she was talking about. we think it had something to do with the gap between the rich and the poor? who knows. so yesterday at lunch time... sarah and i had our usual struggle for conversation while Feli (our madre's name) desperately tried to watch the hottest celeb gossip on the TV. one thing led to the other on the tube and before i know it, feli's talking about how the "desnudos" aka naked people offend her on the beach. she kept referring to them as "monas" so i kept thinking she was saying that naked people on the beach are like monkeys & i started getting really weirded out but then when sarah & i were talking later about our dinner convo she told me mono actually means cute. i can't decide which context is less creepy....naked people as monkeys or naked people as cute. weird. so then she started to tell us about her previous students & our ears perked up a bit because lets be honest thats a little more interesting than the economy. At first we thought it was really interesting to hear different stories about the people she's had...but then it was almost as if she was trying to send us a not so subtle message about the rules in her house. for example...her first story entailed a boy who asked her if his brothers could stay one night at their house while they were in town visiting him. she told him "no, pueden ir por la cena pero no pueden acostar aqui" ("no, they can come for dinner but they can't sleep here"). long story short...she kicked them out when they tried to crash. so basically (1) we can't have visitors. okay next one: a girl who asked her if she could handwash a special shirt of hers because it was really delicate. feli says she neeeeverrrr hand washes anything.  (2) everything goes in the washer and that's it. note to self: wearing the shirt dirty is better than asking feli to handwash. okayyy. we can't forget about the indian boy (feli dwelled on the fact that he wore a turban) who was turning 21 while he was there and asked if he could buy a bottle of champagne. feli was extremely offended because (3) no alcohol is allowed in the house. alrighty feli i think we can handle your rules. for now.

SO last night we had an official "fiesta" with the uva hispanic studies program (profs included) and they even gave us a gratis (free) aqua de valencia. its really just champagne and orange juice aka a mimosa haha but that was nice of them. we stayed there for a little while but jackie & anna's madre's neice who's 19 years old told them this really cool place called "los mirrores" that we should go to. so we hopped in a cab. when we got there, in true obnoxious american form, our group of like maybe 10 peeps marched right up to the bouncer at the front (bypassing a good 40 people in line) and demanded to go in which we were quickly shot down. Luckily the niece came out, said a few words to the bouncer, and opa! we were in. i WISH i had pics to show you this place (still workin on the camera sitch...) it was seriously so supermegaguay (super mega cool-- our new word of the trip). PACKED. its like a mini united nations in there with students from all over the world mixed in with some locals and we cant forget about those lovely "dancers" (see Jean's pics). so i guess minus the dancers its like a mini united nations. we stayed until about 5 when sarah and i decided it was maybe time to stroll home until we realized well crap, we still dont know where home is because we are so bad with directions. we found some kind rando spaniards who pointed us in the right direction and when we finally reached home at 6:30, we watched an episode of sex & the city, ate magdalenas + nutella that we picked up at the store earlier, and then passed out. passed out until 1:45 this afternoon when our madre banged on our door for "COMIDA!". so far our madre's been a pretty good cook but today? not so good. we weren't feeling the best when we woke up so we were a little less than thrilled to see a chickpea & potato soup waiting for us. the bowl was literally bigger than my head but obvi i didnt want to leave any behind because that would be rude so we ate it all. my stomach was about to explode because of how full i was so we went back to nap until dinner. sounds really lazy and borderline pathetic but lets be honest...classes haven't started yet and we gotta take advantage of the downtime while we can! anyways so for dinner our madre gave us fries and a fried egg (reminded me of something my mom and dad used to make) except since sarah doesn't eat seafood, she also got cheese. i got fish. i wish i told her i didn't eat seafood. people - this fish was fried and literally looked like a mini sting ray was chilin on my plate - tail and everything. ugh needless to say it was not my favorite and i hope she doesnt give me fish for a while....

since tomorrow is sunday me and sarah are hoping to be (semi) productive and go to a café to get some café con leche (my fav!!) and a chocolate croissant. yum yum yum my mouth is watering just thinking about it. hasta luego!