Christmas drags on and on here, and if Christmas day itself went pretty well the remaining 11 were kind of lonely. Luckily, my parents arrived on the night of January 5th the same night as the Three Kings, the traditional Spanish gift givers (though Santa is definitely sneaking in on their turf). It was great to see them, but the ensuing seven day whirlwind of tourism was exhausting especially since I was waking up on my parents' midwestern empty-nester schedule and going to bed on my roommate's crazy young madrileño schedule. I saw a lot of stuff I had wanted to see, ate at lots of great restaurants, and above all got to hang out with my folks.
It's good to get back to routine though. I'm starting to feel more connected to Alberto and Greg the new roomies. Last night they bent over backwards to help me finally get wireless on my computer, even after I got really impatient and almost yelled at them and went in my room and closed but at least didn't slam my door. But then it worked and we jumped and yelled and hugged and it was our first real sober bonding experience. I think Alberto and I are doomed to be perpetually slightly confused by the way one another do things, but luckily we both are willing to laugh at it. He will never understand the thrifty homemaker side of me, and I will never understand how he doesn't like vegetables! Ever! At all! Greg is just an incredibly chill, no worries kind of guy but not in an irresponsible kind of way.
It's already time to start thinking about next year too. How did that happen? I'm seriously considering another year here. I really like the work at school and in my private lessons, but it is starting to feel more and more like a real job. Then again the sooner I come back the sooner I have to get a real real job. The other top contender is Teaching Fellows in St. Paul, but I just realized that application is due in a week! yikes! No transcripts or recommendations yet though, so it's doable. Grad school is on the back burner because I missed the deadlines. This experience was partly intended to help me decide if I want to teach or keep studying linguistics, but really I'm still clueless, not that the two things are really mutually exclusive.
Then I took pictures of the outside of the Alhambra because I didn't know you needed to get tickets in advance. 
