Los Domingos

The atmosphere in Spain is pretty chill - looking at an average Sunday is a great way of seeing this. Today, I slept until noon, ate an hour long breakfast with my señora, watched a movie / napped; then, I went for a walk to try to wake myself up, and came back and watched another movie with my señora and we had our merienda, the afternoon snack of tea, cookies, clementines and some homemade fried dough/honey thing that she made. Now, I'm listening to Spanish music and am about to read in bed before falling asleep.. not a bad day! My señora makes a point of being around home on Sundays, and I think that is the general trend. It is nice because it is basically expected that people relax, catch up on sleep and eat lots of good food. 

This is my last week living at my señora's house, so I've been spending a lot of time with her. Yesterday, I went on a touristy day with her and her niece, and we went to 3 museums and exhibits: a Miquel Barceló exposition (contemporary artist), the Romanticism Museum (essentially an old queen's house) and an exhibit of cultural artifacts, many of which came from the UK's collections. Then, 2 of my señora's kids (with their families) came over so I could meet them - it was pretty overwhelming but a lot of fun! The bigger a group of Spaniards is, the faster they talk, so I was mostly just trying to keep up with what they were saying... but I definitely realize that their family dynamic is similar to a lot of American families. They got into a long discussion about euthanasia, and the movie El Mar Adentro (The Sea Inside). I didn't give any input into the discussion, first of all because I didn't want to join either side, and second because it is really hard to make an argument in Spanish. I decided to watch El Mar Adentro today, so I had to figure out how to get some vpn network set up so that Sam's netflix account would think that I'm in the USA and it would allow me to watch movies. I got it figured out, and now this means I can catch up on The Office! :)

Tomorrow I have a day full of class - my three reunidas classes with other Americans, and then a couple complutense classes with Spaniards. I have decided that I'm going to try to not take Intro to Psych and I'm going to try to do a geography class. I'm attending 2 new classes tomorrow afternoon to see which one I like better. I found myself spacing out a lot during my psych class, and I just don't want to have to do that all semester. I'm also starting to teach english classes, and I have my first lessons tomorrow! The family has 3 girls, ages 3, 5 and 9. I'm going to teach them for an hour every Monday and Wednesday afternoon... I think it is going to be more like babysitting in English, but that's okay - they're paying me 18 euros an hour! 

My dad and Terri are coming to visit on March 10, which I just realized is only 2.5 weeks away!! These next couple weeks are going to fly by - I am going to Amsterdam this weekend with my roommates from Madison (Maggy is studying there), when I get home on Sunday I move into my apartment, and then next weekend am going to Barcelona with other students from my program here. I'm sad to be leaving my señora's house, but am also really excited to move in with the Spanish girls, and to get to know a completely different side of Spanish culture :) 

I'm off to bed, muchos besos (lots of kisses!) - Bonnie