Adios, buttface!

Well, here is what I have to report. Astin came back safely to Spain and I picked her up from the airport several times...only once successfully. All the other times were failures on account of flight changes, lost luggage, etc. But everything is good to go now. The greatest part being, of course, that now I have someone to play Frisbee with. Spaniards generally feel that Frisbee should be reserved for dogs and the beach.

To answer your question about the hilarious title, well, that is a direct quote (as far as I understand) from my 6-year old. I arrived to their house and buzzed to be let in. Their mom always answers, but this time the 6 year old got ahold of the system and asked who I was and I told her. She then decided it was important to find out...right then, whose turn it was to go first. I let her know and we continued to chat over the buzzer system. Eventually she decided to let me in. I go up to find her face red and puffy from crying and knew that was a bad bad sign. Then their mother cheerfully explained that she and her 8 year old sister had been fighting over a picture and that they were "a little angry." Yippee. I started class with the 8-year old who was protectively clutching a picture for the beginning of the lesson while yelling stuff to her sister like, “And no you can’t even LOOK at it” before we started. We had a few attitude problems, but nothing the eyebrow/yellow card combo couldn’t solve. All of a sudden the door flies open and the tiny 6 year old shrills – “Adios, BUTTFACE!” and slams the door shut. Buttface is a loose translation from the Spanish. Anyway, I found it to be pretty hilarious because she didn’t GO anywhere. She just needed some power, I suppose, and felt that “adios buttface” was the best way. She had her lesson later and at the end when we went over the behavior chart, we agreed that “Adios, BUTTFACE” hadn’t been the greatest idea and probably wouldn’t be necessary next time. I didn’t tell her that I thought the whole thing was hilarious and continue to use the phrase (I don’t really think Astin is amused.)

Next week, tragically, there will be no blog. I will be “taking the sun,” as they say, in Barcelona. A couple of Astin’s friends and the two of us will either fly or bus over there on Friday. Furthermore, my computer is being shifty again and so if you stop hearing from me for a long time, it’s due to some sort of crash. Well, keep it real on the streets.

Well, bad news. I forgot the procession pictures again. Oops. Maybe next week. Maybe never. So this week Astin was in the States for a wedding, so I decided to become a wandering vagabond and walk around a lot. I tried some new spanish foods...membrillo (quince) and palmeras de chocolate (kind of like pie crust with chocolate on top). Both pretty good.

In student news:
-One student has announced that he likes to "rike a bike" and he was very cute about it.
-My ridiculous six year old gave me some empty sticker packets (mind you, they still had the borders, just not the actual picture stickers) she told me that they were "for my collection." I suspect she did this to ward off my increasinly-ominous glares that were directed her way for messing up our game. If anyone collects empty sticker packets, please let me know and I will send you some materials directly.
-Another student decided that, hey, why SAY grammar explanations when you can SING them. Her brother and I promptly started calling her Mary Poppins.

I also added "Good King Wenceslas" to my Sweet Flute repertoire. Other than that, not much to report. Below is a photo from the good ol' days. Take it back old school.

Semana Santa

There was no blog last week for a few reasons.

1) life wasn't too exciting
2) I was severely impeded on my way to blog.
a) the bus was incredibly delayed and it was really windy while I was waiting for the bus, so I was continually pelted with thousands of those little round tree seed pod things. When the bus came, it was really crowded, so the bus driver didn't notice me until he shut me in the door. A female leaping around frantically kind of attracts attention.
b) when I arrived at the coffee shop much later with lots of woodland particles nestled in my hair, they told me they couldn't change my 10 Euro bill. They literally didn't have enough change. So I went to another coffee shop, bought a yogurt, and then returned to my regular coffee shop. This all took an enormous amount of time.

Anyway. This week was Semana Santa and basically the whole country takes at least a 4-day vacation. I took a fabulous trip to nowhere on account of an upcoming trip to Barcelona that I'm saving up for. I did go to a procession though. They're wild. Basically different churches put their saint on a throne-thing and dress up in eerie Ku Klux Klan looking outfits and parade around various cities. It's pretty cool. I'll post pictures next week.