The Prehistoric Animal

Thursday February 7, 2008

This morning I woke up and headed to the bathroom, as normal, to take my shower. As you walk into the bathroom the mirror and shower are on the left and the toilet is in the back middle. I walk into the bathroom, turn on the light, shut the door, look into the mirror and instantly become paralyzed. Why? Because I see (in the mirror) a dull colored orange and red stripy lizard scurrying up the wall behind me. I instantly sprint to my room in dead panic and wake up the roomies by exclaiming, “There is a prehistoric animal in the bathroom and now I can’t shower. I don’t want to go in there. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh….ah!” Sam and Allison immediately sprung out of bed and rushed to the bathroom, ready with their cameras, to spot the animal. We all walked in as if something were going to attack us, only to find that the lizard was no longer to be seen. After searching the bathroom for a good 5 minutes Sam declared that the bathroom was usable again. It took me a couple of minutes to work the nerve up to go back into the lizard’s cage, but I had no other choice. After showering, breakfast, and school, we returned home to find a gorgeous woman and man in the kitchen. The woman turned out to be Encarna’s daughter, Fatima, and the man was Juan Antonio, Fatima’s boyfriend. We all sat down, Juan Antonio, Fatima, Encarna, Angela, Sam, Allison and myself for a nice little family lunch. Fatima is a 22-year-old flamenco dancer studying in Madrid and she had come home for the weekend. After listening to the sisters, Rocio and Fatima, talk about their new buys at a local store, Allison and I decided to go on an adventure to find the store after lunch. After searching for a while we found the store and some great buys as well. I bought a couple of things but the most important, a black coat. I love it, and I needed it, so I figured…why not!? After dinner Sam and I headed to our ONG and for the first time used the busses correctly there and back. We returned home on time (thank you God) and after eating, decided to go out for the night in celebration. Sarah and Melissa, two girls from class, invited us to go out with them and their host sister from Spain.  Our first stop was a flamenco bar where a 3-man band played original Sevillano music while many of the women at the bar danced flamenco. It was cool going out to the bar to watch the natives do something that they love. The music and dancing was amazing, but we headed to a more “hip” and younger aged bar after a while. We danced for a while there, met some guys who tried dancing with us (tried, because they got turned down), talked for a while and headed to a club called Boss. This club was like a club that you see in the movies-doorman, plush couches, different levels and all. Here we acquired two new “friends” Valentino and Ollie. They pretty much followed us around the rest of the night and ended up buying all 6 of us girls churros and hot chocolate on the way home. While walking I gave Ollie English lessons, he really wanted to learn the days of the week and how to say, “I am a waiter.” He started out only knowing, “I waitress” and ended up knowing the days of the week and how to say that he is a male/waiter. I think it was a fair trade off. We got back to our house at about 5am, which is very normal in Spain, if not a bit early, and went to bed. The whole night didn’t cost us anything because we got into all of the dance clubs for free and I didn’t have anything to drink. Overall, it was a good/random night.