So here we have orange trees lining every street. We live in a fairytale land; it's that beautiful. But you have to watch out for these dangerous orange trees. First of all, they look delicious, but they are not. Secondly, one can fall on your head and knock you out. They're that big!! Well, that happened to Marissa and Jordyn the other day. An orange fell right in front of their faces and splattered on the ground. This thing was practically a medicine ball. I could just see it now. I'm in a hospital in Sevilla, sitting besides Marissa's bed. She has orange juice all over her and a wrapped up head with pounds (haha kilos) of gauze. Yep, that's right, knocked out by an orange. The conversation to her mother would go like this, "Mrs. Perrone, Marissa is okay. But she's in the hospital.... no, not hit by a train in el centro....no, not kicked by a rebel "horse and buggy" horse.. no, not food poisoning from the cheese, milk, yogurt, and meat left out overnight.... but an orange got her. Yep, right to the cabeza." Ha, i just cracked myself up. But really, the image is fantastic. Gotta watch out for those suckers.
Today I was pretty wiped out from Spanish class. 3 hours, in a small classroom, where there is no place to hide, text, do Sudoku, or play Words with Friends on my iPhone. Real class. Old school. Ugh. Some days are worse than others, but today I got picked on a lot. Every day I get picked on a lot, but today I decided to be a little chatty with my friend sitting next to me and with Miguel, our teacher. I like asking a lot of questions like, "Is it normal for my senora to do this... or that... or cheese.... or eggs..." Something along those lines. I use examples from my house to make light of the class and give everyone a little chuckle. Everyone needs a good laugh. On the first day of class he put me on the spot, and I got so red in the face. Brought me back to 3rd grade, and 4th grade, and okay fine let's be real, I'm still the girl who gets red when I get embarrassed. But you would think he would move on after he saw how red I got! Nope. He kept pushing on and asking more questions in stupid Spanish. Now I'm more comfortable and try to ask more questions so it seems that I'm more involved and then maybe he'll call on someone else. There is a system to my madness. It's like asking to go to the bathroom right before it's your turn to answer the next question except I've matured in my ways of bullshitting. I'm still the same student that I was when I was a kid staring at the clock, aching for class to be over. Now we get a coffee break in Spain. Saweeet!! Everyone has a little more pep in their step (or seat) when we come back for the last hour. Damn that coffee is good unlike the Nestle-instant-shit-mix-with-water-and-stick-it-in-the-microwave-crap that we have in our house.
Moving on, so I went home and after all of that damn Spanish I'm exhausted! But I have to be lively for the lovely Pepi. Today I wasn't talking much. I just didn't want to. I know that's horrible for me to say, and I have to practice as much as possible, but I'm just so tired! And then the meal moves on, and she realizes that I haven't spoken in about 5 minutes. In Pepi Land, that's a long time. So I hear her say "Sara" in her fancy accent, I snap my head around, and she just goes right into directions on how to make the lasagna that she just made for us. Here's the image: Open face lasagna. Like an open faced turkey sandwich... I call this open-faced lasagna. Absolutely delicious, might I add, with this burnt cheese on top. Yes Mom, you would have loved the burnt crispy cheese on top. It had Barbara Mintzer written all over it. So she continues to go on and on about how to make this concoction. Me, understanding every 6th word and nodding my head saying "si, si" like usual found it interesting. I was completely shot down when I asked if I could cook with her one day. Guess I'll be taking the Spanish cooking lessons through our program! But then we continued on about food. Again, our language, the language of Pepi and Sara. She also cooked us eggplant today for our second course. I told her about my favorite sandwich of all time, The Sandy Koufax (Champs Bar and Grill, State College, PA 16803 call for reservations!) and how it consists of grilled eggplant and goat cheese. Here comes the voice, the voice of eggs in the morning..."Berenjena y queso?!? Con pan??? Aka, eggplant and cheese... with bread!? What are you crazy? Oh Pepi, how you crack me up. Continuing on, the conversation flowed from there. We talked about how our friend was served "Chirp chirp!" in her lunch. Yes, that's right, her host family said that "chirp, chirp" was in her food. We asked Pepi what that possibly could be. She had no clue either. Duck? Chicken? Turkey? Pigeon from the terrace? Green guy running man's voice chopped up into little pieces!? Oh the possibilities...
Every time I say Pepi I think of Pepe Le Pew that skunk who was always in love with that lady skunk. Her little white stripe in her grey hair goes well with her name.
By the way, we think Pepi farted at lunch today. Enough said.
We went for a little stroll today. Marissa bought a 5 dollar hair straightener, and then we headed to El Cortes Ingles. It's a BIG department store with everything including a supermarket. We walked around the aisles looking at weird snacks, hotdogs stuffed in jars (the scariest aisle of all time,) ham flavored pringles, you know, the usual things you find in a grocery store. But really, it looked just like an American supermarket. Wine was cheap as hell! I couldn't believe my eyes. We were told that we are not allowed to bring any alcohol in the house, and we also heard that the senora's snoop like crazy. Pepi definitely does. Last night I broke a glass and put it in our bathroom garbage. I was going to tell her at lunch, but when I came home she already knew what I was going to say. She said she saw it upstairs. Hmm... didn't make our beds, didn't clean our bathroom, didn't do our laundry.. but just took a stroll into our room/bathroom. Interesting, very interesting. So we were a little nervous about buying some wine and keeping it in our room. At the moment we are still working on that one....
Marissa went into the shower and I started to smell something burning. Oh no Snoop Dawg don't die now! We need you still! We definitely wouldn't survive without our pet dog, and heater, Snoop Dawg. The nights are cold and lonely. Es necessario!! But no, it wasn't Snoop Dawg. My next thought, Marissa's crappy ass straightener burning a hole into the desk. Nope, wasn't that. Could it be my broken computer battery starting trouble with me? Nope. Still haven't figured it out, but there's a lot of weird smells around here. Nothing smells of smoke in this house, but sometimes after a shower my hair reminds me of cigarettes. Maybe it's that delicious tap we drink...
Which leads me to the shower. What a scary place. It should be a place of harmony, but here in Europe showers suck unless you're staying in a fancy hotel like the one we stayed in. The shower head was one of those crazy ones directly above your head with insane water pressure and a lifetime supply of hot water. There was no door by the way to the shower. Still haven't figured that one out yet. But our shower has no place to put the shower head up so we have to told it in our hand. The bathroom floor is actually specially made for us. It's made of ice from the Arctic. It's actually brought in just for spoiled American students to help them get comfortable in their new, weird, homestay. So after getting naked, in the freezing bathroom, standing on the freezing floor, you have to step into the freezing shower. We are lucky, we have hot water... for about 7 minutes. I then make sure its hot, but no, its scalding. So now every hair on my body is standing straight up because my entire body is freezing, and is now in shock due to the burning water on my feet. At this point, I have no toes, by the way. Okay, so the water is just right. Hmm... shower handle in right hand, big vitamin jar full of soap in the left. Vitamin jar you ask? Because they don't have body wash here so we were told to bring a lot. I didn't have any small bottles so I sacrificed some whack, fake vitamin stuff in the cabinet and put my soap in it. So now I have a situation... I don't have a third hand. So I pour some soap onto my shoulder and lather and repeat with one hand. It's hard. Very hard. Now, face time. Open the soap, put it into the same hand as the shower head (takes skill) and pour it into the other hand. Problem: getting the soap bottle onto the rim of the tub. Somehow I manage and wash my face with one hand. Uhhhhh, that's complicated. Maybe for all of you men out there it's a piece of cake. To us women, left hand takes off left eye make up, right hand takes off right eye. Oh the struggles in my life! Don't even get me started on how shampooing my hair went or shaving my legs. I'll spare you the details. The only thing at this point motivating me to move faster is that I have Snoop Dawg waiting besides my bed, ready to keep me warm. Ha, that was sentence I never thought I'd say. So to all you Americans out there, enjoy your showers. I miss mine. When you're standing there thinking about all the things you have to do today or your grocery list or how nice it feels when the hot water hits your back or about last night's rager or how the crazy the dream you had last night evolved in your subconscious or you're just too lazy to get out, realize YOU'RE A LUCKY BASTARD!
No comments:
Post a Comment