The Perez You Never Knew

Before I talk about this week, I must enlighten you all on a cultural phenomenon I recently discovered about Spain. As you know, in the US, when a kid loses a tooth he will place it under his pillow and wait for the tooth fairy to come and trade the pearly white for a green Washington. When a Spanish kid loses a tooth, he too places it under his pillow and awakens the next morning to find a higher-valued Euro tucked beneath his head. But this delivery is not carried out by a fairy. No, Spanish kids are brought up to believe that when they lose a tooth they are visited by Perez, the magical rat. I kid you not. While a child sleeps the orphaned, magical rat Perez creeps onto their bed and shuffles up to the pillow where he can make the exchange. Everyone apparently has a different idea of what this special creature looks like. Some people say that he is an albino who wears a cute suit while others like my teacher, Elyse, prefer to think of Perez as being “desnudo.” When we told Elyse that Americans believe a fairy comes to deliver the money she could only sigh and say, “Yes. It’s much prettier.”

On that note: last Saturday my school had an official excursion to Sevilla where we got to see the sights and enjoy a warm, sunny day. It was awesome. The whole place was filled with college students and had so many orange trees that our tour guide joked about how, in the Spring, it practically rains fruit in Sevilla. I personally thought this was more cool than humorous. Our tour lasted about three hours and took us on a walk through the beautiful royal gardens and into an old, Islamic palace. Everyone agreed though that their favorite part was the city’s giant
cathedral. And when I say giant, I mean giant. The guide said that when measured a certain way it is the largest cathedral in the world. It also happens to be where Christopher Columbus is buried. That’s right the small-pox bearing man himself was laid to rest in the cathedral that I got to see. The cathedral also has a tower that you can walk up and look out over the city below. When the tour came to an end, we all had about three hours left in Sevilla and decided to use that time to explore a bit. We saw markets, street performers, countless little parks and stumbled upon several mini-city/squares hidden from the main area of the city. When we loaded the bus I thought that the day had given us all a good taste of the city. Taste is the key word there. I want to go back.

In addition to Sevilla, this week also presented me with the opportunity to embrace my inner euroweenie. Yes, I’ve gone local and bought a pair of boots and leggings. Fear not, they were both on sale. After a round of tapas, some of my friends and I also went to the movie theater to watch the “Percy Jackson” flick. Surprisingly, I found that I could understand most of it…I guess that means I’m learning something! At least I’m hoping that this is the case. Today we all took our first test and it was not very fun. But we got to take part of the day off and hiked into the tajo (gorge) and soaked in some of that sweet Spanish sun.

P.S. Congrats to the KU basketball team! Big 12 Regular Season Champs what, what…