Monos Monos

Hola!

It has been a while since I posted but not too too much has happened.

On Wednesday night we went to the theater. We saw a Spanish play called “Blood Wedding.” I’m not much of a theater buff, and many of the symbolic characters such as the moon (a woman dressed in a marshmallow-esque costume) went right over my head. I’m not sure if I would have understood this in English. But it was still a good experience.

Rachel was in Barcelona for the weekend visiting a friend, and our Irish roommate was in Madrid, so I was sola en la casa. On Thursday night we met some kids from Syracuse who are studying here and being “experts” of Sevilla after 2 weeks here, showed them a good time.

On Friday I cooked “carne con tomate” (meat with tomatoes) with my padre. It is basically just very tender pieces of pork in a rich tomato sauce. It was excellent. At night I went out with a few friends from Union. This week quite a few abroad programs arrived in Seville, so I kept forgetting we were in Spain. EVERYONE was speaking English in the bars and discotecas that we went to. EVERYONE. It was kind of frustrating because we should be practicing our Spanish.

Also on Friday night, my host family held a birthday party for their 19 year old daughter. I went downstairs to mingle and have a drink before heading out, and it was a great time. Everyone there was so well-dressed and well-put together. All the girls were beautiful and looked like models. They were very friendly, too, and were eager to introduce me to everyone. It was hard to follow conversations sometimes, though, because the music was loud, and the young people talk so fast. One girl was talking to me about a boy, and then mentioned 7 ugly and fat girls. After discussing how mad she was at her boyfriend for another few minutes, I finally realized what was going on. “Oooh, the fat and ugly girls were girls he cheated on you with? That’s terrible!” She was probably wondering why I had been approvingly nodding my head and smiling during the conversation before I came to this realization. I tried to make up for my mistake by reiterating 6 or 7 times how that was crazy and how she was so pretty etc. etc.

When I got home at 4:30, the party was still going on. It ended at 6:45. When I got up at 7:15 for my field trip, the house looked eerily similar to the post-party scene in 16 candles, in which they find a freshman underneath the glass of the coffee table, littered with debris. There was a pearl necklace draped over the toasted, glasses everywhere and a thong in the middle of the kitchen floor. What a party. My host mother forgot to make me a lunch, most likely because the party had been a little crazier than expected, so I tried to poke around to make myself one. I snagged ham and cheese out of the fridge, and at the last second decided to double check to make sure it was ham. Definitely NOT ham. So that went right back into the fridge and I ended up with a honey and strawberry jam sandwich, which wasn’t ideal, but could have been worse.

Yesterday we went to Gibraltar, which is a British colony in southern Spain. It is right on the coast and you can see Africa very clearly across the strait. It was pretty crazy that the currency, language and overall culture could be so different in such a tiny pocket in the middle of Spain. It was strange to think of why these people chose to live there. It is no longer used for military purposes, so what draws people to live there? They are surrounded on all borders by people who speak a different language and use different currency.

The only thing I can think of is the monkeys. There are tons and tons of monkeys on the cliffs of Gibraltar. Well, technically, their lack of tail makes them apes. The word for monkey is “mono” and the word for cute is also “mono” (coincidence? I think not). I was standing on the street, taking a picture of a little ape in front of me, when all of a sudden something landed on my head. There was a creature the size of a fat house-cat pulling at my hair and squawking. People started grabbing their cameras and snapping shots of this ridiculous scene. Within a minute, it jumped off onto the dashboard of a passing car, wreaking more havoc. It was crazy!!!!

We also went in some caves. Our tour guide provided us with no information about them, so all I can tell you is that they were caves and they were very very cool. We were over-tired and began taking goofy pictures pretending to be spelunkers or bats or kids in the movie The Goonies which was great fun, but was cause for concern from the girls from U Maryland who were also on the tour with us. Unfortunately it was a rainy day, but we made the most of it.

A long day in Gibraltar had me in for the night, Skyping with the family. It was a much needed rest. Today was reserved for preparing my oral presentation on globalization, and tonight will be more of the same.

Overall, a great weekend! I’m out of snacks, though, so tomorrow I’m heading to the market place to buy chocolate covered banana chips and other tasty goodies.

Hasta luego!