Last night, after I finished writing an email to my family, my host mother came into my room and told me to get up, we were going to go upstairs. I followed her obediently. When we reached the top floor by elevator, we got out, and continued going up one more flight of stairs. At the top the was a door she unlocked with a seperate set of keys. We walked out onto the rooftop of her apartment. The orange sun was setting in the Spanish sky, and we had a breathtaking view of the city. As I´ve mentioned before, we are centrally located, so we could see all of Sevilla, including the chapel. Empty clotheslines for the residents of the apartment building were strung across the rooftop. I had to duck under the clotheslines in order to not get decapitated – she did not. She pointed out different sites to me and told me a little about them – the new tall building nobody likes, the plaza I had been to that afternoon, the theater that sometimes shows operas, the church around the corner where her friend is getting her wedding vows renewed tomorrow.
We went back inside and I helped her prepare dinner. At first it was intimidating not to have Marissa there to help me out with Spanish, but it really forced me to just go for it and talk, and not worry if it was right or wrong. We ended up having a big talk about life, family and Spanish. I showed her pictures of my cousins and brother, and she instructed me to call her ¨tu¨instead of ¨usted.¨
So I now have an answer to my first blog post. My host mom wants me to call her ¨Carmen.¨