Mi Cumpleanos

Tuesday January 15, 2008

 

Today is my birthday! So obviously it has to be a good day, right? Well we started off our second day of classes today. So here’s the deal, if I thought I was overwhelmed with classes yesterday, today I just didn’t even know what to do with myself. We had our first classes of Literature and History. Lets get things straight, I don’t really like history in the first place…let alone in Spanish. So I was lost in that class. Literature wasn’t as bad but its going to become a lot more complicated. There is going to be a lot to do with my classes, such as writing and reading. I wasn’t expecting an easy semester but I was hoping that there wasn’t going to be tons because we are in Spain and let me tell you-there are a lot more interesting things to do here than homework. On a break between classes my teacher announced that we had a birthday, of course everyone already knew, and then brought out an amazing chocolate cake. My classmates had all put in money to buy me a cake for my birthday, which was amazing. We all at the cake during our 15 minute break from class and then we got back into classes. Classes finished a little early today but we got an out of class assignment instead. Our assignment: to take in the culture. We were supposed to go to a café or bar or plaza and sit and watch the people and their interactions. This obviously wasn’t hard for me because I love to people watching no matter what country I am in. After class we all met out in the plaza and a few of us went to buy notebooks from a store that was a lot cheaper than Cortes Ingles. The walk was pretty hefty but we didn’t really have anything better to do and the prices were a lot better. The interesting part about this excursion was getting home. We had never been to that part of town before that had the cheap notebooks, so it was an adventure. On the way home I got winked at, yelled at (ay, guapas chicas)-“hey, pretty girls”, and stalked by a crazy old man. I was carrying my cake home from class and he saw me and said, “Hey girls. Where are you going? Is that my cake? Maybe for my birthday?” (Keeping in mind all of that was in Spanish and right after we deflected the construction workers). To make things even better we got lost in the middle of it all, and that made me want to cry even more. I kept telling Allison, “Walk faster please, keep it going, NOW!” I was at the back of the pack. But we survived it all to tell the stories so it was a success. When we got home we had lunch and after lunch Rocio presented me with two candles, one in the shape of a two and the other in the shape of a one. She told me to go and get my cake from school and I did so. She put the candles on the cake turned off the lights and her mom and her started singing me happy birthday. It was the best thing! I was sad about my birthday but they really made me feel at home. They told me that they were going to make me a cake later but I already had one. I told them that they could still make me one because no matter the day I would still eat and like cake. After they sang I blew out my candles and made a wish, Encarna presented me with a birthday present! Kissed me on both cheeks and told me that it was just a small gift from them for my birthday. I couldn’t believe it! She got me a pair of earrings and I pretty much thought that I was going to cry when I opened them. Going from missing everyone to being welcomed so warmly hit home. We had another good conversation during lunch. Rocio and I talked about music for a while. She always listens to American music when she is at home and getting ready so I asked her about it. I think we are going to trade music after a while. She thought that it was crazy that I had almost 2,300 songs on my computer. I sang her the Spanish version of Silent Night (Noche de Paz) and “De colores” (another Spanish song that I had learned when I was younger). I think that we really connected for the first time at lunch with the music conversation and the birthday celebration. After our “fiesta” we met up with some friends in La Alameda de Hercules and walked to the plaza outside of our building for school. Our teacher Yaye had told us the day before that we could get free wireless there so we were out to try. There are Internet cafes here but they all cost money and you just feel really rushed when using them. Not to mention there could be a creeper like last time! We sat down and checked most of our e-mails, and that might have been a mistake. This was the first time that I had the time to sit down and actually read e-mails from back home. I wanted to just start crying on the spot. To hear about all of the things happening back home and all of the people that miss me/everyone on the trip…it was really hard to take in. I hadn’t really felt homesick until that moment. When I saw that my mom, Jess, Emily, and Aaron were on the Internet I nearly jumped out of my seat with happiness. I’m sure everyone else in the plaza thought that I was crazy, but I get that a lot here. I talked to them for a bit but not for as long as I would like to because the Internet was cutting out. After checking the e-mails we headed to Cortes Ingles to get Allison a battery for her watch and to cash my travelers checks. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out how to cash the checks there so that will be a different adventure for tomorrow. After getting pretty frustrated with the whole situation we stopped at a café on the way home with 3 other classmates. We sat down and pretty much left a couple minutes later because we were tired and had things to do at home. We have dinner at 9 or 9:30ish and then we are meeting with the rest of the classmates to go out for my birthday. There are a lot of small but very different cafes and bars around where we live so we are just going to go out to some of those tonight for a bit and socialize and maybe do more this weekend. I will let you know how that goes tomorrow!