Why can't I come up with catchy blog titiles?

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Hey y’all!
I hope everyone is having a fabulous mid-September!

I hope I can get this posted before my computer dies…I am now having issues at my internet café, people are finding out about it! The last two days I’ve come in someone has taken my corner. I think more international kids are starting to show up. Uhg.
Today I will start with the thing that was I most excited about this morning...Rocket Power was on TV!!! (In Spanish of course) You can’t even find it in the US anymore. I love that show, so I’m pretty excited about it! . Oh, nope, Pepa just changed it to the news. Padres and their morning news, uhg. It’s no “Today Show” but it’s pretty good.
The other day I was sitting in the living room/dining room and since I was alone I got to pick what I wanted to watch. Normally back home whenever Dad puts on Turner Classic Movies I give him this look like, “Really? Really, do we have to watch TCM?” However, I was flipping through channels and “Siete Novias por Siete Hermanos” was on (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers). It was actually comforting. A movie I knew and it made me feel closer to my Dad watching TCM: España. However, then Alba came in and changed the channel. Sorry Dad, Spaniards feel the same about TCM in Spain and I do about TCM in the US.
This was the first morning that I wasn’t the first one up. Alba started regular school today and she has to be there by 8. I had a lot of trouble falling asleep last night, probably because I wanted to try a “café” (coffee) drink at Chamara (my internet café) yesterday. Did I mention that I didn’t even get to the internet café until like 6:45 last night? Yet another trait I inherited from my Dad is a low caffeine tolerance; anything caffeinated after about 4pm and I won’t be sleeping for a few days. Everyone who spends much time with me knows I don’t drink much caffeine, let alone coffee, but it looked really good!
So I paid the price, I didn’t fall asleep until really late last night, and although I woke up late and had to cut my run pretty short, once I was up, I was up and it was that awkward time where I didn’t really have time to go back to sleep, but it was too early to get up if I wasn’t going to run. I seriously considered just lying in bed, but as I laid there my mind was like “Devin. Get up and go for a run!” So even though it had to be pretty short, I went for my run anyways. I had to take a shower this morning because I didn’t take one after the beach yesterday because I had already used up my one shower that morning after my run, so I figured I might as well work up a sweat before I got to shower again…since I only get one a day I really have to make them count!

Yesterday we went to a new beach on our small peninsula. La Playa Santa María. I run along it every morning and it looks so beautiful, and it is. I like it way better than La Caleta (the nearest beach to us). La Caleta has dirtier water, and is more of a small bay thing, so it doesn’t really open up into the ocean and doesn’t have any waves. La Playa Santa María and La Playa de La Victoria look out onto the open ocean and have larger (but still fairly small) waves. They are large enough to body surf on though! When we were in Costa Rica my friend Reiko was trying to explain to me how to body surf and after many tries I had to give up. Yesterday, however, no one else felt like going in the water so I had plenty of time to enjoy the waves by myself, and I did it! Reiko, if you’re reading this, I DID IT!! Haha! I was so excited! I only got it once, but hey, once is all you need to be able to say that you did it.

Hmmm…let’s see… haven’t really written in a few days so I have to think…have I talked about meeting abuela yet? Abuela is Spanish for “grandmother” and she is Pepa’s mom. She came over for lunch on Monday? Maybe? I can’t really remember, but she is quite a character. Pepa had explained that her mother’s health was deteriorating a little bit. This is partly because she is 80 years old, and partly because she doesn’t like to leave her house ever. Pepa said she tries to encourage her mom to go out for walks or go talk to people but she just wants to sit at home and watch the Spanish versions of “Judge Judy” and “Love Connection” as well as telenovelas (soap operas).

She is very full of personality though! She loved talking with me and Natalie, and she LOVES Pepa’s Chihuahua Coco. She held him almost the entire time she was there and at one point while we were sitting on the couch she was scratching is belly and then her hand moved…downward. “!Mira!” (“Look!”)She said with a smile on her face, “solo tiene un huevo.” (He only has one “egg”). I’m sure you all can guess what an egg is. I had to restrain myself from laughing/blushing as she continued to play with it. Yes, they are very open here in Spain, as was very apparent when she showed us all of her tan lines that were in places that no one should ever see.
Ha, she also kept trying to feed Coco pieces of bread, but the thing about Coco is that he doesn’t like just plain bread, he only likes bread with a little bit of meat or something on it. I kept getting this image from Aladdin where the Sultan keeps trying to feet Jafar’s parrot crackers. Hahaha!

Wednesday night Natalie and I went out to learn Bachata with some of the Erasmus kids. Bachata is somewhere between Salsa and Merengue. While I am not much of a Bachata-er, I did get to know a few of the Erasmus kids better! Ana is from Germany and she is actually going to be in two of my classes when regular courses start. Dominic is also from Germany but studying Medicine in Austria. He is really funny. We all try and talk in Spanish when we are together but his isn’t so great yet, so when I asked him if he wanted to be a doctor he answered back but I couldn’t understand him. “What?” I said, like 3 times. Then he told me in English and gave me a look like I was stupid. Ana said something to him in German and he looks at me and goes (in English), “Oh, wait, where are you from?”
“The United States.”
“Oh, sorry I just assumed you were German since I always see you with the German girls.”
Then we proceeded to have a conversation in English. I tried speaking to him in Spanish and he finally goes, “Sorry, I have to talk in English, my Spanish is sh*t.” I had a pretty shocked look on my face. Turns out, he was a dive instructor in the Dominican Republic for a summer because he wanted to learn Spanish, but the only people who go to the Dominican Republic and want to pay for diving are American tourists, plus he was living with a foul-mouthed Canadian who taught him “regular” English. Therefore, his English is very, very good and his Spanish is not. He was pretty excited that I was from the States because he said he gets irritated by the German kids because he has to speak really slowly when he talks to them in English because they can’t understand him, with me he could talk fast. He reminded me of the story my parents like to tell about Elisabeth, how when my Dad told her how well she spoke English, she said “No, I speak good American.” That is what Dominic is like; he speaks English like we speak English. While I normally ask the Erasmus kids to just speak to me in Spanish, I allowed this exception because of how happy Dominic was to NOT have to speak in Spanish for a while.

It’s been pretty hot here the last few days, and our classrooms do not have air-conditioning or windows, well they have windows, but they don’t open. Yesterday the temperature was just right that it wasn’t cold enough in the room to keep us awake, it wasn’t hot enough that we were dying, but it was just warm enough that it was like all the life and energy got sucked out of all of us. I just wanted to lay my head on my desk and close my eyes. After my runs in the morning I usually even take a cold shower just because I feel like it cleans all of the stickiness off of me. Ha, when Pepa walked into the kitchen this morning she said, “Que fresco,” meaning “How fresh,” or “How crisp.” She asked if I was cold because I was in a tank-top and my hair was wet. She warned me to be careful because it is the season of “Achoo” as she calls it, meaning cold season. I may be jinxing myself, but I don’t think 80 degrees is really cold season, (Knock on wood).

Today before lunch I may have had a breakthrough with Alba. She likes high heels. They have a wedding in October and she brought out her heels to show me…very tall! 😊 I showed her the one pair I brought and that I was sad I had to leave so many at home. She understood. She couldn’t take any with her when she studied in England last month, but she bought a pair while she was there so I guess it evened out.
I don’t know if I mentioned this before but Alba is a HUGE Michael Jackson fan. She has all of his albums, her room in their old (well, technically regular) house was covered in posters of him, she has his name tattooed on her wrist, AND the coolest part is that she actually went to Los Angeles for his funeral. SUPA-FAN!

Tomorrow we head off for Gibraltar!! How exciting!! If my Dad gets his way, it will be the closest I ever get to Africa. We’ll see Dad, we’ll see.

Aunt Terri, I got your post card yesterday!! Ah, I loved having a picture of the mountains to put up in my room. I miss them so much, and I miss you a lot too 😊

Love always,
Devin 😊

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Photos

This is another treat for Bret...watch your rice, now.
What Knockers!
Oh, zank you doct-aire.

Bachata
Came out blurry but it looks pretty cool!

The only man.
The Salsa class that was going on was short on guys so they recruited Dominic to join since he was the only available guy in the place!

Smile!
From far left: Anna-ly, Miriam, Ana, Natalie