A week in the life.

You know you’ve adjusted to a living space, situation, and lifestyle when you know the quirks of the house.  Here are some basic rules of living in the Navarro Residence.

Don’t speak english ever, or you will be subject to the wrath of Santi and his lectures.

Instead of fumbling with your keys for 5 minutes to get through the door to the patio, you can just give it a little kick.  It opens right up! Just make sure Santi isn't smoking outside, or else he might give you dirty looks!

Watch out for Jesús. He is constantly hiding behind doorways to try and scare you. The sad thing is…he gets me every time.

The words “CHICAS, A CENAR” might just be the happiest in the world.

You can adjust to the smell of smoke.

When you actually piece together a coherent, grammatically correct sentence, you feel so victorious! It really is an exhilarating feeling when you have conveyed your thoughts perfectly in another language. Also, you will get a resounding… “MUY BIEN” from Glori every time you speak correctly. It’s sooo worth it.

Don’t you dare come downstairs without something covering your feet.  I have been ostracized like 30 times by Glori because I don’t wear socks.  She thinks I will freeze to death and get sick.

Be prepared to be made fun of by Miguel on a daily basis. 

Sofio our dog, WILL beg for food. Occassionally its ok to feed him.

You will feel embarrassed if Miguel walks in as you and Alyson Astle are singing your hearts out to the song “Solamente Tú” while you are making valentines day treats.

Gloria is the MASTER at getting out stains from our laundry…but she uses SO MUCH DETERGENT! We all constantly smell like thick soap.

Don’t worry if you look up to see your underwear hanging on various radiators throughout the house for the whole world to see. They have to dry somewhere right?

Always, “APAGA LAS LUCES POR FAVOR” (Always turn off the lights)

These are just few of the family quirks that I have become accustomed to.  As much as I love traveling, it really is awesome to just enjoy spending time in the house and with our family.

Por ejemplo, this week we made French Toast with Nata (whipped cream), powdered sugar, maple syrup, and strawberries for Gloria and Santi.  We wanted to give them a taste of their own medicine. Haha. Luckily for us, they LOVED IT. It was so hard to smell it as we were making it for them though, because we did it on our fast Sunday. Oh American breakfast, it has been too long!

Glori looks a little grossed out at first, but seriously she really liked it! We just caught her at a funny angle! haha 

We watched Lord of the Rings, the two towers… or should I say, El Señor de los Anillos. Las dos Torres, last night with Gloria and Jesús.  We got on a full on Spanish battle with Jesús and Miguel over which movie is better, Harry Potter or LOTR.  Jesús then gave each of us names from LOTR. Aly is Legolas, I am some obscure Rohan rider, Miguel is Gollum, Kim is Gimly, or "Kimly" haha. and of course Jesús deemed himself as Aragon.  We laughed and indulged in some serious popcorn and coke. haha it was hilarious watching the movie in spanish!   

I learned that Gloria has never ridden a horse.

Tea parties on Sunday with Gloria are the bomb! I am now officially a sucker for herbal tea and cookies!

Santi, Miguel and Jesús all came to soccer this past week.  We all played on a team together and it was precious.  Later, Miguel told Gloria that I was a machine at soccer. Made me whole life. SPANISH BOY APPROVAL!

Celebrating Valentine’s day in Spain is wayyy better than in the U.S.  Visi our Spanish teacher brought us all this cute paper and we made valentines to hang on the wall.  I wrote creepy love notes in Spanish to Madi, one of the girls in our program.  Also, we listened to the song “Solamente Tú” by Pablo Alboran atleast 50 times. I’m obsessed.  We learned that Teresa our other teacher, is creepily obsessed with CATS! Hahah so classic.

My roommates and I made rice crispie treats in the form of hersey kisses for our family home evening activity that night.  It was a treat contest and we were determined to win!  I even wrote bilingual messages on the strips of paper in the kisses! You can bet the boys of the ward got a kick out of those! 

Haha

 This is the whole group at our valentines day family home evening!

BESAME!

TE AMO!

SOLAMENTE TÚ!

LLÁMAME!

TÚ ESTÁS SIEMPRE EN MI MENTE!

Ect.

We didn’t end up winning, which was ridiculous. But then we remembered the nature of rice crispy treats themselves aren’t really that good anyway, no matter how cute you make them look.

We gave our host family all presents that night.  They thought we were crazy but we know they secretly loved them! We gave Jesús Nata, which is whipped cream…because he is obsessed with it! He only eats nata and chocolate. I’m not kidding.

Thursday we went again to the temple, but this time with our whole group.  I definitely can’t get enough of the Madrid temple.  I highly recommend it.

One thing you just can't escape on a all girls BYU study abroad= multiple girls finding the same 2 euro skirts, long enough to be modest, and super cute. I think we will all end up with basically the same outfits by the end of this thing. haha 

Friday we went into ArtMadrid. This was a contemporary art gallery where we actually got to talk to and meet one of the artists named Eva Navarro.  She talked to us all about her paintings and we got to ask her questions.  I saw some pretty weird stuff there…and I also made a friend! Some old man kept following me around asking me if I liked art or not. Then he showed me his artwork in his little notebook…and it was really bad. Haha I just had to pretend I liked it though.  He was a sweet spirit.  We watched a guy do some whiteboard art, which was kind of cool…but mainly I just liked exploring all the different galleries.  I had never been to an art gallery like this before.  I must admit, I felt really sophisticated.

Next, we went on one of our Madrid Walks called the “GRAN VIA” tour.  The Gran Via is a famous street in Spain with a lot of shops and old fancy architecture.  We also ended up at the Templo de Debod, an old Egyptian temple smack dab in the middle of the city.  I love the girls on my study abroad.  It is pretty ridiculous how much fun we have together.

 

Me and Jessi just walking like Egyptians at the Templo de Debod

Saturday we went to Cuenca, the most picturesque little town about an hour and a half from Madrid.  The people there have built these awesome hanging houses up on the cliffs and it is beautiful!  We walked around the city and kept running into this darling garbage man named Fernando who just wanted to give us all these tips and information about the city!

 

Can you guess which one is Fernando? haha

Then we went and just sat on a bridge over this beautiful teal water, ate our lunch, and just soaked in the sun.  We got so many funny reactions.  A guy barked at my friend Jessi.  Two ladies told us we should jump of the bridge.  A guy on his motorcycle revved his engine to scare us. Two more guys told us they agreed that it was a great day for sun bathing, and at least 20 other people stared us down like we were crazy.

Fernando told us that if you are a true Catholic and you listen to the rock, you will hear the Devil and Christ fighting, but if you are of another religion, you will only hear the sound of a raging river.  I think I look a little too happy to be listening to Christ and the Devil fighting....

We walked out onto some of the cliffs of the city and looked down upon the town of Cuenca. Holy view.  Why am I so lucky to see so many incredible places!

 

 

After Cuenca, we went up to "La ciudad Encantada," which is basically a bunch of cool mushroom shaped rocks.  We were set free to climb, roam, and explore. I think Jacqui and Lance wanted this to be our nature fix trip! 

None of us have any idea was Jessi is doing in this...

Today was another great day at church.  I am absolutely amazed with how much my ability to listen and understand at church has grown.  The first day, I literally understood nothing.  Now, I not only understand almost everything, but I even commented and shared my testimony in class today, in Spanish.  I know it is the spirit helping me to learn.  I don’t think I am exempt from getting something out of church now, just because I don’t technically speak the language! Haha

The members at church are so strong and I have learned so much from their example.  Despite all the remarkable palaces and sights we have seen, the weeks at home and with the people of Alcalá will be the most memorable by far.