i love that maria and juan stay up late to watch tv together.
the dynamics of marriage in spain are incredibly different than they are in the states. i learned today that it's definitely a lot less common for people in spain to marry. in fact, people that do marry, don't always take the name or don't always have rings. also, there's something else thats pretty common here called "las parejas de hecho"...where basically you have all of the rights to marriage without the intense commitment. es intersante, no?
but either way, i like to sit back and watch how maria and juan interact. how they're in love, and how it's not how you typically would picture love. yesterday during our politics/life/art conversation, juan started talking about maria. he spoke of her with such a deep value. it was so beautiful to see such a man as juan, well established and ridiculously strong and smart, become subtly just a bit softer when he spoke of his wife. i loved it.
it's possible that love doesn't always look like what we think. i love that about love.
today was an incredibly sleepy day. i slept for only about 4-5 hours, and when i woke up, juan immediately thought it necessary, and probably comical, to give an intense vocabulary/spanish language conceptual challenge to puffy, red-eyed, stumbling over her words, Brooke.
he kept explaining to me the concept of gossip and knowing everyone's business in the spanish culture, and was giving me really difficult words to learn and pronounce and to repeat and to use to speak to him, but i just couldn't get it. i couldn't. my brain wasn't there. Juan finally looked at me and said:
"Brooke, you keep saying 'si, si' to me, but you have no idea what i am talking about."
He couldn't have been more right. He then continued to grill my knowledge of the spanish language, without hesitation.
thanks, juan. i know i'll thank you for this morning one day.
needless to say, today was maybe the hardest ones i've had, spanish wise and life wise. my allergies were terrible, eyes completely swollen and red, and i was exhausted. i realized that when i don't sleep, the condition of my attitude shifts dramatically. sometimes in my head i'm really mean..and i know that it's then time for a nap. i remember thinking to myself at lunch and at dinner today, I JUST WANT TO SPEAK ENGLISH. i was tired. and speaking spanish, or english for that matter, became incredibly difficult.
thankfully, i got a really good siesta in. i felt a lot better afterwards, and had to let my love for spanish, and this adventure be renewed and redeemed. it just gets hard sometimes. it's a part of life, i'm sure. tomorrow will be better. it WILL be. i WILL be fluent. and i WILL like it.
on another note. i have a few observations/interesting nuggets to share with you.
1. the oldest mcdonalds in spain is in madrid. there they serve beer, and maybe wine. who doesn't love chicken nuggets and wine? shoot. that's a perfect first date. it's the little things, yalls.
2. today, monique and i got completely looked up and down by a nun. it was maybe the most terrifying moment of my life. even more terrifying than the moment i'm about to tell you about in number 3. we were walking home from school, and i was dressed like a normal human...long shorts and a normal, relatively modest shirt, bright red shoes, hair on top of my head, and monique was wearing here white shorts--not intensely short, but still shorts none the less. not only did we get looked up and down by this said nun, but everywhere we went today, people stared at our legs. apparently, according to maria, in spain it's weird to wear shorts if you arent at the beach. who knew? not us, clearly. hence the nun. and the many women who acted as if they'd never seen legs. ridiculous.
3. spain care more about saving energy than they do about saving my life. last night when monique and i came back the flat at around 2 am, all of the lights were off in the building. ALL of them. monique refuses to take the elevator, so we had to climb 9 flights of stairs, in the complete pitch dark. all that i could think at the top of each flight was "oh no oh no un violador! a killer! they're going to kill me. i'm going to die". each time i nearly pooped my pants from fear. this is no bueno. however, we learned this morning that there were automatic light switches we could have used. sheesh. all of that fear for nothing. kory and mom: i remembered your safety talks. you wouldn't have approved of this situation.
4. apparently, i don't look american.
5. spanish men really like redheads. this makes life uncomfortable sometimes. today i wore a fake wedding ring (although as learned previously in this post, wedding rings are sometimes irrelevant en espana). kory and mom: i remembered your safety talks here too. i will never talk to men. ever.
6. i am perfectly capable at conquering a metro in a foreign country. YES.
now that i've shared with you my many nuggets of spanish wisdom, i sleep. we have a day trip to segovia tomorrow. and i need to want to speak spanish. it will be a good day. it will be a much, much better day...si dios quieres. :)
goodnight my friends.
love to you all.
brooke.
I <3 your blog and it makes me miss you even more.
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