I Have a Package for "Emille Bekman"

Monday February 11, 2008

I didn’t want to wake up this morning but I forced myself to, ah another Monday. Class went really well today. Things seemed to go by quickly and in our last class we had a Spanish lawyer come and talk to our class about immigration. It was pretty interesting but it was really hard to understand what he said because he liked to leave off the ends of words and talk really quickly. After class I came home and worked on homework and ate lunch. I received a card from my Great Aunt Alice and Great Uncle Bill today wishing me a Happy Valentines Day! It was cute and I enjoyed it, like all other mail that I receive. I worked on homework for a while longer until 4pm when I went to call Aaron and tell him about our amazing trip to Conil. When I called, he didn’t answer. So I decided that that wasn’t good enough and I called twice more until I woke him up. (Sounds kind of crazy, but I was just really excited to tell him about the trip to the beach and that he needed to cancel a couple nights of his hotel.) He was confused when he answered, but he caught on pretty quickly when he realized that it was me. We talked for about 30 minutes and then I came home to work on my speech. My roommates had gone out to do other things but I was alone in our room writing my speech for Wednesday, what fun! While I was preparing my visual aids, the door buzzed. No one answered. The door buzzed again. Still there was no answer. So I went to the phone and picked up it and valiantly said, “Hola, quien es?” (Hello, who is it), which is always what my host mom and sister say when they answer the door phone. I couldn’t understand a word coming from the other end of the phone but luckily my host sister rushed to my aid. She talked to the man and found out that it was the postman, which I thought was rare because it was around 7:00pm and the mail usually comes around 12-2pm. She said that there was a package for me. I rushed downstairs to a little old man and a giant package. What was it? I could hardly wait. He asked for my passport number, after he had spelled my name “Emille Bekman,” which I laughed at and correctly later. I told him “one moment please” and I went upstairs to get my passport. I read him off the number and then signed the slip of paper and the box was finally mine. I carried the 15lb. package up the stairs and ripped it open. I read the tag and it was from Aaron. I’m sure that it was supposed to be for Valentines Day, but I honestly couldn’t help it. I opened the box and immediately burst into tears. Holy crap. I think this kid knows me better than I know myself. He had sent me an artists dream set full of paints, pastels, watercolors, paintbrushes, pencils, you name it and this box had it. I just stood and started at it bawling for a few minutes until Sam got home. She walked in and immediately asked what had happened/what was wrong. Through my wall of tears I think she deciphered that I got my package from Aaron. As I was showing it off to her I noticed the side of the box. “Emily Kay, Make Time For Yourself” was engraved on the side. How true, how perfect. For the next 10 minutes my world was a blur of tears and loss of words, which Sam pointed out that doesn’t happen often. When Allison came home, it all started again. I couldn’t concentrate anymore; I had to leave the room. Allison and I decided to go out for ice cream to celebrate “nice boys” and it was delicious. I came back home and a few minutes later Encarna popped her head into our room to tell us that dinner was ready…and then she noticed the box. Her son Antonito is an amazing artist and she has his artwork all over our/her house. She was in shock and couldn’t believe that she now had another artist in the house! (I love her.) We had dinner and talked for a while. She asked if the beach idea as a go and we told her that we definitely wanted to rent her friends apartment. She told us that we would be O.K. and that we were going to love it because it was three girls and our “guardaespaldas” (bodyguard)-how funny! Now I’m trying to accomplish homework. There aren’t really any words to describe the end of the night, just an overall sense of love from back home. Tonight is the one of the first times that I’ve actually said the words, “I want to go home.” But I think that I was pretty good holding out for a month. There have been other times, cards, e-mails, and packages that have put me on the edge, but this just pushed me over. I love, love, love Spain, but there are something’s back home that you just can’t replace.