Weekend in Miajadas

Lola's backyard in Miajadas

This past weekend, I went to Miajadas with my host mom to visit her family. She and I took the bus there on Friday afternoon and once we got there, Maria (my host sister) and her boyfriend picked us up and we went to Lola's mom's house... my Spanish abuela :) The weekend was full of going from piso to piso, drinking coffee and talking. On Friday night, Lola, Maria, and I walked around around the town for an hour or so and then we met up with more of Lola's family, where I met her brother, his children, and his baby granddaughter. For dinner, we had one of my favorite foods: tortilla patata with asparagus in it. Yummm.

On Friday night, I went to bed at 11pm and I slept until 1:30pm the next day... and the only reason I woke up was because Lola woke me. I still can't believe I haven't adjusted to the time here! So I went to the kitchen and Maria was making what looked like something I knew I would love because it involved Nutella. She was putting layers upon layers of Nutella and peanut butter on these tortilla pastries. It was incredible. 

So much PB and Nutella...

Mi hermana, madre, y abuela :)

Then we had an Italian dish for lunch... Spaghetti Carbonara. After lunch, I took another siesta with the brasero. Sometimes, I feel like I don't do anything here except eat and sleep. After my nap, Lola and I came back to Caceres and she made another one of my favorite meals... pescado. 

Spaghetti Carbonara

Pescado

Homemade Coconut Cookies

Yesterday, I went to church with my friend, Audra. I met Audra in Spain two years ago when I was studying abroad and when she was doing her student teaching. We went to the same church that I went to two years ago, where one of the pastors is from Iowa as well! It was good to see a couple familiar faces. Then I walked home in the pouring rain and I guess that was my excuse to do nothing for the rest of the day. On top of the fact that I was completely lazy, Lola decided to make these coconut creme cookie desserts. Not good. I think I ate three or four in one sitting. For dinner, we had salad so we wouldn't feel so guilty for eating so many cookies. We ended the night by watching Harry Potter in Spanish... it was Lola's first time watching it and I think she was a little scared.

Today at school, I followed around three different teachers. First, I was with the art teacher and I helped the students make Father's Day gifts. (It's Father's Day in Spain tomorrow... Happy Father's Day, Dad!) During second period, I observed a math class... and for the last three class periods of the day, I followed around the music teacher who is also the science teacher. In the first music class with 6th graders, he asked me to introduce myself and talk about my musical background. I said that I can play piano so I guess that means that I can sing, too, because the teacher asked me to sing "Imagine" by John Lennon in front of the class. That didn't go so well. I also got to play the box drum today while the teacher played the Spanish guitar. And now I want to be a Spanish music teacher.

 After lunch today, I took yet another siesta (I don't know why I keep doing this... now I won't be able to sleep until 3am tonight). Then Paige woke me up two hours later and I went with her to her internship at a Spanish tutoring place. I decided to sign up for tutoring because I'm not feeling so good about my Spanish speaking skills. So after Semana Santa, I'm going to try working with a tutor a couple times a week. Then I did a little shopping for the first time since being here (I know, I'm shocked, too), Skyped my good friend Sarah B for a couple hours, ate some cookies and Nutella with Paige, and then ate dinner. 

Burning off all that Nutella

Paige and I are starting to feel like "gorditas" lately given all the food we've been eating, so tonight we decided to do some exercises in the living room. As we were doing our excercises that we got from Pinterest, Lola and Susana walked in and Lola started leading our workout (which wasn't very effective). Then she said she'd be right back and she went to go get her exercise ball. Enjoy the video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiNR4hvZeBI