Another Week Passed

Hey peeps! I have had quite the week this past week! I was just laying low in Sevilla studying for midterms and such. I woke up with a 24-hour bug on Tuesday morning, which would just figure since I had a midterm paper due Wednesday and 2 midterms Thursday. I managed to make it to my classes, but having to excuse myself every now and then. Gotta save those absences for traveling!! Wednesday found me feeling better, weak and headache-y, but better. I managed to make it through the week somehow. I’m not sure how well I did on my midterms, but they’re over now and I don’t have to think about them anymore!

Since I haven’t blogged in a while, I haven’t even written about what I got to do last weekend. I was out exploring the city a little bit with my new friend, Taylor from Texas, when she said that some of her friends were over close to the cathedral playing guitar and singing, and that we should go watch. Sure enough, 2 of her guy friends were taking turns playing and singing, and had their guitar case open for people to throw in money if they felt so inclined. I mentioned that I wished I could play the guitar so I could do something like that, and so James got me to get up there and sing with him. It took us a few songs to get it together, but soon we were making some magic and jamming out to “Sweet Home Alabama” on one of the more crowded streets in Sevilla. People were stopping to listen and actually quite a few were throwing money in the guitar case. We had a blast doing it and decided that if we practiced a little bit together, we could quite possibly make our going-out money doing something we both love to do. So, seeing as there might be more to come, stay tuned for news from the musical escapades of Callie and James.

So most of you have heard or may have read something about my dissatisfaction with the food that my host mother serves Jennifer and I. Well, out of the want to try and be positive about every aspect of this experience, I have been holding back from writing about how truly awful the food actually is in my house. Everyday before lunch and dinner, Jennifer and I sit in our room listening to the crackle and sizzle of the deep fryer, and wonder and fret if we’re going to be able to stomach what we are about to be served. And more often than not, we already know the answer, which leads me to a story of epic proportions. This past Tuesday night, Jen and I were called into dinner and because she was finishing up a skype call, I got to be the first to witness what we were imminently expected to consume- a plate full of nothing but 8 fried chicken nuggets. I kid you not when I say “nothing but”. There was nothing on either of our plates but chicken nuggets. I’m not sure what happened to diversity of color on a dinner plate, but it was definitely lacking on this night more than usual! As I sat there staring at my place with a huge smile on my face (because it was humorous at this point), Jennifer walked in and I told her I was smiling but I really just wanted to cry. Normally I can stomach a chicken nugget, but the kind she gives us are the most awful tasting things I have ever encountered; I’m really not even sure they are chicken. Our host dad was at work and our mom just happened to not be eating with us this night- she was just coming in and out of the room. So as we sat there, stared at each other, tried to nibble at a nug or 2, and talked about what we should do, I asked Jennifer if the window was open or closed because I couldn’t tell. (This window being about 4 feet away from me on my right and open enough so that there was about a 12 by 12 inch opening.) She simply responded with, “Open, I think. Why?” She found out why as soon as I stood up and hummed a chicken nugget out of our 7^th floor apartment window into the courtyard below. Overtaken with shock, Jennifer started laughing so hard and could not stop so then of course neither could I. When we regained control of ourselves, Jennifer decides to try this clever idea, but misses the window and hits the curtain instead. Since she was on the other side of me, I had to be the one to get up and search for this thing quick before our host mom came back in. So I’m looking and looking and I can’t find the damn thing anywhere. I can hear our host mom coming so I sit down right before she re-enters the room with her cup of tea. It was taking all that we had to hold it together- I think Ma thought we just had a case of the giggles. She started rummaging through a basket of phonebooks that sits right beneath the window, and I just knew she was about to find this chicken nugget. Fortunately, she did not, and she left the room again. Before I know it, Jennifer is trying again and she hits the curtain AGAIN, but this time the thing gets wedged between two folds of the curtain and you could literally see it sitting there in the curtains! I hopped up and grabbed that thing as fast as I possibly could and was barely seated when Ma came waltzing back in with a yogurt for each of us. So we are all sitting there and Jennifer and I are like ok where is this other chicken nugget?? Ma left the room again and so again I hopped up to search for this chicken nugget. I just started shaking the curtain and down falls the missing chicken nugget! I picked it up and threw it out the window and sat down to catch my breath! As much of a rush as it was, we decided that since there were so many people down below, we wouldn’t throw anymore chicken nugs out the window. The image of pegging someone in the head with one already had us in stitches. So we ate our yogurts, stuffed about 2 nugs down in the container and stuffed our napkins on top to hide them. Since we managed to make it look like we’d each eaten about half of the nugs without actually having eaten a whole one, I would call this a victory. We left dinner starving (but yet victorious) and retreated to our rooms to munch on our beloved granola bars and goldfish that our parents sent us. It was definitely a night I will never forget. I laughed more that night than I had in a while. I guess sometimes our favorite memories come from our least favorite of circumstances.

Tonight I’m going to a Sevilla futbol (soccer) match with some girls. This will be my first European futbol match ever, so I’m looking forward to experiencing the most popular sport live! I am meeting my mama in Rome on Wednesday and we are taking a train down to a town called Positano on the Amalfi Coast. We’ll stay there for the weekend and then come back to Sevilla for the week. I can’t wait to hug on her and catch her up on everything I have been doing the last 2 months. We’ve never really had just a mother daughter-trip, so I’m very excited to get to share this part of my world with the best mom in the whole world! This is all I have to report for now so until next time, Ciao!! Xoxo.