Eating Swordfish with Frodo

Monday-
After my class with the adults, I was invited for dinner and Cristina and Manolo’s house. They’re in my class and I have both of their sons during my day classes. They’re a great family- super nice. Although Cristina is set on making me try brain sometime… But they apparently have a pomegranate tree. How awesome is that? So they cracked one open for me. It wasn’t as sweet as the ones in the US but it was still good. And she gave me two to take home. Apparently they usually get more than the family themselves can eat so they give them away. Cristina said this year they will give them to me. Haha. I love it.

Tuesday-
It rained. And then it was really really windy and therefore cold. I went for a run and it went great on the way there. Then on the way back… against the wind… it was a lot of work. The rest of my day was pretty typical. In the evening I went to Pilar’s. I spent the first hour working with her youngest son and the daughter of another teacher Pilar. They’re both like 13 and conversation went well. The 2nd hour was with the oldest son and his best friend. Who it actually turns out is the younger brother of one of the girls I met through Isabel. I love that I’m connecting people in this town, because they all are connected some way or other. Afterwards we had dinner. We totally had swordfish, which I absolutely love. I fell in love with it back in Sevilla, so when I found out that’s what we were having, I got quite excited. But this family is quite hilarious, like I always seem to laugh a lot with them. The boys are really funny and the youngest one, totally looks like Frodo and the father kept making Lord of the Rings references and kinda making fun of him.

Wednesday-
I got my first package. It was from the Post High/LOFT group. I picked it up at 8.30 am and had to carry the box around with me all day, literally all over town, until like 11.30 pm. And it was quite the big box filled with all sorts of goodies from the US. I let Estefania try a Reese’s because she’s never had peanut butter before. Unlike most Spanish, she actually liked it.

Thursday-
We had to go back to Toledo for our NIE, which is a number that like overrides my visa and lets me stay here legally even after my visa expires. Something like that. This time our posse was me, Eddie, Casey and Natalia. She works at the high school in Quintanar but lives in Alcazar, a town 20 km away. So it was me and 3 kids from Cali. The 4 of us had a lot of fun together. We talked the whole bus ride, grabbed some coffee and pastries and then met up with a bunch more Americans to get our fingerprints done. I actually met 2 people from Lansdale. Finally! People from the east coast! And the Philly area yet at that! After all the important stuff, the 4 of us went to lunch at what I think is now like our little place in Toledo before catching the bus back. It was a nice day with tons of laughter. For dinner I went over to Pilar’s house (the 27 year old, not the principal) with some of the other teachers. There were 9 of us. Food was great but I was very lost in the conversations because there was too much going on at one time that I couldn’t follow it. I’m good with a group half the size, but this time was overwhelming and therefore not much fun for me. We ended the night playing a board game and I had more fun as conversation was channeled to mostly one person talking at a time.