Teenage Wasteland

The alarm went off at 8 and I realized I did indeed have to speak about Slovenia for 15 minutes in class that afternoon. And I had nothing researched at all. Thank goodness for Wikipedia and that CIA website by country we used in seventh grade.

My senora left me for A WEEK beginning today so after tearful goodbyes this morning, I headed to class (only an hour late... I had that presentation to prepare first! Priorities!).

The teacher greeted me with a "Hi, how was your sleep?" Apparently I gave a slightly cheeky response back which made the whole class laugh. A nice diversion from clips of Spanish neorealist films. I apologized to the teacher after but he did not seem to care one bit. How very Spanish of an attitude?

My presentation went swimmingly, thanks for asking. Did you know Slovenia has 211 municipalities? Do you even know where it is? Can't say I totally did before 9 AM.

I even made it to the gym where the instructor started an intercambio with me. That is, she started speaking in English. I thought I could go to this little room of tacky disco music and easy weight machines and escape. And here I was, fumbling for the words to explain that I'd love to speak English with her sortofbutnotreally while I'm sweating in the middle of the gym. By the end of my circuit, we were chatting bilingually and happily and I realized that Spanish people are oh-so kind to us Americans that the least I can do is help her with her English while she builds my muscles and my vocabulary.

I had phenomenal tapas at Los Coloniales, split with the birthday girl and coupled with some tinto. Yet again, they insisted the salmorejo soup had no ham and I spent a good deal of seconds scooping it (and the top layer of soup) out of the bowl. We also had patatas bravas and spinach croquetas. Om nom nom.

After, a classic botellon by the river and then off to a hip hop discoteca with my homiez!
Oh wait, I'm from Westchester, go to Nerdwestern, and can't dance at all.

Anyway, I spent the rest of the evening breaking it down with Sevilla's finest, immigrated from Northern Africa. So many languages, so many gold chains, and not sure how that flat-brimmed Yankees hat ended up on my head... I rocked it nonetheless. We 'popped bottles' on the dance floor with our new 'friends' that we'll likely never see again. I would definitely put the evening on the memorable list.

That is one helluva start and end to a study abroad day.