The secret of life? It's in the sauce!

I'm in the home stretch...only two weeks till lil' Rhody.

Not a whole lot has gone on in the last few weeks. I'm still working a ton and my kids are still crazy. At school some of the classes are preparing for the Christmas pageant and its a disaster. I spent all of last week teaching the 6 first grade classes how to make reindeer with their hands and feet. By the end of the week I was convinced there was no hope for the future of humanity. On a positive note I haven't seen anymore fallen teeth, although none of my students seem to have front teeth anymore. "All I want for Christmas are my two front teeth, my two front teeth..."

My friends from school and I have started playing poker recently, Texas Hold'em to be exact. On Friday I had everyone over my place to play and it was wicked fun. Nothing better than drinks and poker, and the fact that I was dominating didn't hurt.

On Sunday Steve and I went off in search of a Christmas gift for his wife. After four hours or so of walking through the crowded city we were not successful. However, we did have an interesting culinary day: For breakfast we enjoyed a Napolitana, which is basically heaven in your mouth...a flaky, buttery, chocolate crossaint, and for lunch we braved caracoles. Caracoles are snails. Not the French escargot that everyone always thinks of, these are snails in their shells soaking in a spicy oil sauce. While I probably wouldn't have them again because the sauce was too spicy for me, I did enjoy the atmosphere of the bar. It's a famous place at the top of the Rastro that is known for the snails. The old man behind the bar is that notorious old as dirt, never-going-to-retire, possible Francista, loving life gentlemen that rules the place. I would love to listen to him talk about life and the Franco era.

This whole weekend was supposed to be a puente. Today, Tuesday, is a holiday so I don't have to work in Rivas until Wednesday. However, I was supposed to work yesterday at Mosaic. Out of my 9 students on Mondays, not a single one called to tell me they weren't coming to class. Instead I waited from 630 (for my first class) until 830 (my second class starts at 8 but I have to wait a half hour to make sure no one comes) at the academy with not a single one walking through the door. This could have been a pefrect four day weekend to travel somewhere in Spain but instead I had to stay just in case one of my students showed up. Pretty much bullshit if you ask me.

Oh and as promised: A five-hundred euro bill...

Negative: 3,430 miles.

Positive: Lights are up in the city again!

Across the pond

July in the home country, how fantastic!
I left Madrid in the early morning of June 30th, flew into Paris, and headed home to New England. Now I'd love to say that everything went off smoothly, but like always my connection in Paris was awful. The airport was under construction and the signage wasn't so great. But on to more pleasant things: A can of Mountain Dew was waiting for me at the airport!!!...oh and my parents. Haha! I have to be honest, going through security and customs at Logan was horrible, uhh hello? I'm an American citizen! Don't make this difficult for me!
Being home was definitely surreal, not having been in an English speaking country for over nine months was quite the challenge. The first thing I did walking into my big, old, blue house was to make sure my parents didn't change anything, they have a nasty habit of doing that. Everything was the same, with the exception of a few storage boxes that made their way into my room. Even better was the three shopping bags of CVS supplies awaiting me on my bed. Yay for American beauty products! Now, the three most important things that I needed to get done were all schedule for the next morning after my arrival. I'm happy to report that my license has been renewed, I now have an international driver's license, and I took off in my little blue car as soon as we left the parking lot. The next appointment was with my doctor. Unfortunately it was unavoidable, but Dr. Carol made a joke this time! What is the world coming to? And finally but definitely as important as the first two...I got a haircut and color!!! No more split ends and NO MORE GRAY!! Life is good. Oh, and my favorite hairdresser filled me in on all the gossip, she's wonderful. With all that accomplished I was finally ready for my month in the USA.
First weekend home was the Fourth of July. As expected I woke up very early in the morning and headed down to the Arnold Mills Road Race. Let's be honest, Mr. Kenwood never even doubted that I'd come home just for that race. Everything was the same; same confusion at the sign-up desk, same lack of change, same questions answered, same old mistakes made (I'm not naming names), and same old aggression felt towards the late arrivals. No puke in the chute this year so really I have no complaints. Afterward the pool party and food were delicious as always, and seeing the family was fantastic. Headed over to the second family (the D'Ambras) for Amanda's graduation party. Caused some trouble over there, nothing new.
Second weekend home was Lindsay's wedding. Britney came home for it so we had lots of catch-up time...NOT. (this comes into play later) The morning of the wedding my mom and I went for manicures and pedicures, me for the wedding and her for fun. Well I think its pretty lucky on my dad's part that we've never done this before because we milked it. Drinks we served to us, dvds were turned on, and blankets put over our feet all for the sake of keeping our nails perfect. The wedding ceremony was at St. John's so I got to talk with Father Ray again, nice to catch up. The ceremony was beautiful with the groom crying throughout the entire thing. With some time in between the church and the reception Nick and I headed to the bar for some pregaming. We were completely overdressed, but the attention got us free beers so I'm not complaining. Being the last to arrive wasn't a problem because we were at table #2, which was right on the dance floor, with the bride's family. Johnson & Wales made the food so it was absolutely amazing and the bottles of wine on the table were great. The Djs were good, with the exception of their ban on 'line dances', they kept the crowd moving and the songs were great. What a great weekend!
Third weekend home wasn't really at home, I flew to DC to see the college kids. I still have a few friends living down there so I stayed with them. We did the usual, gossip, drink, and play around the city. It was nice and chill, and I had a great time seeing everyone again. Now, as I said before Britney and I had no time to catch up on life so I booked an impromptu ticket out to Los Angeles. I flew from Baltimore to Nashville (wow, a whole new world down there) to LAX...wooo my first time in California. Britney was an excellent tour guide. On the first night we did Santa Monica Blvd. and the pier. It was great just comparing the beaches to ours, so much bigger. At night I met some of her friends at her dinner party. We attempted to teach them High Low, but really only one caught on.
On the first full day we did Hollywood Blvd., the Chinese Theater, Venice Beach, and sunbathed at Hermosa beach. I did develop a horrific burn but such is life. We even got to watch the Red Sox game at one of the local Boston sports bars on the beach.
The next day Steve met me in LA before his class and took me to some of his favorite places. I even met his sister and got to experience his favorite Mexican restaurant. At night Britney took me to the La Brea Tar pits, the USC Coliseum (former Olympic site), and to a great wine bar with her friends. The night was great and the trip was FANTASTIC! The trip home was a little chaotic after a delayed flight but I made the connection, had a good seat companion, and was too tired to care about anything else.
The fourth weekend was my grandmother's birthday party. Tons of family, tons of food, and tons of fun. (You'll notice I don't write too much about family events, really its because the majority of you reading this blog were there!)

Overall, my trip home was great. It was nice to see friends and family after such a long time. Being able to sleep in a big bed, not worry about buying groceries, and have my car to take me everywhere were somethings I didn't realize I would miss so much. Oh, well those and my parents' cooking...incredible.

Negative: Raining almost the entire time I was home.

Positive: Trivia guy remembering me on my first night back and asking how Spain was treating me.