Host Family

Saturday was a little more exciting. We finally met our host family. I ended up living with Alex, and another student from Tech named Aaron.

I have no idea what the name of my family is. However, my family consists of a single mother and a daughter of 28 years. The mother we just can call ‘Madre’ or ‘mama’ but I have yet to call her anything. Anytime we talk, a name is usually not used to start the conversation. Our ‘hermana,’ or sister, is called Isa (pronounced “Ee-thah” with the Spanish lisp) but her name is Maria Isabel. They are very nice people, and they have been taking in students for a long time. Last year they had two people from Texas Tech named Chris.

The house is what we would call an apartment, but they call it a ‘Piso’ which literally means floor, but they use it because an apartment is usually very small here. This ‘Piso’ is a very good size for a house. It is a four bedroom, one floor with a living room and full sized kitchen. The floors are all marble, as carpet isn’t used very much in Spain. The furniture is very nice and the house is kept very neat.

We are asked to wear something on our feet at all times when walking around the house. Not only is it a Spanish tradition, but it is thought that walking without shoes on the cold floor will make you sick. Also, if you catch a cold, we were told they will tell you that you had been sitting under the air conditioning for too long. These customs seem very different to us, however they are very easy to deal with as we can easily avoid any problem by wearing socks or avoiding the AC unit I guess.

Life is very different here. Showers shouldn’t be more than 5 minutes, which is very different for someone who can easily exceed 4 times that. Also, lunch is the biggest meal of the day. Breakfast is early in the morning and lunch is later. We eat lunch at maybe 2 or 3 pm. Dinner, as you all probably know, is at 9:30 p.m. or later. Siesta is a time when all of the shops close because no one wants to be out during mid day because it is so hot here.

Lunch was amazing. The first plate was a salad and the second was Albondigas with papas fritas (French fries or literally fried potatoes). Albondigas are very similar to meatballs, yet they are served alone and with a delicious sauce smothering them. This meal was amazing.

After returning to the Texas Tech center and planning our night with our new friends, we went back to the house. We told her that we were going to go out to the bar to watch the Champions league final and she told us she would make us an early dinner. We had dinner at about 8 p.m. before heading out.

Alex, Aaron and I headed out to the bar a little late for the game. When we got there, the bars were all filled. We might have overhyped the game though, because as it was a team from Italy and a team from Germany playing each other, nobody seemed to care. It was kind of a dud.

After the game ended we just grabbed a table and waited for people to meet us where we told them we were. They didn’t show up so we headed off to another bar. The bar we headed to usually has a lot of people in it and is very social. We arrived to a near empty part of town and police literally parked outside the bars. The policia put a huge damper on the night.

The bar remained empty and when I asked the bartender where everyone was, she said they went to the beach. So we came to learn Saturday night is not a big party night in the city, yet Sunday nights through Friday nights are very much party nights.

The night ended abruptly and without much excitement. We were a little too pumped up for the soccer game and the night on the town, only to find that no one cared about the Champions League final and Saturday is supposed to be spent at the beach.

What else do y'all want to know about here? Maybe leave some comments or suggestions for me. This would help me out a lot because I don't know if y'all want to read of my daily life or the food we eat, etc. Thanks for reading!