Rain, Rain, Go Away...

The weather here has been muy mal lately. It’s been anywhere from 4-12 degrees Celsius, and while that’s above freezing and better off than a lot of other places in Europe (and even SC, apparently), it just feels colder because of how southern Spain is designed. I know I’ve talked about, but I feel like I can’t stress it enough, because I need people to understand why its 50 degrees outside and I feel like pulling a space heater into bed with me.

On top of the chilly temperatures, it’s going to rain all of this next week, and this is really not good when you’re a student on study abroad that walks everywhere and doesn’t have a lot of the usual “rainy day” comforts like a television to watch or a movie collection. I’ve even run through all of the books that I brought with me. I’m trying to read a book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Spanish but it exhausts me after about 3 pages.

I asked Antonio what I should do because of all of the bad weather, and he told me to twiddle my thumbs, which is what he plans to do this next week. Thanks Antonio. So, if any one is wondering what CRAZY things I’m doing on study abroad – I’m twiddling my thumbs with Antonio, my septuagenarian host father.

Okay no, it shouldn’t be that bad, though the rain will probably push me to finish all of my schoolwork and do a lot of work on my computer, which is probably good since I’m traveling this weekend and next weekend (Madrid, Toledo, Barcelona, respectively)

Just so this post isn’t all sad about the rain, I’ll throw in an uplifting story. It was raining on Saturday and it was frigid outside, so I (almost) literally ran to an internet café to do some work indoors. I was ready to be a Debby Downer about the weather when a woman came over and started speaking to me in Spanish. She asked if I was Spanish, and I told her no, but I can speak Spanish. So, in Spanish, she begins to tell me about how she can’t get on the internet and she has to send an important email. I told her I knew computers well and that I could look at hers. She was so glad to hear this, whipped out her computer from the bag, and introduced herself to me as Maria. Her computer was in Spanish, of course, I don’t know why I was surprised when it logged on and told me “Beinvenudo,” but I still managed to fumble around and fix her wireless. She thanked me and asked me a few more questions that I understood and apparently gave her a satisfying answer to.

So, for every frustration I have, there’s always the occasional triumph. This makes up for the atrocious email conversation I had to have IN SPANISH with the customer service of a travel website. That didn’t have a satisfying result, this did.