Hell Freezes Over; Or, this beats Conjugation Drills

Wow, here´s a place I never thought, I´d be: the BLOGOSPHERE. I used to make fun of that word, and now I found it strangely comforting. What a difference, a few days anad a ton of miles make.

Everyone I know has been really supportive about my trip to Spain. People that have spent time here seem to have strong feelings about this country. Before I came, I took a week´s worth of Spanish classes in DC. I had a great old teacher. She wasn´t old school, she was OLD WORLD, and she was always giving me creepy, old world advice like ¨don´t buy batteries from Gypsies on the street¨that always seemed to raise more questions than they answered.

All and all, things are going quite well. My house is really close to school, only two life-treatening, sidewalk-lacking streets away. I live in an apartment with a one other student, who I´ve seen for all of 5 minutes. My host family consists of a dude my age who wears pajamas with a picture of ghandi on them and who asks me if I´ve been to the gym before deciding what I get to have for dinner. I´ll call him my host brother, or hobro for short.

Hobro seems like a good guy, if a bit anal retentive. He gave me a tour of the house and the streets nearby on my first day. Hobro is big on control, he only gives me things when i ask for them. So, I didn´t get hangers for closet until I asked for them. I didn´t get a towel for the bath until I asked for it, I didn´t get a fan for my room until I asked for it. I reckon its a miniexperiement he runs to see how people cope with different surroundings and privations. I´m sure he once had a poor Japanese student, too shy to ask for anything who ended up sleeping on cinder blocks and drinking out of his hands. In fact, I have yet to ask for something that he hasn´t had ready to give me. In my mind he´s got a giant room like the pirate ship in Goonies where he just pulls out whatever I´d like or need. Hopefully its got fewer skulls.

Thankfully, Hobro is a good cook, and his trains seriously run on time. Meals are at 9:10, 2:30 and 9:00. To the second. You can set your watch by them. Hobro lays out a table cloth on the round table in the living room and unfolds two plastic ikea chairs...to be sat in only at meal times. Yesterday, when he was going out for dinner and cooked only for me, I got only HALF a table cloth because, apparently, the honor of a WHOLE tablecloth is reserved for when he eats with me.

I plan on peppering these posts with my Spanish revelations as they come to me. These will keep me from getting bogged down in the minutae. Here are a few to get started.

¨How the fro did I ever live without a personal deep frier?¨
--Just trying to imagine the inabilty to fry up ham and cheese fritters, french fries, fish sticks, is now laughable. Clearly there is something about these friers that allows the Spanish to stay rail thin. I will investigate further by consumer everthing that comes out of the magical toaster-sized contraption that occupies the place of honor in our kitchen.

¨Songs by Spanish-Language Artists such as Shakira ACTUALLY SAY STUFF¨
--Its not just a bunch of gibberish with a killer beat. There are words, nay PHRASES buried in there! I have yet to figure out a single song, but I´m starting to capture words: amor, pechos, that sort of thing.

¨Simpson´s quotes don´t translate, but Sesame Street impersonations will keep you alive in most countries.¨
--Its tough to convey Simpsons lines like ¨Those sandal-wearing goldfish-tenders!¨but everybody knows Sesame Street (here, Barrio Sesamo) and my Vampiro de Contar just KILLS....¨Uno! Dos! Dos Platos! Ah ! Ah ! Ah !¨

"Gay or Spanish?"
--Probably both.

¨Everything goes better with running bulls¨
--The running of the bulls is in Pamplona tomorrow and I´m having trouble concentrating on anything else. In culture class yesterday we learned about all of the solemn religious processionals held in Sevilla every Christmas. It was the first video we´ve watched in school so far. For every gorgeous, candle-laden icon of the virgin, and for every grand and silent march of purple hooded believers, I couldn´t help thinking ¨this is great, but when the bulls start knocking sh%t over, that´s when it´ll be aweomse¨ I´ve found this type of thinking to be contagious, and now, I see bulls stampeding through class, crushing desks and impaling that italian kid in hawaiin shorts who is weirdly fat in a way you don't see in America, Bulls running thru the Tienda with its one size (40oz) cervezas, and even, Bulls running thru my own living room trampeling the tiny TV and knocking over the dinner table, half table cloth and all

That´s it for now, I´ve got a fairy tale to write. This will be harder than my last few assignments because the answers aren´t in the back of the book. Thank god I didn´t have that temptation growing up. I´d still be in 4th grade.