Rebelde Sin Causa

Thursday we finally moved in with our families! I’m living in the barrio (neighborhood) called Nervión which is located in the modern part of the city in a huge apartment building on the eleventh floor! It is about a 30 minute walk from Calle Avión Cuatros Vientos to the center of the city and the apartment is only 10 minutes away from Parque Maria Louisa (biggest park in Sevilla!) and Nervión Plaza (huge shopping center) which will be great.

I’m sharing a room with one of the girls from Cornell named Haley. Our room is pretty much a broom closet – smaller than my dorm room freshmen year – and totally decorated in ‘old lady’! Despite its size and decor, it is immaculately clean and has a ton of storage space so I think it will be fine. Luckily, I also love my new roommate. She is always full of energy and we seem to get along great.

Besides Haley and I, there is only our new madre (mother) Pepa. Pepa is apparently a nickname for Maria Josefa… don’t ask me why! At first, I was a little disappointed because I wanted to live with a family that had kids, but now I absolutely adore Pepa and wouldn’t wish to change my living situation at all! Pepa does absolutely everything for us from cooking all of the meals to doing our laundry… she even insists on making our toast every morning!! At every single meal, we both have been absolutely stuffed with food. I can’t tell you how many times I have had to say that I really couldn’t eat another bite. Apparently it is an inherent part of all Spanish mothers that they will never think you've had enough to eat!

Pepa fits the Spanish stereotype of always forcing food on us but she is definitely not the typical Spanish madre. Unlike the other Spanish madres, Pepa does not make cleaning into an obsession. She claims that she is a ‘rebelde sin causa’ (rebel without a cause) because she refuses to wash the dishes right after dinner!! I almost died laughing after hearing this grandmotherly like woman describe herself as a rebel!

The more I get to know Pepa the more I begin to see that she definitely is indeed a rebel without a cause. One of the first things Pepa ever told Haley and me about herself is that she was one of the first women to get a divorce after the Franco dictatorship ended and that it was the best decision she ever made in her life. I have never met someone so proud to be divorced and single! She then proceeded to tell us that men only lead to disaster and that all she needs is Eros, her pet cat, to make her happy. All I can say is that I hope I will be as spunky and full of life when I’m her age…