Yesterday I had time to go home for lunch and since the bus came right as I got to the stop, I got home even earlier than I expected. I decided that I would go for a walk for about 30 or 45 minutes. Now, I've seen people running around our neighborhood so I know that SOME people do exercise regularly. I do think it is much less frequent than at home, but people here already walk more than we do. I told my sp mom that I was going on a walk and my sp sister immediately wanted to come with me. She's attached to her headphones so we both were walking and listening to our music. We went a way I had never been before but then we ended up loopng right back by our house. I asked her where we were turning next and she looked at me like I was certifiably crazy. She was like I'm going back to the house, I thought we were done. I would just like to say that it had been 7 minutes. I went on the rest of my walk and when I got back my sp dad was home eating lunch. He was saying that he saw how energetic I was when I was walking. All 3 members of my Spanish family think I walk very fast so it was kind of shocking to them that I'm one of the slowest walkers at home!So just a funny little cultural difference.
Tuesday we all stayed after for a dinner with native Spanish speakers as a way to meet people to do an intercamio or an exchange conversation partner. We didn't meet too many people and a bunch of us were pretty tired, so we didn't stick around late. The food was funny because it was hamburgers, but Spain is obsessed with ham and from what I could tell, it really was ham in the burger. I got home around 10:30 and no one else was home, which was really nice. I cranked up my music and cleaned my room some. When my sp parents got home, I showed them pictures of my family and friends in the US. They were pretty funny and my sp dad wanted to know when I was going to send them pictures of my family in Spain.
Yesterday was class, the exercise fiasco and more class. Football is definitely the way of life here. My teacher let anyone who just HAD to see the US game leave early without being faulted haha. When I got home, we were all going to a hotel where my sp dad, who knows and is "buen amigo" with everyone, is friends with the owner. We met up with Miguel and his son Tiago, but he also brought his wife Sonya (who is from Mozambique) and his mother-in-law Olympia who was visiting along with their two other kids Andrea and Maximo. Andrea is 3 but she has some sort of cerebral parlysis and cannot walk, talk or eat on her own. She does smile a ton though and she can make noises and cry. Max is only 2 months and absolutely adorable. We left to meet them around 7:30 for only a ratito (a little bit) but in Spanish fashion, we got home around 12:15 or so. It's kind of similar to being in South Africa, people just take their time more a it's just a relax sort of thing. Sonya and Olympia were very interesting to talk to, especially since Portugese is their native language and they have a very different accent. I also got to meet the owner, Pepe, who starting talking about political issues.
Class today so far has just been art and we went to visit what I guess we would call a tower? It was pretty neat and we got to see some other stuff that I hadn't seen before. I still have 3 classes left today and I'm already feeling tired! AH... But the weekend is upon us. There is a big festival going on right now in Poligono where a bunch of us live and we may go tonight and check it out. Tomorrow we go to Madrid with school but a large majority of us are using it as a free bus ride to Madrid and lunch. We are touring the palace, which I did in high school, but it will be fun anyway. After that about 6 of us are going to San Sebastian for a weekend. We are taking the bus out of Madrid, which could be somewhat of an adventure. San Sebastian is known for its beaches though and it's starting to get a lot hotter here so it should be a fun weekend!
Hasta Lunes,
Emily
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