Day 6 - Spanish jerseys must not exist & sidra in torrential rain

Tying up some loose ends, first. The first day we were here when we met Zemke at the Catedral, after we dispersed, an old man and his wife came up to me and asked me where I was from. I guess he was hard of hearing because I kept saying “Missouri” but he kept thinking I said “Madrid.” Finally, his wife came over and told him straight.

Turns out they were from Illinois – Chicago, of course. He said that he could throw a rock down from Chicago, and it would land in Missouri. Turns out, their daughter went to Spain and came back with a present – a Spanish fiancé. I believe the father knew Spanish before, and his daughter’s fiancé came to the States for college. He ended up getting a degree in English without ever really knowing how to speak the language because his father-in-law translated all his papers for him. How great is that?

After we talked for awhile, he told us to watch for a rock when we get back to Missouri J

Alright, on to today.

Class like usual in the morning. Love it. It gets a little long, though because we go from 9:30-11:30, then have a break, then another hour of the first class, then an hour of the second class. The first part is the worst. After that, it’s all downhill from there.

We were going over preterite and imperfect tenses (both past tense) today, and I about had a breakdown. I just got so frustrated because I realized that I’ve never really learned it before, and I have no grasp on it whatsoever. I was near tears cause I felt so damn stupid, but it was just a writing exercise, and it wasn’t even a big deal. The professor was coming around to every person, and when she came to me, I just told her I didn’t know what I was doing. So she helped me out a bit, and I may have a better grasp on it now…maybe?

Went to a café with Stephanie and Alee during break and got churros and chocolate. Not as good as the ones a few nights ago. I know now to avoid them!

Went back to class and read a short nonfiction piece that was really interesting. It was by a well-known Spanish director (“El Perro de Andaluz”), and it’s a piece about things that he likes and dislikes. We’re going to do something along the same lines, but it won’t be assigned until tomorrow.

After class got over, came home and had lunch with Berta. Claudia and Luis are at his grandma’s house. He’s putting in windows for them, and she’s playing around there. They won’t be back until sometime on Saturday.

She’s so cute. Today for lunch, she made fried eggs, rice, and hot dogs. Such a random combo, but I told her that she really knew what kind of food Americans like. Cracked me up. We talked for awhile and watched the news, which, of course, was all about Spain winning the game last night.

Funny story – I’m not sure exactly where in Spain it is, but there is an octopus that is supposed to be able to determine what team will win World Cup games by eating mussles…or maybe clams? Anywho, they painted Germany’s flag on one and Spain’s flag on the other, and the octopus ate the one with Spain’s flag on it, meaning they would win. Pretty funny. Then they showed a bunch of home videos of people’s cats and dogs and birds with two bowls in front of them, and they always chose the one with Spain’s flag on it.

Goal for the day: get myself a David Villa jersey…he’s the only player on the Spanish team from Asturias. And Sean and I both need his jersey J

CONTINUED

So, lots of shopping today. It was great fun J Stephanie and I went on an adventure in our neck of the woods to figure out what the heck’s going on around these parts. Turns out, it’s another beautiful part of the city that’s even older than the part we’ve been spending all our time in.

It was really funny because we were trying to take a shortcut through our part of the city to get to the centro commericial where all the shops are, and Stephanie said, “Yeah, I think this is the area Zemke was telling us about…” and lo and behold, he appeared right in front of us. I love him to death. It took me awhile to figure him out, but he really is quite awesome. We visited for a long time, and he told us about other parts of the city we haven’t seen yet. Then I asked him where he was going, and he said, “To get some towels…I know of a really cheap place to get them around here.” How funny!

So we wandered around the old city for a bit and ran straight into the shortcut we were looking for. It was a really almost out of body experience because we’ve been walking so far to get to the centro, and we literally only walked about 5 minutes to get to it through the shortcut. It was just really weird to see a different way around the city when I’d been so used to and so set on taking one path to get there.

Goal of the day was, of course, to find a jersey. Damn. Near. Impossible. I have no idea why every store in Spain isn’t selling jerseys, but the closest we could find was El Corte Ingles, and all they had were t-shirts. I just went ahead and bought one for the game on Sunday, but hopefully they will put more out later in the month, and I can get a legit jersey…or a least a close copy!

It’s funny because we’ve spent so much time in the centro, but we still had trouble finding the store we were looking for. It was great fun, nonetheless. Oh, and earlier in the day when we were in the old part of the city, I finally found somewhere to buy newspapers and bought two with the images of Spain winning on the front and some souvenirs for Mama y Wendy J

We had dinner at McDonald’s, of all places. But shit, let me tell you, Spain knows how to do McDonald’s up right. It was GINORMOUS. Three levels. And the food was slightly more expensive, but it was all worth it. Still good, and just in general, WAY better than in the States. Kinda gross, but they were showing a video of where their meat comes from and how it’s processed…so I guess they’re all about transparency here in España. I’m a fan!

Walked around some more and found Sfera, which was a huge mistake. They have so much cute stuff, and it’s so cheap. I ended up just springing for a black scarf with silver sparkly thread…can’t really describe it, but it’s cute. It ended up only being 4 bucks. Not too shabby.

Stephanie and I also got ice cream earlier at a candy store, and I bought some white cheddar Cheetos and Ruffles. Haha. So American. The ice cream cone was really good, though!

Anyway, we were heading home after the day of shopping, and it just decides to start pouring. Like torrential downpour. We were really close to Gascona, which is where all the sidrerias are (bars that serve sidra), and we just finally ended up ducking into one after all three of us tried to huddle under Alee’s tiny umbrella. I’m sure all the Spaniards were thinking, “What in the hell are those Americans doing?” But…oh, well.

We ended up having great conversations, like we always do. I think we’ve got this whole Spanish thing down to a science. Other than paying for stuff, but we’re working on it. We talked about debutant balls and life in the South, and Stephanie clued us in to what it’s all about. Interesting stuff. We talked about how Spaniards always look at us, and what eye contact means here as opposed to back home, etc.

It was a really good night! And it ended with Alee telling us about the movie Hook, so this is my reminder to myself to watch it sometime.