Day 3 (part iii)

Apparently, there was a lot to write about today.

I met up with the other CIEE students at five and we went to a big mall, Alcalá Magna.  We spent about an hour touring the supermarket inside, which we all thought was kind of silly.  It looked like just a regular supermarket.  Toward the end, they very discreetly split up the girls and the boys, and Cristina showed us where to find the productos femininos.  I don't know what the boys did.

Then we had an hour to ourselves, and I was able to buy some shampoo.  After fifteen minutes of studying labels, I came to the conclusion that Spanish conditioners are typically the kind that go in after you shower, and I didn't know how well that was likely to work on my hair, so I went with a 2-in-1 champú y acondicionado.

We browsed some other shops but I didn't buy anything else just yet.  We go to Madrid on Friday (no Friday classes!  Yippee!), so I'll probably buy some things there.  My host family left out some reference books for me—a couple dictionaries, 501 Spanish Verbs, and a tour book (they've hosted several students before me—I'm the tenth).  The tour book names a couple of shops in Madrid that are supposed to have stylish boots and clothes for very competitive prices.

Everybody here wears skinny jeans and boots.  I want a pair of boots.  Drool.

I brought gifts for my family, but I haven't given them to them yet (what an ugly combination of pronouns...).  I couldn't think of a good time.  Tomorrow.

I'm pretty shy around my family, but I think we'll get used to each other soon enough.  Shortly after I got back from the mall, Adrián came upstairs (after calling, "¿Se puede?") wearing a sombrero de vaquero (cowboy hat) and a parche de pirata (an eyepatch, like a pirate).  I tried them on, and he laughed at me.

My host dad, José, got back from work around eight.  He's very nice, just like my host mom, and they're both very good at speaking slowly so I can understand.  When they talk to each other, though, suddenly I have no idea what's going on.

Adrián and I watched Bob Esponja before dinner.  He is very good at explaining things to me, too.  He breaks up his sentences so I have time to digest each phrase.  He explained that Bob Esponja is the protagonista, and that he and his friend Patricio are muy tontos and are always bothering their neighbor, Calamardo, who doesn't like them very much.  Plancton is the villain, and Don Cangrejo only likes dinero.

It's funny watching a familiar cartoon in Spanish.  I can understand most of it, but it's written for children so maybe that's not much of an accomplishment...

He had a little Goku action figure, and he seemed pleased that I recognized the character from Dragonball.  He's also very into dinosaurios.

Oh, I learned something about CULTURE today!  One of Adrián's toys is a dinosaur that he got for Christmas from los tres reyes, not Santa Claus.  I assume the reference is to the three kings that brought gifts to baby Jesus.  I remember learning about the three kings at some point back in middle school, but I didn't realize they were the ones who gave gifts instead of Santa.  That kind of makes more sense, actually.

Lunch today was pasta and jamón, which didn't feel very Spanish to me.  Adrián put ketchup on his.  Apparently he really likes ketchup.

Dinner was much more Spanish.  My host mom (Ana) made croquetas, which are like little fried ham-and-cheese nuggets (and really tasty).  She made a salad with granadas (pomegranate seeds), which Adrián pointed out had the same name as Granada, the city.  There were chorizo and salchichón (two kinds of Spanish sausage) and manchego and queso azúl (cheeses).  There was also a cranberry marmalade (mermelada de arándanos) that went on the cheese and was very good.

We had turrón for dessert, which I actually recognized.  My eleventh-grade Spanish teacher brought some back for us.  It's a Christmas dessert made out of almonds and nougat.  It tastes almost like peanut butter (or almond butter, I guess).  They also let me try a kind of marzipan cake, which was extremely tasty.

I was expecting lunch to be much bigger than dinner, but they were really kind of the same size.  Dinner was more nibbly things while lunch was one big dish, but it was the same amount of food.  José doesn't have time to come home for lunch because he works in Madrid, about an hour away, so I guess lunch isn't as much of an ordeal.

I told Ana that I really like to cook, and she's going to show me how to make Spanish tortilla tomorrow.  Hopefully I will learn some recipes I can take back!

I have three classes tomorrow from 9:00 to 2:00.  At some point, I need to figure out where I can buy things like notebooks and folders.  I haven't heard anything about that yet.  Maybe they'll touch on it tomorrow.  Maybe they don't take notes in Spain.  They don't have Santa Claus, so who knows?