Facebook lessons- calling all grandparents!

I just created a facebook page for my madre, Antonia. Stuck in the 1950s, she considers cooking a form of both exercise and entertainment, so this was a teaching first for me.

I put in her email, created a password, and entered her basic information: birth day, April 6th (the day after mine) followed by my birth year (1989) as to not reveal her mysterious ancient age.

She has never learned how to scroll to move on a page, so after cruising around I had to show her the old fashioned way of clicking the down arrow one click at a time to move the page- she's probably never going to use that feature anyway. I wrote down every detail for her to practice again tomorrow. She plans on searching for new friends one week at a time (grandchildren and past Holy Cross girls she's hosted).

After ten minutes of teaching, she was overwhelmed and shut down the internet. Upon turning off her computer we both sad goodnight to her background photo, Julio Iglesias, her fictitious boyfriend, more widely known as Enrique's dad to people my age.

God bless her.

My first CUCARACHA!!

La cucaracha la cucaracha!

You would like to think that this is a form of Spanish dance or music, but don't be fooled. A cucaracha is a cockroach! And I just saw my first one scrambling across the floor of my room! I hollered for my madre to come help me with the "huge insect" because I didn't know whether to toss is out the window or stomp it. She came in with insect-killing spray, but once she recognized the level of severity and told me not to move. They can really move across the floor if you scare them, so she took off her slippers and WHOMPED it with ladylike grace.

Another tip: keep your shutters closed to prevent bugs. You'll just need to wear night vision goggles all day to maneuver the dark halls and rooms of cavernous Spanish apartments. What's with old Spanish ladies hiding in the dark all day? Like it really makes the room unbearably hot, come on. Natural light is healthy and saves them from high electricity bills which have recently skyrocketed.

Ibiza recap

The Holy Cross group ferried to Ibiza for one night to celebrate our friend's birthday (another Happy Happy to you, Jenny!) After a four hour ride on a surprisingly luxurious cruise ship, we arrived at the main port and found a bus that took us to the beach. A few coca colas and sandwiched later and we had gotten enough sun. It was time to pop the champagne!


After a round of drinking champagne at sunset, we raced in bumper cars and got severely bruised by the miniature size of the protective bars.

Pictured: Jenny racing her 5 year old British sweetheart.

The tourist season ends in late September, so we had very few options for restaurants and discotecas, however we walked around until we found a moderately priced restaurant (hamburger joint) and enjoyed great burgers, fries, and tabasco sauce: super American style. We fled the seaside area, where all of the rich old people were wining and dining, for the more "hopping" night life scene of bars and discos. After a few drinks and laughs we were tired from the journey and all crashed.

Next morning- My friend Bryana and I went on a hunt for breakfast, but alas the island's high season has ended and not many restaurants are open OR hospitable to the younger, not so willing to spend big money crowd. After an hour and a half of walking and busing, we stumbled upon a fancy hotel with a deck full of both honeymooners and vacationing old folks eating on a waterfront terrace. We sat down and decided that we would normally only eat at a place like this if our parents were paying, but this time would splurge and spend X amount of euros for this heavenly food. The server showed us the buffet, we collected gourmet food up to our chins and pretended not to notice the snobby onlookers. After finishing our most lux meal of the century, we agreed that we hadn't seen one guest sign a check or give a room number.

So we changed into bathing suits in the bathroom, took a few pieces of bread and fruit for later, and called it a FREE BRUNCH! We couldn't believe that we had fooled them! Although we surely looked like foreigners, we were not dressed or showered to meet the standards of that crowd. Expecting to each pay 40 euros (a solid 60 USD) on breakfast we had dragged our feet onto the back porch door only to walk out the front thirty minutes later having been fed like kings for free!

Sorry for those of you who don't approve of this story, but we are in college and if we can trick an uppity crowd of German and English tourists into thinking we are some of them- GOSH DARN IT WE ARE GOOD OR THEY ARE FOOLS!