¡Hola! From Cuenca

I am on day six of my 90 day excursion abroad and I've already learned a lot. Here, I am tall. Not regular tall, but hit-your-head-on-all-the-lights-in-the-apartment tall. I'm also blonde (I'm not blonde). In Cuenca, breakfast, lunch, and dinner is actually breakfast, dinner, and lunch.

Speaking of which, I wake up at 7:30 to have breakfast with the family. It's usually small cookie-like bread circles or toast with coffee, which is probably the least substantial breakfast any real American has ever had. Because of this, I'm starved come 2:45 when we eat lunch. Let me tell you, lunch is the meal here in Cuenca and oh my goodness it's big. I'll eat strange food and finish whatever portion I think is polite, then be tactfully forced to eat more until I'm full. Afterwards, the main dish comes out. Then I eat more food and get even more full. And when everyone is done, fruit. After every lunch and every dinner we eat fruit... I forget every time.

Dinner isn't huge, but it's not small either. We have three or four appetizers at the table and that's dinner. Plus fruit, of course.

Besides my food rant, I've been keeping a log so that I can remember everything. This is everything I've written down so far, completely unedited:

Day one

Spanish is hard. Light switches switch the opposite way. Need sleep.

Day two

Spoke with Carlos and Cristina in Spanish while they talked to me in English. Drank my first beer(s) here. Need sleep.

Day three

Went on a walk/hike with the parents. Andrea asked me if I had seen 50 Shades of Grey while giggling like the 16 year old girl she is. Tried "Risolí" (traditional liqueur of Cuenca/coffee liqueur). It's disgusting. Toured Cuenca with the family. Ate at a restaurant in a village outside of Cuenca that was fancy. Ate octopus that looked like onion rings. Need sleep.

Day four

I got to sleep in (9:00) but I stayed up til 1:00 playing monopoly so it doesn't really count. Also Espot the dog slept with me so I slept poorly. Took a phenomenal nap. Watched the sunset then walked around the castle.

Day five

First day of classes. Talked to the Japanese girl and it turns out she's fresh out of a divorce. Ate a níspero. Muy bueno. Went rock climbing. That was more scary than it should've been. Ordered food for the first time (which was even scarier than rock climbing). Ordered a hamburger cuz I was nervous. Hamburgers apparently have eggs over easy on top of the patty here.