I am very tired lately, which I think might be due to my great attempts to be social ;) But really, the more Spanish speakers there are in a room the less I can understand what's happening, and eventually my brain just starts daydreaming or going into 'emergency shut-down mode' and making me start to fall asleep. I need to work on that...
I went with my tica friend to the house of one of her work friends for what I thought was just a get-together of everyone at her work but turned out to be a mini-celebration for their boss, who is moving in with his girlfriend. I was the only one without a housewarming gift, but I guess that couldn't be helped. Everyone ate lunch and chatted, and I found out that portion sizes are bigger here EVERYWHERE.
I just thought my tica mom was weird, because I told her I ate a lot of really small meals (which she didn't understand, because apparently merienda doesn't mean snack here?) and she kept giving me HUGE portions and telling me 'I only gave you a little because you told me you don't eat very much'. A little is a heaping plateful, in tico talk, so I guess a lot would be seconds or thirds of the same size. Anyways, the 'papas fritas grandes' that my friend ordered were really grande, meaning they took up an entire standard-sized styrofoam container. We maybe got through half, if I round up. I thought Americans were bad, but many ticos pride themselves in taking after the US (or so says my culture book) so maybe that's why they have such dispropotionate ideas of food. Or maybe I'm just always around people who think the same way, I'll have to keep my eyes out for variations.
Today I was also reminded of how fanatic ticas are about their houses. We were warned by the program director that our tica moms would be neat freaks, but I am continually surprised to the level at which this is true. My tica mom remade my bed, and I moved the top cover a little bit so I could crawl in and read my book (taking special care not to mess up the newly made bed), and at lunch she ran up to my room, did goodness knows what and returned to gravely tell me that my bed was 'muy desorganizada' so she fixed it. I'm not sure if she has ever seen desorganizada, but that certainly isn't me.
I'm generally very clean and fairly organized, keeping everything in piles at the very least, and here I'm making a special effort to keep tidy. Still, it's not enough. She folds my PJs, so I have to make sure to do that every morning, and stacks and restacks my vitamins. If any of my clothes, like what I will wear tomorrow, are folded on top of my dresser, she hides them away in the closet. The clothes wouldn't even be out, except that the drawers stick and take a huge effort to open...She has also gone through my luggage that I had stored under the bed to zip everything up and thrown away my soap when it got to be too small for her liking (I suppose? she never even spoke to me about it). She even pre-cleaned for me once when she told me I needed to have my room cleaned by the next day, because when I came back from a movie everything was shoved in the closet o_0 I just can't win, she always finds one more thing to fix, and insists on taking my towel off the hanger to throw over the shower.
So, when my friend comes to visit on Sunday, and might potentially want to see my room, I have been politely yet sternly reminded to tidy everything up, especially the bed, so that she won't see my 'messy' room. Oh boy. How on earth did she handle naturally messy students?? For you, tica mom, I'll do it, just not if you keep insisting on waking me up early every morning when I don't have classes or obligations. That's where my patience will grow thin.
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