Day 19

Hey everyone, I thought I should update real quick before I have to leave for class in about 15 minutes. This week has been crazy as classes have gotten intense and I've gotten sicker. This is not one of those relationships you want to be positive. I'm hanging in there, because I refuse to miss class. We have our exams today and I want to be ready.

My Spanish mother and I have had a few special bonding moments. At lunch she asked me what I thought about Santander so far, and I got the chance to talk a lot in Spanish to her, which is cool, because it's usually a lot of "si's" and "como?s" on my end (and if you're spanishly retarded, "si" means "yes" and "como?" means "what?"). And Monday night we watched "La República," which is a telenovela about the birth of the second republic in Madrid cerca 1930. I've come to be really hooked on it (I think I've mentioned it before, but not by name) since watching it once before with my señora, and now I'm dying to know what happens. And also my señora and I bond over talking about how gorgeous Alejo Sauras is. Photo here: http://www.rtve.es/television/components/noticia/popup/7/3/3/3/foto383337_957202.shtml (You'll have to copy and paste)

What did I tell you? Probably the most beautiful human being I've ever laid eyes on.

Anyway, Wednesday night, I met some friends after siesta to go to the library's computer lab to study and finalize plans. When I got home it was about dinner time, and mi señora was making tortilla española, which is God's gift to the people. That was another bonding experience between me and mi señora. I got to talk in Spanish and tell her how spaniards know what real tortillas are, and she taught me how to make them. Then I immediately went to sleep. Wine and a full tummy will do that to you.

Last Saturday I woke up sick, as I said before. It was hard for me to explain to my señora that I was sick, not humgover. That's a difficult conversation to have in Spanish. But I think seeing that my cough lasted far into this week (obviously, as it's Friday) convinced her that it wasn't an issue of drinking too much. I can tell we're growing closer because she's becoming more and more like a real mother to me. She makes sure I'm wearing sufficient clothes before I leave the apartment, and even when I'm hanging around the house, she tells me to put a sweater on to make sure I'm warm enough. And also she's been bugging me about 8,000 times a day since Monday to go to the pharmacy. I didn't want to go partly because I knew it would be hard to ask for medicine and describe my symptoms in Spanish, but also because I don't even like going to the doctor when I'm at home. I would really rather just ignore it until it goes away. That's more my style. But I finally went to la farmacia today, and it turned out to be much more painless than I anticipated. The pharmacy tech understood what I asked her, then gave me some cough drops with DXM in them (so I shouldn't take too many before class...) and I paid for them and left. Easy.

I'm having a really hard time coming up with a good travel tip for today, because nothing comedically horrible has happened to me in the last week. Hopefully you've prepared yourselves for dissapointment, because this one's going to be lame:

Travel Tip#10:
When you move to a different country and begin speaking a new language, the very first thing you learn is the curse words. The second thing is medical terminology.


So that's it. Did I mention I'm going to Bilbao tomorrow? The whole day. Even though it's only us Americans going (bor-ing), I'm still excited. I mean, who wouldn't be? Expect pictures very soon.

Ps before I do my closing statement, I have to admit one thing: I'm fairly certain I've been doing it wrong. It made sense, but I think there's a better way. This is what it will be from now on:

"El mundo es un libro y ellos que no viajan leen solo una pagina."