sorry i haven't written in so long!

i have had SO many technical difficulties lately. because pedro (host father) bootlegs internet off of a neighbor, it's extremely unreliable. for this reason, we haven't had functioning internet forever. which really kinda sucks. and the other day, i was at the computer center (hardly ever open) and i was writing a blog. in tribute to murphy's law, the computer then decided it needed a virus scan. so there went my fledgling book of a blog entry. o well.

i've discovered that it isn't wise to attempt talking on a cell phone while trying to catch a bus. see below:

i went to meet Cristina (host mother) the other day at the mall after school to grab a bite to eat. we ate and then she told me that she had class at the university right next to the mall in 10 minutes. so i had to go and catch the bus. conveniently for me, the bus stop was about 400 kilometers (check out that european measurement) away. i had half an hour, so i figured i was alright. but then aunt bob called. apparently there is a scientific law (unbeknownst to me) that says that your feet will move more slowly when you're talking to someone. anyways, i finally had the inspiration to look at my watch. i had 10 minutes, and i was still about 5 blocks away. so i picked up the pace (still on the phone, keep in mind). a few minutes later, i checked the watch again. and it was time to go faster. i ended up running to this dumb bus stop and getting there 30 seconds before the bus was planned to arrive. i set my stuff down on the bench, and it started to rain. luckily for me, i was safe inside the bus shelter. so i kept talking to aunt bob. then i saw the bus coming. i told her i needed to go, and put the phone in my pocket while turning around to grab my things. as i'm turning around to go to the bus, i see it roll by. great. now it's raining buckets, and this is the only bus for about 3 hours. so i see the nearest stoplight turn red. what luck!, i think. i can catch it. i started to jog, and it turned green. so i started to run. just as i'm coming up on the back of the bus, i slip in the most random and invisible puddles of water. so i had to run even harder after i got up before the bus left town. ya, that sucked.
when i finally got on the bus, i asked the bus driver why he didn't stop. he said that if he doesn't recognize people at the bus stop, he doesn't stop. o. ok. glad we got that one straight ;D.

today was a fun day. first we went to the church of our lady of varvanera, a gorgeous little church in the mountains. THEY HAD THE COOLEST MACHINE EVER: it looked like a soda machine, but it sold candles. candles that you can buy to light for prayer requests. only in spain, i tell you. then we went to the birthplace of castellano (spanish), the monastery of yuso in the town of san millán. it was so cool. they had a set of 16 books that are 300 years old. i almost died of excitement. it turns out that there were some monks living in this monastery who used to copy latin texts. while one of them was copying, he was taking notes in the margins. turns out that this was the dumb monk of the monastery, and he didn't know latin that well. so he was writing notes in the vulgar tongue (ancient spanish) in the margins. so hispanohablantes worldwide, take note: the first written records of your language are from a monk who didn't study hard enough. =) after that, we went to lunch then to a winery that a friend of Cristina's owns. then we went home to get my pajamas- i'm now in a small town about 20 minutes from oyón with a friend of cristina's from the winery. she's an american who married a spaniard. so after she puts the baby to bed, her husband is going to go out with his friends (because he speaks no english) and we're going to watch a movie and english then make chocolate chip cookies. there really is a God. =D

so that's it for now. i'll try to write more often. thanks for reading!