Hace Calor!

After my two week stint in Barcelona, I was starting to realize that I was turning, well, grouchy. I wasn't my same smily self, I actually noticed myself frowning and aggressively pushing my way through the crowded metro. As I stepped back to really think about it, I was becoming a stereotypical big city girl and honestly I didn't like how that looked. But, what can you do when you smile at little old men and women (knowing that all of all the people who will smile back at you, they're sure things) and they give you dirty looks.

This cold facade has finally ended and I'm back to my same old self thanks to one lady on the Metro, Tuesday morning.

Tuesday morning the Metro went on strike (little to my knowledge) so my train was 30 minutes late and I ended up being late to my first class (which killed my Type A tendencies). Once my train finally arrived and quickly after I rushed on, I was forced to move over a seat because a woman chose to sit directly next to me. I moved over, ticked off that the woman chose to sit directly next to me instead of at the more comfortable diagonal across from me.

Within seconds the woman pulled out a large paper fan and began fanning herself furiously (it's really hot in the metro). After a minute or so, she slowed to a nice calm pace and lucky for me, I was able to reap the benefits of her fan as she pushed air back and forth toward me. It really felt refreshing. Without thinking, I leaned in to her and said "gracias." She turned to me with a disgusted look on her face, so I repeated myself this time using my hand as a fan with an "I'm hot too, I feel your pain," look on my face. Instantly, it clicked and the woman bursted out in to straight up laughter. I was so happy to finally have someone respond pleasantly to me that I laughed too!

To my delight, she fanned us both for a good 3 minutes, I was able to ask her in my best broken Spanish what she knew about the Metro strike (which helped me get home that night in a timely manner) and she even offered me her fan if I was still hot.

When we reached our stop, the woman said "adios," with a big smile on her face. Even though I was terribly late to class, it was my favorite metro ride to date.

I've decided that I will not become a rushed, frustrated city dweller. I am going to retain my constant smile even when old women give me the stink eye in the grocery store.

On a side note, I found peanut butter today. There were approximately 8 jars of Peter Pan peanut butter for 4 euros each, I bought 2!