The Roomie and Me

Woke up before my alarm to the housekeeper, Manoli, doing her thing. Stacey was still sleeping which wasn't a good sign...she was supposed to work at 9am that morning. Oof. And it was 10am at that point. I made myself some breakfast, washed up, and when I came back to the room she was up. She said that her stomach was still bothering her, but she couldn't stay in bed because Manoli had to clean the room. So she got dressed and we both headed out. She went to the park to do some reading and I walked to the center to check my email before class. When I walked in Luisa immediately confronted me asking about Stacey. Stacey didn't show up for work or class the week before because she wasn't feeling too well then, and she hadn't shown up that day, either. Luisa had called Maruja and Maruja told her that Stacey wasn't home. I explained to Luisa the whole situation with her stomach and the housekeeper and how she had to leave. Luisa looked all concerned and told me to take her to the doctor. Luisa tends to overreact and always wants everyone to go to the doctor. Stacey was fine, she just had a bad case of the shits like many of us have had at one point here in Europe. I think that the Spanish are more adament about going to the doctor and hospital...perhaps because it's free. When walking around Spain you can't go without noticing people in bandages, casts, on crutches, and in wheelchairs. It's like everyone's either ailing or crippled here. Melissa told me that when she went to the hospital about a bad sunburn they freaked out and put a bunch of unnecessary bandages on her and asked her to come back a bunch of times when really all she needed was some sort of prescription cream and treatment advice. It's a country full of hypochondriacs, I swear. After checking my email I went to Historia del Cine which was another long, boring lecture about European cinema. Then I walked home for lunch. Stacey still a bit queasy. I told Maruja and she told Stacey that she'd make her a simple broth and an apple for lunch. How sweet! Love that woman. Lunch was absolutely delicious: we had salmorejo, which was the best she's ever made (I helped her cut the cured ham for it which was cute and fun), and these fried fish fritters that were surprisingly moist, flavorful, and delicious. Stacey ate that really goot broth with potatoes, onions, and fish that I had had the past Friday with Maruja. She loved it. For dessert Stacey had an apple and the rest of us had big, juicy oranges. Yummy. After lunch Stacey and I went to Starbucks to do some reading for school, but we ended up getting into a long, deep conversation about everything: life at home, the study abroad experience, family, boys, friends, how we have grown, etc. etc. We talked for a long time which was nice because we got to catch up. We haven't hung out just the two of us in a really long time and it was really good to have a good, lengthy, meaningful conversation. You know those really good conversations that just rejuvenate you? That's what it was. It was a very necessary conversation, too, so I willingly skipped my art history class. I know, that's very strange and wrong since I'm freaking out about finals, but I've only skipped this class one time before, and everything we do in class is in my textbook so I'd be okay. I really felt like this conversation was much more worth my time. Sometimes you just need to make sacrifices. At around 7 we finally started our reading. I finally finished "Los Siameses" which felt amazing because that means I have finished all of the required reading for Teatro! My only class who's outside work is finished! Hehe. This is good because Teatro is my first exam, May 24th. So all I need to do until then is go to my tutoring sessions and study. Nice. Now I can start to concentrate on Art History more, too. We left Starbucks at 9, Maruja got home late so we didn't eat until 9:45. It was well worth the wait because we got a very happy surprise for dinner: the Portuguese bacalao dish! You know, the one that we ate on our birthdays. She hadn't served this on her own accord since our second day here! We were ecstatic. And on the side she made the endive, raisin, walnut, blue cheese salad that I love so much, AND it was the best that she has ever made it. No joke. Dinner was amazing, and luckily Stacey's stomach had died down (thanks to the easy lunch). I savored every single bite. Every morsel. Unbelievable. Best dinner ever. Well, except for my birthday dinner. For dessert we had pears. We got into a whole conversation about Marta. She has literally been M.I.A. for the past month and a half. You've probably noticed how I haven't mentioned her in my blog in ages. Well, once Semana Santa hit she went home and was supposed to come back but never did. Maria del Mar called her and texted her a bunch of times and never got a response. At first she shrugged it off because she said that typically Marta's bad about responding to messages, but after a month and a half this was getting ridiculous. Especially since Marta still pays to live here...she was paying for nothing. We were all getting concerned that something was wrong at this point. I mean, why wouldn't she call? It's been the mystery around the apartment for the past week. We resolved to call her house number, so while cleaning up after dinner Maruja called her home, but got the answering machine. We were all baffled. What could have happened to her?? After dinner Stacey and I came back to the room and worked online. Stacey walked to Melissa's place quickly to pick up some class notes that she missed and Maruja and Maria del Mar came in to tell me that finally they heard from Marta! She'd be home tomorrow night. She had been home all this time. Why didn't she call, though? So strange. They didn't really know what she had been up to and that we'd just have to wait and find out tomorrow. So weird. For the rest of the night I facebooked (of course, ew) and worked on this blog. I'm writing it right now. Yay! I'm all updated. Stacey returned and we now continue to do work online. I had a great day just the roomie and me. I feel like I haven't really seen her in forever because since Ryan came to town she's been sick. But we had a happy day. So yeah. Life in the piso is good. Did I mention that last night I had another nightmare about exams? It was the same, basically: that I didn't study as much as I should have and went into the finals completely unprepared. I didn't sleep enough to see the results, but taking the tests without preparation is petrifying. I'm still oh so nervous. Ugh. Now I have a ton of emails to write. I'm so behind with life. Tomorrow I need to take care of a bunch of things before I leave Thursday morning for Dublin! Woooot! That's exciting. I need one more vacation, honestly, before crunch time. Goodnight.