Why I Love Where I´m Staying

1. Mama Teresa´s flat is gorgeous. Parquet floors, modern green walls in the living room, and huge windows with a great view of the hillside town.

2. Mama Teresa has insisted I take the master bedroom. She also turns down my bed for me each evening, and if I make the mistake of leaving my room for two seconds to get water in the morning, she darts in and makes the bed quickly so that I don´t touch it. This is another game we play--the ¨What Can I Do Before Mama Teresa Notices and Insists on Doing It For Me¨game. I made the mistake of trying to wash my dishes, and as soon as she heard the water, she ran into the kitchen and pulled them away, tsk´ing away in rapidfire Spanish. Today I won the bed-making contest by doing it before I left my room, but it distressed her so much that I think she will probably try and beat me tomorrow morning by making the bed while I´m still in it. Sometimes when I am reading in the window, I think she wants to turn my pages.

3. Dinner! They eat dinner so freaking wonderfully late here that when I come home each night between 11 and 12, she has dinner ready for me and strictly enforces my consumption of said food. I can tell her over and over again that I had cena already, but it does not matter. You MUST EAT LA CENA. And I´m not gonna lie--after drinking wonderful wines for hours, those meals are a pretty darn perfect way to fall asleep.

4. New towels. I swear she gave me brand new yellow towels, as evidenced by one, their unnatural brightness, two, their unnatural softness, and three, the fuzzies they leave all over my dampened body after each shower. Each morning I look like a fuzzy yellow duckling. The hostel in Madrid also gave me brand new towels, so maybe this is a Spanish thing. ¨Houseguest?? SOMEONE GO TO THE STORE! WE NEED TO FUZZ THEM!¨I think it´s a way of identifying strangers in town. Residents see new-towel residue, and they know you´re not from these parts.

5. The bidet. Yes! A bidet. This is hands-down the most exciting thing I am going to try in Spain. Octopus for dinner? Small play. Shooting water at my rear? HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS! I haven´t yet had the nerve, but today--today I think I´m ready. New towel in hand, it´s gonna happen. And then me and my fuzzy yellow bum will start the day.