Part of the family

Let me just start off this entry by saying that it is January 23rd and therefore ONE MONTH UNTIL MY 21st BIRTHDAY! Oh yeah, feels good. That being said, let me talk about Saturday. Stacey and I went to bed around 4:45 Friday night, subsequently causing us to sleep absurdly late Saturday. We woke up around 13:30 (1:30 pm) and got ready to the decadent smells of lunch cooking. At around 2 we the doorbell rang and in pranced 4 angelic little girls dressed in plaid skirts, sweaters, and bows, followed by a man and a woman pushing a sleeping baby girl in a stroller. Family! It turns out that it was one of Maruja´s (our Señora) sons (she has 2) and his wife, Fátima with their five little daughters! It´s very typical for families to spend a day during the weekend with a grandparent. Fátima helped Maruja cook while Juan smoked like a chimney...lunch smelled so good, we couldn´t wait! The girls watched cartoons and the baby slept. Then Maruja and Fátima brought out croquetas and fish (on the bone and everything) for the girls to eat at the kids´table in front of the tv. It was kind of awkward for Stacey and me because not only were we hanging out with a family that we had met for the first time, but they also spoke a different language. I felt like a creepy observor hovering over every conversation, haha. The adults then sat down for lunch, which was kind of awkward also. We didn´t speak as much, mostly Maruja, Juan, Fátima, and Marta caught up. I mostly observed the little girls playing, they´re so awesome! Lunch was huuuuuuge yet so amazing. We started with a hearty vegetable soup which filled me up by itself, then the main course was a mixture of peas, chorizo (me gusta mucho), spices, beans, and egg. The portions were gigantuan and Stacey and I struggled to finish...but it was soooooooooooo delicious. After dinner everyone took a little siesta on the couch around the heater. We watched The Fugitive in Spanish, shared a bar of chocolate (which Juan cut with a knife, I tell ya, they use silverware for everything), and basically relaxed. Stacey and I decided that this was an opportune time to give Maruja her gifts, we presented them in front of the whole family. We gave her a UofM mug and coffee table picture book, and then a Chicago and a Michigan coffee table picture book. She loved them, and loved the photography. She really enjoyed seeing the pictures of the autumn leaves and the snow, yay! The little girls loved the books, too--they looked at them forever! The girls and I began to bond a little bit, one of them even came and sat on my lap. Then we went into one of the spare bedrooms to play. The oldest one, also named Fátima, found some children´s books and read them to me while the others went through old photos. Then we went into Stacey and my room and played dress-up with my jewelry, shoes, purse, lip gloss, and cell phones. They had so much fun with my earrings, specifically; they were so fascinated by the size of them, and they kept changing and changing their earrings. It was so silly. One of the girls, the 6-year-old, really enjoyed my digital camera and took a copious amount of pictures. Actually, most of her pictures turned out pretty well and kind of arty...I bet I could sell some of them, no joke. I´ll show y´all when I get back, they´re great. The girls were very excited and energetic, yet well-behaved and careful with my things without my even asking! Then they helped me put everything away and we sang some songs, they knew one English song ("Good morning teacher") and I sang the one Spanish kid song that I knew, "Veo veo" (yeeeeah Tatiana). Then they told us the English words that they knew: teacher, pencil sharpener, caterpillar, hello, etc. Aw. They helped Stacey and me with our Spanish, too. We had a lot of fun! It made me feel like one of the family! The girls are Fátima (7), Lourdes (6), Isabel (5), and Emilia (3). They´re great, and they made the time fly by. The whole family left around 6ish, and Stacey and I were pooped...it was like babysitting! It was a great time, I felt like closer to Maruja now that I had bonded with part of her family. Stacey and I then needed some spunk, so we went to the closest Café India (it´s like an Espresso Royale, except with food and liquor...and a lot of smoke) to get some tea and chocolate caliente. This place has a huge tea menu which makes me a happy little Lisa, and I ordered a delicious black tea called "Happy Day" which had a lot of fruit and flower accents in it. Stacey got a chocolate dulce, which was hot chocolate with condensed milk and cream. OK, this was amazing: it came in a really small cup due to its richness, but just imagine the melted chocolate that I had the day before, except mixed with heavy cream. It was amazing, like drinking a melted swiss chocolate, very milky and smooth and sweet. I get chills thinking about its decadence. After our drinks and some standard "how do we pay here?" confusion (oh the life of the foreigner), we headed back. We made a quick stop at Plus, the grocery store, for another 4€ bottle of vodka to stow away in our room. We snuck it back in the house and hid it in the suitcase with the snack stash. Oh man, we´re kind of bad and yet so great. We ate dinner with Maruja, which was really quite simple, just leftovers (which was fine by me, the food is so good anyways). She actually made us hot dogs too, without the bun...three hot dogs, to be precise. I can barely eat one hot dog! Needless to say, I was sooooo stuffed after that dinner. Oh, and the mustard (mostaza) here tastes slightly different than in the states. Carazay. After dinner we got ready to meet up with the girls for another botellón, and we took secret shots in the room out of my handy dandy shot glass from Switzerland. Woot. It was a great day in which I had been completely immersed in the Spanish language and culture, which is kind of exhausting for us foreigners. It was time to let loose.