So un chino and una rubia walk into a bar...

Miercoles el 4

I'm going to talk about Marisa's family.

Marisa's and my mother are friends, which in Spain means that our families will automatically know everything about each others weird foreign students. That's cool I guess, since Marisa and I already broke the ice by breaking into the kitchen and getting caught.

Our friend Ben is Chinese, however, he doesn't look very Chinese. Like, if we were in Seattle, he would look not very Chinese at all. He is probably the only Chinese person currently in this city, and I am one of probably 4 real blondes. For this reason, and the fact that we're all friends, when Marisa's family asks about us, we are referred to as el chino y la rubia. And, Ben and I live in the same building, so all the people who live in our edificio need to get used to living with some "American" freaks.

Also, Marisa has been having some trouble with her madre. It's not too terrible, but from what I gather the woman is what some may refer to as... passive aggressive. It's hard to fight this in English, but imagine trying to ask "Why did you line my floor with newspaper?" in Spanish.

So. The madre. My mom is a pretty authentic Spanish cook. That means I get everything fried in olive oil, and lots of seafood. I think Marisa's madre is too, but instead of feeding her the same thing that the family get, Marisa gets tortullini. Tortullini covered in spaghettio sauce. When Marisa asks, "Madre, why did you give me something different?" madre says "Oh, well I thought you wouldn't like this!". The "this" was this really good tomato soup that my madre makes, with pan and spices. This was the first instance that lead us to the conclusion that Marisa is a puppy.

Puppies get trained, and we are all currently being trained to speak Spanish.
Marisa gets tortullini all the time. Puppies get puppy chow.
This last one is my favorite. Marisa is a very good person, and very positive, so she took it a lot better than I would have.

Marisa walks in her front door the other day after trudging through a hurricane flash flood. She gets some water on the floor, and her hermana reminds her to wipe her feet before she comes in the door. Marisa is a smart puppy, and she learns this right away. So, later that night, after we had been out for a couple drinks, Marisa returns home to find that the front door is stuck. She finally manages to shove it open and finds that it wasn't stuck, but rather blocked by a towel laid out on the ground by the door, and turns to see the entire hallway lined with newspaper. I don't care how weird they think we are, that shit is WEIRD. I could never see an American family who is hosting an exchange student from Spain doing that.

We are all like little, baby puppies. We don't know how to talk yet, even though we can understand pretty well, we must eat all of our puppy chow to please our madres, and if we piss on the floor, we'll get beaten with a rolled up newspaper.

Just kidding. Kind of.