Some Telmo-isms for your enjoyment

As most of you know, I live with six other people: Marta and Esti, my host parents, Ane the 12-y.o, Adrian the (now) 9-y.o, Sara/Meg the 7-y.o, and last and definitely not least, Telmo, the spicy little 5-y.o. Now I love everyone in this family because they are of course loving and welcoming, and not a day passes when something hilarious or ridiculous doesn't go down, but of all of these peeps the funniest and most outrageous is Telmo. He is only 5 yet he has more worldly knowledge than any child under the age of 10 I've ever met- even his siblings know he is the boss and makes the best jokes. So I thought it was only fair that you all got to hear some of his Telmo-isms and get in on the joke that is this little Spaniard's whole philosophy on life. (p.s. all of his sayings are translated into English so no worries, they're still hilarious.)

Airplanes: Poor Telmo is terrified of flying and because of this, his travel plans are pretty limited. For Easter they had to drive to Salamanca which is only about 4 hours away but with 5 people squished into a European baby-car with only one Nintendo DS, things probs got ugly about 2 hours in. That said, I asked him if he would ever want to visit me in the US when he got older, to come study and/or learn English. He said yes, probably, because he wants to see the United States and "Nueva York", but then quickly replied "but only by boat, planes are the worst, the worst because they hit trees and crash into the ground and everybody dies, so boats are better. Boats are the best." I couldn't really argue with this because I also hate the idea of plane crashes, but I did thank him for reminding me about the terrors of flying 3 weeks before my cross-Atlantic 12-hour flight. Jerk.

Novios: Novios in Spanish are boyfriends/girlfriends, and my new favorite hobby is telling Telmo we are novios when he asks me if I have one here or in the US. I tried explaining to him that I didn't have one and when he kept asking me about it I finally told him HE was my novio. Needless to say, he is 5 and the thought of novios only pleases him when he makes fun of Ane for her potential novios at school, but otherwise he is disgusted. So of course I told everyone in the family we are novios and he started screaming "No, no! No way!" and when I asked why, he simply said "because you are way older than me and will die way before me, it doesn't make sense." This kid is a genius! Those 16 years between us probs would mean I'll die at the super old age of 100 (fingers crossed) and he'll only be a springy 84-year old, right? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Death: All the talk about our future together and dying brought up some questions Telmo had about his death, or more specifically how he wants to die. Although I told him I was afraid of dying because I am only 21 and would rather live my life than think about how I'm going to die (morbid much?), Telmo assured me he isn't afraid to die, even now at his age. However, he quickly added a clarification, saying he was "terrified to die on a cross like Jesus. I hope I am never put on a cross, what do you call that kind of death?" Hahah so I told him it was crucifixion and he probably had nothing to worry about, considering they haven't really crucified anyone on the cross since about the 4th century. He wasn't convinced though, and asked why they crucified Jesus (kind of a loaded question there, I skipped it) and why they would do it to other people, himself included. The whole convo eventually ended with me assuring him that they only crucify people they don't like, and everyone likes Telmo so he has nothing to worry about, as long as he remained a good kid. Haha definitely one of the most interesting convos, how does this kid even know about crucifixion and why is he thinking about it so much?? Hopefully I helped him without scaring him into being a good kid (the cross is waiting for you Telmo, be good!)

FIFA: FIFA, for those who don't know it, is the Federacion Internacionale of Football Association, kind of an odd mix of languages there but we'll let it slide. Telmo is probs the biggest fan and has ranked all of the teams in his favorite order, their professional ranking, and a cross between the two, of his fav teams in order of their greatness. He also loves playing FIFA soccer with me on Playstation because he knows I can't figure it out and always loses, and the one time I did lose he quit the game and then promptly laughed in my face, punk. (He also makes me watch the replays of his goals about 20 times, in case I missed it when it happened to MY goalie.) Anyways, if you ever need advice on which team to have as your favorite and second favorite, have no fear because Telmo has it figured out: of course, Liverpool is and will always be THE BEST because they have Fernando Torres, a Spaniard who is pretty good, I guess. That said, the rest of the teams are all tied between Athletic Bilbao, Barcelona, and Athletic Madrid, which are in fact the best teams in Spain but I guess to Telmo the best in the world, as well. He hates it if you don't have your teams ranked and ready to explain at any moment, so if you ever meet him, have your lists ready and get ready to be fought to the death if you don't like Liverpool, or as he says it, "Liv-ver-poooooooooooool!" Oh, and don't even try to pick Liverpool as your team on FIFA Soccer, he has all the control and gets the biggest kick out of picking Liverpool first and then changing all the names of the other teams in the system to "Bhsdfhsuf-asdfs" and other jibberish. Again I say, punk.

Those are the major Telmo-isms that come to mind as the most fantastic, to finish here are just some fun facts about the kid:
-will eat ketchup on ANYTHING salty, fish and steak included. I think this kid single handedly keeps Heinz-Europe in business, sometimes I catch him licking the bottle (OMG gross, I stopped using ketchup about 3 months ago).
-will also eat sugar on ANYTHING relatively sweet, we're talking fruit, yogurt, cereal, ColaCao, etc. One time for breakfast on Sunday, which is usually a treat day, the kid ate toast with butter and SUGAR. Ewww.
-hates elevators because they are too small and have the potential to also hit trees and crash when everybody then dies. Maybe not the trees part, but the crashing/dying part, true.
-cries at the sight of blood, whether it's his or anybody's, and yells "Ahhh que asco!" (Ahh that's gross!) and the tears come. We all giggle at it.