Lazy Weekend

I apologize for the lack of blogging this weekend-- it's been pretty lazy with not much to report!

We're still on our school break (February 19-March 1) so most of my friends are still traveling. I love having time to unwind and decompress, but I'm definitely ready for people to start getting back! My friend Gina is here and we met up for ice cream last night which was awesome. It's always so good to get to see her!

Something interesting about the last few days was that I learned about Lent traditions in Spain. Spain's an extreeeeemely Catholic country, so I assumed that finding a place to get ashes and explaining my abstinence from meat on Fridays would be no big deal. Right? Wrong!

I spent about forty five minutes looking online for places to get ashes on Wednesday and couldn't find anywhere! I also spent a good chunk of the day walking around the streets and couldn't find a single person with ashes. It's just not that important in their culture here. I also tried to feel out the whole no meat issue with Rosario but she wasn't getting it. She's Catholic, too, so I was walking that fine line of trying to explain that I haven't had meat on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, or any of the Fridays during Lent for as long as I can remember while not offending her and calling her a bad Catholic. It ended up not really getting through, so I guess I'm going to be eating meat on Fridays this Lent... I'll try to make up for it later in the year. That's one of the really hard things about living in a host family. You can only eat what's put in front of you, and you really have no control over what it is. On the plus side, it is making me much less of a picky eater! I also did try to explain my potential shellfish allergy to Rosario and I'm really not sure how well it got through because she offered me shrimp about four times the other night. My plan of attack is to just examine my food veeeeery carefully and stick to the bread if the main dish looks fishy.

Another exciting update is that Lauren and I have her visit planned out and 75% booked! We're going to spend one day in Granada, two days in London, two days in Dublin, and five days in Puerto de la Cruz in the Canary Islands :-) I'm SO excited!! 

Five days till Paris! And three weeks from today, Matt gets here!!