Spain - Day 2

The second day was good. I woke up after 5 hours of sleep because I was staying in a 12-person room and people kept on banging their lockers at 9am. I didn't get too upset. I just read Life of Pi for a while and once I realized I couldn't get back to sleep I got up and walked around a bit. I bought a huge sack of oranges for like $3, and they were the best oranges I'd had in years. 

I think it was during that first day that I really got to start talking to the workers at the hostel: Bau from Argentina, Jacobo from Italy, Alberto from Mexico, and another guy from Argentina whose name escapes me, which is odd because he's the guy that I talked to the most. It started with an 'A' though. Anyways, they were all great. Really kind, friendly, and funny. It wasn't like some hostels where the people are just drones behind a desk and you don't really have a chance to talk to them. Here I could just come up to the desk, plop some of my stuff down on the counter and just study and chit-chat with them.

 

I'm not sure how it happened, but at around 5pm or so Arturo and Jeeyoung were back and Arturo was talking with some guy from Puerto Rico named....Miguel? I can't really remember. That sucks. Anyways, Arturo was really intent on trading some coinage, so I gave him a dirham and Jeeyoung busted out with all the coins she had from traveling all around.

 Anyways, instead of going out to eat we all decided to just go to the grocery store and pick up some food and bring it back to do some cooking.

Jeeyoung started making some Korean food, and me and the other guys made some bruschetta and garlic bread. I forced us all to wear aprons that I'd found laying around the kitchen. I like doing goofy stuff like that. 

 That night Jeeyoung's friend, Pureum, was flying in and so I thought it would be funny if Arturo and Miguel and I all went along with Jeeyoung to the airport to pick up Pureum. We made a big sign and the plan was for us 3 guys to walk up to Pureum once Jeeyoung pointed her out to us. We were going to just speak to her in Spanish and say things like, "Hey, welcome to Spain, it's so good to have you here. We are here to service your every need, we're going to be your male escorts for your stay, blah blah blah..."

So after a great dinner we all got in the car to pick her up, but things didn't go as planned cause by the time we got to the airport she'd been waiting there for half an hour, so the poor girl wasn't in the mood for any of our tomfoolery.

Anyways, we got back to the hostel and Arturo went to bed, but then I started talking to some guy who works teaching English in a place called Melilla. It's a Spanish enclave in Morocco, and apparently has walls going around the whole place, since Morocco's not too stoked about Spain still owning bits of their land. I'd never heard of the place before, but I just got talking to him about our jobs and the joy I find in it. He seemed a bit lost; my age, just kinda drifting around, not sure what to do. I think the cool thing about it for me was that he had an interesting background, and was doing a similar job in a place I'd never heard of before. Also, before I struck up a conversation with him he was just sitting there all by himself at 1am just reading a book, and he looked like he could use some company.

In the end we decided to play king's cup, and it was pretty fun. The only problem was that Pureum didn't really understand English that well, but it worked out either way.

Getting to bed before 5am was starting to look like a nonreality on the trip, and I knew I was in for some dangerous times ahead, as it's pretty standard fare that I get sick if I don't get enough sleep, but little did I know how much that bag of oranges was gonna pay off in the days ahead.