I'm (kind of) domestic!

Woke up well rested at around 10:30 very well rested, made some toast and discovered pan integral! Yayyy, Maruja had bought us wheat bread! Went to town on the wheat toast, got ready, and was out the door by 11. The construction workers were hogging the elevator (I've discovered that the banging every morning is coming from upstairs...I think they're renovating one of the units) so I walked down 7 flights. I then walked to the center. It was sunny out, but as I walked down the bridge I noticed heavy rain clouds to the left while the sun beat down on me. Soon a sun shower began. By the time I was inside the center it had begun to llover a cantaros (rain cats and dogs). I checked my email quickly, opened up the paraguas (umbrella) and was out the door to walk to class in the pouring rain. Got to Historia del cine hearing my name called; Courtney was there! She's in the same course, but in the class that meets at a different time--she had decided to attend the earlier movie screenings. It was good to have a friend in the class, hehe. We watched a German Impressionist silent film called El gabinete de Dr. Oligari which was really awesome. The class actually stayed quiet for this one because despite its age, it was very intense...it's the first suspense movie and the filmmaker served as the primary inspiration for Hitchcock and Welles. Way cool. The story was equally as intriguing as the cinematography, it threw you for loops and was extremely psychological...a real thinking movie, just how I like it. I'm loving this class. I then walked home for lunch. Maruja had told us the night before that she wouldn't be home for lunch, but that she would pre-prepare everything for us in the morning so all that we'd have to do was heat the stove, fry the chicken, and do the dishes. I was excited to cook! And it felt good to know that she trusted us in what Luisa deemed "the Spanish woman's sacred space." I got home and we went to work. I mostly helped heat the stew and set the table while Stacey fried the chicken breasts since, well, I don't know how to cook meat. Well who am I kidding, I don't really know how to cook. After about 20 min we sat down for our own little meal at home made (kind of) by us! It was really fun. It was a good time to watch "El corazon del invierno," the pop culture show that we watch during every lunch, and actually comment on it in English. It was also really nice to be able to eat at our own pace and really savor every bite of Maruja's excellent cooking. Maruja and our housemates just eat so damn fast we don't get a moment to enjoy the food, and Stacey and I are slow eaters. So that was good. We ate a spinach, endive, and garbanzo stew (yummmm) and lightly breaded fried chicken breasts and an orange for dessert. We thought that, since nobody else was around, we'd test our skills at peeling our oranges with a knife like Maruja and our housemates do. After awhile we gave up. Although it's not too hard, you just waste so much orange cutting off the peel! And the citrus is so good here we want to savor every bite. After lunch we did the dishes...well, Stacey washed and I rinsed and dried. Stacey laughed at me when I told her that I didn't really know much about really doing dishes...you know, minus a dishwasher. She also laughed when I told her that I didn't know how to use a dishwasher until I moved into my apartment last semester and Marcie tought me. Sometimes my Highland Parkiness comes back to haunt me in the worst ways possible. Soon after we got ready and were off again to the center (Stacey had class at 5). I bummed around the center for awhile before Historia del arte 6-7:30. Class went fairly well, I had a harder time in class understanding our prof. I think that he was sick, he seemed restless and lazy about clarification. He also ended class 40 min. early, and he frequently checked his watch during class, so I'm assuming he was not feeling at the top of his game. We mostly looked at Ancient Roman bridges and Acueducts from Italy and the Iberian Peninsula (a.k.a. Spain). Woot. After class I walked back to los Remedios and went to Starbucks to do some reading for Teatro. I bought out the rest of the cangrejo wraps from Vips (a.k.a. 2) to last me for the week, and with 2 wraps I got a free bottle of orange juice. Woohoo! Now I have juice for my breakfast tomorrow. So yeah, I read and drank tea until Stacey showed up to meet me at 8:30. We chilled for a bit and looked up movie times for Volver...we decided to go see it on Wednesday. Then we came back home for dinner which was pretty simple: a green salad and shrimp croquetas with strawberry batido for dessert. The batido tasted kind of funny, perhaps the strawberries were weird or the milk was going bad. Who knows. We all ate dinner together, so it was good to have everyone together again. I think that Maruja went to the eye doctor today and that's why she missed lunch. Maria del Mar said that she's developing cataracts which has become more and more apparent since she looks at us with one eye squinted now. It's weird, I feel like in the past 2 months her aging has really become apparent. She has suddenly developed cataracts, and she's becoming clumsy. Like, the other day she was staring at the TV holding onto the dinner cart full of dishes and she accidentally overturned it. Dishes and food fell everywhere, glasses broke, food splattered, water and olive oil spilled, it was a mess and Maruja was really distressed about it. I felt so terrible. Also, she hasn't been able to serve us fruit salad and batido because she has a hard time balancing the ladle and seeing if our cups and bowls have an even amount of food/drink in them. So now she has Maria del Mar do it. This has all started occurring in the past month. Very sad to see, and very surprising with how sudden it is. Oh man. Anyways, after dinner Stacey and I came back to the room, did some internet stuff and such. Stacey has just gotten into bed and here I am blogging it up as per usual. Life is pretty damn good, no stress, etc. I'm right now beginning to plan out what to do for Stacey and Jessica's birthday (they are both turning 20 the same day!) which is a week from tomorrow. I'm thinking about going to this gay bar that plays 80's music and has drag shows every Thursday and Sunday. Awwww yeah! So that's that. Life rules. Spain rocks my socks.