Every weekend is a three-day weekend for me. On Friday I didn't leave the house because it was raining like crazy, like every particle of moisture in the atmosphere had a sudden need to be interred. I don't know if I've ever been in a storm so sedentary; the thunder was going all day, not moving around really at all. I watched movies and shows from the internet, read and ate. Exciting.
On Saturday I went hiking! The ground was surprisingly dry and the water in the river we were walking by was very clear. I've uploaded pictures to my Picasa page (see below for address). It was very rocky; jutting out of the hills and broken under our feet were many, many chunks of shale-like sedimentary rock. We didn't get too much elevation, but what we could see of the valleys was pretty gorgeous in that eastern Washington sort of way, with more scrub than trees.
On Sunday I woke up to my host mom and brother having a fight. I don't know what they were fighting about, but they were both yelling and Ramón was crying loudly (he's sixteen and a bit of a loose canon). Let me tell you, it was extremely awkward. Callie (my roomie) and I went to a Spanish film with Rosario (host mom) called "Y tú, quién eres?" which means "And who are you?". It was about an old man with Alzheimer's and his relationship with his granddaughter. It wasn't as sad as it could have been. Then Callie and I met up with some other girls to eat dinner and ended up talking about religion until about 11:30. It was fascinating because in the group there was a Messianic Jew (Jews for Jesus, anyone? It makes a lot more sense to me now), an attender of an Assembly of God (she has her own private prayer language, you know, like speaking in tongues), a Unitarian, a self-described "none" (non-denominational theist), and me. I learned so much and was so intellectually stimulated that I couldn't sleep.
Still thinking about that. So interesting! Ciao
Ella
