Energizer Bunny

I've had mixed feelings about these past 10 days. I feel like the days themselves go by slowly but the 10 days have gone by quickly. If that makes any sense at all...

Last night 3 others ISA students and I participated in an intercambio. When we got to the meeting place, we had know idea how many people there would be. Turns out there were over 50 people! I was paired with Beatriz, a 22-year-old who is looking for a job as a teacher here in Malaga, and Nur, a 27-year-old Moroccan man who is working on English as his 4th language! Once everyone had their pairs, we headed to a cute teteria (tea cafe) to talk. We first talked in Spanish over batidos (milkshakes - YUM!). We talked about our families, what we like to do for fun, what we're studying. I even had to explain how we say "I'm 1/4 (fill in the blank nationality)." That was pretty difficulThen Beatriz and Nur got into a heated convo about the importance and prevalence of English in Europe. They started talking really quickly and Beatriz let her Andalucian accent slip in so I tried to catch as much as I could as I silently sipped on my vanilla milkshake.

Then we switched to English for about an hour and that was much better! Both Beatriz and Nur had a good grasp of English but they wanted to know more and more about American culture. We talked about American movies, music, geography, cities, accents, everything! They wanted to know what differences I first noticed when I arrived in Spain. I mentioned the outlets, the toilets, the light switches. They were so shocked because they expected me to comment on the language, the people, the fashion. But I guess I expected all of those things to be different right off the bat. I didn't realize going into this adventure that even little things in my life would be completely changed.

The conversation lasted long into the night. We finally said our adioses and headed back to the casa for a dinner of cut up hotdogs and rice? It was very bizarre but we found some ketchup, mustard, and barbecue sauce in the fridge to get the full American effect.

Love you all!