amorousodious

Valentine’s Day this year was lovingly christened by Amanda as “Singles Awareness Day” since none of us really have significant others. We had planned on having a party later in the day to celebrate before the poetry reading, though it was mostly because Amanda still had a bottle of wine from Madrid that needed opening.

First thing in the morning however my práctica (informal internship) group met our boss for the first time. The place is about a five minute walk from school, so it’ll be easy to remember where it is at least. Sadly I still have a forty minute walk on Tuesday mornings, which is when I’m scheduled. I’ll be working with articles about educational research that have been translated into English and need to be corrected. The newsletter that they put out in English is for the people in Germany (I don’t know why they don’t translate it into German) the UK and such. I’m excited to start next week.

After my práctica I headed to the Locutorio and called my mom and dad. I told them all about my práctica and such, and got some news from home. Mom will be traveling next week for Kaley’s spring break, so I won’t get to talk to her on skype for a while, which is sad. I received a Valentine e-card from my dad, a funny one of the hoops and yoyo variety. After that I went shopping for some cheese to have with our wine at our fiesta. I found a cheese sampler thing, with swiss, cheddar, goat cheese, a cheese with peppers, and some we couldn’t identify, which was perfect. I also bought some chocolate bonbons as a Valentine’s treat for everyone. I headed back home and spent some time doing tarea until it was time to meet at school. Alicia, Heather, Amanda and I met and went to the Jardín de Bellas Artes and ate our cheese and chocolate and drank our wine on a bench outside. Alicia had bought us all chocolate bars as a Valentine’s gift, and decorated them with Happy Valentine’s Day index cards. All in all, it was a good singles awareness fiesta.

We went back to school at quarter to seven for the poetry reading, which of course ran on Spanish time and ended up starting at about twenty minutes after seven instead of at seven. It was informal, just a microphone set up by a podium and some music playing in the background, and those of us who were reading poems seated in the first few rows of seats. Professor Valle, the principal at the center, read first, then Cindy read the poem that the Professor's daughter was supposed to read, then Jennifer and I read our poems. Professor Jesus read a poem in Valenciano and Professor Mabel read a poem in Catalán, which was really interesting to hear. Valenciano and Catalán are extremely similar languages, kind of like British and American English, but neither of them is really like Spanish except for the grammatical structure.

Professor Augustín read the final poem of the night, un Rayo de Luna, from the story of the same name that we had read in his class last week. Half the girls at the center here have a crush on him, so it was fun to listen to the reactions afterward. It’s a shame for them, but he’s engaged to be married this Fall. Augustín, Professor Pilar, and Barranco all complimented me on my poem, which made me really happy since I was afraid it wasn’t exactly colloquially sound.

Alicia and I headed home to eat la cena, even though we weren’t exactly hungry after all the chocolate and cheese we had eaten earlier. We had ensalada and Arroz Cubano which is the dish where Lucía makes a mountain of rice on the plate using a bowl and then covers it in tomato sauce and serves it with fried eggs. It’s one of my favorite dishes, so even not being hungry I had no trouble eating everything.

Alicia packed everything for Granada and then Chrysten called to ask if we wanted to go out. We went to a bar en la calle Turia called Sala de Valencia. It’s decorated in a middle-eastern style, which didn’t really fit with the 90s music (mostly in English) that they were playing, but it was still a nice atmosphere. We got a jug of Agua de Valencia which is champagne, jugo de naranja y piña (orange and pineapple juice) vodka and some other liquor. It was pretty good, but a little too sweet for me, and there was a good amount of sugar gathered at the bottom of the jug as well. The sala wasn’t busy, so we just chilled for a few hours chatting and then went home to get some sleep.