A Weekend in A Coruña

I am sorry I have not updated this blog as often as I should, but I would like to point out that my weekdays are just as boring, predictable, and monotonous as everyone else's.

This weekend, I went with my host family to A Coruña, a city in north-eastern corner of Galicia. I had no idea what to expect; what it looked like, where we were staying (or with whom), what we would do there, etc.

We arrived at around 2 am because what should have been a 4 hr drive turned into 7. Murphy's law really stuck it to us this time. First, we were stuck in traffic for 2 hours because a car, to put it simply, EXPLODED on the freeway. Once we made it out of the traffic, we heard a large bang/pop/boom...which turned out to be what a popping tire sounds like. Our tire, to be more specific.
The sunset was pretty at the time though!

Eventually we did make it to A Coruña, however, things just kept getting weirder and crazier from there!

The entire weekend was something out of a crack-fairytale that I would probably write. I woke up to find myself on the 5th floor of an 102 yr old house, located in the middle of the city, but a block away from the beach. What everyone failed to tell me was that apparently Demetrio's family was not short on cash. His Great-grandfather built the house, which is 5 stories, and years later connected it to the house next-door as well. Demetrio's entire family was born, lived, and in many cases, died, in that house. Now however, his family rents out all but the 3rd and 5th floors. The house itself is all worn hard-wood floors, incredibly high ceilings, long hallways, and and huge shuttered windows without screens.

The view out of my window

My favorite inanimate objects are doors. I have always found them intriguing, as do the rest of the human population with any sense of curiosity. The hallways in the house looked like something out of those Scooby-Doo scenes, where everyone is running into doors, and comming out of ones on the opposite side. Despite its initial small appearance, I found myself lost multiple times. Twice, I could not even find the front door! However, I did find a room with a toilet, and a porcelelain bust on top of it.

Its not about where you are, but who you're with. In this case, who I was with and where I was fit perfectly hand-in-hand. The only people still living in the house are two of Demetrio's siblings, Maria and Tonita, as well as his aunt, Carmina, a woman named Lola, the maid Jaqueline, and her daughter Cintia.

Maria is a sweet, VERY talkative woman, who has spent her entire life in the house taking care of various family members. No matter how many times I mentioned where I lived in the US, the only places that seemed to register were Canada or New York. Talking to her was great, I understood her very well. In 3 days, I never saw her wearing anything other than a blue robe and slippers.

Tonito is Demetrio's older, mentally challenged, brother, who is also a sweetheart. He collects postcards and puzzles, and explained to me who the people in all the pictures were.

I was slightly shocked when I first met Carmina. She is 84, but could easily pass as 100, and appears as if she jumped straight out of one of the many 19th century pictures that lined the walls of the hallways.  She immediatly took a liking to me, and everytime she saw me, she commented on how beautiful she thought my eyes were. She then took my hand, and showed me around the house. From what I could tell, she is a little bit on the batty side, but in the nicest of ways.

While giving me another tour of the house, Maria asked if I had met Lola yet. I told her I had not. She proceeded to recount to me how her mother had had many children, and hired Lola to help raise them. She said that Lola had always been "mom" to her, and now it was Maria's turn to take care of her. I was a little thrown back when I first entered the room, and my initial thought was that Lola was dead. However, the 94 yr old is still alive, but unable to move or speak. Maria stroked her face with unbridled affection, while Lola simply gazed at me through unblinking eyes. She may have been a stone-toss away from the white light, but mentally, she's there, and her eyes said everything she couldn't.

We all ate lunch together everyday (which is the main meal here) and then went off to do our own things. I had been feeling pretty sick, but I decided to go for a walk on the beach. I was suprised and how mild the weather was, I was fully prepared for it to be freezing. The beach was different from the one's I am used to in California. The grains of sand are almost big enough to be pebbles, and walking in it was like walking through snow; Your feet sink in really deep leaving perfect footprints. I found tons of beautiful stones, as well as three blind dead jellyfish (its a camp-song reference).

For the next few days, I slept a lot because I started to feel really sick. I woke up one afternoon after a nap and found Cristina waiting with hot chocolate and churros for me. She is so amazing! Hot chocolate here is not a drink, it is literally a small teacup of melted chocolate, in which you dip your churros, then eat with a spoon.

Hot Chocolate

On both Saturday and Sunday night we went out to dinner with family friends. Galicia is known for its seafood, mainly octopus and squid. It was all delicious! I learned that waffles in Spanish are "gofres." If you ever want a really funny situation, try to explain to people in Spain how to prounounce the word "waffles." We settled on "Wah-fel-ehys."
Continuing with the theme of explosion and bad luck, the last night I went to go brush my teeth, anda pipe burst and started flooding the bathroom. I ran to my host parent's room and banged on the door frantically. While Demetrio went to go see what I was pointing at the bathroom and freaking out about, Cristina tried to calm me down saying there was nothing wrong. All I could say was "SI! HAY UNA PROBLEMA!"

Bottom line; My host family thinks I am a curse.

Did I mention that this is the second time I have been in a Eurpoean city while it was anounced that the Olympics would NOT be held there? Paris in 2005, and now Madrid.

However, during the trip back to Madrid, I managed to elevate myself to "God" status in the eyes of Cristinita because I know how to make a goblin face out of my hands, and have commited to memory the process of making an oragami paper crane. The downside to this was that for the remainder of the trip, I was forced to turn every scrap of paper available in the car into a paper crane.

As of now, I am incredibly sick. Despite the fever, hallucinations, dizzyness, full-body pain, and non-stop sleeping, the worste symptom by far is that I can't taste anything. I love food too much for this.

Love,
Chloe