Esta es mi familia, mi hogar.

(I promise I will get photos with my family soon, but for now here is our living/dining room!)

Let's talk family.

This weekend I had the wonderful opportunity of traveling with my host parents, Marga and Sera. Rachel and I ventured with them to a beach town called Torremolinos, which is on the Costa del Sol. We only went for a few days, but by the end my brain was burnt out. Translating all day is tough, but the experience as a whole was incredibly rewarding. The thing about these home stays is that we only really get to spend time with our host parents during lunch and dinner, which is great, but it's not enough time to get to know each other all that well. This weekend it was so great to spend time with my host parents in a different environment and for more than just meal time. The four of us struggled to communicate quite a bit, but we were able to laugh at ourselves in the process. What is great is that many things can be communicated non-verbally. There is so much you can pick up about a person by simply watching their gestures and observing their actions.

An anecdote of Marga:

On Saturday, my roommate and I were going to go to the library, but Marga told us that it might be closed. We didn't think much of it, and we went anyway. Turns out that she was right, it was closed. We decided to go to a nearby cafe instead for a few hours. When we got back to the apartment she asked, in that motherly way, "so it was closed?". She knew all along. We should have known to just trust her because moms are always right...surprise, it's universal I guess.

An anecdote of Sera:

On the way back from the beach we were listening to some music, you know, the basic Spanish flamenco music, music from Portugal, some Elvis Presley thrown in there...nothing too out of the ordinary. All of a sudden, this song comes on and I think to myself, "Hey, I think I know this song". The song continues and it's "Lose Yourself" by Eminem. YES. EMINEM THE WHITE RAPPER. Rachel and I started cracking up, I was in tears. Marga started dancing, and Sera said something about it being rap, but I was laughing so hard I couldn't really hear what he was saying. I will never forget that car ride.

I didn't know I had the ability to feel so comfortable with another family. I feel so blessed to be here with them! Although I am in a different culture and speaking a different language, family still is characterized by the same things; it is looking out for one another, laughing, learning, and simply just being. This home stay experience is more than I ever thought it could be, and I can't image life here in Spain without it.