A weird, yet bright, light.

I have been having some issues with my students, as we all know.

However, I have a student who I like so much. He has a desire to learn English just for fun. He speaks pretty well due in equal parts to the amount of Chapelle's Show he watches and the amount of gangster rap he listens to. He has asked me so far what the words ¨hustler¨ and ¨crackie¨ mean. This is a fantastic student, you guys.

Oh, also, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! Sad to be missing another Thanksgiving at home, but we're having a huge American Thanksgiving dinner here tonight, and I'm making a corn thing. I'll be drowning my sorrows in cheap, amazing Spanish wine and turkey that came from god-knows-where. So excited. XD

Two things:

1) I saw a red VW beetle on the street the other day. I was staring at it because dark red is an unexpectedly tame color for a beetle and because I have a lot of time on my hands. I noticed that someone had keyed the car. Scrawled into the door of this beetle was the word 'PUTA.' It was shocking. I can't imagine what a VW owner would do that would enrage someone so much that she or he would scratch PUTA into their car door. I think I'm deeply affected by VW's marketing or something because I figure if this person owns a beetle, they're probably not all bad.

2) I have an intercambio every week with one of my students, Luis. Last night Luis called me "coño." I think that means we're friends? Oh, Spain.

I have to go eat a tostada with tomate. SO GOOD.

This Andalusian accent is a mess. It hasn't been that hard to understand (unless they're speaking really quickly) with most people, but I think that's mostly because I've been living with Spanish people, which helps my comprehension a lot.

Last weekend, Jacqueline, Natasha, and I went to Marbella. It's a beautiful little seaside town on the southern coast of Spain. It's also extremely touristy. Everything is expensive! To save money, we bought food from the grocery store and asked the hostel staff to heat it up for us. Yes, we had to eat our microwaved lasagna and packaged tortilla in the company of the hostel's 3 or 4 smelly resident dogs (who were allowed in the kitchen, puke), but it was worth it to have a weekend away. The first day, there was so much niebla (fog)!

Then we went out for the night of Halloween. It was fun! Our taxista on the way back had brought his guitar, so he played us the only English song he knew: Hotel California. That song will forever be associated with that night for me.

Jacqueline really wanted to go to Malaga, so we hit that for a day, and it was wonderful! Marbella was nice, but it completely lacked culture. There were so many British people and so much English! All the Spanish people we met in stores or restaurants were SO HAPPY that we spoke Spanish. Malaga was a nice change of pace. It seemed like Spanish people actually lived there. We couldn't see half the things we wanted to, though, because it was a festivo (day off). Poo.

Bye.