Once upon a time I was in Rome in a cathedral and was confronted by a hoard of Chinese teenagers holding cameras in their extended hands. I took one of the cameras, thinking that they wanted me to take a picture of them, but the guy took it back and told me no, a picture with you no no no! They grabbed my friend Hannah and put their arms around us and kept yelling at her calling her Britney Spears and switching cameras to get pictures with us. I promise I'm not bragging, I'm not flattered by being mistaken or having my friend be mistaken for Miss Brit these days. They yelled "We love USA, we love Obama, we love him, we love Britney" while they all threw up their double peace signs (I got this one of Hannah, they opted for the lion paw this time).

I told Martina that I'm Mary Poppins, I wish she was as easily convinced.

This was our conversation. Me- "Martina, I'm like Mary Poppins." Martina- "Oh, can you fly?" Me- "Yeah, sure." Martina- "Yeah, in an airplane."

Martina only called me "tonta" (stupid, but a really mean way to say it) once today, which was a drastic improvement from the nightmare that happened yesterday. She can sense my fear and I know it, so today I took a different approach. When she's bad her parents tell her they are going to put her on the street, and it works, so I'm adopting the same strategy. Our conversation today went as follows. Me-"Martina, you can't throw your toy at my head anymore." Martina- "Yeah, I can." Me- "Alright, well then I can throw you to a street in France. Have fun on your vacation." Martina- "Nooooo, I don't want to go to Frankie's house (her Dad's friend)." Me- "Alright, well what do you want to eat for breakfast in France tomorrow morning, cereal, milk, a banana?" Martina- "Noooo, I'll be a good girl now, I want to eat breakfast here." She wouldn't get in the car, so her mom gave her a blanket and told her to keep warm and then walked away and then I took breakfast orders again and warned her not to let the dogs get her food. She's always really good after that, for 30 minutes. She gave me a manicure with her princess markers and her special treatment, which was slamming my arm on the table repeatedly "to help my nails dry" and drawing all the way up my arm and on my glasses. She's got character and isn't scared of anything (even her 7 foot father), and I like that about her.

I'm attempting to read Harry Potter y las Reliquias de la Muerte (the last book) in Spanish, which is a much loftier goal then I realized when I checked the book out from the library. I now know that if I don't even know what all of the words in the title mean, I probably won't know most of the words inside either.

I love how in all of the dubbed shows and movies here they give all of the people really unfitting deep sexy voices, even the hot teenagers.

This week has been pretty much the same as the last. Gym with Mariona, help with lunch and dinner, attempt to play and speak English with Martina (I taught her how to say stupid ant yesterday while she was dumping sand on the ants at the playground), go shopping with Mariona. I've been growing out my hair all week. When you can say that that is the hardest thing you've done, you know you have it made.