Got my nails done for the last time today. Sad. They were silver sparkly. And then I saw my English class family for the last time. Even sadder :( To recap: on Tuesdays and Thursdays (except when I was busy and then they would very nicely let me cancel or reschedule) I would go over to their house and talk to Clara, Alonso, and Beltrán in English so they could practice. I was supposed to stay for an hour, but usually I would stay super late because we would hang out and talk. My program asked us the first day if we wanted to sign up to be English tutors, and I didn’t. They said most of the family had kids who were younger and needed lesson plans/specific help, and that didn’t sound like something I would enjoy or was qualified for, plus I was already really busy/just trying to get my bearings and didn’t want to make the commitment. But then Sofía asked me personally to tutor for this family. She promised they were super close to my apartment, that the kids were older/my age and I just had to converse, no lesson plans, and that they were super great. She talked me into it and I’m super glad she did. We all got to be friends really fast, and I always looked forward to the next “tutoring” session, which gives you some insight on why I alway put quotes around “tutoring”, because I feel like I barely taught them any English, but luckily they kept me around. Besides, they were all already so good at English that there wasn’t much I could do.
Since it was my last day, I made them take selfies with me. This is Clara. I know I've talked about how cool she is before. She's so cool. Like at first I was intimidated by her because she's so cool and I was afraid she would think I was lame, but luckily we became besties. She's not in the next pics because she had to go tapear, so true.
This is Beltrán. I'm pushing hard for him to come study abroad in the US (and maybe have my family host him if they can). We would talk a lot about the US, and all the quirks of English, and how much studying he had to do.
This is Alonso. We would talk a lot about sports (especially tennis and soccer) and American culture.
This is Carmen (Menchu). She was always so nice to me. I would always stay so late after "tutoring" ended and we would talk in the hallway. There'd be a lot of Spanglish going on, because Beltrán especially would stay mostly in English, but Menchu would speak in Spanish, and I would go back and forth as I could.
Introducing Pedro and Ines. Pedro and Ines usually weren’t home when I was over, but every once in a while we would get to say hi and talk. Especially because I would stay so late and talk to Clara, Alonso, Beltrán, and Menchu in the hallway.
Also, very very cool--they gave me this document from 1691 as a going away present. Long story but they got a similar document for Beltrán’s teacher as a retirement gift a few weeks ago that they showed me. I posted it on the blog. And obviously I was like, “That’s crazy.” And Pedro was like, “Oh do you like it?” And I was like, “Well, it’s older than my country, so that’s neat (untranslated, “Pues, tiene más años que mi pais, así que, es muy chulo!”).” And they were like, “Okay. We will get you one.” And I was like, “That is so kind but unnecessary! Please don’t feel like you have to do that!” And they were like, “It is done.” They’re so generous, I should’ve known that was what was going to happen. They’re always feeding me or giving me food to take home. Like one time they were like, “We have this awesome ham, you must try it,” and I was like, “Thank you but I’m vegetarian.” And they were like, “Oh okay. Take it and give it to your parents!” I gave them a couple boxes of Thin Mints--not at all comparable. Beltrán was so excited and I was like, “Dude, thank you for acting excited, but this is nowhere near as cool as this document.” And he was like, “No I’ve seen these online and on TV and I’ve always wanted to try them!” I really appreciate the enthusiasm since I felt bad for giving a worse present.
I can read some of it. Really the handwriting is the problem; if it was typed out I could figure it out easier. But it’s a property purchase contract between this guy Juan Bauptista and this guy Don Fernando.
Anyway, they're so awesome. Spoiler alert from July 19 but we've stayed in touch and have a groupchat. Love them.
Then I got home and had avocado toast. It is really humbling to look back and see how much avocado toast I had at this time. I'm going to write a short defense: it's super easy and fast to make, it's sooo good, and I would always have leftover ingredients from it and instead of repurposing them I would just buy the one ingredient I was missing every week or whatever. Anyway, I said I would keep it real and put everything on here, so let's get it up.
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