2 month anniversary + Purim = reasons to celebrate

And by celebrate I mean have an inadvertently great day. That's right, today's Purim (yay Jews!). I wish I had a gregor. Or some homentashin. It's good to be a Jew sometimes despite my religious negligence. It's also a very special day because I've been here for exactly 2 months now. That means that I'm almost halfway done! I can't believe it. I can't believe it's already been 2 months...that's just craziness. This all goes by so fast. And yeah, Sevilla really does feel like home. I'm going to be so sad when I leave this place. But enough of that, here's my day.

Again, woken up earlier than desired by the stupid banging construction this morning. Got ready, and while making toast I asked Maruja if she'd start buying pan integral (wheat bread) for our bocadillos and toast. She said no problem. Yes! Now I can actually really eat my sandwiches. I then left the house to be welcomed by another gorgeous day. Although it hadn't heat up completely yet, it was supposed to be in the upper 70's today. I walked to the center to see if my package had come, but no dice. I was frustrated, but not too affected by it like in the past. I was just in good spirits today. I went to Historia del cine which was pretty excrutiating, actually. The prof. lectured for a full hour and a half straight about German avant-garde cinema which was pretty dry and exhausting. She was also talking consistently and kind of rapidly so I swear my pen never left my notebook. Oy. After class I made another quick stop by the center, still no package. Walked home, it was reall starting to heat up, I was even sweating a bit by the time I got back. I lyed down on the bed and talked to Stacey a bit. Poor thing is developing my cold. Then we had lunch which at first looked pretty unsatisfying but turned out to be extremely filling. It was this combination of boiled potatoes, egg, and artichokes in some sort of thin sauce. It looked like a simple appetizer. It was served just with a side salad which was awesome since it had hearts-of-palm and whole black olives in it (mmmm!). Surprisingly the meal filled me up. I was more than stuffed afterwards and it took me awhile to eat it since it was so filling. For dessert we had tangerines. Hey, ya know what? We ate a vegetarian meal! That always feels good. After lunch Stacey and I had made plans to go read by the river and tomar el sol (get some sun/lay out/tan/etc.). Due to the beautiful summery weather I really wanted a smoothy...actually, I wanted the batido de fresa that Maruja makes! I settled on a cafe frappuccino light from Starbucks. However, I couldn't finish it, I'm not used to so much cream! So Stacey drank the second half of it. We walked to the river where we ran into Maggie, Freya, Alysa, and Kate doing the same thing that we had planned to do. We chatted a bit, then we took seats next to them and read. I read my Harry Potter. That book is so addicting and so engaging, I'm reeeeeeally into it now! I'm almost done with it and I'm getting sad because I only have the 3rd book here, and lord knows I'll finish that one super fast. I'll just have to wait till the summer to read the rest. We sat out reading for a good 2 hours, it felt so nice and the sun felt amazing. I hadn't laid out in the sun in what seems like forever. I have a tan going on now, though I could be even tanner. I'm workin on it. There was also a funny panhandler out on the area where we sat. You see, in Sevilla a lot of the panhandlers play instruments. They'll walk around playing them then ask you for money. Well, this particular panhandler played the trumpet. Thing is, he didn't really play. It was obvious that this guy had never played a note in his life; he must have just stumbled upon this trumpet somewhere, learned how to make noise, and then thought that he was magically a musician and could make money. He went around to peoples' tables with his trumpet, spewed out some random cracking notes (no songs, just random sounds) then put out his hat asking for money. I was seriously cracking up the whole time. He was like a 5 year old playing around on a kid's music toy, just blowing a note or two if anything. HAHAHAHA, I laugh still thinking about it! Nevertheless, he was pretty creepy and smelled bad and must have been drunk. Everytime he walked by our table he gave me really strange looks that really creeped me out. At around 5:40 I left for art history. Class went really well, the prof. spent the whole time talking about the history of the Roman empire. It was really interesting. I mean, it was basically a history lecture, no art, and he kept my attention the full hour and a half. I love this guy, I'll be so sad when my real prof. comes back. I hope he doesn't come back, honestly. After class the professor approached me and asked if I was an extranjera (foreigner) to which I responded yes. Then he asked me if I understood everything and if he should talk any slower. I assured him that I understood him pretty clearly and that he was much easier to understand than my real prof. (haha! maybe he'll pass on the message). That was extremely nice because none of my other professor's had taken the time nor energy to approach me and make sure that I was ok. Granted, my lit. classes and film class have a lot of extranjeros so the professors don't need to have that conversation, it's pretty much implied. However, in my art history and iconografia classes I'm either the only or one of the few extranjeras, and neither professor showed any concern or care. This guy did. I wish he was my real professor. Maybe he'll end up being my tutor? I hope so! I should request him, I like him very much. Oh so very much. After class I walked outside to another gorgeous sunset. I walked along the river towards where we were sitting to grab Stacey to walk home together. She was walking with Kate so we stood around chatting for a bit. Then we began to walk home. We decided to take the long way home along calle Asuncion which is the main shopping street of Remedios so she could check to see if a book came into one of the bookstores on that street. Oh, btw, I have a sore throat today. I don't know how that happened. On Sunday Stacey said that her cold started off as a sore throat, like the cold that I had just gotten over. So of course I assumed she had caught my cold, I mean, we only live together. However, I have this sore throat. Stacey, the pre-med, told me that you can re-catch a cold if the virus mutates. I honestly hope that that's not the case. I can't believe how testy my body's been here. I mean, I eat well, I sleep well, perhaps I go out drinking a couple days on the weekends, but I'm always good about watching myself and making sure I sleep well and drink plenty of water. Yeah, adding to that, I drink more water here than at home, and I'm dilligent about taking my vitamins everyday. I don't understand! I'm hoping it's allergies now that it's warming up. Also my apartment, especially my bedroom, is really dusty. Perhaps that explains it. Is it possible to get a sore throat from allergies? Anyways, walking down Asuncion I decided to stop at SuperSol, a grocery store, to buy a huuuuge orange (need my vitamin C, again, I guess) and a banana since I was feeling a bit lightheaded from the caffeine in the frappuccino earlier. Then we walked into a really awesome soap store where they make homemade, fresh-cut soaps of many yummy smells. It's like the Illuminations of soap. And you know me with products that smell good, they make me very happy. That's a great store right there, my friend. Then we walked home. I showered and was ready in time for dinner which was very good: marinated garlic chicken breasts, and sauteed spinach with garlic (my favorite side dish she makes!). Then for dessert we had none other than batido de fresa! Exactly what I had been craving all day! And, the batido was the best that it had ever been tonight. She told us that when she makes batido she doesn't have concise measurements, she just adds the ingredients according to sight and intuition, therefore it's a bit different everytime. This time was a huge success. After dinner I got up the motivation to blog about the last few days. Stacey is very sniffly so she passed out already, and here I am at my computer at 1:45am messing around on the blog as per usual. It was a great day, I feel great having been in the sun. You know that post-sun feeling? It just makes your whole body feel like it's emanating warmth and comfort. It feels like your skin gets a work-out therefore giving me lots of endorphins. Today was the perfect celebration of the lovely holiday of Purim and my 2 month aniversario.