La familia Moreta

So I suppose I should write something about my host family since they are kind of letting me live in their house for a year... Anyway there's 8 of them.

Daniel (Padre) is the CFO for a company called Sedecal that sells medical equipment world-wide. They have offices in Madrid, Chicago, and Beijing. He works a ton and I don't actually see him that much. He usually leaves before I get up at 7:00 and gets home sometime between 18:00 and 1:00 (usually closer to 1:00 than 18:00). He was in Chicago last week and when he got back (at 6:00), he came home, took a shower, and went to work. He is definitely one of the hardest working people I know.

Silvia probably works even harder than Daniel because she is always working! They don't have any alarm clocks in any of the bedrooms because Silvia wakes everyone up when they need to be woken up each morning. Breakfast is the only meal she doesn't cook for everyone everyday in addition to doing all the laundry (which also includes ironing everything from dress shirts to jeans to my Under Armor. They seriously hate wrinkles here). She also cleans the whole house when it needs clean; picks me, Sofia, and Paola up from school everyday; does all the shopping; and is basically one of the nicest people I've ever met.

Guillermo is the oldest of the hijos at 23. He's in his final year at university and is studying to become and engineer. I am probably more like him that anyone else in the house. Whenever we go to the fiestas or anything like that I always go home early with him because neither of us has the desire to stay for 8 hours. He also spends hours on the computer reading manga and watching anime. He's a huge One Piece and Bleach fan (for those of you who have any idea what that is) so we get along pretty well just because of that! He's also asthmatic like and a little bit of a hypochondriac, but I think that's because he gets sick pretty easily. For those of you who didn't know this, Guillermo is the Spanish version of William.

Miguel is the second son and he just turn 22 a week ago. He's studying Law and Economy. He also spent a month as an exchange student in England when he was younger, so his English is just about perfect. He's the one that we call when something needs to be explained. Everybody tries to get me to call him "Papi" because he is always worrying about how everything is going for me and he's also the one that keeps track of me when we go somewhere so I don't get kill by Spaniards or something along those lines. One time a friend and I played joke on him pretending that I had gotten lost during the fiestas and he totally freaked out! His name is the Spanish version of Michael and he is so named because he was born on El Dia de San Miguel which is a big deal here.

Daniel (hijo) is the third son at the age of 20 and is technically named Angel Daniel, but everyone just calls him Dani. He's is studying to be an industrial mechanic. He's one of those people who can fix just about anything if you give him 5 minutes and a spoon. He's the one that I share a room with but at the same time he is the one that I see the least. Partially because he speaks the least English but I also think he feels kind of uncomfortable with the whole random-foreign-kid-who-can-barely-speak-Spanish-sleeping-in-my-room-and-awkwardly-walking-around-my-house-for-a-year thing. Not that he isn't extremely nice, he just seems like he doesn't know what so say to me.

Rafael is 16 and the last boy. He is in the Rotary Exchange Program too and is living in Kingston, NY. I honestly can't say too much about him because I've never actually met him.

Paola is 11 and goes to the same school as me. I would probably have never gotten to school the first day I rode the bus without her because she has at least SOME idea of what's going on. But it's also her first year at El Instito, so sometimes we get lost but at least I am lost with somebody who speaks Spanish! Plus there's the added benefit that if there's a word to describe Paola it's sensible. She really loves Spanish dance which I can't remember what it's called but it's pretty intense and not flamenco. I think she was a little freaked out by the whole random-foreign-kid-who-can-barely-speak-Spanish-awkwardly-walking-around-my-house-for-a-year-and-following-me-the-whole-way-to-school thing but I think she's starting to get used to it.

Sofia is only 5 but makes up for by talking about 5 times as much and at least twice as loud. When I got here I couldn't understand a single word that came out of her mouth because it all sounded like a high-pitched squeal, but now I can usually understand most of what she's saying. She's also is a bit of a drama queen. For example, today I shoved the dog out of my room with my foot so she didn't speak to me for a couple hours because she thought I was being mean.

Well that's all eight so I'm all done. Tomorrow I might write about food if I have the courage.