The Most Unlikely Loveliest Day

I didn't want to be anywhere that wasn't my bed this morning, which is the exact same way I feel every weekday morning at 7:40am before I hit the snooze button for the third and (perhaps) final time. In almost every way, language school ended on Wednesday at the very moment we all handed in our exams. Less than half the class came to see their marks and participate in Thursday's discussion, and the ones that did were still leaving halfway through the hour.

We had been told that Friday's class would consist of watching a film--and with the way my classmates voted so fervently against Los Otros (or The Others, that phantasmic Nicole Kidman show), I figured at least a few of them would show up. And I, suffering from a chronic inability to miss class at any point during my scholastic career, could certainly not miss the final day! So I pulled myself out of bed and forced on some clothing, dragged myself to the 8:05 bus, arriving on campus in a rather bedraggled state at 8:35.

No one was there, but no one usually is at that time. I sat in a chair in the empty hall, feeling very conspicuous. I bought some cookies from the vending machine and took them outside to be eaten in the plaza; that way, I could watch students approaching from several directions and make my second entrance at a more appropriate time.

8:45. No students.

8:50. No students and no cookies.

8:55. No students, no cookies, and one shopkeeper looking off into space but potentially also at me out of the corner of his oh-so-tricky eye.

8:57. No students. Not even one. I think the shop guy is suspicious of me.

8:58. No one. Dang it.

8:59. I walk slowly back to the school, noticing through the massive windows that my friend Wendy somehow slipped inside without alerting me and is reading a book.

9:02. "So, Wendy, do you think we're having class today? Did we miss a memo somewhere about class starting late or something?"
"I don't think so. But can we really be the only ones here?"

9:03. Yes. It seems we can.

Over 80 students, and there were only two of us in the hallway. Two! I had assumed that a large percent of the student population would be nursing hangovers from the big end-of-the-course bash, but seriously. Two?

A few more minutes went by, and then we saw another human: Javi, one of our professors. I felt a little foolish at this point, because what if we really had missed some important message about class starting late and now were just sitting around like worried schoolgirls? We went upstairs and sat outside the classroom for ten more minutes. 9:15. Man. None of the shops are even open yet. I should have brought a book. What will I do for four hours? I should have skipped class; I should have been a normal person who doesn't show up on the last day of a class when they know it's pelicula day, and I should have stayed in my bed with a fan blowing on my face, or at least I should have waited an hour--oh, there's Javi!

He unlocked the classroom door, seeming quite unaffected that the entire student body was absent. "¿Quierais ver la pelicula?"
"Well," I shrugged to Wendy, "what else are we going to do?"

So we watched a movie. Just Wendy, Javi, and I up in good old Aula 6 with El Próximo Oriente on the screen, Javi laughing intermittently though I'm sure he's seen this movie at least five million times already.

And...I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Like, really, really enjoyed it. As in, I was touched and found myself tearing up a few times (although I'm not sure I'd be quite as emotional over Lavapies if I had been well-rested. Oh, heck, I probably would!). I didn't let any tears escape, though, because seriously, what would Javi do if he looked over and saw one of his two surviving students weeping to herself on the last day of class during a comedy?

(This story is getting long, so here's where you can break for intermission. And following is a handy trailer to help you intermiss!)



Okay, so I could have slept in and missed a beautiful film.

But now that was over, and surely we wouldn't be having two hours of class between now and graduation? Javi let us go, so we wandered Calle Mayor a bit before returning to our second-story haunt. In traditional Alcalingua fashion, our profesora appeared ten minutes after class should have started. "Chicas ¿que quierais hacer?" ("What would you like to do, girls?") I didn't know there were options! I shrugged. Wendy shrugged. She asked again, and we shrugged some more, and then she suggested coffee.

So there we sat, inside a little coffeehouse with aqua walls and lanterns, drinking coffee and talking to the profesora whom I'd described just last week as a roller coaster: pleasant one week, irritable and frustrated the next. We talked, in faltering Spanish, about how this happens at the end of every course: everyone stays out late for fiesta and skips the last day of class, and most of the young students just party and party while they're studying abroad. And then we talked about German and babies and our prolonged stays in this country and how parents ruin their children by giving them everything they want, and by the end of an hour and a half, I felt strangely endeared to this woman, the teacher whose classes I've spent a month sighing over and slightly dreading.

Okay, so I could have slept in and missed an unexpected heart-to-heart, too. I'm not sure if it was exactly heart-to-heart since we surely misinterpreted a little, but it was at least heart-to-cerebellum. Heart-to-trachea? These all seem so creepy.

By 1:00, students had tesseracted into the hallways in cute little dresses and all manner of graduation attire, and at 1:20, Caitlin, Lisa, and I were snaking across the calles of Alcala in this informal procession. ("Snaking" sounds creepy, and this was far from creepy. But I like the word "snaking.") So we snaked into this lovely building with the Spanish coat of arms on a huge tapestry hung on the back wall, we snaked and we clapped for our fellow students and snapped dozens of pictures and got diplomas that signify less about our Spanish knowledge than about our fortitude in making it through 80 hours of class on very little sleep and many, many OhLaLa coffees. Snake snake snake. It was a great time.

And then, once I got home and realized that language school was really over, that I really wouldn't have to wake up for the early bus anymore, nor be tempted by all of the dazzling Don Quixote kitsch along Calle Mayor, I also realized that one of my icecream containers had opened inside my shopping bag and had left a trail all along the bottom. (It seems I am in a competition with myself to write the world's longest sentences. Just call me Nathaniel Hawthorne!) And then I accidentally poured raw macaroni all over the kitchen floor.

But the evening was perfect, ending in a spaghetti-and-fried-egg supper with Caitlin (Camarma Burger has taught me the value of putting a fried egg on top of everything!) and sorbet magic on the front patio with the Smalleys. I can sleep in tomorrow, and I have a diploma, and I roughly get the subjunctive tense. Oh, plus, this was the first time in my life that I kissed someone while getting a diploma, rather than shaking their hand.

I'm so glad I didn't skip this.

Test Day

One might think that just because I can't even conjugate the world's easiest verb probably in a blog title, I may also lack confidence in my Spanish skills.

One might just be right.

The professors kept telling us that the test would be superfácil, which puts even more pressure on all of us to not look superdumb. But the first part was really easy. And the second part was...seven pages of mostly short essays. Definitely not superfácil. But not superdificil, either. Just...super. Yes. That about sums it up.

I keep reminding myself that the last time I sat in a Spanish classroom, I was 15 years old. It makes me feel a little better about my skill level while simultaneously making me wonder what happened to my brain in the interim years. (Best guess: it just shriveled.) But--I can now use tenses other than present (!) to say things like ¡Limpia mi casa! ("Clean my house!" Imperative!) and Espero que tu tengas mucho comido en su casa siempre ("I hope you have much food in your house always." Subjunctive!) and Yo he comido cereales todos mis días en España ("I have eaten cereal all my days in Spain." Present perfect!) and yo comería cereales para siempre ("I would always eat cereal." Conditional!). All of these can be followed with the old standby lo siento, mi español no es bueno, just in case.

However, I can say with certainty that I will finish this course knowing more than when I came in and having the appropriate vocabulary to write a police report and describe an assassination. Surely that will come in handy.

Two more days of class! ¡Celebramos!

Yo sabe, Tu sabes, Él sabe

Tomorrow is test day at language school. If we pass, we get a diploma. If we don't pass, we get a certificate and the raw feeling of having been left behind. Either way, there's a fiesta in Friday's class!

Time to practice my Spanish with the dog. The advantage of this is that she will never make fun of my grammar-- because she speaks even less Spanish than I do.

Love Poem No. 1

Love Song for American Milk

seeing you in the refrigerated aisle

lets me know I can keep living:

you and that big blue label

looking right back at me,

my perfect 1%.

how do you, so cold,

make me feel so warm inside?

so pure and pasteurized,

from home-grown cows 

all pasture-ized--

you surely do a body good.

four dollars a gallon

broke my heart while it

broke my wallet.

still, I've counted the cost,

and you're worth it.

now I’m here in europe

drinking semidesnata but 

thinking only of you.

they may live there someday--

those five lukewarm liters

may find refuge in my

refrigerator's bottom shelf.

but only you, 

rich, sweet milk of the homeland--

only you live in my heart.

(An editorial note: Milk has always been my favorite beverage. Growing up, my family was one of those families that actually had a milkman for several years, and there was nothing more beautiful than those rows of blue cartons lining our refrigerator's top shelf. Milk at school milk break! Milk with pizza! Milk to cool you down in the middle of a hot summer afternoon! Huge, frothy glasses of milk from the State Fair dairy booth! Oh, sweet, milky bliss! I'm certain my family could have built a second home solely out of milk cartons.

In Spain, grocery stores have rows and rows full of milk in boxes, just sitting out on non-refrigerated shelves. Here, milk is UHT (basically, ultra-pasteurized) rather than pasteurized, which means you can just store in the cupboard until you need it, and then you can stick it in the fridge so it's cold when you want to drink it. If you want to drink it. After the most non-refreshing glass of cold milk in my life, I've decided that I can only use box milk for wetting cereal. (Although I hear that Carrefour sells pasteurized milk--at higher prices, of course. This just means I need to splurge to survive!)

  

That said, of all the American things I miss right now, milk is the first. Followed closely by Hobby Lobby.)

Today I had to give an oral presentation in Spanish class. They told us it should be about 5-10 minutes, and definitely not over 15. Fifteen? Fifteen straight minutes without notes? Fifteen minutes of mental verb conjugation, switching of tenses, and proper pronoun placement in order to summarize a story excerpt involving three mostly unrelated characters?

Mine was probably four. Language school is either helping to cure my perfectionism or just causing me new ailments as of yet undiagnosed. For the first time in my scholastic life, I do not care about getting it perfect--only about getting it done. Instead of following the system and doing everything exactly right, I'm not worrying about grades or rules, just about learning. It's really freeing. Besides, sometimes, other things just deserve more of your energy. For instance, surviving the last hour in a stuffy classroom with worksheets that make you feel as though your brain is being jabbed by a blunt pencil.

Just, you know, a general example.

A Spanish History Lesson (which inevitably includes Antonio)

My language class started oral presentations today. Basically, we read a short text, summarize and explain it to the class (in Spanish! Eep!), and then answer questions. The Man Who Never Does His Homework had not, of course, done his homework. The following conversation ensued (but, again, in Spanish):

Javier (the professor): "Are you ready?"

Man: (blank stare, sheepish smile)

Javier: "Are you ready to present your book?"

Man: "I don't remember my book."

Javier: "You don't remember."

Man: "No."

Javier: "Your book is called Amnesia."

Also, my other professor spent much of class today talking about how handsome Antonio Banderas is. And then she Googled a picture of him and drew little hearts around his name on the board. I kid you not. Sometimes my life feels like a satire.

___

On a more somber note, I am constantly surprised by the number of foreigners in Spain who have not heard of Franco. To be fair, I didn't know anything about Franco until I read this in-depth book on Spanish culture, and I still don't know that much about him (so, all of you more knowledgeable friends, correct me where I'm wrong!). It makes sense that my generation has not been widely exposed to the history of European dictators when a lot of history teachers never get past WWII in high school. Still, I feel that if you come to Spain, it's important to know who Franco is. I'm still learning, but just to make sure you never visit and accidentally yell, "I heart Franco!" or something, here's today's brief history lesson!

Franco became Spain's Head of State in 1936 and was a major player in the Spanish Civil War. (Interesting sidenote: in said war, the conservative generals were supported by Nazi Germany and Italy, while the socialist Republicans were aided by the USSR. How's that for a crazy historical power surge?!) After the war, Franco began his regime--and it is less popular in the history books, for some reason, though he suppressed his people through censorship, forced prison labor, and even concentration camps for "enemies."

Even more interesting: Franco and Hitler did discuss terms of Spain joining the Axis in WWII, but it never happened--particularly because Franco wanted to preserve and defend traditional Christianity and Catholicism, and he didn't like how Hitler was twisting those ideologies (um, ahem?). Oh, and Franco was also anti-Communist. What?! (Hitler allegedly said that he'd rather have teeth extracted than deal further with Franco.) He killed thousands of his political opponents, as well as forbidding certain languages and certain cultural practices and traditions that were just not quite Spanish enough.

Spain was controlled, traditional, conservative, and oppressed for at least those forty years, and after Franco's death in 1975, the country moved toward democracy--and banned all symbols of the Franco regime. However, not everyone thought of the regime negatively. Some Spaniards were appreciative to find their standard of living raised and their traditional values upheld, so it's possible to still find older Spaniards who do not spit his name with the same animosity we think of when recalling figures like Hitler or Stalin.

But there are no longer any remaining statues of Franco in Spain, no street names or symbols that acknowledge his regime. His never-ending list of human rights violations got his lyrics scratched out of Spain's national anthem. They also earned him a controversial burial plot inside Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen), a basilica with a massive cross monument next to it, meant to commemorate the fallen soldiers of the Civil War. Oh, yes, a monument built with slave power--forced labor by political prisoners. Franco didn't intend to be buried there, but when you're a dictator, I guess sometimes dreams don't come true. At this very moment, there is huge controversy surrounding the monument, and a committee has about four months left to decide whether Franco's remains should stay there (many Spaniards see the Valle as a divisive reminder of the Franco era, rather than a tribute to the fallen).

In Spanish, the word "usted" is the formal "you"--what you would use to address, perhaps, a professor or someone of an older generation. But in language school, my professors have told us a few times that we shouldn't use "usted" or "ustedes" with them--or, really, with anyone, except maybe people in their 70's or 80's who may find it disrespectful otherwise. And this linguistic shift stems from the Franco regime, as well. The Spain of the past 30 years is a very different Spain than it had ever been before. Almost like a pendulum, the culture of oppression is swinging toward freedom and individuality, away even from staid, stoic expressions like "usted."


And that, friends, ends my foray into pretending-to-be-a-history-teacher. Thanks for holding on til the very end. To reward you, my professor's favorite picture, a picture I have seen at least twice now during class. Ahh, many things have I learned in language school, but I'm not sure if Spanish has been the main thing. :)

A sentiment stolen entirely from Caitlin: "I am thankful that I live in a country where siestas are culturally acceptable."

Also, I bought a little radio yesterday because I've been starving for music. I was hoping to find the radio station they play on the bus, a blend of current Spanish pop hits and American pop/rock from my junior high days. When I googled a list of Madrid radio stations, I found one that listed them by category: jazz, classical, adult contemporary, top 40, talk, easy listening, and God.

It turns out that, of all the stations my radio picks up, at least 1/3 of them play American music. Though I don't plan on listening in English all the time, I am grateful that Spanish radio is about ten years behind when it comes to American mainstream radio. It means the music is still good. :)

Also, if you're at all interested in different shades of white, here's the current arm-to-leg tan ratio in its most accurate, unaltered, awkward form:

The Truth about Language School

Some days it's hard, some days it's easy. Building language is like building a staircase. In high school, we built the staircase slowly but surely, testing each step for sturdiness before ascending.

Here, with a semester's worth of Spanish (or so they say) packed into one month, I feel like we're running up and down the staircase at a rapid pace, sometimes stopping to patch holes in the woodwork, other times just skipping steps completely. I have found that it's possible to jump ahead several steps and remain safe, stay afloat--but heaven forbid I turn around, for then I will see the obvious gaping holes in my staircase, the ones I trip into daily that threaten to leave me broken-legged (or at least broken-languaged) in the basement.

In other words, I feel like I'm learning a lot because I need to in order to keep up. And I'm also learning heaps of new vocabulary about everyday topics like homicides, unattractive physical traits, and the royal family. But everything I've learned is totally a jumble in my brain, and it'll take many hours of reviewing and rewriting by myself to get it all neat and sensical again, to descend and begin building a more usable staircase.

It's not bad, though, and certainly not as difficult as learning, say, a tonal language or one from Eastern Europe (thanks, Lord, for Romance languages!). Complicated, yes, but not bad. Except for the Australian guy who always sits next to me and never does his homework.

If this were in Spanish, it would totally sound like my language school class right now.

These are a few of my favorite cities!

In the past few weeks, I've been able to do a lot of traveling around the Madrid area. Just this small taste of affordable travel makes me itch when I think of high gas prices and plane tickets in the States. No wonder Europeans can vacation in several countries during one summer! There are cheap airlines, cheap hostels, cheap train tickets: this place was made for sojourners.

Here's a quick tour through three cities I've enjoyed immensely:

The first is Ávila, which was a day trip with some WorldVenture teammates. Ávila is famous for its medieval city walls and for being the home of Saint Teresa. I hear that the walls are the largest fully illuminated monument in the world, though we didn't see them at night because we had a train to catch!

I love how even the smallest things are given such intricate attention.

A wedding was taking place in this church while we were sitting across the plaza, eating Burger King. The best part: when they fired off glitter cannons as the bride and groom exited.

This is, allegedly, a toro. Poor guy--after hundreds of years, he has been ground down to his true self, which appears to be a bear-pig hybrid.

--

It's most fitting that there are tons and tons of lions in the autonomous community of Castile y Leon (which means "Castle and Lion," more or less)--one of seventeen autonomous communities (and two autonomous cities) in Spain. The country is remarkably decentralized when it comes to government power. Basically, that means that the community is the regional government, and each community is broken down into provinces. And all of it somehow eventually falls under the power of the Prime Minister, though I'm still trying to digest the concept of a constitutional monarchy. I can't tell you much else for certain about kingdoms and monarchies here, except that Queen Sofia is a classy, classy woman.

And here are the famous walls! Unlike American monuments, which are usually covered in security features, Spain seems to have few worries about safety regulations. You mean your kid wants to sit along the wall? No, we will not place protective fences between each post to prevent them from falling. Your toddler's entire torso would fit down that drain hole? Just make sure she doesn't get too close. I am thankful for the fence that makes up one side of the walled walkway, although it left me wondering how many soldiers died in battle along these walls...and how many died simply by slipping over the edge.

The second city of splendor: Segovia! The Celts were the first to claim Segovia, though it was eventually taken over by the Romans. And those Romans, in fact, know how to build a quite adequate aqueduct.

As part of Castile y Leon, Segovia has, of course, more lions! I feel that Segovian lions, however, tend to look more like sea otters.

Caitlin's Welsh friends joined us in the Segovian foray. If you look closely, you can see the strain on their faces from walking so far in the heat (or perhaps from listening to Caitlin and I talk about flowy princess dresses). Several weeks ago, I wrote that the rain in Spain does fall mainly on the plain. But I was misinformed. Apparently, the stormy weather we had upon my arrival is very unusual, so now I am inclined to state that the rain in Spain--at least in the summertime--falls not at all.

Segovia is home to one of Spain's many Alcazars. It means "castle" or "fortress," but the word "alcazar" is so much cooler. While I had Alcatraz-ian visions dancing in my head at first, I was soon corrected. This alcazar is actually part of the inspiration for Disney's Cinderella castle--both the one in the film and the one at the Magic Kingdom.

Does that last one look foreboding? Good. Gloomy clouds mean rain! For once! Four non-Spaniards hiking around Spain for hours at 30°C is not a pretty sight!

We waited out the rain below, then climbed the 152 stairs to the top of the tower. (A sign informed us that this trek was not for unhealthy people. Ha!) This trip could have only been made more fulfilling by some flowy princess dresses. Let me assure you of this: if you come to visit me in Spain, I will absolutely take you to Segovia.

Third, the city that is rapidly becoming one of my favorites: Madrid.

I think one of the best things about a city is when it doesn't feel like a city. Such is the case with Retiro Park, the biggest park in Madrid. It's loaded with fountains, statues, trees, and best of all, lush grass! (You never quite realize how much you love grass until you move into a house with a front yard made of tile and a back yard made of wooden planks, at the edge of a town whose only playgrounds are built upon dust and rocks.)

I totally wish I could bounce off the tops of these trees like in Super Mario World.

I owe much to the Chicago Transit Authority--and the Moody friends who taught me how to use it--for introducing me to the fine art of public transportation. Even though a trip into Madrid, which would take 20 minutes by car, can take a couple hours (depending upon how the bus and train schedules line up), I lovelovelove the Metro. (I do not love the ever-present signs asking to buy my gold, however.)

Ahh, Plaza Mayor. Legacy of the Habsburgs, once used for bullfights, public executions, markets, and persecution of Christians (among others). Today, it is still a central hub in Madrid--and with a strange magnetism for street performers.

Oh, Esponja Bob. Sigh. I just can't escape him. Well, as they say, if you can't beat 'em...beat him. Seriously.

Oh, I would never exact violence on SpongeBob. At least, not on this SpongeBob--only on the real one. Especially after this one mimicked all the punching actions by photographer Caitlin, who meant them for me. Perhaps his obliviousness to my presence is an indication that he may be the real SpongeBob after all!

Jesus loves everyone, especially Dobby. They were on break when we walked past but kindly posed together for this picture. When we asked where Jesus was from, he told us Valencia. I honestly did an audio double-take; for some reason, I was expecting, "Nazareth."

And finally, the sweet taste of Spanish pastries on the edge of Sol, accompanied by the music of a mariachi band.

___

I said a few weeks ago, during my initial settling-in period, that I had skipped the honeymoon period with Spain. It's been six weeks now, and I have to admit that I've been enchanted. While I still get hit with feelings of inadequacy, there are things that are just becoming second nature: saying "perdon" as I slip past someone in a crowded store, interpreting signs along the street, converting Euros to USD in my head. Even the 24-hour clock and the commas on price tags are beginning to look normal--and I realize that sometime within the past month, I quietly slipped into a state of contentment.

Of course it comes and goes: there are days when I think that I could stay here for years, followed by moments of wanting nothing more than a tall, cold glass of American milk (with free refills!). But the thing is that while I love home, I'm not currently aching to get back there. I'm finding that Spain has started a small flame in my heart, the kind that burns slowly but not without depth, the kind that is kindled bit by bit in such a way that you find yourself suddenly surprised not only by its heat but by its longevity.

Spain, I think I love you.

Language School

Yesterday, I was excited to be able to say that I understood about 90% of what was happening in my language class.

Today, I still understood about 90%...but that 90% told me that the remaining 10% is going to kick my butt.

"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." -St. Augustine

It is raining.

This day has totally been redeemed.

7pm and I'm Ready for Bed

I can only describe this day by channeling Tevye.

On the one hand, the first two pages of the placement test weren't so bad. In fact, I was a little bit proud of myself for understanding as much as I did. Then I flipped the page.

On the other hand, during the post-test break, we found some fabulous café and pastries (and Brits and Australians). So, even though I didn't hear a word of the Alcala tour, my new Australian friend and I wandered at the back of the pack and talked about churches and missions and being terrible at Spanish. Bonus points!

On the other hand, when I left to catch the bus, I exited Via Complutense in a very different place than I'd expected to be, then ran to the closest bus stop and waited for twenty minutes, hoping that perhaps it had just been delayed and could scoop me up on the way out of town. It wasn't. 

On the other hand, I was able to walk back to Carrefour and buy some necessities: a beach towel and juice.

On the other hand, I didn't have time to go anywhere else, so I sat outside a store window not consuming the juice. The sun started poking at me with her nails, much like a small child in the grocery line, unable to remain still for just one more second. And I was the mother who speaks in a calm voice through gritted teeth, trying to ignore the heat and my tiredness and my frustration at missing the bus and the fact that my phone was out of minutes so I couldn't return any of the three calls I'd received. It didn't work so well. I wanted to cry, but it seemed more appropriate to write a letter to a friend in really horrible handwriting and force myself not to drink straight out of the juice carton in public.

On the other hand, I didn't have to sit there forever.

On the other hand, when the bus finally did come, Lady Gaga was on the radio. I seriously got teary-eyed. Not because Lady Gaga moves me, but because she is the last thing that I want to ever hear when I am frustrated. She is the last thing I want to hear even if I am exuberantly happy and just saw a shooting star. Lady Gaga makes me feel like I am being wrapped in dirty wolf pelts on a 200-degree day. Then I got home, took a wrong turn somewhere in Camarma, and skirted the plaza for about fifteen minutes, which is ridiculous, as not finding something in Camarma is a bit like not being able to find your own fingers.

On the other hand, I was able to recharge my phone by myself! And I had an entire box of orange juice to look forward to!

On the other hand, the landlords showed up at our house shortly after I got home. They are super nice people, but we spend most of the conversation struggling to communicate, and the parts I understand best are small talk--which is even hard for me in English.

On the other hand, Justa brought me a fan from Alcala--a very sweet gesture that gives me legitimacy, since I can now whip out that fan in church like all the Spanish ladies do, rather than fanning myself with a hand and looking like a seal! (On behalf of seals, if I had to look like any sea creature, I would certainly prefer their faces to those of most other ocean critters.)

So many hands. At the end of Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye cries with disdain, "No! There is no other hand!" But where Tevye's final hand falls in despair, my final hand trumped all. The landlords did not just bring a fan. They brought a toilet. (Technically, the toilet installation men brought the toilet, but since half my writing is hyperbole anyway, let's just roll with it. :)

To say that the toilet balances out the Lady Gaga is a total understatement. Oh, toilet! Who knew you could bring me such joy?! And this hand has another hand attached to it, and that hand is called The Internet. All the things I had been worried about yesterday ended up not at all being the things I should have worried about. Jay and Brian mastered the internet and the furniture and everything else, and all of my frustrations were negated. Toilet and internet on the same day! It's like Christmas, a birthday, and Arbor Day all rolled into one!

On the other hand, the toilet installation man had to drill holes in the floor to install said toilet. Several minutes later, I heard sounds like breaking glass and figured he was smashing apart the tiles around the toilet. I peeked into the bathroom--nothing. I walked toward the patio--and there was the old toilet, smashed to smithereens! What a horrible way to go, bashed into dust on the tile, at the mercy of some man with a sledgehammer. I cried aloud, probably in a very un-Spanish manner, "¡Pobre servicio! ¡Está muerto!" ("Poor toilet! It's dead!") The landlord's wife laughed and laughed at that, probably because it was so ridiculous, but on the other hand...it doesn't matter. Because tonight, I am typing this from my bedroom. I do not have to turn the security system off and on, and my toilet works! THERE IS NO OTHER HAND!