“…I’ve never seen a pig poop before!”

Thursday
-I finally ran again. It was like 4º Celsius and windy. It was an unenjoyable run. This winter’s gonna suck. And it might kill my determination.
-my class with my 10-11 year olds was frustrating and put me in a bad mood, as it did on Wednesday too. I’m so ready for Christmas break from these kids.

Friday
-I spent my entire day in Toledo all on my own. I went to pick up my foreigner card that lets me stay here even though my visa expires at the end of this month.
-I caught a bus to the mall in Toledo. I kinda understand the bus system but at the same time, not. Haha. It was my first time in a mall since being here. I still don’t understand how jeans are sized in this country. There is no consistency amongst stores. If you think it’s bad in the US…
-I walked a lot a lot in and was exhausted and slept on my bus ride home.
-In the evening was the Christmas dinner party for the teachers at my school. There were like 30 of us. I love how the party only started at 10 and didn’t start eating until like 11.30. And of course there was a lot of amazing food and I ate way too much.
-Afterwards we all went out dancing. Nothing like going dancing in a bar with a few 40-60 year olds, including 2 couples that are like your parents… haha. But that’s totally normal here.

Saturday
-I made Eddie watch the Polar Express, in Spanish of course. He was terrified. But really, it is an awful movie.
-In the evening we went to Cuevas to watch some fútbol. But it was a rainy ugly day so that’s really all we did all day.

Sunday
-I went to Madrid with my friend Javi to see the city all decked out for Christmas. We walked everywhere but it was a really fun day.
-I ran into one of my students and his mom on the metro. Really random. And then later, we ran into Javi’s cousin, who’s also from Quintanar. I mean, what are the chances that we’d run into people we know from our small little town twice in one day? Madrid’s huge!
-There are signs in Madrid that said in Spanish “this is New York” I was really confused. I still don’t get it. But whatever.
-We went to a Starbucks and were sitting outside and this little pig just appeared and the owners just kinda let it wander around. The boy next to us, probably about 8 or 9 years old, was super entertained by this. But as soon as the pig came near him, he like freaked out. The owner called the pig out from under our table and the kid was like “mom, I’ve never seen a pig in a restaurant before!” and he turns around to watch it wander off and do something else that caused him to say with excitement “…and I’ve never seen a pig poop before!” it was hilarious. I lost it and couldn’t stop laughing. And then the kid scampered off to check it out and him mom’s like “just don’t touch anything!”and he came back to report that it looked like a normal animal’s. it was totally the funniest thing of the day for me. And his mom was like “well now you have something to tell your friends at school.”