I am doing pretty well these days (except for the fact that currently I think I might be coming down with the flu..I couldn´t sleep last night due to an aching stomach and issues in the intestinal area, if you know what I mean). But besides that, things are going well. I feel pretty comfortable here. I feel content with my little group of friends and in my crappy-ass apartment. Today we are throwing another party wherein I´m sure, as per usual, way too many people will be crammed into way too small an area. But it´ll be fun. The more I think about what the hell I´m going to do next year, the more I realize that the easiest and perhaps most fun and satisfying option might be just to come back here to Madrid. A lot of the friends I have here will still be here. Unfortunately, not all of them, but at least I wouldn´t have to start all over again.

Things with The Mexican are going well. I really like this boy. He is very nice. He is outgoing and pleasant to everyone, and he tries to make conversation with everyone around him. And besides, he´s very sweet and cariñoso with me. The fact that he is Mexican actually means that we have a lot more in common than I would have with a Spaniard. For one, he too is living outside his country, and this is something that only people who have done it can really understand. It makes him a lot more independent and self-sufficient, like me, than the 26 year old Spanish boys who still live with their parents. And like I said before, he´s doing his doctorate in Sociolgy, which means that he, like me, has the sociological imagination. I mean, last time we hung out, we discussed the pros and cons of Erving Goffman´s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. How cool is that?

Having a relationship based completely in Spanish is kind of cool too. It´s very different, at times a little weird. But overall, very fun and satisfying. I am very proud of myself, that I can do this now. That I speak Spanish well enough to have friendships only in this language. Sometimes it is annoying though, that I want to tell him something and I can´t, or, I probably can, but I could tell it a lot better and a lot more entertainingly in English. And I´m sure that half the time I sound like an absolute retard, though he doesn´t show it. And I feel stupid when I can´t understand him either, but he´s pretty patient with me. I think this whole language thing probably bothers me more than it bothers him. But it´s great though, because I can practice speaking so much when I´m with him. I practice with my roommates and my other friends too, of course, but it´s different with someone you´re dating. Because your friends may or may not actually care about what you did today, or whatever problem you are dealing with. But with someone you are dating..well you just talk more I think. There´s a lot more things to talk about. I´ve probably told him more things about myself already than Nacho my roommate, or Helena.

And besides all this, he is adorable too. He is very sweet and gentle. He´s really big for a Mexican though. I mean, Mexicans are usually pretty short, but he´s like, 6´ 2¨ at least I think. Course I´m not sure because he only knows his height in meters. I always seem to like tall boys, but it´s kind of annoying too because he´s spent the night at my house a few times and all I have is this little kiddie bed and this really small pillow, and I really have been trouble sleeping with him because he takes up three quarters of the space. And he kind of snores. Anyhoo, I´m trying not to get my hopes up though. But who am I kidding, I always get my hopes up.

The good mood I have been in lately is due in no small part to this boy I´m sure. Other people have been noticing the change without me even saying one thing about it. The most embarrassing/funniest thing ever happened to me in one of my classes the other day... I have this class Monday and Wednesday morning at the Ministerio de Fomento with a bunch of middle aged civil servants. They speak really badly and they´re kind of slow, but that´s okay because they´re cute and sweet. There´s this one named Pedro who is obviously a child of the 60´s and always talks about how he loves everybody and everything and wears rainbow colored plaid shirts to class sometimes. He´s my favorite. Anyway, the other day in class, I was talking about some boring grammar point, and the funniest thing happened...

¨So you see class, the future continuous is used to talk about things that will be in the process of occuring, sometime in the future...¨ I was explaining. I looked up from my book and noticed that as usual, Jose, the trouble maker, was talking to his neighbor, once again, while I was trying to explain something.

¨Jose, Delores,¨ I said. ¨Do you have something you would like to share with the rest of us?¨

Delores and Jose looked at each other and started to giggle. ¨Ghee say dat joo are een loff,¨ Delores smiled.

¨What?! Where did that come from??¨ I thought to myself. I had just been talking about the future continuous, not having ANYTHING to do with romance. How did they know?? My face turned and red as a beet and I started to squirm.

¨Ah! Ees trroo!¨ laughed Pedro, the old hippie. ¨She ees verry reth!¨

Now, at this point, I couldn´t deny it. Of course I wasn´t in love, but I also couldn´t say that I WASN´T either since I recently HAD met somebody.

¨Wghat ees hees name?¨ they asked.

Okay, I really did not want to start this conversation. There is no reason that my middle aged government employee students need to know anything about my love life, but they had kind of backed me into a corner.

¨Umm..his name is Israel...¨ I conceded reluctantly.
¨Ghow ald arr joo?¨ they asked.

Assuming that what they really intended to ask was how old was HE, I answered, ¨Twenty-six...¨

¨Ees perfect!¨ they exclaimed.

¨Ees Espanish boy?¨ asked Delores.

¨No, he´s Mexican,¨ I said.

¨Ahhh...¨
Now, at this point, I really did NOT want to go into this anymore, so I tried to stear the conversation back to grammar. Then we moved onto a reading exercise, which, por lo tonto, just HAPPENED to be talking about Valentine´s Day. Crap.

¨Oooo!¨ squealed Pedro. ¨Gwhat day ees Balentine´s Day?¨

Of course, Valentine´s Day is a Monday, a day when we have class. Crap.

¨Oooo!¨ squealed Pedro. ¨Gwe gwill ghaff a lot to tallk abowt dees day...¨ he chuckled.

I can´t wait.

So apparently you can read something on my face about this whole boy situation. I certainly hope everything goes alright now, so I don´t have to just burst out crying or something if they bring it up on Valentine´s day if we´re not seeing each other anymore by that point. But I think we will be. I think...

Hey! How was everybody´s holidays? Me, I had a grand old time in Wales. These people I stayed with, Graham and Elaine, they are so nice, I can´t even tell you. I hadn´t seen them for ten years, and even then I only stayed with them for a few days, but it was like no time had passed at all. They instantly accepted me like part of their family and I felt right at home.

Christmas was spent at their house. Their daughter, who is my age, and her husband came over and we all opened presents. I had knitted them each a scarf, which I think they liked. And they got me a couple cute things too, which they totally didn´t have to do. They live in a town called Chepstow, one of those small towns where everybody knows everybody else, so throughout the day we had various visits from neighbors and friends, including the gay mayor of the town (who, incidentally, had moved back home to Chepstow from Cardiff after being mugged and hit in the head with a frozen leg of lamb by a band of hooligans...this has nothing to do with anything but I just thought it was really funny), and the two adorable little kids from next door, who talked with this perfect little Welsh accent that was very cute.

The 26th, Boxing Day, we saw more family. They are all so very nice and accepting, I felt right at home. They are all very proud of being Welsh. Graham has the Welsh National Anthem as the ringtone on his mobile. If he hadn´t told me that´s what it was, I wouldn´t have known. The rest of the week I spent going around with Graham and Elaine to various places and watching lots of TV in English, which was a treat. A very nice time indeed. I´m really glad I went. Really, really glad. I still would have rather been home, but not being able to be home, this was really the next best thing.

I arrived back in Spain on the 30th of January, managing to dodge once again the watchful eye of the Spanish authorities, and entered the country illegally again. Hehehe. Piece of cake. When I left for Wales I still wasn´t sure what I was going to do for New Year´s, but I figured I would be doing somethnig interesting. And folks, I was right.

That´s right, friends. After what has been a very long time, by all accounts TOO long, Chloe has finally gotten some booty. Por FIN. Let me tell you what happened...

So with my roommates Nacho (yes, Nacho) and Ignasi I went to Nacho´s lady friend Amalia´s apartment for New Year´s Eve dinner. This was the first time I had been there, and I met all her roommates, including a handsome fellow named Israel. So we had dinner, ate twelve grapes at midnight as the tradition dictates, and then went off to a party of a friend of Amalia´s. Israel didn´t go though because, I´m not sure why exactly, because he had to hang out with a different friend of his or something, or something lame like that.

The party was alright. There were a lot of people there that I didn´t know and I was feeling kind of shy. I was the only foreigner there, which was kind of interesting. They were playing all this eighties music, and all the songs I knew nobody else knew the words for, and all the Spanish songs that everybody else knew I had no idea about. It was kind of funny. Later though Israel showed up to the party after all, and we started talking. And we talked and we talked and we talked...for like four or five hours actually I think, until it was like eight o´clock in the morning, and finally we left...juntos. And yes, I finally had a true Spanish..intercambio.

This boy is very interesting. He´s twenty-five, he´s from Mexico, and he´s doing his doctorate here in Madrid in Sociology. He is very tall, with brown skin, black hair, and black eyes. But, most importantly, he doesn´t live with his parents. And a fellow Sociologist to boot! He has a very soothing accent, too. I don´t know, somehow pillow talk seems sexier in Spanish. This experience, however, has led me to realize that there is a whole slough of important Spanish vocabulary that I still don´t know. This could be a problem when needing to describe or explain certain things. But I´m sure I will learn the necessary nomenclature in due time. After all, it´s leagues easier to learn a language when you have the motivation to do so. Ahem.

I don´t know. I think I could like this boy. We shall see. I am trying not to get my hopes up too much. I have a bad habit with that... I am going to Play it Cool this time. Which, to be honest, is a game I have never understood. But I must remember the lessons I have learned from the movie How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days (Have you seen this movie? I just saw it in Wales. It´s hilarious. I was a wee bit shocked to realize however that a number of mistakes they pointed out that women make, I, myself, have indeed made. Oops.) and just hope for the best.

So I guess you could say I´ve invited in the new year with a bang. Ah yes. Things are looking up. For the moment anyway. We´ll see. If I never see him again, eh, whatever. It was fun anyway. But I have a feeling I WILL see him again.