Every Little Thing is Going to be All Right

We are currently listening to Bob Marley in the apartment.

Hmmm... the last 24 hours. After my last post, I spoke to my host mother Annabel for about 1.5 hours covering many topics. She is very easy to talk to and it went really well. I learned that she LOVES Big Brother and watches every single episode of every season. She ask if mom like Big Brother (I tried to explain what the Biggest Loser is but she didnt understand). She asked about our sports and excercise and was blown away that mom and dad run most days for 5k. She also was shocked that water was free in restaurants. After that, I left at 20:00 to meet with the other CIEE students to get some tapas (while watching futbol :) ). The girls outnumber the guys like 3:1. My group consisted of me and one other guy, with 12 chicas. The tapas were pretty good, a well-known one that I've had twice now is solomillo whiskey (a chicken I think haha).

God's faithfulness: I was looking around and contemplating whether this one girl down the table was a Christian (just in the way she acted) and during that time a girl leaned across the table (different girl) and asked me in Spanish, Austin are you a Christian? I said yeah, then the guy next to me said "Me too!" (Pounds all around then followed). They both live near me and we will try to check out some churches this semester. The guy with me is also a Navigator at his respective PennU school. After tapas we took the bus to the center of the city for a "bar tour"
which ended at a discoteca. It was okay, I obviously don't drink so somewhat stand out haha, but met another awesome Christian guy during the process, that attends school at Drake in Iowa. Since when is Drake in Iowa? I hope to be able to travel with him. The discoteca was alright - more fun for most I'm sure. We entered the teca and headed to the top floor, where we 30-some americans were stared at by all of the tables surrounding the dance floor were filled with Spaniards. My clothes smell sooooo smokey.

I went to bed at about 4:30. The taxi, which we split with three people, was a total of 10 Euros. I was happy about paying only three Euros for a ride across the city. I woke up at noon (only to be polite, I am exhausted still). Anna is preparing el almuerzo now and we'll eat soon. The shower situation I will get used to, the stream is VERY weak but the water is as hot as you want it to be. I then played games with Thiago for about an hour. He is very cute and fun, but doesn't know all the rules yet. He LOVES drums, trumpets, any loud musical instrument. We also played with a ping pong ball and paddles in his little room, which I consistently needed to tell him to not bang the wall with the paddle. He's fun though. I never know how much interaction they expect from me. I want to intereact with them as much as possible but not be the annoying study abroad student who never leaves them alone. I also don't want them to think I am a "shut-in" type of person. Meh. Who knows.

Today I need to buy a bus pass that will be about 7 Euros/week. However we were given a 200 Euro stipend for a "travel stipend" :) I am going to finally try to take some photos today, although it's raining. I may walk around the city alone this afternoon to check it out. Or I may ask some guys that live in my apartment. Buenas dias!

Austino