Last week was my friend(Kelly)'s birthday. As a nice gesture her host mom allowed her to invite friends over (if you read my latest post you'll note that inviting friends over is a BIG deal in these parts) to join in on a birthday meal. The night was hilariously baffling. Three of us went to our friend's apartment for the celebration. It was neat to see where Kelly lives, how her room is set up, and it was especially neat to meet her host mom. This woman literally looked like a witch. Just picture a witch with the cackle to match and you've got her pinned. She was upbeat and spunky and greeted us with dos besos and open arms. Shortly after we arrived, a boy who lived with the witch woman last year and currently attends our university came to the apartment for dinner. His name is Adam. He's from California and spoke both English and Spanish perfectly. Later in the evening Kelly's host brother came home. The host brother is German and is studying film at another university in Oviedo. This guy is huge. I don't mean to be rude, but really, he's huge. Apparently he used to have a giant beard to match his large physique. The host brother, Gabriel, spoke some English and nearly fluent Spanish. Once everyone had arrived, all seven of us youngins sat down for drinks and appetizers. Kelly's host mom served us sangria with peanuts, olives of both colors, hazelnuts, and peanuts to nosh on. After some sufficiently awkward conversation in mixed Spanish and English, we sat down to a delicious meal of fajitas- which is a Mexican meal btw, not Spanish. That part was fairly normal. It was after the food when things got weird. Kelly's host mom brought out a beautifully decorated cake with a gigantic rose candle on top. We all sang and while Kelly thought up a wish and blew out the candle. It was oddly similar to US bday traditions. Then her madre brought out more candies, a bottle of liquor, and two jugs of some kind of homemade moonshine. She urged all of us to drink her concoctions, but lucky I conjured up enough Spanish to politely turn her down (the drinks were peach and orange liquors with a plethora of mystery floating bits inside). Somewhere between the cake and the moonshine, Gabriel, Adam, and witch woman all started talking about marijuana. I have no clue how that happened. Before we knew it Kelly's madre was pouring out her past experiences with many, many different kinds of hard drugs and swapping bad trip stories with Gabriel. Gabriel knew far too much about drugs, he was an expert. He even offered to get Adam any kind of drugs if he ever wanted some. At one point in the convo the witch woman got up grabbed a sketchy looking box. We were all sure she was going to pull out some weed. But no, turns out she just wanted to offer Gabriel and Adam paper for rolling joints. All of us girls traded baffled looking and had mutual thoughts of "is this really happening right now". After the drug talk things continued to be obscure as all get out. Once again I'm not sure why/how this happened, but Gabriel pulled out his laptop and started singing "Desperado" at the dinner table. That kind of randomness happened all night. After the bday celebration of confusion, befuddlement, and stifled laughter all of us guests headed home to reflect on the craziness that just went down. I'd say it was good night, and I plan on doing it again.
Oh, funny extra tid-bit: Gabriel was talking about gay people at some point and referred to them as "coming out of the wardrobe". Man language barriers are funny.
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