Seth, me being the popular kid, and a story (for the very dedicated only)

Seth's visit to Madrid was phenomenal. I can't believe I haven't told you about it yet! The first night he was here we went to the San Gines Chocolateria for some chocolate con churros with friends (chocolate: a mug of dark, pudding-like warm chocolate; churros: long, skinny, crunchy on the outside but doughy on the inside pieces of heaven). He fell in love with Spain immediately. We went to Toledo the first weekend he was here, which we both agree is much nicer than Madrid. Even when you get lost in its labrynthine streets--more like alleyways. We got there late Friday night and walked to a hostel that's actually a 14th century Moorish castle, but sadly, it was booked. We ended up walking about twenty minutes in the dark and finally came to an obscure alleyway with our much cooler hostel (we need to remind ourselves of this) in a house that smelled like cats, owned by a sweet elderly couple. It was incredibly cheap, and pretty central, so we were happy campers. The weekend was spent getting lost, eating ice cream and marzipan, gawking at architechture, and watching the sunset and the city light up.

The next weekend I took off school for us to go to Morocco! Seth and I visited this cool girl Rebecca (one of Jennie's friends--and mine, now, too!) who's teaching English in Casablanca. The first night we went to this really fancy restaurant with Rebecca and Chris (her boyfriend who moved from CA to Casablanca to be with her). The food was amazing--I had lamb with apricots, dates and almonds in this kind of sweet sauce. We talked about what a contradictory culture Morocco is: faithfully praying to Mecca five times a day, but a high percent of men cheating on their wives. It made waking up to the call to prayer at five the next morning a beyond eerie experience. We went to Marrakech our second day, which is south of Casablanca. It's famous for its market: a huge, open-air plaza filled with snake charmers, henna artists, dried fruit stands, horse-drawn carriages, and lots of European tourists trying not to get completely ripped off.

Seth and I got to our hostel from the train station on a RICKETY horse-drawn carriage, which we shared with an amiable black man. It turned out he was a member of the French parliament and he was in Morocco for a week studying its economy with members of parliament from other European countries. He told us that 45% of Moroccans live on under $2 a day and pursuaded our coachman not to rip us off to bad because "They're students! They're students! (You ought to be ashamed of yourself.)" At first he had wanted to pay for us altogether, but we wouldn't let him. I like French people. :) Seth and I walked around the market our first night there, quickly realizing that the best way to resist being harrassed by people trying to sell you their products (food, a monkey show, sweet leather slippers) was to just avoid all eye contact. You have to keep walking constantly or you'll be antagonized by another merchant. It can get exhausting. Rick Steves describes the people as "oppressively friendly." Right on, Rick. Seth and I were watching a beautiful older woman painting henna on some younger women's hands. We planned on coming back the next night to get henna tattoos ourselves, but when the woman finished with her clients she approached us and started painting a flower on my hand. "Just a little one"--a demonstration, she made it seem. The flower kept getting bigger and bigger until a vine spread over my whole hand. I had told her I couldn't pay tonight--I didn't have any money. She said, "No problem, no problem," and kept painting. When she finished she said, "That's twenty durham." Seth and I were shocked--she had seemed so nice--so maternal and sincere. I grabbed Seth's hand and we booked it to another stand, appalled at what had just occurred, without paying. My friend Mike didn't get so lucky--he ended up paying 100 durham for henna art in Marrakech. What a rip off. We loved Marrakech, though. It was just so non-Western. So foreign. Not many Americans experience such a completely different culture--and whole mentality.

Back in Spain Seth and I enjoyed long talks, picnics in Retiro Park, going out with my friends, celebrating Halloween at Biz's place, eating amazing Galician food at Seth's new favorite restaurant :), having a surprise two days off from school--I didn't have my schedule yet, and none of the teachers told me we had a holiday. It's too bad, because we would have gone to Granada that weekend if we'd known I had that much time off. But staying around Madrid was amazing, too.

I love living in this city. The night Seth left, my friend Melissa and I were sitting on a park bench when a garrulous (hehe--new GRE word) old gentleman approached us and told us he was 100 years old. He told us that he'd fought in the war (the Spanish Civil War) and showed us a battle scar on his head where he'd been shot with a bullet. I think it just nicked his head, way back 70 years ago--in a war most people have forgotten. I saw him later talking to some other strangers--three 30s-ish men on a bench. I loved his uninhibitedness. I'm reading a phenomenal book right now: Anne Lamott's "Traveling Mercies." In one part of the book she talks about seeing a movie about gypsies--the young and the old women dance in the movie. The young ones dance because they're beautiful and the old ones because they're uninhibited, but what about the middle-aged ones? "Coming out of the movie that night, I realized that I want what the crones have: time for all those long deep breaths, time to watch more closely, time to learn to enjoy what I've always been afraid of--the sag and the invisibility, the ease of understanding that life is not about doing." The invisibility is what I've been thinking about lately--someday I'll be old an invisible. That might be nice. Now I'm kind of a self-conscious people-pleaser, a lot of the time. Self-conscious: like, feeling awkward speaking Spanish with my roommates, or other people, or just socializing in general. Feeling very visible, like my mistakes are very visible, and that people even care about my mistakes. It was cool thinking about how uninhibited that 100 year old man must have felt. Unembarrassed--he had nothing to lose talking to people I'd be intimidated talking to.

If I felt how I do with the students I teach with everyone, I'd be so much smoother. I am so popular at school. The little little ones, with their wet, snotty faces, love me. They grab onto my legs, five at a time, and I walk them around the classroom. The older kids (12-16 year olds) love practicing their English with me--but they feel self-conscious, too! And they shouldn't! Yesterday I talked about American food with my older kids and showed them Michael Jackson's "Beat It" video on YouTube, then Weird Al's parody "Eat It." They ate it up (haha--get it?). Then some of them practiced their English with me after class--I think my Spanish is better than their English, but they communicated fine.

Tonight I'm having a girls-only potluck here. I bought my plane ticket to come home for Christmas--thanks to a gift from my very generous grandpa. Gosh, I love that man. I can't wait to be home. I wish I were going to be home for Thanksgiving, which my family's celebrating right about now--early this year because Dad's having surgery Tuesday. Pray for him, if you think of it.