Adios Freaky.

Guys, I have sad news. Freaky is gone. Adios. Right when I was starting to get attached to him, he flew out the window. Toni and I were eating dinner when we heard some racket in the bird room and heard Esperanza shouting "Se escapó, se escapó!!!!!" And ran out the door with her butterfly net. Then we heard her calling for Freaky on the terrace down below for a good 15 min. That little trickster flew out of the open window. There are open windows here everywhere because people don't use air conditioning. It's not bad though because June is still Spring weather here. I've been wearing jeans and a sweatshirt to school everyday! Yesterday Esperanza taught Toni and I how to cook the Spanish Tortilla. You would think it's like a taco, right? Wrong. It's like our version of an omelette with potatoes and onions. I also learned that Esperanza, being the eco-friendly woman she is, makes her own biodegradable soap with leftover cooking oils! Incredible. You know, conversation gets a litttttttle mixed up sometimes in this household considering we've been living here 2 weeks and not 1 word of English (not even a hello) has been spoken between Esperanza and her chicas. And we are always talking! So as you can imagine, things can get a tad mixed up. Which is why I totally thought I was mistaking the whole soap/made out of your leftover frying ham oil/biodegradable for one of those misunderstood convos. But nope, I went straight to good ole google and found out that yes, this is a real thing that people do. Quite impressive, my madre. A few days ago I was in the dog house because Mom#2 found out my discovery of the cookie jar. She told me that eating a cookie after dinner was "no suficiente" and I thought she was joking so I laughed and then she let me know that this was not a laughing matter. I did not get my 2 kisses on the cheek the next morning or an escort to the elevator, to say the least. We're good now though, no worries. I asked her if I could hang my laundry on the line tomorrow and she told me that I am not practiced enough and I would drop all of my clothes. Oh well, maybe one day I will have experienced enough clothes-line-hanging so that I will be good enough to clip a pair of socks on the line. Just maybe. 

It's been a great week a la escuela (school) because my teachers are so sweet! Class is really cool. I'm learning simple stuff, but it's so practical. Can't even begin to count how many vocab words I've learned. It's like the game that was always so torturous in Spanish class back home. Having to define a Spanish vocab word while only using Spanish phrases and definitions to describe it. All throughout class periods here, we stop our teachers and ask the meaning of a word they have used. But they don't speak in English, usually because they don't know the word in English. It's so fun..like sherades or pictionary, Spanish edition! We have midterms next Tuesday and then final exams in 2 weeks! Crazy! And then I'll be heading home at the end of June because I decided to only take 1 mini-mester of classes. That means I'll be spending the rest of my afternoons on the couch, with my tea and Esperanza helping me study by having me tell her everything I learned at school. It's so fun..my favorite part of the day. 

What else has been going on? Well, I had ham for every meal today!! I feel like a true Spaniard today. Also went to the Prado Museum which is one of the most famous museums in all of the world. We went as a class activity and I found it fairly interesting until the last hour. As of right now, I have been to over 30 museums/cathedrals. Therefore, toward the end of our audio guided tour of the museum today, I accidentally slipped my headphones from my museum radio to my ipod. Oops!! They must have just jumped right into my purse and my ipod. Don't worry though, I continued to nod as I followed the rest of the tour. 

Here is another exciting adventure that I am experiencing right now. For those of you who know, I can go days, maybe a week actually, without my hair getting greasy. Because of this, I was a little concerned when I let my hair dry today and it turned out looking like a grease pit, never quittttteeee drying. I told Esperanza I had "un gran problema" and showed her my shampoo. Well, turns out I bought the shampoo for people with dandruff. Clearly I hadn't learned the vocab word for dandruff upon purchasing the shampoo. But it actually brought back great memories of the time in high school (happened to be the day before prom) when I decided to save a few dollars on buying Pantene Pro V instead of Brilliant Brunette shampoo. Brilliant Brunette is specifically for brunettes (supposedly makes your hair look special but I really think that's a lie) and Pantene Pro V has some that I thought was juuuuust like it, a little cheaper though. So I bought the one that said "For Women of Color." Duh, that must mean for those of you who have hair a color other than blonde. I thought it was just so weird that after I used it and dried my hair, my hair felt so waxy and would never quite dry. So I thought I would just keep on washing until it went back to normal. Mom came to the rescue with the Joy dish detergent after I discovered that "women of color" definitely did NOT mean "brunette" but instead should have said "women of another race." Oh good times in the Dekle household. Thanks Mom, you always know how to fix everything. She told me to use the dish detergent again today. I don't know if Esperanza's olive oil soap will do the trick this time.  

Life here is quite the adventure and I am loving it. Today, Toni and have have been at the park just hanging out, reading, and having some heart to hearts. I really love her and am so thankful how the Lord worked out our living sitch. On Sunday we are going to church with my precious teacher, Ana! She is so so so cute and so sweet. If I am a teacher one day, I hope that I can encourage and comfort at least one student in the way she has to me. It has been so awesome being here, not having the day-to-day distractions that I have back at home. It's so easy to depend on my surroundings and the comfort of being home, but here I am, in another country and the Lord is really using this time to teach me how to really seek Him, trust Him, and come to know His character in a deeper and sweeter way. And I am so thankful. Speaking of being thankful, I am reading one of Bill Johnson's books and I thought this was so encouraging. He is talking using thankfulness as a tool to strengthening yourself in the Lord and he says "Thanksgiving agrees with Heaven by acknowledging the truth that our lives are a gift from God, and that He is sovereign over all. God is extravagantly generous, and the life He has given us to experience on this planet is not a life of survival, but of abundance and blessing. But unless we properly recognize what we've been given, we won't be able to experience that life." Pretty good stuff. 

I hope everyone has a great, fun, restful weekend! Thanks for reading and hopefully by next time, Freaky will be back home. (We are putting up flyers tomorrow in case you were curious) 

Adios mis amigos!