Sunday, December 13, 2009

Furry Friends

My roommate, Juan, has 10 hamsters. Ok, fine. A little weird, but I can get over it. Previously, he had 30, but he gave 20 of them to a pet store. Good.

A few weeks ago, I was peeking into the cage in the living room, watching the furry little things run around. Oddly, I could only find 7 hamsters. 'What could have happened to the other 3?', I wondered. 'Did they die? Did he give them to his 10 year old daughter in Marbella? Or to his 6 year old son in Burgos?' I didn't spend much time thinking about it, and continued on with my day.

Fast forward to yesterday.

I've been sick with the flu for a while, and last night I ventured out into the kitchen for some tea and ice cream. I switched on the light, but it was one of those fluorescent lights that takes forever for turn on. So, in the darkness, I heard a quiet scurrying. I paused. It couldn't be the dog, because the dog had gone somewhere with Juan. The light finally kicked in. I saw something small and light colored run across the kitchen floor. 'Oh no!', I thought, 'we have mice!' But, this particular mouse didn't have a tail. In fact, it was furry, like a hamster. In my slightly delirious state, I couldn't decide what to do. The hamster stood near the door, cleaning its paws and staring at me. I stared back. Eventually, I decided to continue with the task at hand: get some tea. The hamster made a dash for the refrigerator. I haven't seen it since.

There are 2 other missing hamsters.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Blair Waldorf

I harbor a secret fear that I will become like the people I watch on television. I have never feared that I would turn into a large mound of ice cream (you are what you eat), but I do fear that I could become like the self-centered, money-obsessed main character of Gossip Girl (you are who you watch) ..but only if I watch too much TV.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Yesterday, for the first time, I had an overwhelming feeling of joy for being here in Spain. It's not that I haven't been happy for the past two months, because I have been. More accurately, it was the first time that I was happy to be happy in Spain.

I set my alarm to wake up early with the intention of running some potentially complicated errands. As I drifted into an awakened state, I noticed the complete darkness in my room, which seemed odd for 8am. Then I remembered that I had closed the contraption (similar to a small garage door) that covers the outside of my window the night before, in an attempt to keep some heat inside. Squeakily opening the garage door, I saw a normal sunlit day outside, with puffy marshmallow clouds and bright blue sky behind. It was an average December day in Estepona (much like a late spring day in Seattle).

I breakfasted my usual fruit granola, yogurt, and honey, and ventured into town, holding back yawns. I headed for the bank. I needed to cash my paycheck. Banks can be incredibly complicated, wait times can be long, and unpredictable complications tend to arise. Accordingly, I budgeted 2 hours for a task that would have taken 20 minutes back home. To my surprise, everything went smoothly at the bank. I walked back out the door, cash in hand, 10 minutes after I had arrived! So, with a few extra hours on hand, I decided to run another errand. I went to another bank to deposit this new cash into my personal account. I thought, surely, I will have to hurry to catch my bus to work after completing this second errand (a former language assistant in Spain once gave me a piece of advice: only try to run one errand per day, it will save you stress). Breaking this rule, which I often treat as law, felt rebellious and cocky. I thought I would end up regretting it, but decided to try my luck.

Again, to my utter surprise, I walked back out of the second bank, €'s (Euros) deposited into my account, 15 minutes later. Trying not to get to excited about my seeming ascendance out of the realm of 'total foreigner' (I imagine a ladder with 'total foreigner' at the bottom and 'native' at the top), I decided to get coffee near the bus stop and try to go over my lessons for the day.

I hopped on the bus, and then off the bus 20 minutes later in Cancelada. My lessons were in order. Listening to Macaco, I walked up the hill into Cancelada village. A strong gust of wind blew my hair into my face, so I paused to fix it. I glanced up at a mountain behind the village, and I was struck by how similar it looked to a mountain outside of Wenatchee. I felt at home.

I felt nostalgia for Wenatchee and America, but at the same time I felt at home, right here in Spain.