Un día precioso—a lovely day

Yesterday was one of those days that was full of a bunch of little things that put a smile on my face, making it overall a very nice day. My new roommate is a 23-year-old German girl, and she’s the first roommate older than middle school or high school age that I’ve had since my first batch of roommates in January. We chatted during breakfast yesterday, and it was so nice to not only have a roommate that actually talks to me, but that has about the same level of Spanish as I do, so we had a really nice conversation! Plus, she told me I don’t speak Spanish with an accent, which is good—I may not have the Spanish accent down, but at least my American accent doesn’t come through!

My afternoon classes were cancelled yesterday because it was lunes de agua, a holiday that only takes place in Salamanca. Allegedly, it’s to commemorate the day that, historically, the local prostitutes were allowed back over the river into the city after being kicked out during Lent and Holy Week (or something to that effect). I don’t know how true that is, but nowadays Salmantinos celebrate lunes de agua by canceling classes and closing up shop for the afternoon (this is Spain, after all, the land of the 2-hour lunch break and of nothing open on Sundays) and having picnics and music down by the river or out in the country. It’s been cold and rainy here since we got back from spring break, but the sun returned just in time, and Kristen and I had a lovely picnic by the river, with an ice cream in the Plaza afterwards.

Also yesterday afternoon, I met with my intercambio José for the first time. An intercambio is basically a language partner; a native English speaker and a native Spanish speaker pair up, and you practice speaking each other’s languages. We had a nice chat, and I was really proud of how well I held up when we were speaking in Spanish. I think that the magic of the Blarney Stone may actually have worn off on me, because I’ve been feeling much more confident about my Spanish lately. Even after 3 full months in Spain, I still get such a happy feeling listening to myself having a decent conversation in Spanish!

When I got home for dinner, my host mom served me some lunes de agua wine, and we watched a bit of Sex and the City (or Sexo en Nueva York in España) on the Cosmopolitan channel (aka the American TV channel), which was a nice little taste of home. All in all, a very lovely day!