Meal times here are always a bit interesting. Our padres don’t think that Danielle and I eat enough so they always pay very close attention to exactly which things we eat, and which we don’t. All the food so far has been very good (and we lucked out with the fact that our madre cooks with healthy ingredients rather than grasa grasa grasa.), but even after 5 days of being here, everyone’s stomachs still have a little bit of adjusting to do. (I hope that wasn’t TMI) Anywho, last night at dinner our madre made a grilled ham and cheese sandwich (one of the few American-ish things we’ve eaten so far) along with two little fried balls (that looked like short mozzarella sticks, but not) of SOMETHING with shrimp tails sticking out of them. Both Danielle and I tried a and knew immediately that it was some sort of fish, but we really weren’t sure what exactly..sort of assuming they were batter covered shrimp—wasn’t horrible, just differente. Naturally we asked what it was and our papa said that it was “carne de cangrejo,” which translates to “crab meat”. I asked if he was sure that it was cangrejo and he insisted yes… so did mama. (and yes, I am 100% positive that cangrejo definitely means crab.) So here comes the funny part: Slightly unsure about papa’s response, I looked over at Danielle who was sitting beside me and said, “Crabs don’t have tails… especially tails that look like shrimp.” Ergo……..SKETCHY. At this point, Danielle and I were speaking in English. (which we are not, by the way, aloud to speak in the house- even to each other so that we can learn more- the only rule mama has.) Looking confused as to what we were talking about, our mama asked us why we didn’t eat them and all we could do was laugh. It really was very funny at the moment. Essentially it’s like someone making a fried chicken sandwich and sticking…. yeah. I don’t even know. There really is no equivalent to these things.. just weird. Moral of the story: mama knows NOT to make those anymore.
Moving on: so far class is really fun! We have a two week course called intensive that lasts for 4 hours a day. It’s pretty much a really intense intro into Spanish slang and dialogue, as well as writing. Every morning everyone has to bring in a noticia which is a current event from a newspaper or the news which we have to talk about in the morning for 4 or 5 minutes or so. Then on top of that we have homework like writing a story or dialogue etc etc. We get a 30 minute break in the 4 hours (which really makes class only 3.5). Today Mer, Jackie and I went roaming around town trying to find a building on campus where we can get our WIFI passwords for the education buildings—got totally lost. But another funny story.. while we were completely lost so was another girl and her family. She walks up to us and says in an obvious French accent, “Do you speak English?” All 3 of us, being the stereotypical Americans that we are, obnoxiously yelled with more excitement than you can every imagine with the fact that someone was asking us to speak in English, “YESSS!!!!!” haha it was also quite funny. She needed directions to buildings that we couldn’t even find in the maze of campus WITH our knowledge of the Spanish language. so.. we could’t help her. Good efforts though.
In other news: we all have a huge crush on our teacher Javier. Today I was used in his example of how men try and pick up women. I “pretend” blew him off, of course, to show that his pick up lines were crappy. (which in reality, I’m sure they are not!) It was exciting. Later I was showing him a pic of Meredith on my camera (because he secretly likes her! She actually gets winks on occasion—lucky girl haha) where we dressed her up as a Arabian-like Babushka from ancient times (if that even exists). Anyway, his immediate reaction to the picture was “Like a Virgin!,” and we all were in histerics.
- Because our Spanish teacher.. who knows MAYBE 20 words of English just belted out one of Modonna’s most infamous songs,
- and 2. Because we all are so sure that he secretly is enamorar (in love) with Mer! haha.. one of the best moments of class thus far and it has only been 3 days.
Vale, Bueno. 10:37pm. Now going to La plaza mayor to have a glass of wine with the group and finish up some work!
