The Falling Action

A few people have told me that my life reminds them of a movie, like Eat, Pray, Love or something like that. Well if my life were a movie this past week would have been the climax, right now is the falling action, and these next two weeks are the resolution.

            These past couple months have been full of events but compared to my normal life they have been relatively calm. However things sped up a little bit this past Monday. I met a new friend named Lazaro, and that night he invited me to join his family at their uncles house for dinner. So I went. I had a great time, he has a girl cousin who is my age, they had this massive BBQ with every type of meat in the world. Like really. They had all these sausages and ribs, and steak and chicken. It was delicious. It was all fun and games until I realized I forgot my keys.

            When I returned home at around 1:30 in the morning my first dumb idea (of many that would come that night) was to hop the extremely tall fence. So I threw my sandals and the rest of my stuff into the yard and attempted and failed. After many other failed attempts, instead of just knocking and waking up the family, or using someone’s phone to call May and Ignacio, I decided there was no possible way I could get into the house (I think my brain had turned off), so I took up Lazaro’s family on their offer to sleep in the guest bedroom. The next day I asked the gardener to let me into the outside gate and then I attempted to break in through the window. May appeared on the other side looking very upset. She told me (in angry Spanish) that is was 9 in the morning and they had been waiting for me all night and why were my sandals and flip flops in the yard but I never returned home. Then she marched upstairs. I probably sat for a good two hours doing absolutely nothing but feeling sick in my stomach. When they finally came downstairs I rushed to explain, but the damage was done. They didn’t understand why I didn’t facebook message them or call them. I didn’t know why either, I guess I am used to college where I never tell anyone where I am.

            The next two days were not very great, conversation was to a minimum and although I had said sorry I still felt there was tension. Fortunately for me by the third day all was forgotten and things went back to normal. Except for the fact that I had a new friend who according to all the children in the neighborhood was my new “novio”(boyfriend). I have definitely encountered one to many awkward moments concerning this situation. For instance, yesterday one of the older girls, with 5 other children, right in front of Lazaro, asked me if he was my boyfriend. “No he is just my friend”, kids cannot seem to understand that.

Yesterday I went Kayaking down at the bay with Lazaro (it wasn’t a date I swear), we got to kayak to this little island that was across from this historic castle, that was on an island farther out. It was fun to get out of my normal neighborhood. That night he came over to watch a movie with me and the kids, which was probably a bad idea because the whole entire night the kids were singing “What Is Love” from the Coca Cola commercials. Either way it is nice to have another friend that lives in the neighborhood.

We went to a pizzeria the other night, the family decided it was finally a good time to correct my table manners. The whole entire summer, THE WHOLE ENTIRE SUMMER, I had believed that it was acceptable to begin eating before everyone else had been served food. I had thought this because the first week I arrived at lunch, the whole family started eating right when they got their food, I had asked in Spanish (well I thought that is what I was asking) if that was acceptable in Spain. They said yes! So I went about thinking that it was normal manners to eat right when you got your food rather than waiting for everyone to be served. They finally told me that it was not acceptable and this whole time, at all the family gatherings and restaurants we had gone to I just looked plain rude. Miscommunication problems I guess.

So now I am at the falling action of my story, in which I get to decide what the resolution is going to be. I can’t believe I only have two weeks left before it is time for me to return to California. Back to my cell phone constantly ringing, things to do, people to see, and places to go. I have read a lot of good books, wrote a lot, I have even written some poetry! Haha. Through it all I have discovered a lot about myself and I am trying to put the pieces together to try to form the final conclusions of who I want to be when I return to California. Only one more blog post left.

See you soon California.

                                    

Fun Facts!

Thank you for all your prayers everyone! This past week and a half went a lot better.

I feel as if I was riding my bike up a really huge hill and last week I was at the hardest part, but I finally reached the top and now I’m gliding downhill. Not that everything with the kids is easy now, but it is not as difficult because the kids have finally become attached to me! A couple weeks ago all I could think about was how much I missed home, but now that I’m over the 1 ½ month slump, I feel perfectly content here. I realized that here I am living in this care free paradise, where I don’t have a lot of friends, therefore I don’t have a lot of problems, and then I think about going home and how I will have all my friends and family back, but I will be back to reality, back to the problems that everyday life entails, back to studying 24/7 for school, and dealing with all the people that I do not wish to deal with. When I think about that I realize how truly blessed I am! Most of my friends at home have been great! My best friend from college even sent me a package with a little birthday present!

Now for some fun facts about Spain!

-These facts are only about the south of Spain because the north and the south consider themselves completely different. Those from the north who live in places such as Barcelona and Bilbao don’t like to consider themselves from Spain, they consider themselves from Bilbao. In fact they even speak another language called Catalán on top of Spanish. I have been told that eventually Barcelona wants to become independent of Spain. Just a little Spanish politics if you’re interested.

-Almost everyone in Spain is named after a Catholic Saint. I know about 5 Ana’s, 4 Maria’s, and 3 Pablo’s.

-Because everyone is named after a Saint, everyone gets two days to celebrate themselves. Their birthday, and their Saint Day. For example, a couple of weeks ago was the day of Saint Ignacio. They don’t receive presents but a nice dinner is normal.

-They don’t use air conditioning. It is awful.  I am always hot. I have only taken two hot showers since I have been here, all the others have been cold showers. When I explained to them that in California we always use air conditioning, they looked at me like I was crazy, "So you like it being cold all the time?” They asked. They explained to me that air conditioning was very bad for the lungs…I tried explaining to one guy that he probably wasn’t coughing because of the air conditioning but because he smokes a pack of cigarettes a day….but apparently I was wrong(sarcasm).

-Something that continues to surprise me is the difference in religion here. In America we have two main religions Catholicism and Christianity. The two are not vastly different and for the most part have the same core values. But Catholicism here is just weird. They don’t really even have Christian churches here. The only one I have seen was in this village we went to where a lot of people from around the world lived. It was called the international Christian church. Ignacio my host family told me the other day that he didn’t believe in Adam and Eve, but believed in Darwinism. I thought that was very interesting and found it even more interesting when he told me that many Catholics shared the same belief as him. When I told them I felt it was important to save sex for marriage and that the Christian church strongly believed that, they looked at me like I was crazy. It’s in the bible I said. “No it’s not! we have never heard of such a thing” They said. The Irish girl (who was present at the time) told me that she has never heard of such a thing either. Whattt!? I mean even if your not religious Abstinence is something a lot of parents want for their kids so that they don’t get pregnant of anything. It was just strange.

-This fact isn’t about Spain, but the Irish girl (Jessica) told me that in her country they only have two churches. Protestant and Catholic. Almost everyone is catholic, but those who are protestant apparently only go to church once a year because the protestant church only opens once a year. I have realized that living in America we have a completely different view of what religion is like in the rest of the world!!

Sunday I went to my first Catholic baptism. It was for the a cousin of the family. It was great seeing the extended family. They are awesome and I really do feel like I am part of their family!

Imagine having your baptism in this church… it was pretty cool.

 

 

After we went outside the church, which overlooked the whole valley, there were these people there with a pet raccoon and a wide variety of exotic birds (I mean I thought they were exotic). Totally normal to have a pet raccoon. I mean totally normal.

After we ate at this bar with the family, all of the women pulled out their fans, and there was some guy walking around playing Spanish music on his guitar I felt like I was in a movie. Until I tried using a fan to fit in and it took my five minutes to figure out how to smoothly open it.

At the end of the meal the cute 19 year old cousin came over and talked to me. Unfortunately he didn’t speak English so I could only talk Spanish. The whole family was just standing in a circle around us, trying to wingman him. It was pretty awkward. I think he asked me to hangout sometime, but I really have no idea. I’m pretty sure I said yes. But nothing has come of it other than we’re Facebook friends. I can always use more of those.

Yesterday me and the little girl played dress up...in my closet haha. She definitely pulls off my clothes better than I do.

Continue to keep me in your prayers and thanks for reading my blog. I hope your enjoying your In-n-out California, I sure do miss it.