MARTES!

It's funny how many little things there are that you do without even thinking about but here I think about them 9 times, and then end up asking what I should do. Like, do I wear my pajamas to the breakfast table? The answer is, depending on when in the morning I have breakfast. Last night, everyone wore their pajamas to dinner, except me, because I missed that memo, but tonight everyone was in casual clothes that weren't their pajamas - again, except me, because I was in the same clothes I wore all day, which apparently isn't normal. When can I take a shower? The answer is (as I might have guessed), whenever I want. We wear slippers in the house, because it is rude to be barefoot (or so I am told), but do I need to wear them when walking the five feet between the bathroom and my bedroom after a shower? What do I do with my dishes after I eat breakfast? Should I be friendly with the cleaning lady? These remain unanswered. How do I eat my evening pear? The answer is with a knife and fork.

Speaking of which, I am really enjoying the fruit course of every meal. In fact, I am just really enjoying my meals. Today, Paula started her new job, and was out for both lunch and dinner. She usually sits between Gonzalo and Pablo, but today they were next to each other and were hilarious. Gonzalo is SO sassy. And Pablo does anything he can to please his mother, always saying "Claro que si, mami." Gonzalo, meanwhile, asks for a fourth helping of pasta and is refused, and when he demands why and Ana answers that there is none, he (jokingly) cries, "EXCUSAS!" Paula is also very sassy and is always scrunching her nose at Ana, saying "Mami! Por favor!" She came home with some really nice Ray Ban's yesterday, and let everyone try them on except Gonzalo, who threatened something I couldn't understand but apparently would lead to the sunglasses' demise. It seems that Pablo and Paula have some sort of secret alliance that Gonzalo is not in on, because they always take each others' sides, especially against Gonzalo. But when Paula was out the two of them were adorable - they were casually arguing, but when Ana told me that they can't survive apart from each other, Pablo got very embarrassed and Gonzalo made a huge effort to give him a bear hug, which clearly only embarrassed him more. This is all at the dinner table, by the way.

Today I explored a lot - in the morning I wandered around L'Eixample a lot, and in the afternoon I kind of made it to Montjuic. I was almost lost but not really, because I had my map. I found lots of cool cafes and markets, and I bought new sunglasses, an adapter for my Mac, shampoo and conditioner, and what I thought was an ice pack but turned out to be a one-time use instant cold pack. My right foot is liable to turn black and just drop off my leg, the way my neuroma is going. The weird thing is it's better when I'm walking a lot, like around town, than when I am walking a little, like to the dinner table. I'm going to need to load up on ice and ibuprofen when we go to Valencia this weekend as part of orientation! I'm very excited - mostly because if I don't meet people soon I will have to drink an entire liter of sangria by myself at tapas. And that's probably not a good idea. I don't understand why they don't serve it in single glasses as well! Also all of this wandering and eating would be much more fun with some other people. So that is the plan for tomorrow: make friends. And good choices.

I was told that one of my classes at UPF has been canceled, which is bad news bears because the classes I'm taking there are Islam History and Spanish Literature, both of which I really want to take. And of course I have no idea which one is canceled - I'll have to wait for my academic advising meeting tomorrow for that good news. Other than that I have been pleased with my interactions with the IES staff so far - the woman I met today at the other IES building (there are two) was so nice and told me that I speak Spanish very well, so of course I liked her a lot. There are so many nitpicky vocabulary words I don't know. Like "prongs." When I was trying to explain that I didn't need a whole adapter, just something to change the prongs so it would work in the outlets. Or "ice pack." I keep making these horribly put-together sentences, like "It's that I need to put ice in my feet." Or my favorite, when asked if I play any sports, "Juice tennis sometimes", coming from my misconjugation of jugar (because apparently I just learned my verbs) to jugo instead of juego. But people seem to understand, so life goes on.