This weekend...

It has been a long time since I´ve posted, and a lot of things have happened.

After the initial shock and disappointment of not getting to go to Ireland, I recovered and was actually happy to be able to spend the weekend in Barcelona with my host parents. On Sunday, my host dad´s brother and sister-in-law came over for lunch, stayed most of the afternoon, and then were joined by my host dad´s other brother and sister-in-law. Then, David (my host parents´ son) came over with his two daughters to drop Ana off with us for the week. My apartment was full of fun festivities and lots of delicious food (including a homemade flan) in honor of all of the guests.

Last week went pretty well, and I just realized that I have very little time to finish all that I need to finish in relation to my classes. Ana was with us all week, and I got to play with her quite a bit, so that was exciting. She turns 1 on May 1st, so I´m pretty excited... I´ve been here for over half of her life, weird, huh?!?

Here is the scary/sad/bad news. On Friday evening my host parents drove to David and Marta´s apartment to drop Ana off. Only Marta was home because David was still at work. On their way back to our apartment for dinner, they got a phone call on their cell phone from Marta telling them that David had fallen at work and was on his way to the hospital. The whole time, I was watching Pasapalabra (my favorite Spanish game show) at our apartment... when all of a sudden my host parents came running in the house and yelled my name. I went to go see what was wrong and they handed me a baguette and then quickly explained that they were going to the hospital. This was around 8:30, and they didn´t get back until after 1 in the morning. The next morning I was getting ready to leave because I had a friend from Austrailia who is studying in the UK this semester who I met in Brussels (confusing, I know) visiting. I went to ask how David was, and my host mom started crying, saying that he wasn´t well. I´m not sure exactly how far he fell, but quite a ways, enough to break his pelvic bone and do some internal damage to some organs. At that point he was still in critical condition and my host parents hadn´t been allowed to see him yet. They went back on Saturday and spent over 9 hours at the hospital. When they called to update me around 9 pm, my host mom seemed a lot calmer, which was good. As of right now things seem to be okay. David ate for the first time yesterday and the doctors say that his intestines and stomach seem to be functioning alright. They are going to see the status of the broken pelvis today to see whether or not they can go in for surgery on some of the other damaged organs. He got moved to a different part of the hospital since he is stable now, but he will have a long recovery period in front of him. In any case, it has been a stressful, sad weekend, but my host parents seem to be doing just fine, and I was happy to be able to just sit and watch a movie with my host mom lastnight. She seemed so happy just to have someone to sit with her... So, please, just pray for David and Marta and for the rest of the family as they deal with this whole recovery period and the surgeries that may take place in the near future. Alright, that turned out a lot longer than I thought it would... I have to go to class. I´ll write more later.