Today, I bid adieu to my weekend guests. On Friday, my good friend Viola flew in. With her, she brought another girl from her program and two Grenadiño boys, Jose and Javier. Oh, what a crazy time it was!
I enjoyed having them here, but in a way it drove me crazy. First, the upsides:
• Javi and Viola cooked for me! On Saturday we had Spanish tortillas (a concotion of potatoes and onions cooked in olive oil and scrambled eggs, all cooked up in a solid cake), and on Sunday, we feasted on paella. We only had “Dutch” food one night, and that’s only because we went to dinner at a pannekoeken restaurant.
• Viola and I got to see the Van Gogh museum together! She’s Van Gogh crazy, so it was fun to take her to a great Dutch treasure
• I got to practice more Spanish, and I’m not as bad as I think I am.
• It was great having a good friend here with whom I could hang out and talk.
• Walking around your city with new eyes puts a fresh glow on everything! I noticed so many beautiful things this weekend that I usually walk right past. And, I got to show one of my best Pacific buddies some of my favorite places from my study abroad adventure.
• Every night was like a slumber party.
And the downsides:
• Every night was like a slumber party. I don’t think I slept more than 7 hours on any night.
• The Spanish eat dinner really late; we never started cooking before 8.30 on any night, and we often ate dinner around 11 or midnight, depending on how long it took for us to cook.
• By the end, Jose really got on my nerves. He had this thing about correcting me, which is annoying. I mean, I live here, not him. I was wrong on one point: Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands, but Den Haag (The Hague) is the seat of government, so I assumed it was the capital. Jose also liked to joke around when it wasn’t always funny.
• Spaniards walk really slow. They often trailed behind when we went anywhere. And, the walk from my apartment to the train station is already twenty minutes at a moderate pace, so even longer drove me crazy.
• I couldn’t ride my bike. Lord, how I love my bike. I now have bike privileges back.
Overall, it’s nice to have my bike back but sad to see them go. I had a great weekend, and now I need to buckle down and churn out another draft of my art paper by Thursday. It’s a working weekend for me, and then I’ll be in Paris next weekend!