Dear Diary,
I am writing this on a plane back from London, and I should
be reading a delightful tale called “Manolito Gafiotas” but reading for school
has never really been a preferred past time of mine, and considering that I
attended two of my six classes this week, school in general is not really my
thing. Instead of class I spent most of the week sick, broken and probono tour
guiding/translating. This week I discovered that all of those nights spent
eating at home would not do me any good when it came time to show my Mom and
Ian true Spanish cuisine. Tripadvisor was more helpful during their stay than I
was.
However we did get to share a meal with my host parents
where Kacey was once again ordered to stay and help translate. Rosa was clearing
showing off during this meal because we had four appetizers, full plates of
paella, and four deserts to follow, one of which was a Chirimoya-the greatest
fruit alive (Google it,) and all of which were forced upon my parents over and
over, in true Spanish style. This meal was one of the most interesting meals in
my life, because my Mom and Ian do not speak a fucking lick of Spanish, except
for “Hola”. I literally taught them yes, no (they didn’t know it was the same),
bye, please, and thank you. “Gracias” was probably the most fun word to teach
them, because in Spain it is said with a slight lisp, and so Ian took that as
scream, spit, and force your tongue through your teeth in order to follow the
correct phonetics. Needless to say he was quickly banned from all further
attempts at speaking the language. Anyways: dinner was three hours of getting
to learn more about my host parents, translating only what I chose to back to
my actual parents, and enjoying the company of five very important people in my
life.
On Thursday the three of us went to London together. I spent
American Thanksgiving (in case you are confused, Canada does in fact have their
own thanksgiving) eating enchiladas and seriously spicy guacamole. It was my
first taste of Mexican food or anything remotely spicy in three months, and it
was divine. On Friday we went up to the London Eye, ate scones with clotted
cream and jam, visited every possible Notting Hill landmark from the movie, ate
Yorkshire pudding, went to Matilda on West End and ate Thai food (another type
of food I missed dearly). The version of Matilda that we saw was identical plot
wise to the movie that I was obsessed with as a child, but the way they told
the actual story was…liberally adjusted. Either way it was exceptional. On
Saturday we went to Buckingham Palace (where my mother teased the Royal Guards),
to St. Paul’s Cathedral (if I never see the inside of another freaking church
in my life I would be just fine, that is all I seem do here), and then stood in
line in the pouring rain for Les Misérables tickets. Les Mis was hands down the
best theatre show I have ever seen, even though I spent the whole three hours
waiting for a speaking part, and coughing up my left lung. After the show we
ate Indian food, and retired to the hotel room so I could take a cough
suppressant and go to bed. I
really just ate ethnic food and rode the tube for four days straight, but it
was probably my favorite trip so far and I could not have picked two people who
I would have enjoyed making fun of the whole time with more.
Now it’s back to studying and preparing for the next two
weeks until finals. We’ll be landing soon, and these flight attendants are
feisty, so I should really put my computer away.
Wish me luck, Diary.
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