It's tuesday!

Hola mis leer-ers!

This is Tanner, your friendly blog post host.

The last three days have passed in a fury. Sunday was all about getting to León. I was super pumped. Everyone was super pumped. We pulled off the freeway and rode into León with confidence because we’re American and we can do anything. The problem, as we realized while pulling up to the school, was that our protective barrier of americans was soon going to dissipate all across the city. We pulled up to an expectant bunch of people (I’m talking about 50 spaniards here) who we knew spoke english on the same level as any household pet. Our confidence from here was a little better than shattered. One of our group was either cold, scared, or some combination of both because they were shaking like a chihuahua in the arctic. There’s American confidence for you.

I decided to sound the charge and jumped off the bus right after Tony (our leader). Similar to a polar plunge, I felt like I had walked straight into a trap. I thought: “Wait. Why did I do that? This isn’t going to be fun! This was a terrible idea!” Those thoughts lasted for about 10 seconds until everyone else was out of the bus and my shield was back up. 2 minutes later my shields had been destroyed again and My host mom (Puri), her Sister (Bea), Bea’s daughter and I were all walking across a lovely little park towards their house. As we crossed the park I learned their names and their relations and realized none of them spoke a word of english besides “no” (which I’ve heard is fairly universal and didn’t help much).

We arrived at their house and took a small(3 person) elevator up 3 flights to their apartment where I was able to enjoy being completely at a loss of all spanish with an expectant Spanish mother looking at me. I still have no idea what was said in those incredibly long 5 minutes. Their apartment is a long ‘L’ shape and after she literally had to poke my backpack while saying something about a mochillo I took it off and we embarked on a tour. A picture is worth a thousand words they say. That is true. I really have no idea what she said 100% of the time but still managed to decipher which room the baño and cocina were. Did you know that spanish kitchens and bathrooms look exactly like American ones? Who would have thought…

At the end of the ‘L’ was a stylish looking dude playing Age of Empires on his computer. And while he was losing badly he tried his best to introduce himself. His name is Jorge and he was the family’s 20 year old male. That’s so cool! My family has one too! I quickly found out Jorge was really nice but he too talked faster than an auctioneer.

Jorge asked me if I wanted to have a tour of the city. It was the first bit of mutually understood spoken word that passed between us. I was thrilled and naturally I obliged. León is quite a city. Much smaller than Madrid but the people here are also content to live in a state of confusion and possible panic although none of them seem like they’re really lost. I finally realized why everyone has motorcycles. It’s mobile, like walking, and you can cover the same amount of ground you need to to become ‘unlost’ faster. Perhaps they all have GPS. Fun fact. Most acronyms in english are backwards in spanish. Por ejemplo: NATO -> OTAN.

Outside the house we met Jorge’s friend Oscar. Oscar can only be described as Han Solo: good looking and a rascal. Oscar would literally comment on almost every single attractive girl that we passed (which is a lot in León). We made our way using collective GPS power to a bar and proceeded to play darts. Oscar and Jorge explained the games to me as we went along and it turns out Oscar is a pro at darts. He won every game but one (which I one. Bueno). Jorge didn’t look too pleased at the results of the games and I thought he might be mad/jealous of my sick darts skills. I was a little worried it would strain our relationship a little but it was all ok.

We headed back to the house smelling VERY strongly of smoke from the bar and my shirt is just beginning to smell better. I’ve never really been exposed to cigarette smoke before and my throat is still raw from breathing in Madrid. The bars are about 25% breathable air and 75% smoke. The food Puri made was (and has continued to be) incredible. I need to figure out how to tell them that Americans don’t eat THAT much food though.

--NEW SUBJECT--

School is great. Teachers are wonderful. It’s awesome learning in an immersion environment because we are forced to think in spanish. Some of the teachers literally speak less english than we speak spanish.

Tonight is Tuesday. A lean night for León partygoers. But they’ll still be out there until 5am. I don’t get it. I need sleep. I’ll provide some sick pics to accompany this sick text sometime in the future. Or check my Facebook to get pics from the Facebook obsessed in my party. A quote from one of them: “Ugh. I need to put these pictures up now or I might not do it for two days!” There’s all the hard work done for me. Check Facebook.

--Edit from wednesday morning--

Soooooo…. it turns out that if you want, tuesday can be a party night. Never again on tuesday. I’m soooo tired. I really don’t understand how people can stay out til 3am and be functional in class. I think I might have to ask my host brother how he maintains control of his smoke-levels because I have two entire sets of clothing now that smell like a tobacco blaze. necesito limpiar mi ropa.

If you guys have questions please comment.