Some Christmas Eve Stories (Which didnt actually happen on christmas eve)

(yes i realize its christmas day. but i did write this yesterday, i swear)

its christmas eve today, and im not really homesick, i know this because on thanksgiving i WAS homesick and im not even close to as depressed as i was then... and im actually having a really good night: we went swimming this evening, all of us in the pool at 8 o clock at night, and now we are having a bbq in the new house, the first meal ever here (theres not even windows yet, so its a little picnic-y), and im happy right now, i really am...
but i just miss you all so darn much right now...
i was telling claudia how right now  mom and dad and nora are decorating our christmas tree and then i started thinking about my skeeziks ornament and how nora is missing her own gingerbread man, and now im blinking away tears. it doesnt help that michael buble's "all i want for christmas is you" is playing, and while it shows how awesome that guy is, that he can make even christmas music enjoyable, its a little sad and not helping the matter.

it really is weird though, this feeling, because impossibly enough, im sad and happy all in one. its just... weird.

anyway, to cheer myself up, im gonna tell you all funny stories. im sorry if i repeat things that i've already told you. its not on purpose.

alrighty, here goes:

story numero uno: i was eating dinner with my brothers, and it happened to be sopa (soup). i took a huuuge bite of it, not realizing it had just come off of the stove. a huge burning bite of soup. now, if i was at home, i would just spit it back out, but, of course, i wasnt at home, and i didnt want anyone to think americans are any more disgusting than they already do. so i (very painfully) swallowed it, and ended up choking really badly, it took me a full five mintues (at least) to recover. while my brothers are staring wide-eyed at me, wondering what the heck is wrong with the crazy american. and not even two seconds after i regained my composure, franco takes a huge bite of the still-burning-hot sopa, and just spits it back out into his bowl. yeah.

story numero two: i was in the computer lab at school, writing in my blog, and decided to look at my blog's "stats" (my blog has had views from russians! i dont know any russians! how cool is that?). anyway, it showed the ways people reached my blog, you know, google searching 'graciegoestochile' or going straight to the website or... google searching 'horse sex'... WAIT, WHAT? so then, of course i had to google search it myself. and two things happened. first, i found   out that my blog is the THIRD website that comes up when you type 'horse sex' into google... right after two wikipedia pages. try it... but not at work. because the second thing that happened was a classmate walked by, and of course it just HAPPENED to be one of the few who speak english, and he says to me "you know grace, animal porn isnt really school-appropriate" and then tells the whole class that i was looking at animal porn. and then i had to explain myself with my limited spanish, while my friend AND my english teacher just about died laughing at me. lesson: never ever google search anything sex relaed in school or work even if you have a COMPLETELY innocent reason for it. 

story number tres: being blond and foreign-looking, us exchange students get a LOT of attention in public places. its not unusual to get stares, and by now we can tell when people are talking about us. people often shout things like "hello" "how are you?" "where are you from?" and "will you marry me?" in english and/or spanish, and we also get things like "sexy" or "you are making me excited" in spanish when we are in not-so-nice parts of town. catcalls and waves are a daily routine, and when we are safe (in broad daylight in public places and not by ourselves), usually we'll wave back (which absolutely FREAKS out chileans: "GRACE! YOU ARE GONNA GET RAPED!" no, i'm not.) anyway, one day taylor and i were eating lunch together in a cheap, scuzzy restaurant (we later both ended up with food poisoning, but not badly, and, at the time, the food was delicious) and we noticed that the three men behind us were talking about us, or, more specifically, trying to get up the courage to come talk to us. in fact, they were practicing their limited english on the waiter. taylor and i were not at all in a social mood (i know, we werent exactly being great exchange students, but you cant always be perfect) so we decided that if they started talking english to us, we were gonna pretend to be german (sometimes its annoying how people ALWAYS assume(know) we are americans). so they came up to us, and we launched into a rapid conversation in "german" using all the german words the two of us knew. it went like this:
"my name is grace"
"im 17 years old"
"i love you"
"im going to cheat on my boyfriend"
"thanks, and you?"
"i have squinty eyes"
and then, when we used up our "german" knowledge, we began speaking in pig latin with a strong german accent. and it worked! because the men reached our table, paused, gave us a WEIRD look (because obviously they had heard us speaking english earlier) and walked away. and then, the waiter who they'd been practicing comes up and says "where are you from?" "alemania (germany)" "oh, cool, i speak a little german, i lived there for a year." taylor and i: "oh, sheisse."

well... i had other funny stories, but its present opening time, so vamos!

feliz navidad!