Caliente!

Today I got lost, and I loved it. I had my first Spanish lessons yesterday and continued them today. Each day I spent 4 hours with one-on-one tutors. I had a different tutor for each hour. My first hour is spent with Marie Elena. She teaches me grammar, which is difficult since she does not speak a word of english. It would be nice to be able to ask her questions, but we are able to communicate surprisingly well anyway. Marie Elena is slightly older and seems to get a kick out of me. I play games with her and she laughs at me. Next comes 20 year old Alejo, the most serious of my tutors. Alejo teahes me pronunciation. His favorite word is ägain¨. Saying that Alejo is the most serious of my tutors does not mean that he is boring. We have a decent time as well. My last two tutors are my amigas(female friends). Jessica teaches me vocabulary. I was starting to get a little sleepy when Jessica came in yesterday, so I was a litte squirrly. She spoke a decent amount of english and I joked and teased her most of the hour. I asked if the tutors got tired of teaching the same old things to bumbling idiots like me all day every day. She said yes, and seemed to enjoy my joking around. By today, both Jessica and my last tutor, Helen, flirt with me constantly, and I flirt back. Jessica is slightly less shy and has a boyfriend. Helen is a small shy girl that seems to have a big crush on me. She teaches me conversation, which is fortunate since we do nothing but talk and tease. She is quite helpful, though. As we talk, I ask her how to say different things. She tells me and writes it all down for me. Helen´s english is the best of the four and though she is shy, she fires both words and feisty looks back at me when I tease her. I asked her yesterday if she was married since she had what looked like a cheap wedding ring on her left ring finger. She got all fired up and told me that she was not and took the ring off. Later in our session she told me I was bonito(pretty). Today she asked me if I had a girlfriend. I told her I did not. She said, ¨liar.¨ I could go on and on about her flirty comments, but I will not bore you. She is going to take me to get a cell phone on Friday and I think I will take her out for dinner. I think I will make her my personal local tour guide, and I do not think she will mind this one bit.

Back to getting lost. Yesterday Helen said to me, ¨You will need a notebook tomorrow.¨So, today I headed to the mini supermarket that I had been to the first night I was here. I got lost on the way and ended up wandering around without much purpose. There is so much to see here. The streets are crowded with people, bikes, cars, buggies, motorcycles, and vendors. The sidewalks are crazy. They will suddenly go up 2-3 feet and then later go down again. There are sometimes big holes in them, things blocking the way, or people laying on them. In places they are very clean and orderly, even artisticly decorated. In other places they are falling dirty and falling apart. I would say that I end up walking in the street about half the time, which is certainly the norm.

Granada has a ¨touristy¨ area, which does not seem very touristy until you see the areas that are not touristy. Today I wandered into the non-touristy areas. I walked through an extremely crowded and bustling outdoor market and down streets where I got some interesting looks. I ate at a small local cafe. I ordered some kind of pollo(chicken and pronounced poyo). The waitress seemed to want to give me something else. After trying to change her mind for a little bit, I just said, ¨si si.¨ It seems she wanted to give me the ¨combo¨plate, as I was an American. I think she was worried I would not like the chicken. I ate almost everything, though I was not sure what all of it was. There was, however, one thing that I could only stomach half of. I think it was some kind of cheese, but it was very strong tasting and not in a good way.

I was never really lost, as I knew how to find my way back to my house. But, I never knew where I was. It was a fun but sweaty walk. Today was the hottest day yet. It am sure it was over 90 degrees. So far, I am enjoying the heat during the day but do not like it when I sleep. I sleep in the corner of a room that I share with Phillipe from Belgium and Jerome from France-both friendly characters. The bed cover is too small and constantly falls off. I sleep with nothing more than a sheet and my small backpacking pillow. This is not the most comfortable sleeping, but so far I am making due.

The house is a piece of work. I have to go inside through the house and then outside again to get to my room. There is a small courtyard area that is quite nice. I am not exactly sure how many people are living there, though I have met them all. They have never all been there at the same time and I have not counted. I would estimate 10. The house has a supspended ceiling full of holes. The holes are from cats that enjoy roaming around up there and fall through into the house from time to time. I have yet to witness this sensation, but certainly look forward to it. It is a very open-air house. There is a decent amount of bugs and the occasional gecko, but I am not usually bothered by them. We seem to cohabitate with them nicely.

Last night we had a volunteer meeting. Apparently this happens each Tuesday night. We did not really talk about anything of importance, but we had a few drinks. It was enjoyable. Less than half of the volunteers showed up at the meeting, but I met some new faces. These included two Minnesotans. Nick, who is from the St. Paul area and went to college at UND. And, Matt, who went to school at St. Olaf. They asked me if I wanted to go eat with them after the meeting. I was not hungry but said I would come with and have a beer or two. We ended up having a very deep conversation that circled around and coverd a lot of ground. We only had a few beers, though we talked for hours.

Tonight, our house is hosting a New Year´s eve party. I wish all of my friends could be with me here, as I am sure it will be a good celebration. I am off to the grocery store now to pick up some beer and cups. I plan on teaching these chumps how to play flip-cup tonight. Happy New Year´s-Feliz Aña Nuevo!