Eugenia’s Housewarming Party

Eugenia is a young woman who used to stay with Stef. She said, “I think I will find a job and stay in this village.” Stef thought that was extremely unlikely given the size of Pola de Allande. But she found one, got an apartment, and lives here now. For how long, no one knows. She is originally from Italy.

Last night we went to her place for a housewarming party. She has a three bedroom apartment, fully furnished, with a beautiful terrace, which is what they call a room on the end of building that is mostly windows, for 250 euros a month! That’s it, guys. I’m moving to Spain. Of course, you’re only going to pay prices like that in a little village like Pola. Madrid would be something else entirely.

Here are pictures from the party. Cloti sent them to me.

Cloti is very much an “early to bed, early to rise” person, so she left before the party got good. Montse brought her guitar, and after dinner we all sat around and sang. Everyone but Stef, Montse, and I passed around some marijuana as well. Montse only smokes cigarettes. Carlos only smokes marijuana. Stef and I don’t smoke at all. I taught Eugenia and her friend Siriena, who is from France, the chorus to “In These Shoes.” They loved it. “No me gusta caminar. No puedo montar a caballo. Como se puede bailar…” they sang.

Montse knows “The House of the Rising Sun” and learned a version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” just for me. It is one popularized by some Hawaiian singer with a ukulele. It’s not like the original. The words are all out of order and the “One day I’ll wish upon a star” part has the wrong melody. I said something about it and Carlos said, “But that’s the best-known version, right?” and I was like, “Well, yeah, maybe, if you don’t count Judy Garland’s…”

I sang “Never Enough,” or a modified version of it, and gave everyone chills. Eugenia came for lunch today and seemed to think (It’s hard for me to know because my Spanish isn’t that good) that it was the marijuana and not me. I didn’t set her straight.