Mallory en España: Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you mothers out there! I thought that it would be a nice gesture to send flowers to my own mother to let her know I was thinking about her on Mother’s Day; however, I made a slight mistake while ordering. I found these beautiful blue hydrangeas that I knew my mom would love, so I ordered them to have them delivered to her on Thursday (just in case that she would be at the beach this weekend). When she received them, she sent me a short message to thank me, letting me know how pretty they were and how thoughtful I was to send them to her. On Friday, I was finally able to call her to talk, and when I asked her about the flowers, she paused and said “They’re beautiful, and what’s even better is that I can enjoy them every Mother’s Day!” At first I was confused, and then realized…they were FAKE! What a disappointment. We laughed about it, but what will be nice is that every year, she will be able to pull out her fake Mother’s Day flowers for everyone to enjoy.

This past week was a lot of fun, and involved a LOT of food. This past Sunday, our neighbors Adam and Alice from Ireland and Monica from Mexico made crepes for everyone. They had a huge spread of fruit, nutella, honey and other things to put in the crepes and despite the fact that the chefs weren’t French, it was so good! We spent the rest of the day playing cards and watching MTV Spain. It was a relaxing way to end our weekend.

Monday and Tuesday were pretty low-key and we spent the days catching up on schoolwork and studying for finals, as finals are in just a couple of weeks. On Wednesday, we had all of our friends over for a “Mexican Night.” Monica and Rafa from Mexico made frijoles a la charra, which is a type of soup with white beans, ham, onions and tomatoes, Hector made chorizo and then we also made burritos for everyone. It was a lot of fun and everyone stayed pretty late into the night.

Thursday was a beautiful day, and because warm days in Burgos are few and far between, we all decided that instead of having a party in someone’s apartment, we would drink by the river that night. Everyone brought blankets out to the river and we spent most of the night hanging out and having a good time.

We got lucky on Friday, as it was another beautiful day! Because of this, we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and have a picnic at the manmade beach, which is about an hour walk from our apartment. It was just a small group of us, and because it was so nice out, we ended up staying until 9:00 at night (the sun stays out until about 9:30 PM, which is nice). However, on our way back to the city center we got caught in a HUGE thunderstorm and had to wait out the storm underneath a small hut. Luckily, it passed by very quickly.

When we finally got back, Adam, Thais, Rafa, Hector and I wanted to continue the scary mood (it had started storming again), so we all went to Adam’s apartment for dinner and to watch a scary movie. I think that if they would have known how bad I am with scary movies, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been invited. We watched The Shining and I was TERRIFIED. They spent the whole time laughing at me, because I am truly a baby when it comes to suspenseful movies, and I may or may not have ruined the scary atmosphere. At least I was able to lighten the mood for everyone else!

The rest of the weekend was uneventful, and I just can’t believe that the first week of May has already ended. Each week goes by quicker than the last, and I feel sad to know that I only have about two months left in Burgos. This whole experience has been so amazing, and the happiness and freedom that I have felt since coming here is indescribable. Along with the happiness that I feel, I’ve found myself become a much stronger, independent and confident person. It’s an awesome feeling to notice changes like these, and I know that these are permanent changes that will continue on when I return to the States.