Last weekend we made a trip to Teruel, where I lived in Spain before. I attempted to make contact with a few old friends, but we primarily hung out with Ana Belén and her new husband, Jorge. It was sad that I didn't get to spend some time with all of my old friends, but in a single weekend, it's nearly impossible to meet up with everyone. Ana and Jorge were amazing hosts, though. They got us a hostel room across the street from their apartment, just above a tavern. They bought us all kinds of food and took us around Teruel and even to Albarracín!
We ended up taking the bus to Teruel, which was every bit as long as I remembered. We somehow arrived thirty minutes ahead of schedule, despite it still taking nearly five hours to get there. I took Susan on a quick walk through part of the city center and the
Plaza del Torico so she could get a glimpse of everything. Then we doubled back and met up with Ana at the bus station.
Although her life has changed quite a bit, she seemed mostly the same. She was noticeably happier with her life (she's headed to Kansas in July to teach Spanish for the foreseeable future) and she very recently got married to her boyfriend (mostly so he could accompany her to Kansas, though they seemed to be in love). The biggest difference I noticed was that I could now understand her much better. It's not that I didn't understand her before, but I could pick up on all the slang that she was using without nearly as much trouble. I believe I was automatically tuning out some of her slang before in order to pick up on the important bits of what she was saying. I was proud of my progress.
