Pintura y Montañas Rusas

This week, I experienced some ups and downs, so to speak. It started out with a bang when the people who were fixing our roof threw a bucket of red paint down the light well and onto anything that was drying on the clotheslines. And, as it happens, MY CLOTHES were drying out there. So now a large percentage of my wardrobe looks like I committed mass murder in them. I gave all of the stained clothing to our door woman who told me "they" were going to wash it to see if they could get the red out. I'm hoping this does not mean that "they" have now incinerated everything to destroy the evidence!

School, on the other hand, has been much less eventful. I'm starting to actually enjoy La Celestina even though I only understand about 50% when I read it. Coloquial Spanish is great because I love learning new expressions in Spanish. And, because we are a program full of language nerds, we actually practice what we're learning when we go out for drinks. I still plan on dropping/auditing Morfosintaxis, but I like listening to our professor get off topic (which happens a lot) and relate stories about embarrassing cultural misunderstandings. For example, who knew that bicho ("bug") in Puerto Rico is not, in fact, a bug but actually a really dirty term for the male anatomy? FYI, if you are a renowned French linguistics professor giving a speech in San Juan, do NOT make an analogy where you talk about an anteater eating all the bichos.

This weekend has once again been relatively busy:
• Thursday: Went out to dinner at Café Mingo for the birthday of one of the girls in my program. This restaurant is famous for its homemade cider and its roast chicken, and OH MY GOD were they good. Everything was delicious, we ate until we burst, and we only had to pay about 13 euro each. Not too shabby! If you come visit me, we WILL go to there.
• Friday: I decided it was time to finally go out to dinner in my neighborhood. Claudia, Alexia, and Kate joined me at a tapería near our piso. The wine was freaking amazing, but the food was pretty lackluster. In fact, we all had tummy aches afterward.
• Saturday: Lauren needed company to go to Parker Warner, which is essentially the Six Flags of Spain. Having gone to Six Flags México way back when, the oddity of Looney Tunes in Spanish was not entirely new to me. But it was still fun being in "The Old West" and on "Sunset Boulevard" in the middle of a European country. We ate fingers de pollo, saw a "Wanted" poster for "armed rebbery," and rode most of the montañas rusas (rollercoasters). All of them were great except for the last one of the day, which left me unable to speak Spanish and close to peeing myself. Did not like! Oh, and we went on a simulator ride. I found it hilarious being in a simulator with a bunch of Spaniards who spent the whole time applauding and yelling, "¡Olé!"

As a reward for finishing this long post, I give you a photo of my in a Jetsons car: