The update is finally here

wow, where do I start? Let's begin with last night's dinner...
Madre: So valentine's day is this weekend...do you have a boyfriend in the U.S. or here?
Me: No...
Madre: Oh. Well do you think Miquel will ask you to dinner?
Me: No, haha, he has a girlfriend.
Madre: Really? Oh, then what about Carlos?
Me: No, he's really short
Madre: Juan?
Me: No, Juan isn't interested in me.
Madre: What? Why not?
Me: I don't know...
Madre: Well, do you like him?
Me: Yes, as a friend.
Madre: Oh...well I'm sure someone will ask you to dinner.
Me: I'm not sure I want to go to dinner with someone. What does that mean for the relationship?
Madre: It's just dinner! You can go with a bunch of friends, I suppose. Well, whatever. I'm sure someone will give you a flower.
Me: Thanks...

I felt like it was the Harfords drilling me about boys again, except my madre was completely serious and there wasn't Mr. Jimmy in the background making embarrassing comments. :-O

Speaking of holidays, the Spanish version of Halloween, called Carnaval is next weekend the 21st (day after my birthday!). Apparently it is quite a big deal and the town goes crazy all week. My padres told me it was a real masquerade, like covering the face and everything. They said I could buy a costume for 3 euros so I'm going with my madre to the market tomorrow.

It seems like holidays in Spain is not advertised much, but it's celebrated seriously. Like Valentine's day. There are a couple of signs in the windows of perfume shops or lingerie stores advertising it, but in general, there's not a huge pink & red chocolate section of every store I go in like there is in the U.S. And Carnaval, too. I didn't even here about it until the beginning of February and didn't know the date until last Monday. But I'm sure when the day actually comes they will go absolutely mad in celebration. Everyone knows it's coming, but they don't advertise it. Halloween in the States starts selling costumes in September. You have to live under a rock to not know it's coming.

I've been noticing the ways in which I act differently in a Spanish speaking country. For instance, every time I am walking around in the city and I hear an English speaking voice, I immediately look around, searching for the speaker, as if the fact that they speak my language binds makes us instant friends.

In addition, when I'm in the States around a bunch of strangers, I try to make friends with those I think I will like and those that are like me. There are so many cliques that I can choose from: do I want to spend time with this group or this group, etc...
Here, all of my Spanish friends are people that made an effort to talk to me. Does that make sense? I don't care which kind of group they belong to. The fact that they want to talk to me and hang out with me makes them my friends, regardless of whatever clique they are or are not part of.

This week was obviously not memorable because I can't remember what I did. I had the latin dance class that ended on Thursday. The lessons were really basic and when we start dancing informally it's not gonna matter if we missed one of the turns, but it was fun anyway. I feel like if you just give me an open floor and put some music on, I will be as extroverted as ever. I was goofing around so much that it brought back memories of JoAnne's ballet class. My dance partner thought I was funny, at least. The teacher, Pilar, asked me to dance with them in a competition at the University and I was like "Heck yeah, that would be so cool" until I found out it was for a modern style dance. I can attempt ballet, and I can try at Latin, but modern dancing just isn't for me, so I turned it down as politely as I could, trying to explain that my body just can't move that way.

Wednesday I hung around school until 7 for chorus and meanwhile we did an intercambios event where Spanish students learning English came and talked with us: They spoke in English & we in English. I met 2 girls that laughed all the time and we exchanged numbers. One could barely speak English. The sad part is that they go home for the weekends, which is far away, so I won't be able to spend any time with them.

Last Thursday (a week ago) was so much fun. I ran into Lucas & Terol and their friends and we spent the evening together with some other american girls. So I hoped the same thing would happen last night...but it didn't. I was pretty bored. I saw Lucas today on the street and asked him about going to see his band practice, because that was going to be the highlight of my weekend, but he said they probably won't practice tomorrow and plus he's going skiing this weekend so I won't see him again. It made me very disappointed but luckily I have other Spanish friends to see (I hope).

After this weekend I will have more to write about. I'm going to a nearby town called Orihuela to go to their Medieval Festival! And seeing as next weekend is Carnaval I'll have even more to recount...and the next weekend we go to Madrid for the weekend!!! Whoo. I don't know what I'm going to do in between! Can I just say Homework stinks?

So story: Last Monday I was with Miquel and his friend Pablo. We were walking on the street and I saw 2 little wrapped sweets on the ground by the dumpster...and I picked them up. At the time Miquel laughed at me and called me a gypsy. And yeah, looking back on that, I realize that was a very stupid thing to do.

They were kind of good, though. I'll let you know if I die.