I've only been in Spain for 3 weeks and change and I'm already stuck in a vicious cycle that involves chocolate-dipped churros / discount ice cream, old X-Files episodes (I just hit season four, I'm ashamed to admit), and going out at night with my roommate's friends only to get overwhelmed by the club or bar and leave early in a cab. Oh, and feeling broke all the time.
Tonight I skyped with my sister and talked about it and thought about it and was getting more and more rut-y when my godsent always-upbeat roommate Angad came back from the gym, all excited to cook and still high from the exercise. He'd been planning this dinner for a few days now and I followed him around the house as he got the ingredients together in a premeditated kind of fervor.
I was just musing sadly that I'd probably never achieve his pleasant disposition when he shouted from the kitchen, "V, would you do me a favor?"
He was clearly oblivious to my state of premenstrual existential despair. "Sure," I said, a bit too brightly.
"Could you grab, like, three yoghurts from Don Fruta while I heat up the sauce? It's for the second course. Whenever, it doesn't have to be right away. Just, you know, plain — not azucarado."
"Of course," I said. I'll do anything for someone who knows how to cook. I grabbed my coat and keys and slipped into some heels, socks still on, and walked two flights down and out into the street.
It was the kind of night when the lights seem sharper and brighter than usual, as though it had been raining, and the streets were full of the gentle sound of people talking from the bars, whose doors were all open to let in the warm air. It should be colder by the end of October, but it felt like spring, all humid and breezy. I noticed an Italian bakery I hadn't seen before, and lights inside one of the beautiful glass terraces on our corner, making silhouettes of the draped ivy and spider plants along the walls. I peered into the bar across the street, one of the few places that I've grown attached to here, and saw couples drinking wine, a group of friends sharing a crepe, the hot Native American bartender smiling. I took the long way to Don Fruta, looking at the prices in the winery window and eyeing the legs of prociutto protruding from a corner butcher shop.
By the time I got home my moodiness had dissipated. "I got the yoghurts," I said, lifting the bag.
"Awesome," Angad grinned. "Where did you go? Don Fruta?"
"Yeah." I put the yoghurts in the fridge. "Sorry I took so long. I was just walking around. I forgot how pretty our neighborhood is." I paused, considering whether to confess that I'd been PMSing all morning.
"You know, the same exact thing happened to me yesterday!" he said. "I was just walking around and I was like, 'shit, we live in a kind of nice place!'"
"Yeah, we really do," I said, taking off my coat.
