Best Friends and Brownies

On Wednesday I went over to Rocío's house to make brownies, get my hair straightened and watch THE SHOW. SHe came over after her Red Cross First Aid class and waited outside until Collin got home from playing soccer with the CLM students. She waited outside because she was with Yusef, one of her friends that likes her. Yusef is Morrocan, but grew up in Spain. I met him the other night at the protest. I told them they could come up, but they didn't want to (I think because she wanted to have a smoke). I drove to her house and Yusef came with because he lives nearby. Rocío is a very nervous passenger and to be honest, I'm a nervous driver (in Granada) and she would tell me to turn right as I was passing the turn which didn't give me enough time to make them. I ended up going around a couple roundabouts twice because she wasn't a such great co-pilot (according to Yusef). But she doesn't have her license so it is probably hard for her to figure stuff like that out.

Straightening my hair was kind of a process. Geez, washing and conditioning it is a long process in itself because my hair is so curly and LONG right now, straightened it goes down to about 4 inches above my waist. First, I blow dried my hair at home and then later, Rocío used a flat iron to straighten it even more. I think it would have come out straighter if we had used some product, but neither of us had any so it definitely looked like straightened curly hair. One of these days I would love to do the Japanese straightening, but I think I would probably regret it eventually when my hair started going curly at the top, but remained straight at the bottom while it was growing out.

I taught Rocío how to make my favorite brownie recipe in English. Her parents were home and her dad was making a type of fish called "rape" pronounced rah-pey. I tried it and it was pretty good, but he had used mayo to make the batter stick to the fish and I not a huge mayo fan. Rocío made omelets with a TON of olive oil and then she told me that omelets taste good with jam on them. They had tomato jam and so I tried it. It wasn't bad. I probably wouldn't eat it everyday, but it was pretty good. The brownies turned out great, I used a recipe from Epicurious that has you melt dark chocolate and butter together and also has walnuts in it. Her mom and dad were chatting away, mostly to me while we were trying to watch THE SHOW and Rocío was totally annoyed because we couldn't hear what was going on, plus sometimes she has to explain stuff to me when I don't catch what they say. Finally, her parents went to bed and we could concentrate. I went home at 1 a.m.

The next day Marta and Lucía came over after school. I made crunchy chicken, fries and cut up some melon. Afterwards, we all had brownies. Emma started eating the crumbs off of Marta and Lucía's plates. Then all the girls scraped the crumbs out of the pan and were licking their plates. I guess the brownies were a hit. They played on the patio for awhile and then were playing with Legos and Emma's stuffed animals. Inma, their mom, bought Emma a baby doll just like the ones Marta and Lucía have for Emma to remember them by. Emma was over the moon. She kept hugging and kissing Marta and Lucía and thanking them over and over. She and the twins came up with the name Rosita for the doll. It smells like cake and is anatomically correct. I let Emma skip her Spanish lesson because she had friends over. I made them a big bowl of popcorn and they watched Corpse Bride in Spanish at the kitchen table on Collin's laptop. Lucía kept talking and Emma and Marta kept rolling their eyes at her and telling her to quit talking. I put the twins hair in rag rolls to show Inma how to do it. It was so cute to hear Emma chatting with them in Spanish. I call them the "tres mellizas" after a Spanish cartoon about triplets. I wish, wish, wish we were staying for longer so the kids could enjoy their friends and learn more Spanish. I think the play date was a success since the girls were hiding behind the couch when their mom came to pick them up.

Ian is finally happy in school. He is much less likely to throw fits now that I signed him out of religion. He also plays with friends every day at recess. I wish it hadn't taken him so long to acclimate himself to school here because he had such a miserable two months and now we only have about a month and a half left.