where are the boundaries?

this whole homestay thing takes some getting used to. for instance, the other day i drag myself out of bed, stumble out into the hallway, and pretend not to notice my host senora leaning out the window and hanging my clothes out to dry for all the world to see.

she pulls herself back in and tries to make conversation while holding my underwear in some type of death grip. i kinda wanted to grab it out of her hands and run away, or at least try to explain my apparent lack of taste.

but instead i said good morning, avoided eye contact, and quickly wandered away.

tranquilo, toro.

tonight was a very much needed break from the stresses of maribel, the anorexic professor. she takes her anger and life frustrations out on me. it's ok, maribel. you're cranky because you're hungry. i forgive you.

we hung out at the waterfront. some side street overlooking the palm trees and the rio while having our very first botellón aquí.

it was pretty b/c we were facing the water and could see across the river all the lights and music coming from the nightlife. afterward, we went to a bar that was filled with people representing all countries but spain. go figure.



the music was horrid, but such is calle betis and we worked with what we had. this 30 y/o dom grabbed me and kissed me. i cannot seem to get away.

why couldn´t one of the hawt frenchies mack on me?

le sigh.

i used to feel ambivalent toward meeting new people b/c enjoying someone's company and then never seeing them again made me sad. but the book i'm reading says we should practice loving, and the best way to do that is to give our time and attention to others. b/c time is something we can never get back and so essentially we are giving up part of ourselves to them. so yeah, perhaps we will never see each other again, but at least we had tonight.

and it was a good one, yeah?

spechul shekshun

haven't been up to much, but still finding myself with not a lot of time on my hands. class is taking up a lot more time than any of us had expected. still have time to run around every now and then, and perhaps go out for some drinks and tapas, but that's probably not the best idea. or is it?

doesn't help that the profesora has pretty much singled me out to be the class idiot. i haven't made attempts to talk to her outside of class, but she's been coming up to me (before and after class, mind you) and asking me if i want to switch to a lower level.

so i'm a bit rusty. eff off. that's what i wanna say, but you know me. i like to buy into it and lower people's expectations only to later wow them with my dazzling grammatical prowess.

except i'm lazy and probably will never get around to the latter part of my plan.

everything is in spanish, but when she speaks to me--and only to me--it's in english b/c i'm just that good.

she suggested talking to lucia, the ciee coordinator, to see if i wanted/could switch from advanced liberal arts to regular liberal arts. ALA students are allowed to matriculate directly into the university system here b/c they're fluent enough in spanish to keep up in university classes. LA students aren't allowed direct matriculation and only take classes at the ciee center with other american exchange students.

i feel like everyone is either a spanish major/minor or has studied abroad for at least 10 months in some other spanish speaking country. for me, it's been years since i last touched anything related to the spanish language. most of my 2 months in chile (2 years ago?) were spent scrounging around in dumpsters looking for food and being forced to "put the lotion on" whilst my host mama walked around in leather straps and a zippered ski mask.

but i digress.

adding the fact that i'm just naturally slow, then it shouldn't be surprising that i just need a little more time to get going.

maybe i fooled the evaluators and should be in LA instead? i can understand and speak spanish well enough, but i haven't read a lick of it for the longest time.

on the plus side, i am finally starting to get a feel for what it's like for the kids i tutor and why it's so difficult to get them to read. i don't understand half of what the hell i'm reading and large, detailed paragraphs are intimidating. long chapters are impossible b/c once you get lost in the first few pages, there's no way to claw your way back. practicing helps, but you don't want to practice b/c it takes too much effort, and like i am doing now, you try to put off reading for as long as possible.

also, the influence of one's environment has been reemphasized. ever since my prof decided i was stupid, and approached me all condescendingly, i kinda don't want to show her my true spanish skeelz (1337 as they are).

this is a reminder to myself that when i go back to teaching/tutoring, which doubtlessly i will since this has been such a good learning experience for me, i should be more proactive in encouraging my students. instead of waiting for them to do well before i comment, i will comment that i know that they can do well.

wow, look at me being all grown up and shit.

enough of that. back to procrastinating. i'm going to go raid the kitchen.

boogala boogala!

ahhh!

last night i finally decided to read one of the books i brought over, sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs, but halfway through chapter 1 and the entire apartment building loses electricity. from 10pm-7am no phones or lights or anything. ghetto, but fun.

everyone eats dinner pretty late here, so the electricty went out just as my señora was setting up the table. we ended up having a candle lit dinner, with tiny candles all over the table and two big ones stuffed into empty long neck beer bottles. it was fun. and romantic.

hahaha.

today marks the first day of class. we have intensive course for 3 weeks, and then real university classes start in february. the particular group i'm in doesn't meet until 6pm. what to do, what to do? i now have 4 thick blankets along with a small heater in my room. siesta anyone?

yes, please.

¡mira quién baila!

spain has its own version of dancing with the stars!

i don't know who this guy is, but he's peekable and just did the cha cha with some chick. if i had my phone i'd vote for him, and his skin tight cha cha pants.

still can't understand much of what they say on tv, but it's mostly dancing, so all good. the overachiever in me thinks i should practice watching tv more. ;)

my first week here is wrapping up. saturday and today i got to sleep in. beautiful. from now until february 3 (pienso?) my only commitment is a 3-hour intensive course from 6-9pm monday - friday. university classes start in february after this intensive course, so we have 3 weeks to pick our classes and finalize everything.

basically, i'll have a shitload of time to wander around and take pics. speaking of which, es un poco raro porque i am realizing that i suck at being a tourist (though can you really call yourself a tourist if you've got a visa longer than 3 months?). i'll have the normal monument/art/famous building foto every now and then, but most of my pics are of everyday things that occur in the city.

yesterday, we took a tour of the church of san fernando and it was really neat b/c they're restoring it and we got to tour the crypts as we heard about its history and how it used to be a muslim mosque but was converted to a church after the conquest of spain. i prob took one pic of the whole thing. after we left, and as we were walking through the tiny streets, we stumbled across a big ass garbage truck that got stuck and was scraping all these parked cars. this was happening in front of another church where someone had just gotten married, and there were all these dressed up people standing around yelling at the truck driver for hitting all the cars...i stood there and took a shitload of pics, as opposed to my 1 or so pics from the tour.


restoration of iglesia san fernando


elena posing. they made us wear hard hats for safety reasons. for further safety reasons, no pic of me and my hat will be shown, as it was painfully embarrassing, the near inability of my hard hat to fit on my head.


walking through the maze of tiny ass alleys that look like cars couldn't fit and shouldn't pass through but trust me they do and they will. also, if you look closely, you can see the sidewalk.


ducking into a shop b/c the truck came by and would have hit us if we didn't act like we were making sweet, sweet love to the walls & also the driver saying thanks for doing so.


garbage truck hitting all the cars and the tuxedo'd people WTFing


*sorry for the semi-dark pics. the flash on my camera sucks, and yesterday it rained for the first time since we've been here (which is good b/c they're currently going through a drought), so it was cloudy to begin with. i'll take better pics cuando hace sol and share them b/c the city really is quite charming when it's not soggy.

language barriers

the other night some sketch balls were handing out business cards trying to publicize some big event at FunkyClub (poonkie cloob), doubtlessly catered toward american tourists willing to pay for overpriced food and beverages.

i did not go, but i heard it was terrible so yay for saving both time and money.

in any case, reading over the card and notice the bottom right corner says, "welcome to our bomb ass"

and just stops.

i suggest turning it over to see if it continues on the other side but nope.

welcome to our bomb ass, period.

til this day it still makes me giggle.

sad face.

this pic is from my last day in the states:



my sisters and tristan dropped me off at dulles international. everything was fine until we had to say bye and then ate started bawling like a punkass. and like a domino effect, tati and i joined in.

ok, ok, admittedly i was crying in the basement before we left the house, and so i thought i was all cried out for the aiport, but man you should see ate go at it. ;)

i thought about home a lot on the plane and as i was lying in bed my first night at the hotel, but i didn't start missing home until now.

triggered by this picture.

i kinda feel like crying, but i'm not quite sure why. things are good here, am meeting lots of cool people, and my host family is really nice. they also feed me well as opposed to that whole chicken fiasco from santiago, chile.

but sometimes, like today when i woke up from my siesta and everything was dark in the apartment, i realize i feel a little empty.

and so i went to the kitchen and jacked a muffin. i ate it in my room, like a true rexi, but it only helped a little.

so it's not a physical emptiness.

go figure.

azahar

it really is quite beautiful here. orange trees lines the streets, and john picked one for me yesterday. it tasted like a lemon, but not as bad as everyone says.




i live in triana, next to the river which i cross everyday.



the center of the city gets crowded, but in one of those romantic ways. i bet if you were to lean out the window of one building you can touch the wall of another building. this city is old, but the beautiful colors of the buildings will do well to fool you. flowers hang from overhead and it's just amazing. but don't spend too much time staring because the small alleys are really streets and at any moment a car or someone with a fashion mullet riding a moto will come zooming by.






i'm in the honey moon phase and romanticizing the city, yes. if you really want to know, it's also grimy (like any capital), has dog shit everywhere, and people pee everywhere even in broad daylight.

mama ooOooh

day 3 in seville. today we check out of the hotel ingleterra, where we've been staying for orientation, and move into our homestays. our host families picked us up in from the front lobby at 10:30am. it was weird because everyone in the program brought their luggage down and so everything was crowded, and we left our luggage to go sit in the waiting area. each of the 4 groups had their little corner, and one by one we were called and had to exit the room and head out to the lobby to our awaiting families.

it felt kind of like an orphanage, or even a pet store, and i kept hoping that i wouldn't get picked last. we were joking about how the families probably received a photo of us, and we wondered how many of us got rejected by the first family because of our less than stellar mug shots.

i don't know what to call my host senora! the double last names here confuse me just as much as the hyphenated names do in the states.

hmm, i'm sure a plaintive sounding "mamaaaaa" will do just fine. i just finished unpacking at my homestay; i'll be living in an apartment building for the next 6 months. my room is tiny, and i feel like gigantor on my little bed. i can stand in the middle of the room and touch both walls (this of course could all be a result of my big-ass-ness-ism). hahaha but this should be a good thing, as larger rooms are harder for me to keep clean.

i swear the first thing my host mama said when she opened the door was "this is your room; it is tiny." thanks, ma.

my host brother pepe lives down the hall and across from his room is an empty room where the last exchange student lived. it's bigger, but i think that's where my host dad paints and where they store random things. they've had 11 exchange students so far, and there's this american map with flags sticking out of it and all the names of their conquests, orphans, students.

the apartment is nice. 4 bedrooms, kitchen, 2 bathrooms (get my very own, which btw i just finished christening).

i'm not sure of how my internet access will be. i'm supposed to talk with my host dad when he gets home from work b/c he knows all the technological stuff. i have high hopes though, since the other 2 bedrooms have computers. right now, i am jacking a WiFi connection but i have no idea where it's coming from or if it'll always be an open connection. if that doesn't work, i still have my 40 free hours at la internetia cafe that ciee gave us. just a matter of walking my ass the hour+ there.

hahaha this little lady just came in and said she was my host mom's mom. so i kissed her twice. i've been kissing so many random people since i got here. they do the same thing in santiago, and mason thought i was on crack when i came home and kissed him. my bad. oh yes, back to the little lady. she put on an apron and started cleaning/cooking and i was thinking oh did she say she was the host mom's mother, or the host mom's maid? and then, omg did i just make out with the maid???

it's the abuela though, so phew. that would have been awkward. she said i was hermosa and kept approving of me, which is a good thing b/c i really don't want to get sent back and exchanged for some aryan looking skinny bitch.

here is a pic of my room hot off the press:



my table and bed.

and at the foot of my bed is a dresser and shelf:



it's all marble floor so it's really cold right now. perhaps i'll sneak around later and take pics of the rest of the apartment.

lunch soon. i can hear the two of them cooking, and it smells good. afterwards i'll be meeting up with some other students who live in the triana area so we can walk to the palacio together for our ciee interviews.

we're heading out for tapas tonight. i don't mind getting lost on my way home, but the thought of getting lost by myself late at night spooks me.

hola

made it to seville safe and sound.

then this guy macked on me in barcelona. or i macked on him. not sure, but he ended up carrying my luggage and paying 30E for my ride to the hotel.

swoit!

will write more when i get a chance. last night we went on a horse drawn carriage ride around the city.



tonight we're watch a flamenco performance y tapas después.

yummy.

big day. first post.

the fam had dinner at famous dave's last night. dad likes to get down with their barbacoa. kristin and mason came, and kristin referred to it as the last supper. i don't know how i feel about that title.



i stayed up all night to finish packing, and i was still awake when mom left at 5am today. she has a quiznos convention in philly.

i heard mom walking around. i thought she was eating breakfast and that i would have time to say goodbye. so i was confused when i heard the front door open and close. she was halfway down the driveway when i caught up to her. i yelled to her from the front door and accused her of trying to leave without saying bye to me. she came back and hugged me and told me to be careful in spain. but i couldn't look her in the eye b/c i love her so much and i didn't want to say bye.

i hope that she takes better care of herself this year and takes more time out to enjoy herself. i want to kiss her when i get back to the states.

one of those happy kisses you give people when you haven't seen them for a long time. the kind that leaves lipstick imprints. though, i suppose i should first start wearing lipstick.

my mom is cute and i adore her.