A great day with a great person

I woke up at noon to my alarm on Tuesday. Usually on Tuesdays I have to be up and out of bed by 11 at the latest because the housekeeper comes, but I just decided to screw it and slept. If they keep me out of my room they can suck it. However, nobody entered, and by the time I was out of bed and dressed the housekeeper, Manoli, was leaving. I guess they just decided not to bother me which was very kind. I love my homestay. Love it so. Robby and I had made plans to meet up a little after 2, and he would call me. So I had some time to kill so I unpacked and cleaned up and showered which made me feel a bit calm. You know those days when you wake up in a really bad mood and ya don't even know why? Tuesday was one of those mornings. But after unpacking and cleaning my room I felt a lot better. I tell ya, fung shui is legite. Anyhoo, at around 1:30 I walked over to the center and used the internet simply awaiting Robby's call. It was a gorgeous, hot sunny day. Perfect Robby time weather. I received a call from him at around 2:45 and he told me that he was in the University just exploring. I told him that I'd be in class until 2, so I assume he just headed over there to make things easier. No big deal since my center is so close. So I met up with him and we were on our way. He had spent the morning exploring Sevilla and getting himself purposefully lost. Robby is a wanderer and that's how he likes to learn about things--through free exploration. He had also gone to Mas and bought himself picos and 50 cent chocolate, inspired by a movie he saw about a guy backpacking through Europe on basically no cash and surviving off of bread and chocolate. Robby saw this as a good deal. We decided to go to the Alcazar because it's free with a student ID. Robby had forgotten his ID, so we walked back to his hostel where he grabbed it and I mooched some free tea from the hostel main room. Word. Then we were off. There was a bit of a line, but it only took about 10 minutes to get in. It was so weird to enter the Alcazar again, I mean, I hadn't been there since January. January! I can't believe that I've been here since then! I can't believe time had flown so fast! I really enjoyed seeing the Alcazar again in the sun with all of the flowers and roses blooming, but the whole experience truly made me aware of the fact that I have been here since January and I only had a little bit over a month left. I was baffled by how time flew. Where the hell had it gone?? I mean, it was May! My last full month here! How did this happen? Am I even ready to leave yet? I feel like I just got here! Those were the thoughts going through my head the entire time, though I didn't share them. The sun was also pretty strong and tiring so we didn't see everything, but we spent a long time in the gardens. We saw peacocks! It was so cool! I've never seen peacocks walking around outside of farms or zoos. I was very, very happy about that. It was also cool to be back at the Alcazar after learning about Islamic architecture in Art History. Sweet. At around 5:30 we had to head out because I had class. In the meantime Robby was going to wander around, stop by Plaza de Armas to by a bus ticket to Granada for the next day, and such. We made plans to meet up at his hostel around 8. On the way to class I stopped at Starbucks because I hadn't eaten anything but toast for breakfast and was famished. So I got a ham n cheese n sundried tomato focaccia sandwich which was quite delicious. Art History was boring as usual, we continued learning about French Roman churches like we had the week before Feria. It was not fun to be back in class. Ugh, school. May was going to be a rough month because classes end at the end of the month and some finals even occur then. So I need to really buckle down and do work ALL THE TIME. Oy. After class I walked to Robby's hostel where I found him in the main room sipping tea with an Australian girl, a Dutch girl, and a Turkish girl. I grabbed a cup of tea and joined there discussion. It was fun to talk about learning languages, traveling Europe, etc. etc. I love meeting people at hostels...although I wasn't staying there. At around 8:30 Robby and I headed to los Remedios so I could show him my neighborhood and grab a sweater at my apartment. Robby wanted to come in and meet Maruja, but that made me a bit uneasy. My program is very strict about having guests, and Maruja is strict enough as it is. So I just wasn't sure. On the way there we stopped at OpenCor for snacks for Robby's bus ride, and chasers for the night. We got to the apartment and Robby sat outside while I went in to do my stuff. Maruja was cooking a Spanish tortilla for dinner, but instead of potatoes she was using potato chips which I found pretty silly. I asked Maria del Mar if Maruja would approve of Robby coming in and she gave me a very hesitant "No lo se" (I don't know). That was not a good sign. Plus they were about to sit down for dinner so it just didn't seem appropriate. So I went to my room, grabbed a sweater, poured some vodka in a water bottle, and met Robby outside. I apologized and told him why I didn't bring him in. He understood. We then sat on the steps in from of the door to my unit while Robby ate his dinner, a tuna salad from OpenCor. The lights in the hallway are on a senser, so they turn off every two minutes. So I had to keep standing up to turn them on. It was pretty silly, actually. Then, without anything else to do, we headed next store to Cadillac to hang out before our big plans for the night: the drag show at Isbilliya (the place we went for Stacey & Jessica's bday) which started at 1am. I also wanted to introduce Robby to Diego and show him my favorite joint and the scene of my 21st blowout. We both ordered tinto de verano (typical Spanish drink: red wine and lemon Fanta) and had a really awesome talk. Robby brings out the intellectual in me. Whenever it's just the two of us we have the greatest conversations about life, the world, psychology, art, philosophy, society, etc. It was really refreshing to have that back. I miss that a lot. I was getting sad that I wouldn't see him for so long! The weirdest part of the conversation was when he asked me about my favorite experiences while abroad. I got so caught up in talking about things not associated with Spain that I couldn't focus on my study abroad experience. It took me awhile, but I scrounged up a few great memories. That's when I realized how separated from my life back home my life abroad is. I mean, I can blog and post as many detailed pictures as I can, but none of it can really capture what it's like. When I go home this is all going to feel like some awesome, amazing dream. Like I escaped from the real world for 6 months and I can't really describe how it went. I don't know how to describe it, but this will forever be a mark in the inner Lisa memory book that I will never be able to experience again. It's so weird and I'm getting really nervous about leaving...I'm way too used to it here! Wow. I can't believe it's almost over. Anyways, it started raining outside so we sat in Cadillac for awhile hoping that it would clear up. By midnight it hadn't, so we decided to brave it and try to share Robby's teeny umbrella. We walked towards Plaza de Cuba to have our own mini botellon (the goal: get drunk before Isbilliya and buy no drinks there). On the way I showed Robb the wonders of Vips as I bought myself a Special K bar. Then we got to Plaza de Cuba and it started to thunderstorm really badly. I mean, I'm talking you could distinctly see the lightning bolts and the thunder was loud and would strike immediately afterwards. Fantastic. We sat under the overhang in Plaza de Cuba and drank and watched the thunderstorm. It was actually pretty cool and poetic. Pretty beautiful, actually. It rarely storms in Sevilla, so Robby got a special treat with this one. And that's not sarcasm. As we were sitting a middle-aged, dirty man walked by and stared me down in the typical, creepy Spanish manner. I was kind of freaked out and hoped that he'd go away. He started to walk away, and then backed up to stare at me more. Holy shit. Then he walked forward and stood behind a pillar so that I couldn't see him. I kept asking Robby if he had moved and he said no. He sensed my anxiety and we got up. I didn't care if it was pouring and storming and we were about to walk over a body of water, I had to get away. Luckily he walked up to a group of people and started talking to them eerily so he didn't notice us leave and then try to follow us. Phew. However, I did get soaking wet in the process which was super fun in my linen pants. We stood under the overhang next to my program center and finished off the water bottle of vodka and watched more of the storm. At about 12:50 we decided to start walking towards Isbilliya which was a mere 7 minute walk, or so. We got there and it wasn't too crowded, perhaps because of the rain. We stood at a table for awhile, and I was definitely the only female there. The boys there were really cute and Robby was happy. I wanted him to have a good time so I offered to buy him a drink. I gave him 6euro so he could buy himself a vodka tonic and hopefully in the process strike up a convo at the bar. No luck, but he enjoyed his drink and how it glowed in the black light. As it grew later more guys showed up and crowded in in anticipation of the drag show which didn't start until about 1:30. It was awesome to watch the show not being completely wasted. In fact, I wasn't even that drunk. I was in awe of how talented these performers were, I had no idea! They are in such good shape, so beautiful, and so agile. You should see them dance, holy crap! And that was some mighty fine lip-synching, I must say. Robby tried to go talk to this cute guy, but his Spanish confidence has greatly decreased since completing RC Spanish freshman year, so he kind of chickened out. No big deal, he still had an awesome time. At around 2:30 Robby said that he was ready for bed. As we left the drag queen who was on stage started pestering us about it. Hey, lady, we're tired! Robby volunteered to walk home because he was very comfortable and knew the way and is just such an independent. Also, he was aware of my horrors of the night before and cared more about my getting home safe. It was also still raining and I had no umbrella (I left my umbrella on the bus from Tarifa 2 weeks ago). I didn't dispute, hailed a cab, and went home. Before leaving, though, Robby took my cell phone because we made plans to meet at the San Sebastian bus station (turns out the bus to Granada leaves from there) at 10:30 so Robby could get on the 11:00. He needed an alarm, so I set my phone alarm for him, begged him not to lose it (don't want to deal with that again) and said farewell. Once home I climbed into bed and passed out. What a great day with one of my favorite people! I was so sad that he'd be leaving so soon!