Blue Violets

Hola amores...
Last night I woke myself up singing the theme song from ¨Titanic¨(I´m not sure if I was actually singing or if I just was in my dream...hopefully just in my dream) and that has already kind of set the tone for my day...
I´m still loving my new family. Babis keeps telling me all about different kinds of Spanish and Portuguese foods that she is going to make - I hope that I will learn how to make most of them! Last night I ate swordfish, aren´t you all proud of me? Haha...I´m all grown up, I suppose, I make my bed every day, clean my room every day, clean the sink and the bathroom at least once a day, try new foods (I even tried pate, but it´s a bit too much like cat food for me and I have a hard time swallowing), I go on the metro by myself, I use a map...by the way, this is when I admit that my mother was right (another sure sign of maturity!!) when she bought me my pop-out map of Madrid. I use it every day! Yesterday, I was sitting on the terrace and Emilio came out to talk to me. He told me about a sweets shop here in Madrid: La Violeta. I plan on going there very soon, haha. They make this little candies (here, carmelos) that are in the shape of violets. They have the most distinct taste - Emilio keeps a little jar in his room and he brought them out for me to try. Then he took a little dish and put some in MY room. I think that he really enjoys showing me all different kinds of Spanish culture. And Babis has already given me 5 different books in Spanish...some are on Madrid and others are literature. One is the biography of the current queen. There is no way that I will be able to finish them before I leave - they´re all at least 3 inches thick!! I don´t know how I´ll ever be able to thank them...I already want to give them so much - I want them to try pretzels from Reading, and I want to find a Christmas ornament for Babis. The other day we were talking about how much we both love Christmas. I´m soooo exciting that I´ll be here when Madrid begins to decorate and even more excited that I will be decorating the house with Babis! She said that they put their tree up by December 1st - I will be so excited!
Today I need to go buy flamenco shoes for my class. To me, this is incredibly exciting - imagine, I HAVE to buy shoes!!! What a thrilling concept, I think all classes should require their students to buy shoes...let´s see, we can have black heels for history, blue ballet flats for Spanish literature...
I got my midterms back yesterday and although not fantastic, they´re not awful either. I did extremely well on my culture, which will make my grade easier. Last night I wrote a composition about the quality of life in the US...I said that people either have an amazing life or a really hard life and that it wasn´t fair. Then I realized that I kind of sounded like a Communist, so I added that we have a swell quality of life cause we live in freedom under a democratic government, haha.
I have class in about 15 minutes...I´m trying to think of what else I wanted to tell you all...
I guess that the truth is that I just checked my e-mail and found all these announcements about the ongoing activities at GW. And while I have my own activities here (like running in the Retiro, flamenco shows, and trips to Morocco), I can´t help but feel a little bittersweet. There are times when I don´t even think about DC or GW, but sometimes I do. Although I don´t necessarily miss it or want to change back and magically be there instead, I feel a little sad that I´m not there, that I´m missing so many activities....sometimes it´s really hard to remember that life goes on without you, that people´s lives don´t stop and the world keeps turning, the days keep passing even when you´re not there. People can miss you, like I miss all of you, but no one´s life is going to stop because you´re not there. We have no pause button for our old lives when we go and find a new one...and even though I´m returning, and when I return it will seem like I never left, right now I feel like I was never even there.