Que Vida la Mia

Saturday-
-Pilar and I went to a nearby town to try to go to their outside market but because it’s some town holiday thing they didn’t have it. But I got to see some other small towns around here.
-We stopped at a cheese shop (La Mancha region is known for its cheese) and I was exploring the store and whatnot and I discovered a picture of Iker Casillas at that exact cheese shop with the owner. So I’ve officially been to the same tiny cheese store in a random tiny town in La Mancha as THE Iker Casillas. Pretty sweet, right? I think so.
-Back in Quintanar, we got some churros and I bought a quality magazine with some quality stuff on Sergio Ramos. Quite possibly the best 3 euros I’ve ever spent.
-In the evening Eddie and I went to his favorite restaurant/bar place to watch some soccer. We kinda made friends with this hilarious group of college kids sitting next to us.

Sunday-
-There was a big race here in town today. The 30th year for it and it’s apparently a big deal. People from all over the world come to run in it. Like there were people from various African countries, South America…
-Pilar, the principal, had been asked to help translate for those that didn’t know Spanish but spoke English and she had asked if I’d come along and help her. So I went with her and her husband. It was pretty great. The weather was crappy- cold and overcast with random drizzle. But being around so many runners was fantastic. And I got to hang out in the VIP section with the mayor.
-And I got to meet the one guy who apparently won the European Championship for different running stuff. I’m told he’s a big deal in Spain. I heard someone say “Philadelphia” and I look over to see the mayor pointing me out to this champion runner. I’m telling you, being American in this town is synonymous with being famous. It cracks me up.
-We went through most of the afternoon not being needed for translating until the very end. The most important race of the day. The press wanted to do an interview with the top 3 and at least one of them didn’t speak Spanish. So we go and they tell us what to do and we’re both getting kinda nervous. And then they freakin’ make us get on stage and they wanted us to translate in front of all of these people and cameras and stuff that would end up on the Castilla-La Mancha channel. We were both kinda like “what?!” They ask the guy a question and then it turns out he doesn’t speak English or Spanish. Haha. So they couldn’t do the interview. So we lucked out.
-But when I got on stage and they were trying to set stuff up for this interview and I turn to this big deal Spanish runner and was like “this life I live… how do I get myself into these things?” and he just laughed at me and was like “you speak decent Spanish right? You’ll be fine” But the whole thing was random and hilarious. Thank goodness I didn’t have to translate in front of those hundreds of people that would then be put on TV… But the whole race thing was broadcasted on the Teledeporte channel which is probably like the Spanish ESPN, for the whole nation to see so I probably ended up on TV since I was hanging out in the VIP section next to the stage all day.
-I walked away from all of this with a bag full of free chocolate. Like 2 months supply for a normal person.
-Afterwards, I went out for Chinese food with Pilar’s family. I feel like I ended up talking most of the meal because they were asking me questions about being Protestant/Evangelical. Whenever people here find out that I’m not Catholic, they always ask me a bunch of questions. I feel like I’m always talking about religion here. It’s interesting. And then later we talked about homelessness, so we had some pretty heavy/deep conversation over lunch and I loved it.
-oh, and I had fried ice-cream. It's soooo good.