will-be women, would-be thieves

The kids in the kindergarten/1st grade class acted out Peter Pan last week. They could choose between Wendy, Peter Pan, Captain Hook or Tinkerbell. Natalia, Javier, Carlos and Angela (pictured above left to right) chose Tinkerbell. Isa says that Javier will be a woman one day. I think it might be still a bit early to tell....but he does love putting on makeup whenever he gets the chance.

Here's a picture of my new haircut. It's a pretty bad picture, but almost all of them are. I guess that means it's a bad haircut. Mark is in the process of providing overseas tech support to Carey in this picture. He wanted to be sure to get credit for that.

It was really foggy last week and there was a pile up of over 100 cars on the same highway that we take to school every day from Toledo (but a little north of Yunclillos, so no teachers from my school were in it). A lot of injuries but no one died.

On the way back from the airport last Wednesday Mark and I were on the metro, it was 6pm and we were packed like the clothes in Laura's suitcase on her trip home. At one point a man moved a couple feet from where he was standing so that he was right next to me. I noticed it but didn't think anything of it. A couple minutes later I thought I felt my backpack move. I looked back and saw his coat draped over his arm/hand and thought maybe he'd been trying to unzip my backpack's side pocket. I didn't really do much, just kept glancing back every now and then, not worried because the most he'd get out of any of my backpack pockets would be a couple pens. It wasn't until we got to the bus station that I realized my backpack's front pocket was completely unzipped. It's contents -- a pair of dirty socks and underwear I'd forgotten to take out from the weekend trip to Nuria's house -- were, not surprisingly, still there.

fires and my hot boyfriend

These are the fires we jumped over last weekend. After all the jumping, we opened all the doors to the house and bread store so the smoke would enter and said something in Spanish that means ''out with the bad, in with the good.''



This one was kind of big, I don't blame Maria (Nuria's mom) for side-stepping it.


This is the bread penis I mentioned in the last entry. Maria is quite the fiesty one. I danced with her a few songs last weekend and while we danced she and Isa were bumping butts together and saying ''Bwah!'' every time. I liked her a lot, despite the fur collar on her coat.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2060215&l=496da&id=36106375

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2060422&l=d89a4&id=36106375

That first link is pictures from Christmas and mom's visit. The second link is me and Luvie's trip to Roma.

Mark got here on Wednesday, and his bags arrived Friday (thank goodness!) The flight came in about 6 hours late, and Mark had a migraine headache, but other than that everything went smoothly. We spent the long weekend going to free museums in Toledo, watching Desperate Housewives and playing frisbee in the park. Now I have to go to school tomorrow and leave him alone with Raquel, who has already told me how hot she thinks he is. Not to worry, she's also expressed how completely embarrased she's going to be being in the apartment with him unable to talk to each other. She's maybe the most embarrased person I've ever met...she was embarrassed to study by herself in the library last week.

San Sebastian

This weekend was awesome. I went to Poyalos, a pueblo of Avila, where Nuria is from. It was their yearly fiesta in honor of San Sebastian. Upon arrival at Nuria´s house, I met her mom, who immediately produced a bread penis as a gift for Isa. (Nuria´s family owns a bread store). Then we took part in a procession where four families carried the four legs of the carrier of San Sebastian from a small church to a big church. (Each family paid about 250€ for this honor. Four more families would later pay about the same to carry him from the big church to the small church. And then someone else would pay even more to put him back in the place he´ll stay till next year´s party).

After the procession people crowded around for the ´´auctioning off´´ of the rights to carry San Sebastian. I saw the craziest neck beard I´ve ever seen. I pointed it out to Isa, who told me it belonged to a man named Frederico who is an amazing storyteller and also brilliant, but brilliant to the point of being a little crazy.

Then we went to a bar where everyone knew everyone. I met Frederico´s daughter, and a man named Luis with longish gray hair and different earrings in each ear. He told me about the horrible year he spent living in a commune in Paris in the 70´s. Then he did a magic trick involving a napkin (doing magic in the street was how he earned his keep in the commune).

Later that night we (and everyone else in the town) lit three small fires, one outside each door to the house and bread store. We each took turns jumping over the fires, which were made out of a plant called romero (rosemary maybe?). The romero smelled really strongly, and there was so much of it burning that it was almost unbearable. The sight of all the small fires reminded me of the aftermath of an alien attack from Independence Day or something. It was kind of unreal.

I think so

Well Laura and I successfully navigated Rome without being pickpocketed, and with only one encounter with the overly aggressive Italian men you always are warned about. We saw the Colosseum, the Sistine Chapel, and 7 of the other ´´top 10 sites´´ in Rome without really waiting in line. Laura says we´re saavy travellers. I might have to agree.

School is still going well. We studied about the female reproductive system in Miriam´s class on Wednesday. (See ´´el aparato digestivo´´ entry but substitute the words ´´vagina, vulva, ovaries and uterus.´´)

I got my hair cut yesterday. Capas y flequillos. (Layers and bangs). I´m not sure if I like it yet. Isa literally laughed for about 2 solid minutes upon seeing me, it might have been the loudest I´ve heard her laugh since I´ve been here.

In Rome a Polish guy named Suavik checked in at the same time as Laura and I. Later that afternoon Laura spotted him in the street and we invited him to come to the Colosseum with us, he agreed even though he´d already been there that morning. As we approached, Laura and I weren´t sure where the entry was. So we asked our Polish friend, whose English, despite living in London the past 3 years, is still a bit shaky.
us´´Is that where you enter?´´
Suavik ´´I don´t know.´´
us ´´Well did you go inside this morning?´´
Suavik ´´I think so.´´