My Home Stay

So I have finally moved into my home stay and I have to laugh about it because it is nothing like what I had imagined it would be. I live in a very nice neighborhood in Madrid that is very expensive. It has all of the designer shops in it like Gucci and Prada. Katie laughed because out of all three of the girls that are here we all know that I am the least fashionable and yet I ended up in the “fashion district” of Madrid. Regardless, the community is very safe and very nice and the only downside is that it is expensive to live here.

I am living with Señora Inés who is in her mid 70s and is almost entirely blind. She has a cyst on one eye and the other is clouded over. Natural light hurts her eyes and it is difficult for her to get around. She was a teacher for many years but had to retire because of her eyesight. She has a major in Spanish and English linguistics which means that when I don’t know how to say something, I can say it in English ;). I never realize how much I relied on hand gestures to help me with my language, but now that I am living with her I have. Since she can’t see anything then my hand gestures don’t help her at all so I now am forced to rely solely on my language which is an interesting challenge to face. She is a very nice woman though and calls me, "mi hijita" (my little daughter).

Because of her vision problem, she has a live in maid/helper. Yup that is right, I came to Madrid and now I have a maid. Her name is Eva and she cleans the house, cooks, answers the phone, and basically does everything that Inés can’t do because of her declining eye sight. Eva is nice although it is strange to live with her here because she tells me that I should leave the table without brining my dishes to the sink or washing them and things like that. Inés also has a cat named felipe. He is an orange tabby cat and Inés admits that he is very spoiled.

Even though we are all split up in Madrid, the 5 of us still get together every night to walk around the center of the city (Sol). We all try to talk in spanish, but there are times when we slip back into our native tongue. It is so nice to have people that I know in the city so that I know that my nights will be filled with doing something. Currently during the daytime there isn’t much to do yet. Classes don’t start until Monday and in my household there isn’t very much activity at all so most of the time I read or wander about the city. I really wish I could meet more people and fill my time with more activities, but I guess I will have to wait.

Tomorrow we start classes at Instituto Don Quijote, but first we have to take a language test to see what level we should be placed in. We got a tour of the school and all of the classes are super small. They have an 8 student maximum capacity and some of the classes are as small as 2 students. They are engaging and dynamic though and we will not just be lectured to, but will be interacting with each other and the professor. I am pretty excited to start class and dive into learning more spanish.