Tomorrow marks two months in Spain for me! yay! I am still having a great time and learning new things all the time. Everything is still quite challenging, the language, missing things from home; family, friends, food that doesn't come with eyes... but it gets better everyday. I finally feel like my Spanish has taken a big jump forward. I can watch TV and understand a lot, have conversations with people around me, and survive a weekend trip to visit the grandparents. ;)
The grandparents live in a small town near Guadalajara. Its about a 2 hour drive from Villa. My host mom told me that we were going to visit them for the weekend and I was under the impression that everyone was going...this is where the whole language barrier things still exists. Anyways, turns out that it was just me and my host parents going. That was ok because its easier for me to talk when there are less people around, the whole confidence thing, so I just figured that I would get a lot of Spanish practice in. We arrived at the grandparents house and my host mom's 2 brothers and wives were also there. They are all very nice, but don't speak any English, good for practice but very frustrating at times. None of the other grandchildren came so I was there bringing down the average age a bit. :) It was actually really fun, and eating dinner with everyone was a blast! It reminded me a lot of Thanksgiving with my family, everyone talking at once, very loud, just like David.
Now Spanish people are very concerned with how much you eat. Apparently they think that I don't know how to put food on my plate, or know how to tell when I am full, because they are constantly making me eat more. And its even worse when they are old! And they are quite old. My host grandpa was absolutely hilarious. He is probably at most 4' 10" and is very round, with high pants, held up even higher with suspenders. He can't hear and doesn't like to wear his hearing aid, or admit that he can't hear you. Watching the interaction between everyone was very entertaining because they would all be talking and then he would jut in to say something completely off topic and then everyone would yell at him, and then talk in normal voices about him. This continued for the entire weekend and was very amusing.
Here are a few pictures from my weekend. :)
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| This is where my host parents got married, such a beautiful church in a very small town. |
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| Not sure what that is, but I found it in my room... |
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| A beautiful look-out over a lake in the mountains near Guadalajara |
The calendar for this week is pretty empty still, but hopefully that will change! Tuesday is a holiday in Madrid (imagine that...another holiday!) so I don't have any classes. I am trying to plan a weekend trip or a day trip somewhere but am having difficulties with the internet. (This is one of those moments that I wish I could speak Spanish fluently because I want to call and complain and order the tickets online but that conversation is a little above my abilities still...grrrr) Anyways, miss you all and would love to hear updates of your lives!
xoxo
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