¡Feliz Día de Pavo!
¡¡¡Hola mis amores, y feliz día de pavo!!! (Happy Turkey Day, Happy Thanksgiving is too long here).
Today I woke up at 4:45am and almost started to cry because I started thinking about the parade...why is the parade so important to me? Sentimental, childish rubbish...but I restrained myself, mostly because it wasn´t even Thanksgiving in the US yet. Now, I´m sitting here in the computer lab at the UAM, finishing my presentation, and I realize that it´s about to start soon...I´m trying to imagine my house, but that makes me sad too, because there will be no turkey at my house, no sweet potatoes, no pumpkin bread in the oven...my parents have an easy day, and then later they will go over to friends to have dinner. It makes it seem empty all the way from here and that makes me quite sad. I have a card that Father Phil, the priest from my church at home in PA sent me, with a Thanksgiving prayer on it, that I´m carrying around in my backpack today.
Tonight we go to a restaurant to have tapas and turkey...it´s such a nice thing, such a nice gesture and yet it won´t, it can´t possibly be the same.
And yet, even though I´m feeling kind of down right now, I have to go back to my childhood and think of all that I´m thankful for...so naturally I have to share it with you, because I won´t be able to go around the table with you tonight and say it out loud.
I am thankful to be here in Spain, to be with kind people who take care of me and who helped me to adjust to living in a new country. I am thankful for all the people here in this program - I could not have asked for a better group, and I am thankful for the friends that I have made here in Spain. I am forever grateful to my parents for giving me this amazing opportunity, and for supporting me through it every day. I am thankful that I have friends at home. I am thankful that my life has been so incredible so far...I am thankful for being safe. I am thankful for the support that I receive daily from the people that I love.
Okay, enough mushy stuff.
Today, my train stopped about 1 minute away from the UAM and experienced technical failure. We were stopped for like 45 minutes...sometimes with and sometimes without electricity (luckily it wasn´t night!). It was pretty annoying, and it held up all the other trains, so we were all late for our flamenco theory class, which was actually amazing, because a guitarist and a dancer came. My poly-sci class is canceled for tonight (without reason) but apparently we have to make it up...we´ll see how that goes!
My school e-mail account isn´t working today, but apparently we´ve all been invited to dinner this Tuesday with President Trachtenberg, the President of GWU. I´m really excited...he´s coming to Madrid (who knows why???) and has invited all the students and professors to a VERY nice, VERY expensive restaurant for dinner! Apparently, you can´t have dinner there for under 120€...thank you GW!!!
Now, some people don´t like President Trachtenberg...they think he´s greedy, they think he doesn´t care about the students...I´ve always thought that he´s a very nice, very generous man. He´s always open to talking, and I remember his story about the hippo that he told at Colonial Inauguration, which hit close to home with my family (my father also brought home a hippo from Africa without consulting my mother...we kept ours though). So we´re going to dinner at a restaurant called Zalacain, which is apparently one of the best in Madrid (look it up, they have an English menu!).
This Sunday, my señora and I are planning to make pumpkin bread and chocolate chip cookies...I´m getting hungry just thinking about it! The idea of pumpkin bread seems very strange to my Spanish family...I can´t imagine life without it! I´m REALLY nervous that it won´t turn out right, cause then I know I´ll start to cry, haha. We´re going grocery shopping on Saturday and then Sunday will be our cooking day!!! I´m very excited to cook with her, I think it will be a lot of fun! She´s an excellent cook...the only complaint I have so far was the "tuna pudding" that she served one day...there are some things that you just shouldn´t puree, and tuna is one of them. But usually, the food is amazing here (I still can´t wait to go home to eat though! I´ve been having cravings for frosted flakes, of all things). She has decided that we have to have vanilla ice cream, because one time I mentioned that I like it and last night, when Emilio asked if I liked it, she replied with, "La encanta", which means more like she loves it. They are also concerned because I´ve been eating a lot of coconut yogurt (yogurt or fruit are my dessert choices here), because that´s what I told them that I like. So they think I´m all coco-ed out, and we need to buy a new kind, so we had a 10 minute conversation about all the different kinds of yogurts they have here (they have apple, isn´t that odd?).
So mis amores, I bid you once more Happy Thanksgiving...I wish you all the best and I can´t wait to see you!
***********A WEEK FROM TOMORROW I LEAVE FOR ROME!!!!*************
Today I woke up at 4:45am and almost started to cry because I started thinking about the parade...why is the parade so important to me? Sentimental, childish rubbish...but I restrained myself, mostly because it wasn´t even Thanksgiving in the US yet. Now, I´m sitting here in the computer lab at the UAM, finishing my presentation, and I realize that it´s about to start soon...I´m trying to imagine my house, but that makes me sad too, because there will be no turkey at my house, no sweet potatoes, no pumpkin bread in the oven...my parents have an easy day, and then later they will go over to friends to have dinner. It makes it seem empty all the way from here and that makes me quite sad. I have a card that Father Phil, the priest from my church at home in PA sent me, with a Thanksgiving prayer on it, that I´m carrying around in my backpack today.
Tonight we go to a restaurant to have tapas and turkey...it´s such a nice thing, such a nice gesture and yet it won´t, it can´t possibly be the same.
And yet, even though I´m feeling kind of down right now, I have to go back to my childhood and think of all that I´m thankful for...so naturally I have to share it with you, because I won´t be able to go around the table with you tonight and say it out loud.
I am thankful to be here in Spain, to be with kind people who take care of me and who helped me to adjust to living in a new country. I am thankful for all the people here in this program - I could not have asked for a better group, and I am thankful for the friends that I have made here in Spain. I am forever grateful to my parents for giving me this amazing opportunity, and for supporting me through it every day. I am thankful that I have friends at home. I am thankful that my life has been so incredible so far...I am thankful for being safe. I am thankful for the support that I receive daily from the people that I love.
Okay, enough mushy stuff.
Today, my train stopped about 1 minute away from the UAM and experienced technical failure. We were stopped for like 45 minutes...sometimes with and sometimes without electricity (luckily it wasn´t night!). It was pretty annoying, and it held up all the other trains, so we were all late for our flamenco theory class, which was actually amazing, because a guitarist and a dancer came. My poly-sci class is canceled for tonight (without reason) but apparently we have to make it up...we´ll see how that goes!
My school e-mail account isn´t working today, but apparently we´ve all been invited to dinner this Tuesday with President Trachtenberg, the President of GWU. I´m really excited...he´s coming to Madrid (who knows why???) and has invited all the students and professors to a VERY nice, VERY expensive restaurant for dinner! Apparently, you can´t have dinner there for under 120€...thank you GW!!!
Now, some people don´t like President Trachtenberg...they think he´s greedy, they think he doesn´t care about the students...I´ve always thought that he´s a very nice, very generous man. He´s always open to talking, and I remember his story about the hippo that he told at Colonial Inauguration, which hit close to home with my family (my father also brought home a hippo from Africa without consulting my mother...we kept ours though). So we´re going to dinner at a restaurant called Zalacain, which is apparently one of the best in Madrid (look it up, they have an English menu!).
This Sunday, my señora and I are planning to make pumpkin bread and chocolate chip cookies...I´m getting hungry just thinking about it! The idea of pumpkin bread seems very strange to my Spanish family...I can´t imagine life without it! I´m REALLY nervous that it won´t turn out right, cause then I know I´ll start to cry, haha. We´re going grocery shopping on Saturday and then Sunday will be our cooking day!!! I´m very excited to cook with her, I think it will be a lot of fun! She´s an excellent cook...the only complaint I have so far was the "tuna pudding" that she served one day...there are some things that you just shouldn´t puree, and tuna is one of them. But usually, the food is amazing here (I still can´t wait to go home to eat though! I´ve been having cravings for frosted flakes, of all things). She has decided that we have to have vanilla ice cream, because one time I mentioned that I like it and last night, when Emilio asked if I liked it, she replied with, "La encanta", which means more like she loves it. They are also concerned because I´ve been eating a lot of coconut yogurt (yogurt or fruit are my dessert choices here), because that´s what I told them that I like. So they think I´m all coco-ed out, and we need to buy a new kind, so we had a 10 minute conversation about all the different kinds of yogurts they have here (they have apple, isn´t that odd?).
So mis amores, I bid you once more Happy Thanksgiving...I wish you all the best and I can´t wait to see you!
***********A WEEK FROM TOMORROW I LEAVE FOR ROME!!!!*************
posted by Unknown @ 3:22 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home