4. He walked in the room, quietly sucking on a pacifier. He stared at me working on the computer and looked at the screen for a few seconds. Then my face, then the screen, then my face. Then he wobbled to the table next to me, took my phone, stared at it, then brought it to me and put it on the armrest of the chair. Then he wobbled back out of the room, all without one word.
3. Charlotte's Web came on TV when we were eating lunch. Normally he is very happy and energetic during lunchtime, and he talks and screams. But he was so intrigued by this movie that he slowly slid out of his chair, then walked over to the arm chair (eyes glued to the screen) and sat down. He sat there sucking on his pointer finger, watching intently. Carlos thought it was so amusing that Dante was so quiet, so he started doing things that Dante would normally do. There would be a cow on the screen and he said "Mira! Dante! Mira! Ves la vaca!? Si?!" (Look! Do you see the cow?!) And he kept doing it for every animal on the screen. Dante stayed in a trance-like state, fully amused by the talking pig and the spider who could write words.
On a side note, when they showed the rat named "Templeton" my host parents asked me if it was his first or last name. I said I didn't know. They asked me if it was more of a traditional first or last name or if I knew anyone with that name. I told them it was very weird and that I had never heard it before. They seemed really intrigued by the rarity of this name.
2. His dad was getting ready in the bathroom to go out, putting on cologne and doing his hair. Dante opened the door and walked in, pointed to his new Frog-shaped inflatable tub sitting by the shower, then told me "Mira! Mira" (Look! Look!) His dad told him to get out so he could finish getting ready. I started walking back down the hall, then Dante comes out and says "Mira! Mira!" then holds out a finger. I was like "What, your finger?" Then he just swiped it across his forehead, and left a blatant white streak of face lotion. Then he just left it like that and continued walking around the house with a white streak on his face.
1. Before he went out with his parents, he walked into the room, and simply said to me "Adios, me voy a la calle." (Bye, I am going out.) Then he left.
Showing posts with label kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kids. Show all posts
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Un día increíble
Today was EVENTFUL!
See, I knew this whole "doing nothing" thing would change after the other students returned from Madrid.
So, just like I went on the Madrid tour last year, some of the students in the program this year went, too. Today was the day they got to meet their landlords or their host parents. In San Sebastian, we just went from our hotel (from orientation) straight to the houses/apartments via taxis. Here, it was a huge production. Luis, the program director, would announce a student's name, then introduce them, in front of the group, to their host parents. It was pretty funny, because the first girl went to her host mom and hugged her for a full minute, squeezing her like she missed her so much (when in actuality, this was the first time they ever met!). I technically didn't have a reason to be there, since I obviously already know my host family, but I wanted to see some of the other students in the program.
So, I went to this meeting in hopes that I wouldn't stand out so much as an americana in the streets of Alicante. To accomplish this, here is what I had to wear...my knee-high heeled boots with dark jeans tucked in, my hair down and curly, and my red plaid jacket, a wool version of this one:
So european. And guess what!? No weird stares that scream "you are SO americana." Only stares from lecherous men.
But when I was waiting at the flower shop for the USAC kids to arrive, i chatted with my host mom (in spanish of course) and when the kids arrived and were asking around, I spoke spanish to them. I think that some of them thought I was spanish. I think my clothes were just THAT GOOD. Plus I think they were confused that I said I was living in Alicante already (if only for 2 days).
But anywho, Rocio and I walked home with a host mom who lives close with a student from USAC. Tomorrow we'll meet up to walk to the flower shop again to take a bus to campus.
For lunch, Rocio made paella. And I watched. I will be an EXPERT by the time cooking class begins! She thought it didn't turn out well because the rice was a but hard. But i thought it was wonderful. And PS to my parents: what you should get for a souvenir is a paella. That is the pan paella is made in.
Then, as she was cooking, her friend (that she met through a friend), a Cuban girl who lives a few blocks away, came over for lunch. It was nice to meet new people. Especially because she is young and very pretty: ERIC, attention. And she is a physics or a science teacher for a special school for slower students. Pardon my wording...I spoke a LOT of Spanish today sin descanso and the translations to english to spanish to english are a bit weird.
Then, after Rocio, carlos, y Suyin (la chica) ate, Dante came home with his aunt (maria) and uncle (javi) who he'd been spending time with all day in the mountains to see the snow. They showed us pictures and Dante was throwing the snow and having a great time in all of them. When he gets really excited and happy, he stomps in place and then screams with a grin. In some of the video the aunt took on the camera, Dante was doing just this. And he was so cute: he didn't know that the snow was so cold, so he would throw it, then shake his hand violently to try and get rid of the cold feeling. And i don't know what would be the translation of this in English, but apparently he was calling the snow "blanco" instead of "blanca" (la nieve is feminine, so the adjective needs to end in an 'a'), which rocio thought was cute.
When the guests were over, they were all talking about the snow (the news channel was on). Let me digress for a moment: the people are reacting crazily to the snow in Spain. Like, of the two days of news I have watched on TV, about 70% has been about the snow in various parts of Spain. Either there is no important news, or this is the most important news EVER. The same footage they have shown for the past few days.
Suyin thought it was especially funny that there was footage of San Sebastian in La Concha (the name of the main beach) where there was snow on the sand, and people were skiing, but then in the background you can see people surfing. I think everyone has seen this footage by now, because even the woman who lives down the street with the USAC student mentioned it. I think from the way news dedicates its coverage to the topic of snow so much, everyone who has watched the news in the past WEEK has seen this.
Then, after lunch, around 5 or so, we went to a friend's birthday party. I was really excited when Rocio invited me, because first of all I would have been bored as hell waiting at home, and secondly, I wanted to see other little kids and converse with more people.
So we went to the party, which was outside of Alicante (so we drove). Dante passed out in his little car seat, his poor little head whipping around at every bump. We flipped between a few stations on the radio, one of which was the sound of broken glass and a train. I don't understand it. It was just a long recording of someone breaking glass, then it transitioned to a train on tracks, then we went to another station for a while, then came back to it and it was still a train noise. Rocio said there was different kinds of music, and this was just broken glass and trains. I don't really know if I would regard that as music, but it was interesting to listen to.
We arrived at the house and the party was in the basement, where there were about 12 kids of ages 1 to 9 or so. The birthday boy was turning 2. And I am pretty sure he NEVER spoke. And he was staring at me most of the time. With the not talking thing, it was kinda creepy. His paleness contributed to the creepiness.
But Dante was having a great time, playing with the birthday boy's gifts, like the mickey mouse rolling backpack. He just carried it around in circles, then rolled it around in circles, then when it (and he) fell on the ground, he just clutched the bag really close, rolling around on the ground.
The kid also had lockable rollerskates like this, with spiderman on them:
And the spaniards call him SPEE-dur-man.
And Dante called the skates (which are patines) patones, even after his mom kept correcting him. so cute.
But Dante loved those, even though he needed his mom's help to skate around. He wouldn't take them off. And then he found the toy cars. (he has 20 or so here at home) He got really excited, and when he gets excited with the toy cars, he parks them. No, he isn't like a normal kid who wants to roll them, race them, ride them, make them go all over the place. No. He loves toy cars so he can park them. He even has a toy parking garage for them. No, not a race track. A parking garage. So tranquil.
There was a girl there, about 5 or 6, who had her dog with her, a baby version of Lola (my host family's dog). Like, super tiny. And she carried him around EVERYWHERE. Rocio kept saying "pobrecito perro!" (poor dog) because the kids just kept chasing it and picking it up and putting it in baskets and grabbing it and screaming its name (which was Bob by the way) over and over again. The dog was beyond exhausted. And the way they pronounce Bob is more like "bow" as in, tying a bow, but with a b at the end. Like Bohb. Not Bahb. Bohb.
So the kids are chasing this little guy:
yelling "bohb! bohb! bohb! bohb! bohb!"
After a while, me being me, I was playing with the little kids' sand art, which by now was one brownish pink color that they were pouring into a bear-shaped bottle. I was helping scoop the sand with them when Carlos and Rocio said jokingly "melissa wants to stay...she likes it here!"
I also learned that they speak a second language here in Alicante, much like they speak Basque in San Sebastian. Here it is called Valenciano. And I found out that the people from Valencia only call it this, even though it is the exact same as Catalan (the second language in Barcelona, which is a mix of French and Spanish). Weird, right?
Then at dinner tonight, I asked how many students they have hosted and they said I was the 5th or 6th one. The girl who was here when I was in San Sebastian was named Julianne, and I actually have met her! And we took a picture together!
(that's her in the middle!)
I only knew Kristen and Josh (the girl I am very affectionately sitting next to, and the only boy in the picture), but when they came to visit San Sebastian last year, they brought some friends. One of which was the ex-student who lived with my current host family. Weird!
After dinner I got to play with Dante and Darth Tater. I made a game of it by holding up a body part, then asking him which one it was. I held up the tongue and was like "what is this? an eye? an arm? a foot? A nose? a tongue?" and he would respond to all of them "no," even tongue, so I would say another body part and come back to tongue, giving him a chance to say the correct one. But no, he just said no all the time until I would just say "yo dante, it IS a tongue."
Also, I learned that Rocio and Carlos each have more than one cell phone. Phone plans are expensive, so they bought one phone that has cheap calls in the evening, and one with cheap calls during the day, so they can make cheap calls all the time!
And thinking about and talking about my semester abroad makes it seem so much closer than it really was, which is weird. I feel like the summer and fall just disappeared, and it was only a month ago when I was in SanSe.
See, I knew this whole "doing nothing" thing would change after the other students returned from Madrid.
So, just like I went on the Madrid tour last year, some of the students in the program this year went, too. Today was the day they got to meet their landlords or their host parents. In San Sebastian, we just went from our hotel (from orientation) straight to the houses/apartments via taxis. Here, it was a huge production. Luis, the program director, would announce a student's name, then introduce them, in front of the group, to their host parents. It was pretty funny, because the first girl went to her host mom and hugged her for a full minute, squeezing her like she missed her so much (when in actuality, this was the first time they ever met!). I technically didn't have a reason to be there, since I obviously already know my host family, but I wanted to see some of the other students in the program.
So, I went to this meeting in hopes that I wouldn't stand out so much as an americana in the streets of Alicante. To accomplish this, here is what I had to wear...my knee-high heeled boots with dark jeans tucked in, my hair down and curly, and my red plaid jacket, a wool version of this one:
So european. And guess what!? No weird stares that scream "you are SO americana." Only stares from lecherous men.
But when I was waiting at the flower shop for the USAC kids to arrive, i chatted with my host mom (in spanish of course) and when the kids arrived and were asking around, I spoke spanish to them. I think that some of them thought I was spanish. I think my clothes were just THAT GOOD. Plus I think they were confused that I said I was living in Alicante already (if only for 2 days).
But anywho, Rocio and I walked home with a host mom who lives close with a student from USAC. Tomorrow we'll meet up to walk to the flower shop again to take a bus to campus.
For lunch, Rocio made paella. And I watched. I will be an EXPERT by the time cooking class begins! She thought it didn't turn out well because the rice was a but hard. But i thought it was wonderful. And PS to my parents: what you should get for a souvenir is a paella. That is the pan paella is made in.
Then, as she was cooking, her friend (that she met through a friend), a Cuban girl who lives a few blocks away, came over for lunch. It was nice to meet new people. Especially because she is young and very pretty: ERIC, attention. And she is a physics or a science teacher for a special school for slower students. Pardon my wording...I spoke a LOT of Spanish today sin descanso and the translations to english to spanish to english are a bit weird.
Then, after Rocio, carlos, y Suyin (la chica) ate, Dante came home with his aunt (maria) and uncle (javi) who he'd been spending time with all day in the mountains to see the snow. They showed us pictures and Dante was throwing the snow and having a great time in all of them. When he gets really excited and happy, he stomps in place and then screams with a grin. In some of the video the aunt took on the camera, Dante was doing just this. And he was so cute: he didn't know that the snow was so cold, so he would throw it, then shake his hand violently to try and get rid of the cold feeling. And i don't know what would be the translation of this in English, but apparently he was calling the snow "blanco" instead of "blanca" (la nieve is feminine, so the adjective needs to end in an 'a'), which rocio thought was cute.
When the guests were over, they were all talking about the snow (the news channel was on). Let me digress for a moment: the people are reacting crazily to the snow in Spain. Like, of the two days of news I have watched on TV, about 70% has been about the snow in various parts of Spain. Either there is no important news, or this is the most important news EVER. The same footage they have shown for the past few days.
Suyin thought it was especially funny that there was footage of San Sebastian in La Concha (the name of the main beach) where there was snow on the sand, and people were skiing, but then in the background you can see people surfing. I think everyone has seen this footage by now, because even the woman who lives down the street with the USAC student mentioned it. I think from the way news dedicates its coverage to the topic of snow so much, everyone who has watched the news in the past WEEK has seen this.
Then, after lunch, around 5 or so, we went to a friend's birthday party. I was really excited when Rocio invited me, because first of all I would have been bored as hell waiting at home, and secondly, I wanted to see other little kids and converse with more people.
So we went to the party, which was outside of Alicante (so we drove). Dante passed out in his little car seat, his poor little head whipping around at every bump. We flipped between a few stations on the radio, one of which was the sound of broken glass and a train. I don't understand it. It was just a long recording of someone breaking glass, then it transitioned to a train on tracks, then we went to another station for a while, then came back to it and it was still a train noise. Rocio said there was different kinds of music, and this was just broken glass and trains. I don't really know if I would regard that as music, but it was interesting to listen to.
We arrived at the house and the party was in the basement, where there were about 12 kids of ages 1 to 9 or so. The birthday boy was turning 2. And I am pretty sure he NEVER spoke. And he was staring at me most of the time. With the not talking thing, it was kinda creepy. His paleness contributed to the creepiness.
But Dante was having a great time, playing with the birthday boy's gifts, like the mickey mouse rolling backpack. He just carried it around in circles, then rolled it around in circles, then when it (and he) fell on the ground, he just clutched the bag really close, rolling around on the ground.
The kid also had lockable rollerskates like this, with spiderman on them:
And the spaniards call him SPEE-dur-man.
And Dante called the skates (which are patines) patones, even after his mom kept correcting him. so cute.
But Dante loved those, even though he needed his mom's help to skate around. He wouldn't take them off. And then he found the toy cars. (he has 20 or so here at home) He got really excited, and when he gets excited with the toy cars, he parks them. No, he isn't like a normal kid who wants to roll them, race them, ride them, make them go all over the place. No. He loves toy cars so he can park them. He even has a toy parking garage for them. No, not a race track. A parking garage. So tranquil.
There was a girl there, about 5 or 6, who had her dog with her, a baby version of Lola (my host family's dog). Like, super tiny. And she carried him around EVERYWHERE. Rocio kept saying "pobrecito perro!" (poor dog) because the kids just kept chasing it and picking it up and putting it in baskets and grabbing it and screaming its name (which was Bob by the way) over and over again. The dog was beyond exhausted. And the way they pronounce Bob is more like "bow" as in, tying a bow, but with a b at the end. Like Bohb. Not Bahb. Bohb.
So the kids are chasing this little guy:
yelling "bohb! bohb! bohb! bohb! bohb!"
After a while, me being me, I was playing with the little kids' sand art, which by now was one brownish pink color that they were pouring into a bear-shaped bottle. I was helping scoop the sand with them when Carlos and Rocio said jokingly "melissa wants to stay...she likes it here!"
I also learned that they speak a second language here in Alicante, much like they speak Basque in San Sebastian. Here it is called Valenciano. And I found out that the people from Valencia only call it this, even though it is the exact same as Catalan (the second language in Barcelona, which is a mix of French and Spanish). Weird, right?
Then at dinner tonight, I asked how many students they have hosted and they said I was the 5th or 6th one. The girl who was here when I was in San Sebastian was named Julianne, and I actually have met her! And we took a picture together!
(that's her in the middle!)
I only knew Kristen and Josh (the girl I am very affectionately sitting next to, and the only boy in the picture), but when they came to visit San Sebastian last year, they brought some friends. One of which was the ex-student who lived with my current host family. Weird!
After dinner I got to play with Dante and Darth Tater. I made a game of it by holding up a body part, then asking him which one it was. I held up the tongue and was like "what is this? an eye? an arm? a foot? A nose? a tongue?" and he would respond to all of them "no," even tongue, so I would say another body part and come back to tongue, giving him a chance to say the correct one. But no, he just said no all the time until I would just say "yo dante, it IS a tongue."
Also, I learned that Rocio and Carlos each have more than one cell phone. Phone plans are expensive, so they bought one phone that has cheap calls in the evening, and one with cheap calls during the day, so they can make cheap calls all the time!
And thinking about and talking about my semester abroad makes it seem so much closer than it really was, which is weird. I feel like the summer and fall just disappeared, and it was only a month ago when I was in SanSe.
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