Miserable

Today was a fantastic day!  I don't have classes on Tuesday's, so that was the start of the amazing day.  I got up kind of early and after my amazing breakfast of Special K, apple pie flavored, I started on some homework.  I was able to call and talk to Ythol for a while early this morning his time which was nice because our schedules have been so different lately that we haven't been able to talk much.  Afterward, I did more work until it was lunch time.  For lunch we had chickpea soup with chicken AND beef.  It was delicious.  Since our senora is really sick, poor thing!, and I was feeling a little icky myself, it was the perfect meal.  Oh, and for lunch yesterday we had REAL hamburger!!  It was amazing...one of my favorite meals so far.  She cooked it in the frying pan, much like you would if you were preparing ground beef spaghetti or taco, by breaking it apart in the pan (Rachel: us. tacos. ground beef. enough said. :P).  She added spices and sauteed onions and garlic and served it with white rice and homemade tomato sauce (much like ketchup).  It was delicious!  Lunch yesterday was also phenomenal because I was able to talk with my senora for a full 30 minutes about politics, war, and the history of US as well as the history of Spain.  It not only was a great discussion, but it was a good feeling to talk about a deep subject matter and be able to express myself in Spanish.  No, I didn't get every word exactly right and there were times when my senora helped me find the word I was looking for, but it was nonetheless a great feeling.  :)

After lunch I got an email that I had two packages that I needed to pick up.  I headed over to our program building to pick them up suspecting that they were from Ythol and mom.  I did get one from Ythol which was fullllll of goodies and useful stuff that I've been living without.  I got a bunch of snacks, a tide-to-go pen, a small stuffed animal, and headphones (mine broke a week ago).  But my second package was from none other than my best friend Kendall!!  It was FULL of snacks, pencils, sticky note pad, gum, a macaroni and cheese pack!!, and go-fish cards...haha.  She is AWESOME!!  I honestly teared up when I saw the return address on the package because it was a complete surprise. 

I stayed at our program building and worked on homework for a few hours (two tests this week) and then headed to the cafe downstairs to meet my intercambio.  Everyone in our group is assigned an intercambio which is a native Spaniard who is learning English and wants to practice.  We spend 2 hours a week with them, 1 hour spent talking in Spanish and the other spent talking in English.  Since they didn't have enough people to sign up there are two of us to each intercambio.  My partner is Carolyn who is a super sweet girl in our program.  Our intercambio's name is Isabel and she brought her friend Maria with her, who also speaks English.  It was SOOOO hilarious at first because Carolyn was not at the table when they first arrived.  Isabel and Maria introduced themselves in English and I begin to introduce myself in English as well.  As soon as I started talking I could see the confused looks on their faces.  I kept talking, but the confusion grew so I asked what was wrong.  Isabel replied, "No entiendo," which means I don't understand.  I wasn't sure if I was just talking to fast or what, so I tried to slow down, but they were still visibly struggling to understand me.  I suddenly realized that they were unable to understand me due to my "thick accent" as they called it.  I don't normally consider myself to have a strong Southern accent, but I have never felt so Southern as I did today.  It was actually quite humorous once I realized why they couldn't understand me because I had the same problem understanding the thick "southern/Andalusian" accent when I first got here.  Spaniards normally are taught English by teachers from England (because both countries are part of the EU and travel between the two is easier than travel between the US and Spain) so my intercambios were really struggling with my accent.  They eventually caught on and we had a nice time getting to know one another.  So you're probably wondering about the title of my blog since I had such an awesome day.  Well tonight Carolyn and I learned that in Spanish the word "miserable" is not used the same way it is in English.  Carolyn was describing how long and difficult one of her classes was and she said "Es miserable" (It's miserable.).  Both Isabel and Maria quickly looked at each other and then back at Carolyn with startled and confused looks on their faces.  Neither I nor Carolyn knew why they were so shocked and so we asked them to explain.  They told us that the word miserable in Spanish is ONLY used for serious things such as the death of someone or something completely revolting aka not used to describe a class.  It may not sound as funny in writing, but it was HILARIOUS to see their faces.  It's nice to be able to learn small stuff like that from native speakers.  Can't wait to meet with them again next week!

After intercambios I came home and watched a little NCIS online.  For dinner we had hamburger patties that were fried!!  They were delicious!!!  We also had the same tomato sauce to go with it and for dessert, my favorite, a pearrrr!! 

Sorry for the long post, it was an exceptionally great day.

Mom, here's the picture of Manuel.

Isn't he adorable?!?!?!?