This week I was able to settle into my routine and have gotten more comfortable with work and my apartment. I have been able to get to know some of my roommates and they are mostly pretty friendly. My room is starting to feel like my own space and most days I cannot wait to relax on my bed. It really helped to put up some pictures from home and hang up some posters, which made it more than square white space. I also like to think that I have mastered the metro and can comfortably get from point A to B with very few problems.
My work has picked up a bit, especially thanks to my decision to be more direct and ask my supervisor for tasks. This has kept me busy and I have even been moved up to more important tasks like prepping client folders for their social work appointments. It also seems that after translating one project proposal document, I am the official office English translator. Since then I have gotten a new translating task every few days. This has helped me feel like an actual part of the team, because they need me for my English.
After a long work week, I was able to travel to Segovia this weekend to visit my sister’s host family from when she studied here. It was my first time outside of Madrid but was manageable with a quick one hour bus ride to the center of Segovia. I was greeted by the family and their adorable month old daughter, who is also incidentally named Sofia. It was nice to stay with them and see what a real Spanish family is like. I even learned that it is normal for Spanish children to stay up very late, which I did both nights (and felt very old when I was exhausted the next morning). Over a few days I was able to see the ancient roman aqueduct that runs through the town center, the cathedral and my favorite spot, El Alcazar castle. The castle was by far my favorite, it looked like something out of a story book and was actually the Castle that inspired Walt Disney to create Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. The interior was so well maintained that that they had pieces over a thousand years old. Being from the United States, I am not used to be surrounded by so much history on every corner. This means that one of my new hobbies is wandering around town and taking in all the little details, there are so many here!
It was also a very important food weekend, as I got to try paella for the first time and it was delicious. Apparently traditional paella is made with chicken and rabbit meat, but we had a delicious seafood mix. I am not normally a fan of seafood, but I will admit that paella was great! Another special regional dish in Segovia is cochinillo, which is roasted suckling pig. It was a little intimidating being given an entire piglet but it was definitely a very Spanish experience! All of that was topped off with lots of tinto (aka red wine) and croquetas!
Curly Q Travels 