My Thanksgiving

Ahhh, Sunday…my day of rest.

Now to catch you all up on the last few days.

Thursday was “Real Thanksgiving.” It was at least half way through the day before I even realized it was Thanksgiving. I woke up, got ready and headed off to work. After work I ran errands, went home, ate…normal, day-day stuff. I bought a new pair of boots. I still absolutely love the ones I bought in Murcia, but now that I’ve worn them religiously for 2 years they are pretty worn out, plus the small heal really hurts my feet when walking up and down all these Siles hills. About 3:15 I went back to school to meet Antonio and Inés. Inés had a physical therapy appointment in La Puerta and asked Antonio to come along and watch her son. I tagged along as something to do. Antonio, me and Inés son (who is about 16 months old) walked from one end of La Puerta to the other looking for a place to sit and eat, or at least get a cup of coffee. Everything, except the hair salon, and two cafes were closed (you could die of hunger but at least your hair would look nice!). La Puerta isn’t that big but my feet were so tired by the time we settled at one of the cafes for a coffee. Antonio “invited me” to a coffee and when Inés was done with her appointment she met us there. Here, “to invite” someone doesn’t just mean they can come along with you…it means they pay for you. I learned this during my stay in Murcia. I never really thought about it but when I mentioned the different between the word in Spanish and English one of my Spanish friends was surprised…”so you invite someone to come with you, then make them pay?” Haha…ummm…yes?

I think we must have been quite a site as we were walking around town. Walking with Antonio and a Spanish-looking little kid I feel like more people overlooked the fact that I was blond and blue-eyed and gave me the benefit of the doubt that I probably spoke Spanish...or that I was Antonio’s wife and Inés son was my own. Haha. Inés son had fallen asleep during our walk and woke up just before we left the café. Poor kid…he seemed so confused to wake up in an unfamiliar place and he cried basically all the way back to Siles.

Anyways, after Inés appointment and our coffee we went back to Siles. Inés dropped me off at my apartment.

People don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here so there was no time off from work, no turkeys cooking, and no big dinners being prepared all day long. I was doing totally fine not being home for Thanksgiving until late afternoon/evening. Things kind of started to go downhill from there a little. I was in my apartment by myself. None of my friends were available to get together and “Happy Thanksgiving” status updates started taking over Facebook. I got to talk to my family a bit which was really nice, but then I debated just going to bed early. I was feeling a little sad and trying just to remind myself that “My Thanksgiving” was tomorrow. That thought reassured me a little, but I was still afraid that everyone was going to bail on our dinner plans. So many people had given me wishy-washy confirmations, or jumped back and forth about whether or not they were coming. I eventually just watched a little bit of the movie “Elf” online, had a good chuckle and hit the hay.

I’m a little nervous that I reacted this way for Thanksgiving. I really was totally fine with it until the very last minute. I don’t think it will be the same for Christmas though. I think part of the issue was that no one here was doing anything. A holiday that’s normally pretty important went completely unrecognized by everyone except me. At least everyone here celebrates Christmas, so even though I’ll be without my family there will still be celebrating and I’ve been invited to spend the day with Almudena’s family.

Friday was “My Thanksgiving” and it was a total 180 from the night before. Friday was absolutely fantastic. I slept in a bit and then got to work. I needed to clean my apartment, try to bake my pumpkin pie from fresh pumpkin, get the food for dinner and do some laundry. I had dressed up a little for the day, just for the heck of it, so I felt like Suzy Homemaker all dolled up, making pie, doing chores and getting ready to play hostess all at the same time. I talked to Ben and Eve (the 2 auxiliares from La Puerta) and they said that they were going to come for dinner. The bus schedule is really irregular around here so I wasn’t sure if they were going to get here at 4, 7, 10 or God knows when. Also Luis was coming over to start preparing the food. I decided to cancel my Friday evening private lesson so I could have enough time to get stuff done.

Of course, Thanksgiving wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without a few hiccups. My main hiccup was the fact that in the middle of cooking and doing laundry I lost power in my apartment for two hours. Initially I wasn’t concerned. There was still light outside and I figured as soon as my landlady got home she would switch the power back on like normal. I actually loose power on a fairly regular basis, but usually Ma Cele is home and can fix it (the breaker box is in her apartment). So I waited…and I waited…and I waited…and got more and more anxious that maybe we wouldn’t have power for our Thanksgiving dinner. Then the sun started to go down and I realized I had no candles, lanterns, etc so I called Ma Cele.

“Hey Ma Cele…it’s Erica. When are you coming home?”
“Sunday, why?”
“Oh. Hmmm, well we lost power again.”
“Hmmm…Are you home?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, I’ll call my brother and have him come fix it.”
“Awesome. Thank you!”

So her brother Pedro (who is one of the police officers in town) came to the apartment and got the power back on. The minute he left the power went off again. I called him and he came back. He flipped it on again and then waited. I didn’t have very many things turned on, so we turned on almost everything in the apartment to see if we were going to loose power again as soon as he left. Everything seemed ok so he headed out and said to just call him again if the problem persists.

I finished up cleaning, but knew I wasn’t going to have enough time to bake the pie now. About the time that my private lesson would have been my doorbell rang. “Gosh dang it!” I figured it was the private lesson family in yet another scheduling communication mishap. I went upstairs and luckily it was just Almudena and Maria. They had been going back and forth with me all week about whether or not they were coming. They kept coming up with lame excuses not to come. They had stopped by to talk to me about the dinner. I explained who was coming, who wasn’t, and that Ben and Eve were coming now too. The latest excuse,

“Well maybe there are too many people now and we should just get a coffee or something with you later.”
“It’s up to you but for Thanksgiving the more the merrier and we really only have 2 or 3 more than originally planned.”

So they caved.
“Ok. We’ll be back about 9.”

Luis showed up about 10 minutes later and we headed to the store. He brought me some homemade tomato/pizza/pasta sauce and jam from his mom and the mixer that I needed for my pie. We picked up everything we needed and went back to prep…well…for him to start prepping and for me to drink wine and find music for us to listen to. Haha! Thanksgiving at my house without having to make anything? Lucky me!

By some miracle almost everyone showed up right about nine. We still had a couple no-shows but since Ben and Eve decided to come it worked out evenly. We had 7 people total for dinner and 3 more joined us a little later.

The food was awesome. We had Spanish tapas and Luis even used some of my pumpkin on one of them. There was no turkey, and the only potatoes we had were in the form of our Spanish tortilla, but it was really good. The portion sizes were good too, so none of us fell into the normal American-Thanksgiving-induced coma after dinner. Quite the opposite in fact. Fun fact...the two most requested songs of the night from the Spanish guys..."Empire State of Mind" by Alicia Keys and "Love the Way You Lie" by Eminem and Rihanna. We all hung out, ate, chatted and drank wine and after dinner we headed out for our “First Annual Thanksgiving Spanish Bar Crawl.” We started off at Menphys, then off to Nicols, then over to 1900. Our last stop was supposed to be Pub JJ but it was closed so we went back to Menphys. At 4am they flipped the lights on and it was time to go home. Ben and Eve decided to wait at Menphys because one of the bartenders lives in La Puerta and offered them a ride home. They ended up staying there until 7am. I went home and crashed.



Saturday I spent most of the day in bed nursing my first Spanish hangover. I eventually got up to get some water, some food and a shower and then felt much better. At 5 I had plans to go over to Almudena’s house. They were having dessert and coffee with friends to celebrate Almudena’s daughter’s 2nd birthday before the family came over for dinner. After this mini-celebration Maria and a few others left but Almudena invited me to stay for the main party. A bunch of family showed up, blew up balloons, put up decorations, brought food, etc. etc. Adriana had been in her room playing so the living went from normal to party central without her evening knowing it. When they finally brought her out she was visibly went through a series of emotions…especially ‘frightened’ at all the people shouting “Feliz Cumple” and then quickly to crazy 2-year old excitement. It didn’t take her long to find and open the confetti filled piñata that popped and spread confetti-happiness all over the living room. The rest of the night was spent listening to music, eating, watching Adriana open her presents, Adriana giving people makeovers with her new Barbie make-up set and more eating. All in all there were 3 cakes/desserts in addition to the pizza, sandwiches, chips, tapas and drinks.





Just before 10pm I headed out. Luis had called to see if I wanted to do something. Obviously after Friday night neither of us was totally thrilled about the idea of going out. We decided on a movie at my place.

Ok…I didn’t really think about what a challenge that was going to be. You would think, yes, for a nice, relaxing evening at home, a movie is just the thing…wrong. First problem…I don’t have a DVD player attached to my TV and DVDs in this region are different from the US (so I can’t play them on my computer). Luckily Luis brought over a DVD player. Ok, problem number one fixed. Problem number 2…Luis’ Castellano (what we know as Spanish) is basically flawless, but he is from Catalonia, where they speak Catalan. I never notice any errors in his Castellano but every now and then, especially with things like movies, he’ll comment on how fast they speak. I speak English, and although my Castellano is good, watching movies in Spanish is still taxing. I have to really concentrate, which makes the purpose of watching a movie to relax basically impossible. Then began the debate over what language we watch the movie in, do we have subtitles, what language should the subtitles be in, which movies do we have that fit all those requirements, etc, etc. Goodness gracious. We ended up watching “Noise” which I think is a totally weird idea for a movie. It was in Castellano but we didn’t have subtitles, so I listened and followed along with the general idea.

Today, Sunday, was a totally lazy day. I did a load of laundry and tried to get caught up on the dishes from Friday’s dinner. I also made a pizza. It certainly wasn’t hard because I used a pre-made crust, and I definitely used too much tomato sauce but it was still good. I wish I could have been a little more productive, but oh well. I’m heading to bed so I can try to be up early in the morning to make up for not doing anything today.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

Yes, I speak Spanish.

Word is out. I’m not quite sure who is doing my advertising for me, but I’ve had so many people track me down in the last few days asking for private English lessons. I have 3 people call my phone at times when I couldn’t answer, another woman came to the school today to find me, another picked me out of the group of teachers when we were heading to lunch and another called me tonight. I’m going to have to decide how many lessons I actually want to do. I don’t want my life to be consumed by lessons but it will be nice to have a little extra money. I’m charging 8 euro an hour. That is what Steffi said that she charges. She said Claudia (last year’s auxiliar) tried to charge 10 euros last year and people got upset. I don’t really know how I’ll go about doing these lessons…yet another thing I’ll have to learn as I go.

Today I had to teach the 3rd grade science class. It’s one of the classes I have to do the most preparation for, but I was feeling pretty good today because I’d spent a good chunk of time last night planning for today’s lesson. Well, majority of my lesson involved materials that I had e-mailed to myself that I needed to print out. I can only print things off at school. I got to school and…no internet. It wasn’t working. Grrrr. So instead we had an impromptu science lesson that wasn’t a total disaster, but it was frustrating. The 3rd graders are learning about animal, plant and fungi classifications. A lot of the words I could at least recognize in English. The problem is that I don’t know what the words are in Spanish, to translate into English. Therefore the kids have concluded that I must be the worse native English speaker in the world because I can’t answer their every question about vocabulary (with their only hint to me being the random word in Spanish that I’ve never heard before in my life). That is why planning for my science classes is especially important. That gives me the ability to control the material and vocabulary we learn, and allows me to look up any words ahead of time that I think they might use or ask about…it makes me look so smart! One of the boys in my 3rd grade science class knows so much about animals. His grasp on vocabulary and what animals I was referring to was really amazing.

I hung around the school from 11:45-1:30. I wrote a bunch numbers, dates, basic classroom words, etc on white cards that I’m going to put up around the 3 year olds’ classroom. I also traced Silvia’s (the school secretary) body onto a piece of butcher paper to prepare for next week’s 4th grade science lesson on the body systems. I ran a quick errand to buy a thumb drive and a snack, and then headed back to school. I hung out again until 2 when school was out, and then went back to my apartment to drop my things off. After that I went to Mezquita to meet with the other teachers before our fancy lunch at el instituto. I had a mosto and just before 3 we headed to the school.

Every Thursday the culinary students at el instituto cook a multi-course meal and you can reserve a spot to go eat there. It’s 10 euros and includes bread, appetizers, 2 main courses, 2 desserts, drinks and coffee…and it’s fabulous. They did a really nice job, and of course it was way better than anything I’ve managed to make myself here. There were 3 tables full of teachers from my school, and most of the other two tables were filled with teachers and students from my adult English class on Wednesday afternoons. It was nice to walk into a place like that and know more people than I didn’t know! We sat and chatted and ate and were merry. Inés husband and son were there, as well as another teacher’s husband and son. This little boy, Fernando, was shy, but looking at me constantly, and eventually took a liking to me. He was so cute. He started calling me Eri and gave me a kiss on the cheek to say goodbye. He tried talking to me but I didn’t have a clue what he was trying to tell me (neither did his dad). Fernando is 2 years old, so little-kid-speak in a foreign language is pretty difficult for me to interpret.


(puree de patatas with a cool design on it)


(the main course)


(one of the desserts)


(Fernando, 2 years old, in his chef hat made by the culinary teacher)


(Ines and her son)

After lunch I walked with Ana (one of the teachers, whose son is one of the culinary students) back to her house. I proceeded to have a long coughing fit so she gave me several blankets, gave me a glass of water and some hot chocolate, told me I should wear a scarf and go to the doctor the next day. Needless to say, I am well cared for here. That is definitely one of the benefits of being in a small town like this. I sat with Ana for a couple hours chatting about families, food, traditions, holidays, etc, etc. She is from a town outside of Cordoba and has two kids. Her husband is still in their town outside of Cordoba. Her eldest son is in Madrid. Her youngest son is studying cooking here. I’ve been really shocked at home many teachers here have husbands, wives and children in other cities and are only able to see them on weekends at best. The economic crisis here has made finding jobs difficult (just like in the US). Ana mentioned that she (based on the movies) likes how American houses look, and loves the Christmas lights in winter time. She also told me more about Día de los Reyes. Día de los Reyes is the 6th of January. This is when Spanish children get most of their Christmas presents. The children put their shoes outside on the balcony with snacks and glasses of water. The three wise men come, on their camels, let the camels drink the water, and they leave gifts in their place. In reality, the parents drink the water and put the snacks away. Ana said one year her sons tried to put out a pair of her husband’s shoes instead of their shoes thinking, if the shoes are bigger, the gifts must be too! Ana also invited me to spend Christmas with her in Cordoba if I end up with no other plans. She doesn’t want me to be alone that day. We also talked about Franquismo and how difficult those times were for Spain (especially for her grandfather who had 28 children). We covered an amazing range of topics. We went in search of lana (wool) that Ana’s mother requested. I was shocked at how much yarn this little shop in Siles had. Sadly though, they were out of the kind that her mother wanted. We left the shop but almost immediately went back so Ana could ask when the ‘consultorio’ (doctor’s office) closes during the week. Here there is one doctor’s office. It closes at 3 pm during the week and is closed on the weekends. So, don’t get sick or injured on the weekends because you’ll have to go to another town to get help. She said if I don’t start feeling better I should go get checked out…it is free after all! Why people don’t want this kind of health system in the US, I’ll never know. It’s freakin’ awesome.

Every now and then I get a pleasant satisfaction from the realization about how much my Spanish is improving. I just had a three hour conversation with a native Spanish speaker completely in Spanish with fairly minimal comprehension problems. Yeeeeees.

I went home, had a sandwich, put my clothes away, unclogged my shower, caught up on e-mails and photo orders and relaxed. Oh, I also finally had victory over my fly “friend” that had made himself too comfortable in my apartment. He was doused with hairspray, smashed with my power converter and flushed down the toilet. I was quite content…until his angry brother landed on my computer screen. I thought there was only one in my apartment, but it appears that there are two annoying flies that like to spend their time circling around me. Sigh.

I’m going to bed. I’m not setting an alarm. Tomorrow I will be cleaning my apartment so it’s ready for Roberto and Brittany to come visit me. Dust collects so fast here! The weather is supposed to get better. I hope that’s true so we have more options of things to do this weekend. At least it didn’t rain today. It was just SO cold. The temperature has dropped really quickly over the last week. Every time I go outside the cold irritates my cough. I turned my heat on for awhile yesterday and today. I’ve also had my towel rack going in order to dry my clothes. Winter’s coming!

Buenas noches todos!

"Always be eager to practice hospitality"

"Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality." -Romans 12:9-13

Whether you’re religious or not, these words are powerful. I think we live most of our lives forgetting the absolutely incredible power of a hello, a hug, or reassurance that we aren’t alone. We’re always taught to “be kind” but how often do we live by the minimum standards of what that means? I feel like “be kind” today often means ‘just don’t do anything bad,’ but it doesn’t mean DO something kind.

Coming to Siles has socially been one of my life’s greatest challenges. It is difficult, no matter how much you want an experience like this, to leave everything and everyone that you know. Moving to a small little town in the mountains, where people don’t live, speak, eat, commute, or dress like you is a total shock to the system. It makes you very aware of yourself, and feels as if there is a spotlight upon your every word and action. It makes every little ‘hello,’ every small, taken-for-granted little act of acceptance absolutely precious.

There have been days here that I feel like I’ve won a great victory because on the way to school some little old lady exchanged ‘holas’ with me. Those ‘good mornings’ made my entire day and made me feel like even in this different world, I could be apart of something; I could be a part of this community.

Everything worth anything requires some work and potential discomfort. The greatest gifts in life require work and stretching of one’s limits, especially in relationships (romantic, friendship or otherwise). In the U.S. I considered myself fairly independent. I didn’t have a problem going to dinner or a movie by myself but going to bars was usually where I drew the line. Here, if I was going to meet and connect with people my age, I had to go the bars by myself. It was so much more uncomfortable than I could have imagined. You can not even imagine the sigh of relief that floods one’s body when someone accepts and reciprocates your strained efforts at communication.

There have been several people here in Siles that I consider to be my little gifts from God. Through them I have seen hospitality unmatched by most. The things they do are not outwardly extravagant. They will never make the paper. They won’t win any awards. However, their hospitality is enough to bring an overwhelming, flooding sensation of love, acceptance, friendship and happiness into my heart and soul.

Inés: Before my trip even started Inés was my one connection in Siles. From the very get-go she tried to make me feel comfortable and reassure me that no matter how many questions I had, or how many things were up in the air, it would all be ok. When I arrived and she knew of an open apartment she called the landlady for me, negotiated a price and arranged for me to meet her and look at the place. When I needed to go to Jaén two and a half hours away to do paperwork she hopped in her car and drove me there and back. She was in the midst of caring for her 1 year old, teaching, entertaining out of town family, being pregnant and renovating a house. In spite of all that she still offered to give me a call if they decided to do anything during the long weekend since she knew my plans had fallen through and I was going to be hanging out alone. Even though I feel like she would do or give anything she could, what I am thankful for most is how excellent she is at reassuring me it will all be ok, and making me feel like I’m not actually doing anything here alone.

Pepe: I met Pepe my first day in Siles. He was walking down the same street I was on, wearing a smile and stopped to ask me where I was from. Siles doesn’t get many foreigners, so it’s obvious when someone is new. Most people will stare, but very few blindly try to start a conversation with me. I understand. They don’t know who I am, why I’m here, or if I even speak Spanish. They don’t know that I can understand them. It’s personally risky to try to start a conversation. Pepe did, and then his excitement and generally happy demeanor was contagious. In the following days he bought me coffee, took me on mushroom gathering adventures and offered me rides from the grocery store to my house so I didn’t have to carry the groceries up the hill. He brought me into his home and let me have dinner with him and his daughter. He gave me a cell phone to use until I could get one of my own. He gave me different foods to try and told me how to prepare them and introduced me to his friends. Pepe was like an adopted grandfather. He didn’t have to do any of that, but he did, and he transformed my first few days in Siles.

Gloria: Gloria is my “twenty-somethins savior.” A friend introduced us at the bar and she pulled up a barstool and talked to me for hours. She would get close, and speak directly to me so I could understand her. She was instantaneously caring and empathetic of the fact that I was alone in this town and hoping to make friends. When she found out there was the possibility I would be alone for the holidays she insisted that she was going to call me all day long to make sure I wasn’t lonely. She introduced me to people, opened up the door for me to have conversation with other people, bought me a drink, danced with me, make me feel comfortable, pulled me into pictures with her and her friends and made me feel like I was with someone that night. I wasn’t alone at the bar anymore. I was with a friend.

There are many others too. This just scratches the surface. I've had people offer me rides, offer to let me spend the holidays with their families, offer to let me stay in their homes, and every day...more and more 'hellos.'

I really, really can’t express to you how emotional experiences like this are. To describe it just doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of how much it all means. You really can change someone’s life this way.

In relationships, in love, in friendship, there always has to be someone that makes the first move. Why not make it you? Why not be that person who brings such happiness, or at the very least a glimmer of hope, to another being? Even on days that you have nothing else to give, give a “hello.” IT MEANS SO MUCH. You’ve acknowledged someone’s presence in a positive way, and may have given them exactly what they needed in that moment. And when you can…when you have more to give…BE kind. Give someone a hug. Make that phone call. Open your house to someone who’s alone for the holidays. *Express genuine interest in another human being.* You may not ever understand the elated joy you can bring someone by going just above and beyond until you’re in need of that same kindness.

So today, please, embrace the hope found in hospitality...and be kind.

Halloween at school, the payaso show and a beautiful sunset

Yesterday I got to sleep in a little. I don’t have to work on Fridays. However, even though I don’t have to work on Fridays I went to the school. They were having a Halloween celebration and I told Inés I would go to help take pictures. I got there a little bit before recess and a group of the kids were being gathered in the teachers’ room. The teachers had put dark curtains up over the windows and the kids sat on the floor. Eva played scary music and every so often someone in the hallway would knock loudly or slam the door (causing all of us, even those of us that knew it was going to happen to jump). Towards the end of the scary music 3 of the teachers, who were dressed up as scary creatures, bust through the doors and scared the kids. The kids loved it. I took pictures of it all, although my flash batteries were pretty toast, so the flash only fired every couple shots. After the scary story the kids took the skeleton masks they had made and went out to recess. I took my camera out and the kids LOVED it. They all wanted their picture taken. I took SO many pictures. After recess everyone went back to their class but only for a little while. In addition to the Halloween celebration there was also a field trip. At one point the classes were getting lined up in the hallway, and I don’t know why, or how, but all of a sudden the kids started chanting my name. I was so amazed. Apparently they’ve taken a liking to me! As the kids headed out to the patio it continued. It was so funny. I felt like I needed to go out to the patio for my encore and remembered that I had my other camera with video with me. I pulled it out and got a clip of the tail end of their chanting (although it did start up again later as we were walking). In addition to feeling flattered I was also a little concerned about what the other teachers thought of all this. I’ve only been here a week and have a school full of children chanting my name. I really think that’s why they do these things though…I’m something new and different and I look funny, and that makes me fun in comparison to their normal teachers.


Anyways, big difference for field trips here and in the US…we were walking down to the high school, not taking a bus. All the kids from the infantile (ages 3 and 4) and the elementary school (grades 1-6) lined up and we wound through the streets of town. It was like the Siles version of Serpentine (only my fellow Snohomish folk will know what that is). People in the town came out of their houses to see all the kids go by, and a group of the kids took turns chanting my name and Inés’ name. I was totally dumbfounded that the teachers could keep that many kids organized while walking through town. Seriously, if the kids decided to mutiny and all start walking off there’s nothing we could have done! Anywho, we got down to the high school without any disasters. At the high school we were going to watch a ‘payaso’ show. ‘Payaso’ is ‘clown’ in Spanish. This particular organization puts on these shows to make money so they can go to places around the world and visit sick children in hospitals to cheer them up. Several of the children and one of the teachers got to be involved on stage and it was a big hit with the kids…most of them at least…we had one little boy hiding behind the curtain next to me and Inés because he was afraid of the clowns. By the end of the show he had mostly warmed up to them. The show was about an hour and then the parents were waiting outside to pick their kids up. Yet another thing that would never happen in the U.S. We always have to get back to the normal school to be picked up, not at the field trip location. A couple other teachers and I got a ride from one of the moms (who actually turned out to be one of my neighbors). It’s puente (a long weekend/vacation) and it was sunny so everyone was really happy to be done for the day. I also got to meet Inés’ husband and 1 ½ year old after the show. Inés is pretty petite and her baby seems so big in comparison. Inés said her brother in law is coming in to town but if they decide to do something she will call me so I can join them. I seriously love her. I’ve heard stories about some of the coordinators in other regions who are completely inattentive to the auxiliares. I could not have asked for a better person to help me get adapted to life here. When I got home I started debating with myself…do I go out alone again to the bars? I really didn’t feel like going out and awkwardly hanging out at the bars by myself but it was Friday night. The only nights to go out here are Friday and Saturday and if I started making a habit out of staying in, I would never meet anyone and it would always be awkward. I listened to this song “A Little Bit Stronger” by Sara Evans that was the little extra push I needed to convince me to go out…that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I threw on my little black dress and headed towards Menphys praying that someone I knew would be there. No such luck. I got there and didn’t know anyone. My wonderful, favorite Siles bartender was there and she checked in with me, asking how teaching was, how my week had been, etc. etc. She also pointed out the new bartender to me. It ended up being a very successful night. Initially I had to deal with the extreme discomfort of not knowing anyone and trying to figure out what to say and how to “friend date.” After not *too* long Antonio and his friend from the weekend before showed up. Thank God. Antonio waved me over and introduced me to two girls sitting at the bar…Maribel and Almudena. I chatted them for quite some time and eventually even more of their friends showed up. Almudena even invited me to spend New Years Eve with her and her family. I also got to meet her husband (Rulo). Really, honestly, everyone knows everyone in this town. As people come in, they greet everyone. Eventually Maria (also from last weekend) also showed up as well as a whole bunch more of their friends. I talked for a long time to Gloria. Antonio had told me about Gloria last weekend. She is studying English in Granada. I am really sad that she isn’t in Siles all the time because I think we could be great friends. I talked with her most of the night and she is fantastic. She said if I end up staying here for Christmas she is going to call me all day long to make sure I’m not lonely. I exchanged phone numbers with several people and they said they would call me to go out the next night. There is a big party at the discoteca on Saturday and most everyone is going. Around 2:30 I decided to head out. While grabbing my coat the group of guys near me (that I also met last weekend) started talking to me. Now for whatever reason I cannot seem to understand a darn thing that these guys say. I can carry on complete conversations with people like Gloria, and then not understand a word with other people. I believe they were trying to set me up with their friend (orrrrrrrrr propositioning me for sex…) so I went over to the one girl in the group and asked girl-to-girl what the heck they were talking about but she didn’t know. Ultimately I just got uncomfortable and headed out. On my way out my favorite bartender said she was surprised I was heading out so soon. Haha, yes…heading out at 2:30am is “so soon.” I also ended up chatting with the other bartender briefly. He is actually from La Puerta and knows Ben and Ava (the people I went to Jaén with). He expressed interest in learning English. I told him we could get together for intercambios and speak half Spanish, half English and he seemed excited and grateful. He took my hand, kissed it and I was off. Maribel was quite infatuated with the new bartender all night, so maybe I’ll be able to hook her up. :) It had been raining while I was in at Menphys. That was the first time it had rained since I’ve been here. Winter’s a’comin! Bedtime: 3:30am.
These sunset photos are unedited...straight out of my camera. Pretty cool, huh?