Un cheeseburger y gazpacho, por favor

I had a cheeseburger and gazpacho for dinner tonight. Somehow this amuses me greatly. They were both really tasty. It occurs to me also that this is the first hamburger I've had in over two years. Funny how that works.

Sundays here are very tranquil. In Spanish, calm is either calma or tranquilo, but everyone seems to say tranquilo. It works here with the peaceful lifestyle. Everyone goes to beach. Everyone goes out with friends to enjoy life. Everyone here is pretty tranquilo. I like it. I'm tranquila too. It's a nice change from the almost frantic American way of life. Coffee to go is almost unheard of here. It's only in chains and touristy areas. It's far more common to see people smoking on the go rather than drinking coffee, although you also see people outside just smoking, but that may just be because Spain passed a law making it illegal to smoke inside. Either way, I feel it's more common in the US to see people drinking coffee on the go but stopping to smoke, whereas here the reverse is true. I imagine the Europeans have to do less laundry because of spilled coffee than Americans do.

Today we had lunch outside on the terrace. For starters we ate a kind of potato salad with hard boiled eggs, olives and white asparagus called ensalada rusa, or Russian salad. Not entirely sure what makes it Russian. The main course was a delicious chicken and gravy dish. My host mom is a fantastic cook. No wonder most of her children are close enough to come over for meals.

Also, since we were eating outside, bugs are always present. My host brother's adorable tiny daughter was afraid of the wasps so he just took his napkin and used it to whack the wasps away with a flick of the wrist. No big deal. No one else seemed to notice so I guess this is pretty commonplace. I tried not to laugh. Americans seem to be so terrified of insects and few brave souls would flick away a couple of wasps with a napkin and then just carry on as if nothing happened.

Skyped with my family today for the first time since I left almost two weeks ago. I got to see all of them before their Internet connection cut out. Hopefully that can be fixed soon so I can communicate with them faster than by email, Facebook and blog.

Tomorrow my first full week of school starts. I start work tomorrow too. Should be an interesting week.