Round Four with Aitana

This last meeting with Aitana was a struggle to schedule. We originally planned to meet Monday but it didn’t actually happen until Friday. Oops. My little called me Monday morning in tears asking me to take her to the emergency room. Obviously, I wasn’t going to say no. I ended up missing all my classes and my meeting with Aitana – we were there for seven hours! Don’t worry my little is okay. Stress and a perpetual cold induced an unusual panic attack. The health center thought it would be best if she went to the hospital to have some tests done.

Eventually, Aitana and I rescheduled our meeting. We attempted multiple times. Aitana even sent me a text reading “please don’t kill me” when having to back out of another meeting.  She seems to be picking up on American expressions – I don’t think such a phrase is used anywhere else in the world. Our meeting took place over dead days after the blizzard (well what Texans consider a blizzard) struck. Aitana told me she hadn’t seen snow in seven years! I asked her if she was enjoying the weather. She didn’t seem to be. “I’ve been in my bed, avoiding the cold!”

However, her roommate dragged her out into the snow. Aitana said that they went and traversed campus at five o’clock in the morning! Her roommate wanted to go take pictures in the snow and 5 am was the only chance she had because her flight was scheduled to leave that morning. Ironically, her flight back home to China was cancelled because of the weather!

Aitana said she has serious cabin fever. The icy roads have prevented her from going anywhere because no one wants to drive. She said she walked to Kroger just to get out of the dorms. I thought that was crazy! Aitana walked all the back carrying her groceries without gloves. See when I picture this scenario I can’t help but think of the scene in Home Alone when Kevin’s bags bust open on the way home.

Aitana asked me about my little’s trip to the hospital. I told her that she’s doing to be just fine –the stress of finals and the end of the semester got to her. Aitana told me about a similar situation that she witnessed earlier in the week. An ambulance came to the building she was studying in and carried out a girl on a stretcher. She overheard the EMTs saying the girl had taken too many pills – probably Adderall. The amount of stress that this girl experienced shocked Aitana.

Because we hadn’t talked since before Thanksgiving Break, I asked her about her trip to San Antonio. She spent Thanksgiving there with her sister. Aitana said she had a great time! They stayed at a friend’s house. Aitana was amazed by the size of the house – especially the kitchen! She loved cooking in it – the enjoyed large island in the middle. I asked her if homes in the US were larger than the homes in Spain. She agreed immediately.

“My house is much smaller and the kitchen!”

She said that her mother was jealous of the larger kitchens – she would love to have an island. Aitana says there’s much less counter space in Spanish kitchens and their refrigerators are much smaller, of course. Overall, Aitana loved being away from campus in an actual home. She felt like she experienced Thanksgiving in a truly American fashion.