Siesta

Right now is siesta and my tummy’s full of paella and some delicious salad thing and bread but before I take a food coma I thought I’d blog. This morning I woke up at 8:30 and it felt like I had slept for about 5 minutes. I was going to take a shower but couldn’t figure out how to work it and everyone else was still asleep. So I finished unpacking and slowly got ready for school. When my madre woke up, she came and asked what I wanted for breakfast. I told her any food was fine and she said that she would make toast. Well, my friends, toast here gets decorated with both olive oil and strawberry jelly. It was delicious but kind of heavy for breakfast. I ate the two pieces she gave me and the next thing I know she’s putting more on my plate. I didn’t want to offend her so I ate one and then politely told her I was full before I threw up. (I only told her I was full.) I also got fussed at for wanting water to drink. So I had some milk. Apparently you don’t drink just milk. You have to add sugar or colacao, which is kind of like Nesquick powder.

After breakfast, my brother walked me to school. We were just shown around the school and told what was expected of us from their end. The school is interesting. There are kids there aged from like 5 to 16 or 18. It’s so weird that they’re in school now even though it’s technically summer. They don’t really get a break. When we were walking around outside I got a little bit jealous of the really cool playgrounds (and yes, playgrounds. Plural.) that they have at the school. They also have this little driving track, that kind of looks like go-carts, but more realistic to a street. There are policia that teach the children how to drive at like age 8. Maybe 10. But still, take that Driver’s Ed. They need it though, the roads here are CRAZY. Which brings me to my next adventure: trying to find the “walmart”. A couple of us wondered over there after class and whenever we finally found it I literally must have walked around with my jaw dropped. This place is like a whole mall within a store. Absolutely zero exaggeration. Like I’m talking, there’s even a pet store, complete with real live animals in it. Speaking of animals, I’ve realized that everyone who has a dog here has a little dog. Possibly because most people live in apartments. The dogs even look different though. And they speak Spanish. Anyways, we walked around there and I was going to get a phone but who knew that you have to have your passport to do that because it’s my only valid form of identification here. I’m going back after siesta with some other girl who also needs to get one.

I got a little lost after we split walking home from the store. It’s because the streets here have like 5 or 6 different ways that they run so you can’t “just go straight” even though that’s what you need to do. There also aren’t visible street signs. They’re on the sides of the first building on the street. Sometimes. Luckily I figured it out before I walked more than a block or two out of my way. I worked on my homework a little bit and then lunch was ready about 2:30. They feast for lunch. I couldn’t eat it all. I also went to take my dishes to the sink after I ate and got fussed at. I think I can handle that. The adults here definitely like to cater to children. And by children, I mean anyone under the age of 25. I’m getting more comfortable in my poor Spanish skills. My brother and I have been communicating using spanglish, which seems to work somehow since we both only know parts of the other language. I’m also getting great at miming. My parents will correct me if I say something wrong and they can tell I get frustrated. I was trying to explain to them how we don’t really learn grammar and speaking, we just learn like vocabulary. Well my internet just went out but luckily I can save this as a word document to post later. I’m about to siesta; this might quickly become my favorite part of the Spanish culture.