February 1st

My typical winter sickness has followed me to Spain, ugh!  I started to feel a little sick on the bus ride home from Madrid, so my senora took my temperature when I got home.  Thankfully I didn't have a temperature (although I did freak out when the thermometer read 36 degrees... I think my senora saw my wide eyes and reminded me they use centigrade not Fahrenheit) but I'm congested.  My senora has been taking good care of me, making me soup and homemade remedies (exactly what Nonny would do!) to make me feel better.  She even made me warm milk this morning to help my throat, flash back to when I was 7 (Bobby if you're reading this you'd be making fun of me).

I've been trying to sleep and get better before my weekend trip to Sevilla, aka in 2 days!  Cross your fingers for me :)

Other random things I’ve picked up on and have to blog about so I don’t forget them when I look back on this blog in 29 years…

1.       There are many stray dogs in Granada roaming the streets.   Because of this, there’s also poop on the sidewalk sometimes (but the streets are cleaned very frequently).  It’s known as good luck here if you accidentally step in dog poop.  Although I’d like the luck, I don’t know if I’d want poop smeared boots.

2.       Mexico Spanish and Spain Spanish are NOT the same although everyone thinks they are.  Also, teachers don’t teach either in America.  There are so many words they teach us that are wrong… aka “vegetales” doesn’t exist in the Spanish language.. vegetables is verduras.  Our teachers look at us very strangely when we try and say some of these "Spanglish" words.

3.       Spanish people literally go to the grocery store 19 times a week.  They buy a few things at once so they’re always fresh unlike America where we stock up at Costco and don’t have to leave our houses all winter. I blame laziness!

4.       My favorite class at school so far is a tossup between Cultures of Spain and Cultures of Islam… both are so interesting because we are actually experiencing and visiting the things we talk about in class.  This makes me that much more likely to actually stay awake for my 9 am classes!

5.       We try and speak Spanish as much as possible here when were out (even with each other) so people respect us more.  When they see a bunch of American students speaking English they tend to be ruder.

6.       They must not believe in toilet paper here.  Most restaurants and bars not only don’t have toilet paper, but sometimes they don’t even have toilet paper dispensers.  Thanks mom for making me bring 10 packets of Kleenex!

7.       My senora’s nephew is still a weirdo and won’t eat with me or speak to me.  Hi, you’re 29, grow up.  Kthanks.

8.   Also relating to classes, my Linguistics class has been pretty challenging, but in a good way.  I'm actually learning how to pronounce words better in Spanish and getting my accent down.  It's challenging because as native English speakers, we can't hear differences in certain Spanish language sounds and visa versa.  For example, native Spanish speakers can't hear the difference between "b" and "v" so words like boca (mouth) and verde (green) start with the same sound.. a "buh" sound.  Interesting huh?