Today was a pretty bitter-sweet day for multiple reasons. The main reason is because one of the other students who lives here and has been staying with us since we arrived left today! Her name was Cecilé Riviere and she was a 20-something-year-old student from France and was studying with a different program than a few others but lived with us and nonetheless, became really close to all of us here! It's weird because she was the only girl in the house (other than our Señora, Luisa) so she was easily like a big sister to most of us!
We've all had a lot of fun since we all got here though, just going out on the town, eating lunch and dinner as a family and basically just hanging out after classes in the Plaza Mayor or watching the fútbol games in our favorite Irish pub, "O'Hara's." Throughout all of that daily contact time, it's no wonder we've gotten so attached!
Unfortunately, Cécile wasn't the first person to leave though. Last week (I've forgotten the specific date by now) my friend Jamie left en route back to the U.K. :( Definitely still miss him now! He was a 21-year-old at Cambridge and minus Cecile, he was pretty-much the best student in the house to speak Spanish with.
Cecile was already fluent in French and pretty much proficient at English, but was about on the same level as Jamie when it came to speaking Spanish! Seeing them leave was slightly depressing and I don't know where I'm gonna be now that my "Luisa-Translators" have departed me! :-/ lol
Sometimes it does get hard trying to speak and listen to everything that goes on here, conversation-wise. Lunch and dinnertime are usually the two points when we totally depart our English safe-zones and are forced into speaking some hardcore español! I noticed tonight as I sat down to eat dinner that this was the first time I've ever brought my Spanish dictionary with me to the table (and man, did it ever help!)
Meeting new people, learning, laughing, and living with them is all apart of Spanish life this summer, and while it has been kind of sad meeting them and then seeing them go away, it does make me happy knowing that if nothing else, I at least have one more friend in a different part of the world who's totally down for meeting up and hanging out when we someday cross paths again!
So Jamie and Cecilé, this note is for you! I miss you both dearly and I'm so glad I had the chance to meet you (and drive you both a little bit crazy as well). :-)
Two weeks down - two more to go.
Amor,
Lawrence
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