honey, i'm home!

Got the sun shining on me like a big spotlight...

What do you get when you combine the 1970s and Spain and Catholicism and old lady decorations and Agatha Christy novels in Spanish? Our apartment! It's a little ghetto, but it's HOME!! There will be a video coming soon once we have steady internet that is not having to be stolen. I can't wait to share the quirky objects. Everything in the apartment is gas, though, and that's a little confusing. We've yet to figure out the heater, so it's freezing here in the piso. However, we took a walk to the beach today. It took two minutes. You can't beat that. I've always enjoyed homework more when sitting outside of Scholars. Maybe I'll enjoy it a LOT more if I do it while sitting on the beach!

We have yet to unpack our bags yet. Instead, we went to tiny super markets to find stuff to make lunch. We made pasta.. what an ordeal! It was our first time to use a gas stove, so we had to work with it a bit. I turned on the gas, and Emily bravely lit the match, and we got it going! Then, we accidentally put it out, but we got it going again, and we didn't blow up! Minutes later, we had pasta for lunch. Que delicioso. We may now be pros at working the stove, but the same cannot be said about working the heater, which is sad because it's freezing! The washing machine will be an entirely different problem, but we'll try that one tomorrow...

We had another grand experience in our apartment after lunch: our first showers in the piso! Again, it took a while to figure out the hot water, and it's a little disturbing that you can see a huge flame in the hot water heater when the gas is on, but I guess that's how it's supposed to go... Fortunately, the shower was warm and felt extremely refreshing after not showering for 3 days! I still haven't shaved, but we were pressed for time today because Lucia was coming to pick us up to take us to an actual grocery store. I did, however, change my clothes today! That's an accomplishment. However, as Emily pointed out, looking better can have its consequences, so perhaps I should return to not showering often in hopes that the creepy men in my life decrease.

That was another adventure. There are raw fish laying out on the counters. There are very few American brands. They don't have refrigerated milk; it comes in boxes that can be left out at room temperature. The use detergent and conditioner in their clothes. Still, we got the necessities: potatoes (for Spanish omelets or "tortillas" as the call them), butter, frozen pizza, lots of pasta, bread, meat, cheese, Coca-Cola, water, etc. Oh, we also got lots of cookies because we have discovered the most amazing cookies ever here in Spain. Seriously! They are so good. American cookies cannot compare! Emily and I ate a ton today. It was the first time that we've ate an unstructured meal in Spain, and while it wasn't as good as Big Mama's cooking, it was nice to not feel the need to be proper and display manners. :)

It's so nice being able to lay around our own apartment and not do anything. Now we just have to get our own internet here, prepare for class, and unpack. Oh, and shave. That's definitely on the list. We're still running on a few hours of sleep from the past few days, so it'd probably be in our best interest to actually sleep for once. Can you believe that it's been over two weeks since I left? I can't! It's going by so fast. Mom, Dad, and Aaron will be here in five weeks!!!! I can't wait to see my family!

...so I know everything's gonna be alright.