Guys! I Met People!

Now I've done a crap load of things this week but I'm just going to cover that briefly and talk mostly about being social. Or more like just talk about the weekend and what feels like thousands of people I've met. You'll see. Also I know it's not Monday. Oh my gosh! How scandalous! I've discovered recently that I'm quite busy during the week and on Sunday I have to go to bed fairly early since I have to take the kids to school early in the morning. So I've pretty much decided to blog whenever I have the time. Which will most likely be Saturday. Or Sunday. Who knows.

This is just a cool building I saw in the city. No significance. Sorry. I'm going to sum up my week days really quick for you. Ready? Yeah? Good.

So I wake up every morning at about 7:45. Now that may not be early to all you folks. But gosh I hate waking up. SO FREAKING MUCH! Anyway I help give the kids breakfast, get them ready for school, and then walk them to school which is like 15 minutes away. Then I usually go grocery shopping with Soledad. We get home and then I have like a half hour of free time. Then I pick up Teo from school. We play at the park, go home, eat lunch, and then I put him down for a nap. I have another half hour to myself before I have to pick up the two other kids from school. Then I play with the kids until dinner time. We've gone to the park a couple times or we've played Clue A.K.A. Cluedo. It depends on the day. Then we go home (if we go to the park), I give them a bath, they eat dinner, and then they go to bed. And then repeat. For five days.

I've discovered while out here that I love coke. I actually usually really hate coke but I think since it's the same wherever you go it appeases my slight tinge of homesickness. So I like it now. It's weird.

I had lunch at this little cafe on Monday. I had fried fish and carne. It was pretty good. So far I haven't disliked any of the food I've eaten. I do wish it had more flavor though. It's all just kind of bland. There's not really a usage of spices. Not even salt and pepper. As much as the food is good I personally think it can be better. Oh well watcha gonna do. And they don't even have salt and pepper on the tables. So I can't even add it if I want! It sucks. Monday was the last day that the French grandparents were in town. As much as the most I could communicate with them was "good morning" and "bonjour" I kind of love them. They would always give me the European cheek kiss thing when they saw me and buy me dessert when they got the kids dessert. It was the small gestures that made me like them. I don't know they were just cute.

View from the play ground. Again no relevance I just think the buildings here are cool.

After school with Teo. I swear we were on this teeter totter for a good hour. It's weird how kids can be so hard yet so easy to please.

Fun reflection picture with Matilda and Diego after school. It was raining. So I don't know why we stopped. Cause I'm fun. Obviously. No but guys seriously the weather here is crazy. It's so erratic and spontaneous that it's just a good idea to always bring a coat and an umbrella with you.

This is the children's school. It's quite large but still looks like a prison inside. I may be biased but all schools in my opinion look like a poorly decorated prison. Now seeing schools in two different countries this confirms my beliefs.

Fun graffiti. Guys the graffiti here makes me laugh so hard. You get the stuff in Spanish, which I have no idea what it says, but then you get the stuff in English and it's gold. Like obviously hooligans. But I've also found noobs, skate, and punks. Like what? Why those words? It just makes me laugh.

Now for the fun part! You guys should be really grateful for all the pictures you get. I'm the worst at photo documentation. I think it's the main thing that sets me apart from other teenagers. But I'm especially bad when I'm having a fun time. I just don't think about it. You can blame my parents for my poor upbringing. Anyway ready for the social stuff that's oh so exciting? Here we go!

 Friday after I dropped Teo and the other wee ones off at school I went and had "coffee" with two German girls who are also Au Pairs. I had never met either of them before but I was like, "I need to meet people so let's do it!" I had chocolate a la taza in this fancy cafe called pandolinos. It felt kind of awkward as I felt like they wanted to speak German to each other but were being nice and speaking English because I was there. I don't know I'll probably hang with them again but it wasn't like an instant friendship. It's going to take some work. But that's to be expected.

Anyway then I picked the youngins from school. Took them home and got them ready for the beach and sent them off with their parentals for their weekend at their beach apartment. I went with them last weekend and as much as it would've been cool to go with them I wanted to go to church and do other fun things here in Coruna. So after they left I took a short nap and then I left to hang out with my Australian friend who at this point I had never met before. We met at pandolinos and this time I had a milkshake. Which was more like a smoothie with milk in it. It was interesting. Two other girls were there too. Sophia and another girl who's name I can't remember. That's really bad of me. I've met so many people this weekend though that it's amazing I remember anyone's name. Sophia and Linda are flipping awesome though. Sophia is Spanish but all she wants to do is practice her English. And MAN is she active doing it. She talks so fast. Anyway it was a really fun little "coffee" I had with them and I'll probably hang with all of them again. After the "coffee" me and Linda went and had tapas at a bar with her husband and their friends. And while they all had their beers I had my cola. Cola all the way man! It's a little weird that everyone expects me to drink. Especially since it's legal at the age 18. We had Spanish tortilla, Russian salad, and fish and chips. A Spanish tortilla is pretty much a gooey omelette with potatoes and Russian salad is pretty much a potatoes salad. They're both pretty good.

After the tapas we went to the concert of this Spanish guy named Alex Copper who apparently was in a famous band in the 80's. His music was very obviously late 70's early 80's. It was very happy music and it was fun seeing all these Spanish people belting it out. It was great. Halfway through I went with Linda outside by the ocean and we just chatted. Guys I can't express to you how beautiful the ocean is. It's just gorgeous. I love it. I saw Torres de Hercules in action so that was also pretty amazing. The concert went till 1 in the morning so I didn't get home till 1:30 but that's okay. The people I met Friday night were all amazing and I can't wait to hang with them again. Especially Linda. I just love her and her funny little Australian accent. Btw the picture above all this crazy writing is from the concert.

Saturday was quite a lengthy day but really fun. I had a YSA activity with all the YSA in the Galician region. I woke up at 9. Which isn't that early but when you stay up till 2:30 it can be. I was picked up by a girl named Andrea. She's super nice and likes to laugh but she doesn't speak much English. I like her anyway. There were 3 classes. One about getting married and finding a husband, one about finding a job and being self reliant, and one about serving a mission. I feel like the usual topics but they were all good classes. I had an elderly missionary couple who are from New Mexico translate some of the classes and then my new friend Vicky who I may have mentioned earlier translate the first class for me. She served her mission in England so that's how she knows English. I was weirdly worried that I would get to church and I wouldn't be able to talk to anyone. Luckily there are at least 5 people just in my ward that speak English. It may not seem like a lot but it's better than none.

After all the classes we had a dance. Which pretty much consisted of line dances. The dance turned into Karaoke. It was interesting but really fun. Every time an American song came on they'd rush over and be like, "Marley! Marley! Marley!" It was great. I ended up singing a lot of Justin Beiber. I made a lot of friends from all over the place. I'm kind of the baby here though. Everyone is like 24+. For instance I made friends with this girl named Luisanna who is studying for her masters in history at Santiago and she's 30. Good thing I know how to be friends with people of all ages! I made friends with another girl named Vimar who is going to BYU in January. Another girl who worked in Canada for a year named Bela. Both of them are from Vigo. And a girl named Kati who lived in the states for like 7 years or something and she lives here in La Coruna. So I had a lot of fun with a good chunk of English speakers. I met a lot of other people as well and I feel bad for not remembering their names. But again I'm amazed at the names I do remember.

This is the view from inside the church. There's chickens sometimes in the yard and it makes me weirdly happy.

After the activity I got dropped off and decided to go on a small adventure. I went to Zara and bought a really comfy slightly weird looking hoodie and then I went to a bakery and bought cookies for dinner. 'cause I'm just so healthy.

Today was similar to yesterday. In a sense. I woke up at 8:30 and got ready for church. Andrea picked me up again and I had a small conversation with her. We talked about yesterday and how it was fun. I sat next to Kati during Sacrament and she translated for me. The Patriarch and his wife were visiting from Madrid and talked about the blessings of tithing and fulfilling your calling. It was pretty cool hearing how the patriarch travels all over Spain to give blessings. There was a YSA Sunday school that I went to. They talked about the signs of Jesus coming again and how it's similar to the signs when Jesus came to the Americas. Relief Society is the same no matter where you go. Like exactly the same. The lesson was on honesty and they asked the sisters in the class if they had any personal experiences. Can you guess what their personal experiences were? "oh yeah this man at the store gave me to much change so I gave it back." etc. etc. I bet if I were to go to America and have the same lesson they would give an example like that. It makes me laugh. So yeah that was church!

I met so many people in the last three days. It's been amazing but I always feel bad. This is why. It turns out when I greet people for the first time I have an extremely bad habit of shaking peoples hands instead of doing the double kiss thing. This proves to be really awkward almost every time I meet a new person. Sometimes I remember to do the kiss thing but for the most part I forget. It's okay though I think for the most part people are understanding.

Anyway after church I came home and took a nap. Because what else do you do after church?! I then went out of the house for a while and took a stroll around La Coruna with Linda and two of her friends. One was from South Africa and the other was either from Australia or England. I forgot to ask and her accent was somewhere in there. They were pretty nice and I had a fun time meeting them.

Here I feel like a baby. I'm 18 right and everyone here is at least 23 usually older. The German Au Pairs were 19 but still. Everyone's all like, "Oh I thought you were at least 21." It's because I'm so tall or something. Or maybe I'm just super mature.  

So that was my week! Now to face another one filled with mystery and adventure. Till next week!