hot chocolate like no other

Yes, this is my second post of the day but I don't think the first one counts. And today was just too good to not write about it. Finally finally there was good weather. Sun, not freezing, ya know how it is.

And I have fulfilled one of my goals for Spain. Well, maybe not a goal but I did something I wanted to do ever since forming any coherent thoughts about me actually being in Spain. And that is: The Spanish sun warming my back while I sit in a plaza with my pocket journal writing in Spanish and absorbing my surroundings. It was gorgeous, with sounds of birds, fountains, and spanish in the air. First I read some poetry by Bécquer and afterwards got into a small conversation with an elderly woman. It was simple (although I used the "you informal" form instead of the Ud). She asked me where I was from, what I was doing in Spain. The important thing is that I understood her. And I answered her. In Spanish. Which is what I came here to do. Well, not this specifically--talking to elderly women in plazas--but talking with spanairds in general. And when she got up, she squeezed my arm and gave me a kiss on both cheeks. My first experience of this part of the culture. I think I like it. It acknowledges that there was just an interaction. To me it signifies that that interaction actually existed. And that maybe she was sincerely interested in knowing something about me. That said, I don't think that I'm going to go around kissing everyone I meet, as I don't know the guidelines for this practice.

Talking to my mom today, my interest in the mystery of TIME was reinforced. I woke up at around 8 this morning, and realized I could call her, and still catch her awake on her birthday, the day before. She was in yesterday. I was already a day ahead of her. She had a whole night of dreaming to do, I had a morning of classes to experience. Time is not something that I really have a grasp of. It just seems so weird that 7 hours can hold so much. And that it does not really depend on anything else. It just is. But we do change it, we use Daylight Savings Time to create a day with the sunlight hours that we want. And if everyone was on different time, would the world still function? I don't quite know. It boggles my mind.

Another mind opening experience: I was in El Corte Inglés, the large department store here wandering around the book section. And I saw guide books for the United States. And a little bit more of me realized that I was in a different country.

And the final observation of the day: a note about food. I would rather wait until I finish the draft of the post that is dedicated to food to write about this, but seeing as it is part of the day today, I'll include it here. Hot Chocolate "chocolate caliente" is different here. Not just in flavor, but in esscence. Yes, there is the hot chocolate of the powder variety, the kind that I have looked forward to many a time when coming off the slopes in Vermont. This is the kind I get most mornings out of the machine in the restaurante in the hotel. But when I ordered one today, at a café, I forgot that there exists another kind. The kind they serve for dipping churros in. This kind is thick, like a pudding. There is a skin on the top, and it most definitely could be comfortably eaten with a spoon. This is what I got. And it was delicous, if not a little nauseating after the half way mark. Not exactly "sip-able".

Todo por ahora,

j