All in the family

I slept through the whole night! I didn´t wake up until my alarm went off at 11. Ten and a half hours of sleep feel good. I got up and headed to the gym, not before making myself a piece of toast...it was white bread! Why had Maruja bought white bread? I was so confused. Usually I eat one piece of toast before the gym and one after. Call me picky, but I refuse to eat that much white bread. I was not pleased. I got a really good workout at the gym for an hour and a half. Headed home, showered, got ready, made myself some sandwiches on white bread (I planned on just eating the lunch meat then feeding my bread to the birds), and headed out to class. On the way I stopped at Albi Sur (grocery store next to my apt.) and bought an apple, banana, and orange because I knew that eating a little bit of lunch meat would not hold me over. Then I stopped at Vips and bought myself a pavo (turkey) wrap because I needed something in my system, and the turkey wraps are very simple and low-cal. Walked to class whilst munching on the wrap and got to Lope de Vega class. Class was boring and useless, as usual. That class is the biggest waste of my time. She never talks about our required readings, she only talks about Lope himself. I just don´t understand that class and don´t really know what I should know for the exam. I just need to go to more tutorías for it. Anyhoo, I couldn´t really focus in the class. All I know is that she scolded us for not having class the Friday before Semana Santa and said that we´d have class everyday this week. And then she scolded us cuz someone groaned in the class and had this whole thing to say about boredom. I dunno, weird. After class I headed to the center with everyone where I ate the ham and cheese of my ham and cheese sandwich, and then half of my sobrasada sandwich (sobrasada is a sort of pate so I had to eat one piece of bread with it). I wanted something sweet and some water so I went to OpenCor and bought a bottle of water, a fitness Muesly bar, and a beach mat. Yes, a beach mat. I´m going to the beach every weekend for the next 3 weeks and I don´t have a beach towel, and I spotted the mat at OpenCor for only 1.50€ so I was all over that. I am very excited about my beach mat, thank you very much. Then I headed back to the center where I drank and ate. Then we all had Teatro hispanoamericano which was also boring because Camacho started lecturing about Teatro absurdo in order to introduce the next play we were to read. Meh. Camacho got a haircut and shaved off his beard and mustache. That was exciting...no, not really. Then I went back to the center and used the internet until Historia del Arte. I arrived a bit tardy, but not badly. I sat next to my Puerto Rican friend, Themus. Class was boring and I couldn´t really focus. I´m sorry, man, but churches just don´t interest me. Luckily class is only an hour long on Wednesdays. After class Themus and I talked for awhile (yay for more Spanish speaking) and then I headed to the internet café to work on this very blog. I hate not having internet. The irony is that I returned home for dinner to find the internet working quite well. Oh well. Dinner was pretty good, yet simple: those really good cooked legumes with a plain revuelto (omelette). But the dessert was the best part: rice pudding! I am in looooove with Maruja´s rice pudding (arroz con leche), and it was even better than the first time she made it. Stacey loves it, too, and wasn´t eating at home so Maruja left some for her and Stacey was happier than happy when she returned. Rice pudding in spain is different--it´s more like the rice pudding one sees in the Middle East (or, rather, at Middle Eastern restaurants). It´s thinner, basically. Maruja told me her recipe: white rice, whole milk, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon rind. So simple, I must make it! After dinner I got ready to go out because Courtney´s family is in town for a week, and her brother is a senior in high school and we wanted to take him out on the scene. The plan was to meet in Plaza de Cuba to botellón at 11:30 and then hit up the bars on calle Betis. So around 11:15 I headed out, made a Vips stop to buy a chaser and use the ATM, and then met up with them all, met Scott, and the botellón began. Coincidentally, Lizzy, Julia, Rachael, and Elena from our program were there, too botelloning. This night´s crew for us consisted of Katie, Melissa, Courtney, Scott, and me. We had a great botellón; Courtney´s bro is cool, and wow, can that boy hold his liquor...and wow can he drink. He´s 18! I can´t believe it. We soon headed to Betis, not without making an impromptu Madigan´s stop so Scott could have his first car bomb. Courtney and I were already feeling our liquor so we just split a half pint, Melissa had none, and Katie and Scott had whole ones. Delish. Then we headed to Big Ben where as we walked in I was grabbed...it was Miguel! Miguel is Marcos´friend who Stacey "went out with" when Marcos and I had our little thang. Miguel is super cool and super nice. He asked what had happened to Stacey and me since he´d tried to contact us. I told him that we had both lost our phones in the past month, so I gave him my new número. I´ve decided that even though I´m not interested in them as anything more than friends, I´d like to hang out with them and their housemates (I met them at Big Ben and they´re really cool). A lot of people on our program have made Spanish friends and our program suggests we do that because it´s the best way to practice. Everyday Stacey and I lament over our lack of Spanish friends. Hanging out with Miguel and folk is perfect opportunity to have a Spanish crew. Miguel is a really good person and super-laid back. We talked for awhile, he spoke in English (he´s practicing) and I spoke in Spanish. It was silly. He also bought me a beer which was very nice. And then he invited me to a piso party that he and his friends were throwing during Feria. One of the biggest things to do during Feria is go to private parties, but ya gotta know people to go to them. So this was great, and what a great way to meet people! He said to bring all of my friends, and that it would be on Thursday and he would send me a text. Unfortunately I´m not sure if I´ll be able to go because Stacey´s boyfriend will be in town and we all want to hang out, but that would be super awkward for Stacey to bring her boyfriend to a guy´s party who was interested in dating Stacey months ago. Yeah. So we´ll see. We soon left Big Ben and headed to Long Island which was teeming with Americans. Whatevs. We all decided to get a shot off of the infamous USA menu. Scott got a Michigan shot, not only because he´s from Michigan, but also because it´s Jim Bean and he´d never tried it before and wanted to try it. Katie and I got Virginia shots which were just SoCo. Then we retreated to the back of the bar where we hung out and chatted it up. Then Scott emerged with a handful of beers for all of us. Somehow he had stolen them from some storage place he found. What?? This kid was crazy...he would do a little too well in college. And I mean that with a touch of sarcasm. So we drank some warm, free, Cruzcampo long necks. Scott was drunk to the point of swaying, although not sick nor belligerant. It was about 2 or 2:30 which is late in American time, so we decided to head out. I walked home and got in bed. It was such a standard night, but for some reason it was so much fun! And I rarely have an exceptionally great time on Betis. But this was unique. I think that it may have been because everyone was in good spirits. Or maybe it was just because Scott was pretty entertaining. Who knows. Great times, great times.