Nothing worked. I had almost spent my half-hour check out time right in front of the station just trying to figure this all out, but after we came to the realization that even if we did manage to get going for a minute or two with Evan holding the bike for us to begin with, we wouldn't have a hope in the world if we ever had to stop at a crosswalk. So in the end, we walked home. The next day I got Chinese with Miguel Angel and Cristina for lunch. I have no idea how I didn't know about this place until today, because its less than a five minute walk from our house, it is regularly-portioned (as in HUGE plates of each food) and cheap as can be (4 or 5 euro for a big huge platter of anything), and it is legitimately delicious Chinese food. I loved spending the afternoon with them; even after we finished eating we sat at the table and talked for at least an hour. And I'm understanding MA almost perfectly (which, he says, means that I have passed [he talks the fastest of anyone I know], and I can really say I know Spanish). He ordered the food for all of us, because he says he knows what's best, and I had no problem with that. There were 5 pages of menu items! We ordered a lemon chicken, a bamboo and mushrooms plate, a pad-thai type deal, and two humongous spring rolls, each the size of the entire plate. With drinks it was 20 euro. Are you kidding? In America that'd easily be a 50 dollar meal.
One spring roll
Clean Plate Club
...and she insisted I take this.
I met back up with Evan after lunch for some Macarena and Alameda exploring. First stop: Cake at La Cacharreria, the best hidden gem of Sevilla, in my opinion. Second stop: Freshly baked, hot cookies (yes, I found actualy cookies POR FIN) at a little store right across the street.
banana-caramel cake
right out' the oven
We had a day on Saturday like I'd had in some of my first few days in Sevilla, where I would just be walking for the sake of walking, having no real plan or need for being out. I took pictures of everything, even though I already have so many, because we stumbled across areas of the town that still hold surprises for me. Por ejemplo:
shadows painted on the walls of a building
It was our ultimate goal to find cute boutiques and go shopping, but to avoid the main shopping streets. We found two awesome stores near Alfalfa; Evan bought a very 50's style, floor length pale pink dress in one and I bought a short sleeve sweater across the street, almost solely because the couple that owned this particular boutique named their store after their weiner dog, George, who sat in his own chair near the dressing room so you could ask him how everything looked as you tried things on. I just relaxed at home Saturday night (with the new girls) and watched Ted in Spanish with MA and C until I fell asleep on the couch. On Sunday I decided it might be time to be just the slightest bit productive, since I had 4 finals, 2 presentations, a group project, and 2 papers to write before leaving, which is 10 days from this point. I met Evan in the park and we studied history until the sky clouded over, it became quite ominous outside, and we made the great call of packing up and moving our laptops and other electronics inside. Just as we were approaching San Fernando, it started raining cats and dogs and we ducked inside the nearest place with wifi- Dunkin Coffee (not Dunkin Donuts, because the word "donut" is copyrighted in Spain, or least something like that, I'm told). I'm so much more of a Krispy Kreme fan, and I actually can't understand why anyone would go to Dunkin if there's the option of KK, but this is where we were so I got a chocolate creme donut (and was disappointed, as usual, with its cakey dryness) and finished writing both of my papers.
And on Monday the marathon of hanging out with Evan continued on, as we rewarded ourselves after class at 9 am with yet another slice of cake from the heavenly Cacharreria.
carrot-cinnamon
There was a practical reason for having cake for breakfast. We wanted to talk to our professor during his horas de tutoria at 12:15, and since we didn't have anything to do in between class time and this, it seemed like a pretty good way to break up the morning and get out of school for a bit. After clearing up some things about our exam, and him telling us to please not worry, he just wants us to enjoy our time in Sevilla, and to also not go to class on Thursday because there is a school-wide strike (and he wasn't sure if us Americans knew or understood that...I think that'll be a memory I'll keep forever, having a college professor to tell me to not come to class to support the people's strike), we both felt pretty good about the exam. "Good" meaning we don't actually need to study, maybe just go over a few notes for max a couple of hours. I asked Professor Serrera for a picture with him before leaving his office, and while I knew he wouldn't mind, I could never have predicted what ensued once I posed the question. We ended up having a 15 minute photoshoot, moving around different places in the office, catching the light from the balcony in different ways, taking some with flash, some without, taking a few zoomed in, then more further back, horizontal, then vertical, taking one photo on his good side, then switching it up in case my good side was the other one, then switching over the camera so that he and Evan could do the same. And if that wasn't enough, he wanted to have a few of the two of us, for his memories. But even once the camera could finally be turned off, the shenanigans continued. He said, so seriously, how important it was that we send him these photos for him to have as well. And not just a few, all of them. It doesn't matter if they're bad or bad lighting or someone isn't smiling their best smile in one, he wants the collection. And he realizes his email only allows up to 12mpg or whatever to be sent at a time, but that shouldn't stop me, all I need to do is send multiple emails. He then showed me how to. Thanks dude.
He really is one of the nicest professors, so we were more than happy to appease him. In class the next morning, however, he let me know he received my emails by displaying all the pictures on the projector in front of the class. How much of a teacher's pet did I look like. Well, no pasa nada, I haven't made any Spanish friendships in the class that could be jeopardized in any case.
The rest of the week was pretty average. Working on homework, going to the gym, running errands (such as buying avocados from markets in the morning to eat as a merienda before dinner, because I am just too hungry and I am over sitting in my bed waiting until 9 pm in misery). All the things one does when they live somewhere. Its just regular life for me now. During my walk to class, I pass by a few familiar faces that have the same schedule as me, like the old, lanky man wearing aviators and listening to his iPod, and its just a reminder to me that I've been here long enough to establish a real normality. In Spain! If I take the time to think about it, its crazy. I'm sitting now on the couch in Cristina's living room, stretched out with my feet up, watching a singing game show as Cristina snores in the chair beside me, occasionally waking herself up with her extra loud snorts and laughing, and its almost 8 pm but I'm no longer pining over dinner. I know its coming at 9, I've had my snack earlier (today it was la Fiorentina), and I'm good to relax until then.
Some of my "norms" that seem so average and make total sense here will seem so strange and hilarious once I'm home, I'm sure. Like the fact that since we can't hang out in each other's houses, and we don't always want to go to a bar or restaurant or to get ice cream, we actually have hung out at school before. Emily and I share a love for Homeland, and we both only recently started watching it. So we meet at EUSA, in the Cinecu office, with her computer and my snacks, load episodes of Homeland online, turn off the lights (when Cheryl's not in), prop up our feet on chairs, and watch TV like we would at home.
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One day we bought a 3-pack of popcorn and a big Milka bar to split, I popped the popcorn at home, carried it, already popped and piping hot, in my purse, to EUSA where I met Emily after her class to watch an episode. I also brought nail polish and nail clippers to do nails while we watched. Definitely things you do at home on your living room couch, not in a school office. But hey, desperate times. Just this past week we picked back up on the Homeland trend, starting season 2, and opening the bag of Birthday Cake Oreo's Em's fam sent her in the process of watching a couple episodes. About one sleeve through the bag, I thought about how great they would taste soaked in milk (reminds me of sitting in Grandaddy and Gig's living room at night, dunking double stuffed Oreo's in milk for at least 30 seconds so that they were so soggy and almost detached from the rest of the cookie by the time you lifted it out of the milk). We went downstairs to the school's cafe and asked for a cafe con leche, hold the cafe. And after that, the afternoon was perfection. Homeland+milk and cookies+hanging out with friends in a non-bar setting=perfection, no matter how extraño the circumstances of it may be. Later on in the week Emily's señora actually let me come over to her house (!?!?). Chloe left Emily at the same time MC left me, but Emily didn't get any new roommates, so their house has been extra quiet as of late. Under the pretense that we had to study and that we share a textbook, I went over to watch Homeland after dinner on Thursday. It was so interesting to compare Cristina's apartment to Tia's. Hers is much more decorated than mine, with lots of ornate religious figurines, many more paintings on the walls, it all just looked a lot more movie-esque. In comparison, I would say my house looks pretty average, nothing too out of the ordinary that makes you think "where the heck am I."
So I guess, now that I'm thinking about it, even an average week has so many nuances and new, interesting things that happen than an "average" week in Chapel Hill. That will be something I will truly miss about being here, and hope to find ways to bring those kind of nuances home with me, whether that means going out to find a new restaurant once a week, making the time to go on a hike in Durham one day, riding my bike somewhere far away just to explore what's around, or what have you. This week we went to la Fiorentina yet again, but this time I met the owner. He not only was so excited to tell me about himself and his store, and how he makes all the flavors himself (and offered plenty of free samples to show off, and I was not going to stop him), he then made Evan, Tim, Emily and I all get on our phones that minute and add the heladeria as a friend on Facebook. If its just a technique to get me to come back, its working, because I'll go out of my way to eat this ice cream and I just can't accept any other in Sevilla as anywhere near the same quality. I also ate dinner with Cristina, the woman who owns the apartments my dad stayed in when he was here. We exchanged information back in March and she told me to contact her whenever I wanted to get together, that she'd love to. Time had kind of slipped by, but this week I found myself with much more free time, especially since there's just so many less people in town these days, so I called her up and we arranged a dinner date. Cristina took me to one of her favorite places, Zelai, and ordered all the tapas for us (great for me, I hate decision making). We had ox, a cheesy risotto, a tuna steak and vegetables, and orange tinto. We ended dinner with caramel liquor shots. We sat talking until the restaurant was closing, and I had no idea we had been sitting there for so long when we finally stood up to leave. She's got a really unique life story, has traveled to more places in the US than I've been to, and is great at English. We switched back and forth between the two languages almost seamlessly. It was great to be explaining something in Spanish and then not know a word for something and just be able to ask quickly, "como se dice..." and she could fill in the blanks for me.
The Spanish are so open to grabbing a drink, having a meal, or sitting and chatting for any period of time with you, even if they barely know who you are. If you are open to making a connection, I think you can almost make a friend out of anyone. Which is why I wasn't sure what the man at the gym, cerca age 30, really wanted from me when he asked to get a coffee after a Pilates class one day. I've been going to LowFit Viapol for a month now, and have seen this guy a couple times in yoga and Pilates classes, and we've spoken once or twice in passing. On Tuesday we had an actual conversation in which he informed he was recently divorced, and all of his old friends were his wife's friends, so he's been having trouble "meeting people." What kind of meeting people does he mean? New amigos? Or new potential spouses? I'm not great at deflecting these kinds of situations in English, but in Spanish I just had no idea how to go about avoiding the coffee date but still keep it neutral and un-awkward every time I have to see him at the gym from now on. It wasn't fully resolved, I just pushed it off until maybe the next time I saw him (and since he's always at the gym in the mornings, I've switched up my schedule to the afternoons). Only a few more days of this, so I figure its no big deal. But, "average week?" Hmm, maybe not.
This weekend, though, almost no one is home. Friday was a humdrum kind of day. I spent it sleeping in until 12, doing yoga in my room until lunch, buying a bus ticket to Cadiz, taking a little walk and then a cycle class, getting ice cream with Julia and checking out the Cerveceria Internacional, and sitting by the river until 2 or so in the morning, as I've done many nights this week (I love it, its so calming, and I know I've only got a few more nights left of seeing these sights). But then again, humdrum days aren't so bad. They give me time to do this kind of stuff. And every day can't be an all-out, wild and crazy whirlwind of experiences. I've been lucky enough to have so many of those this past semester. And I've come to appreciate every kind of day I have here in Sevilla, whether it be the kind that I witness the world famous Feria up close and personal, or the kind where I sleep in until lunchtime, because who knows when I'll have the opportunity to do that again?
I guess I'm off to study now? Or watch Vampire Diaries. Yeah, probably that.
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