Where I've Ambled Since October 16

Wow, I've done a LOT of ambling since October 16! Sorry for the lack of updates, but I've been without a good friend of mine for a few weeks now. His name is Mac and he is still in the hospital. So, I'm taking advantage of the Internet here at school to update you all.

I moved into my piso. I am convinced the perfect piso doesn't exist. I love the location, the girls I live with are great, it's big, etc. BUT...um, yeah, I recently found out that "no the heat SHOULDN'T be broken, we just haven't used it in five years and can't get it running..." Well, all you rational people must be thinking "that's not a big deal, just call the landlord and get it fixed". Yeah, that's what I thought. Apparently the landlady doesn't like to fix things and my roommate doesn't like to fight with her too much for fear that she won't get her security deposit back. Ridiculous. I know. So, for now we wear warm clothes in the piso and I will keep hassling my roommate to call the dragon lady or give me her number.

School is alright. I am reading a book with each of the three levels I have (7th - 9th). I also picked up a book in Spanish from the library to read on my own. It's written for middle-schoolers, but is quite humorous. It's called "Manolito Gafotas", or Manolito Four-Eyes. Well, the other night I read a few pages of each book and it dawned on me "I am living in the mind of a twelve year old boy!" Yikes, that is scary...maybe it will help me understand why they are so stinkin' squirrely! My, they are squirrely. I am convinced that what happens between 12 and 14 years can only be described as a miracle. If you teach freshman and have never had the privilege of teaching middle school, count your blessings!

My "angelitos" from my private classes continue to be adorable. We carved a pumpkin together the week of Halloween. They had never done that before. The 7 and 8 year old boys LOVED it (and therefore their little brother did too). We ate the pumpkin seeds and everything...the four year old did a number on those! The 3 and 5 year old enjoyed it, but were a little young. The funniest thing was that they were scared of touching the "guts"! I finally had to bribe them with stickers to touch the insides. The little boy, Miguel, kept asking when we were going to learn English...yes, a language nerd already at the age of five. He told me I was his mother the other day and when I said I wasn't, he said that I was his ENGLISH mother. I told him I was AMERICAN, but he continues calling me his English mother and the truth is, I'm just fine with that. :)

We had a four day weekend a week and a half ago and I went to the city of León, about 4 hours north of here. It was great. I went with my Spanish friend Ana and her friend Alicia. We had a great time walking around, eating tapas, chatting (lots o' Spanish!), and traveling. One day we went to the town of Astorga and saw the palace by Gaudí and Las Médulas. (Click on these words for pics.) We got quite lost, but it was fun...as Ana said, we got to see "España profunda" (deep Spain)...and, yes, we did! Jeff and Chris, it reminded me of our backroads adventure that one day when you were here.

Last weekend was a three day weekend. (If you haven't caught on yet, Spain has lots of holidays.) I went to a food fair downtown, finally took Julie and Paco out for dinner (a great restaurant...thanks, Julie!), went to the women's tennis semifinals and saw Sharapova and Henin, went to my roommate's bday party, church, walked through El Capricho park (gorgeous), and cleaned! Phew! It was a busy and very fun weekend.

This is largüísimo (super long), so I'll stop now. Hopefully Mac will get better soon and I can keep you updated more properly! Ciao. (Yes, that's Italian, but they say it here too.)