On my way back from the terminal I stopped in a clothing store and directly after me a mariachi band entered, dressed to the T in their sombreros and fringed velvet suits.  They began playing their instruments and signing while everyone in the store just stopped and watched. I quickly whipped out my camera and started taking a video which you can enjoy below.  To make things even more strange, the employees of the store started passing around sandwiches and champagne for everyone in the store.  I don’t know what they were celebrating but I went along with it.  I can only imagine it had something to do with Mother’s Day…I mean, I that would make sense, right?  But here not many things make sense, like some provinces deciding to change the time for daylight savings and other’s deciding not to at the very last minute.  I actually changed my clock and had to change it back when I found out they changed their minds.

I realized that we were still sticking to the plan when Dani showed up and we all went to the empanada place to buy empanadas to eat instead of pizza.  I hate that I am so out of the loop when plans are made because I’d really like to know what is going on.  I know they think I won’t understand so they don’t include me in the details but how am I supposed to learn if they never talk to me about it?  That is the only way I’ll get better.  Oh well.

The empanadas were delicious and we drank beer and coke (mixed) and it was pretty delicious.  We watched part of a fútbol game and Gabi and Dani talked most of the time.  When I’m in big groups I tend to get left out of the conversation because they talk so fast that I can’t understand a word they are saying.  This sucks for me because I really do want to be able to talk and want to be part of the discussion.  My brain can’t handle the multiple people talking at the same time — it is too much to process so I usually just tune out.  I am way better with one-on-one conversations.

At around 2am, me, Dani, Seba and their friend Arnuqui went out drinking.  Gabi wasn’t going because Gabi never goes.  We first went to this bar called Babylonia and it was ok.  The beer was expensive and the waitress was “too cool for school”.  We stayed there for one drink and then went to a boliche called “Kolor”.  My friends kept telling me that it was the rich people’s boliche and that they didn’t like it.  I don’t understand why we went there if they didn’t like it but I didn’t complain.  I liked it and I had fun.

From 8am – 4pm all I had to eat was a piece of bread, some coffee and some medialunas.  I was starving and exhausted by the time I parted ways with Glenda.  My body was so weak that I could barely make it home on the bus.  Luckily when I arrived home lunch was ready and waiting for me on the table.  Right after I was done eating I thought I was going to collapse.  I was dizzy and my body felt heavy.  I waited a few minutes for everyone to finish eating and then I stumbled upstairs to pass out on my bed.  When I woke up 2 hours later my body ached, I was hot and my throat hurt.  I wanted to go to the gym but instead I laid on the couch and watched a movie.  I told mama Mercadal that I wasn’t feeling well so she put my forehead on her cheeks to check my temperature. She said I had a fever and gave me some medicine to bring it down.  I laid on the couch for another 3 or 4 hours and then felt much better.

Mama made these beans with herbs and dressing that she called poroto.  After looking up the definition I realize now she was just calling them what they were, kidney beans.  It was freaking delicious.  She has been cooking like a mad woman because she is sending a giant box of home cooked meals to her eldest son, Guillermo, who is studying in another province.  It reminded me of when my mom would make me my favorite meals in bulk and bring them to me when she visited me in college.  Now I have a family that makes home cooked meals for me every day.  I’m so spoiled.

After we finished eating I got an uncomfortable stomach ache.  I get them sometimes after I eat or drink but I can never track a pattern as to why I get them or what foods/drinks cause them.  They don’t happen frequently enough for me to be too concerned but they do suck a whole lot.  It is not a normal stomach ache where I feel nauseous, but rather it feels like all of the muscles in my stomach are tight, like I’m flexing them constantly waiting to be punched.  It usually lasts for a few hours or until I go to bed.  I always seem to get the pain when I am about to have a long, awesome night of partying so that really sucks.

When dinner was over a bunch of us wandered through centro to find a bar.  We ended up at a place called Salamanca and it was a karaoke bar!  Oh what luck!  You can imagine the joy and excitement I felt when I saw karaoke in my new city.  There was no place to sit in the bar because it was packed so we ended up standing by the bar which also happened to be the karaoke stage.  All of my friends wanted me to sing so we found the song list to pick out a song.  Unfortunately there were no songs in English that I knew, out of the three English songs listed.  For a moment I thought, “what a great bar, it is a shame there are no English songs for me to sing…” but then I saw the “song guy” in front of the computer and decided to ask him if he had any English songs on his computer.  As it turns out, he has thousands.  Woohoo!  I had to think quick about what I wanted to sing because I didn’t have a list to stare at.  I chose some old favorites, Ace of Base’s “Don’t Turn Around” and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”  The crowd was lively and the whole evening was awesome.  Also, the dude running the songs was also cute so I’ll have to find out some deets on him.

I am going to look for some formal grammar classes that assign homework and scare me a little more because it is more of a challenge and I have to work for it.  I’m not sure where I will find such a class here since I can’t imagine there would be a class here that teaches Spanish grammar in English and Spanish (which is what I truly need).  Alabí is more of a friend that likes to chat about random things than a strict grammar teacher.  I need someone who can challenge me and provide me with many examples of how to use certain grammar so I can turn around and use it in conversation with my friends or in practical situations.

I am getting better with my conversational spanish but I still have a hard time remembering the conjugations for important verbs like dar, decir and pedir.  I’m also not very comfortable with the verbs llegar and llevar yet.  Much practice on my end is still needed.

I was supposed to have my first yoga class tonight but classes were cancelled because today was the holiday for the Virgin Mary.  Instead, I went to Gabi’s business and painted names on t-shirts.  When I asked her why she doesn’t use spray paint she said “it doesn’t work with this type of shirt”.  I am not sure I believe that…Also, appliques are apparently expensive here so that is why she doesn’t use those either.  If she were to ask me, I’d tell her to charge a bit more for the appliques so that she produces a better product and doesn’t spend so much time painting these shirts (she has literally been painting the same shirts for 2 weeks).  I’m still learning how their minds work here and why they take the slow road with everything.  I mean, I think the slow life is good in some parts of your life but when it comes to making money I don’t think you should opt for the slowest option just because it is the cheapest.

Today I joined a gym to maintain some sort of healthy lifestyle here.  It only costs 50 pesos ($17) to go twice a week for a month.  Not too shabby.  Had I wanted to use the treadmill, though, it would have cost me $75 pesos a month.  How strange.  I worked out for about an hour and it felt really good.  I’m not where I used to be in terms of strength and endurance but I hope to build that back up.  I am also starting yoga twice a week beginning tomorrow.  That only costs me 100 pesos a month ($30) for twice a week and the studio is really beautiful and big.  My yoga instructor is also the dentist to my host brother and sister.

Tomorrow is a feriado celebrating the Virgin Mary so me and my friends are going to get drunk in the park.  I love that they celebrate a religious holiday by getting drunk versus going to church.  I’m not complaining…

But let us return to my CSer, Javier Fernandez.  We met up for coffee as soon as he arrived and I helped him find a hostel.  We then walked around town for a few hours until I went to class with Alabi.  Javier is a freelance translator so for our first few hours we only spoke in English.  It is so easy for me to default to English when I know the person can understand me.  He kept trying to help me practice my Castellano, and a few times we were successful, but mostly we spoke in English so as not to be confused.  When we went out on Friday and Saturday night, he became my unofficial translator for all of my spanish-speaking friends.  It was nice for me to understand everything for once and I’m sure my friends were grateful to Javier for helping them communicate with me.

On Friday Javier introduced me to another local CSer, a girl named Norma.  She is cool, very nice from what I can tell.  We all went dancing at La Peluqueria.  I am hoping that her and I will hang out more in the coming months because I can always use more girl friends.

I was also contacted by another local CSer but it was a dude.  At the moment I’m kind of burnt out on the dudes, even if they just want to be my friend so I haven’t really pushed on with this CSer.  This past week has been full of dudes everywhere, wanting my email, number, my attention.  It’s not the dream I thought it would be, where the attention really boosts my ego and I go on a zillion dates or at least feel like the prettiest bell at the ball.  No, this is too annoying to be enjoyable.  I am happy with my two guy friends right now, Seba and Dani because they don’t make me feel uncomfortable and they treat me like a person and not just a chick with a “pretty face” (this is what they say, I’m not making up my own piropos here).  In a sea of pelotudos (a’holes) I would like to find one caballero to call my own.  This is my needle in the haystack challenge.  It is a challenge that every woman faces and it sometimes takes years.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress…