Torpedo Hungry

She’s not your grandmother’s southern belle. Well, actually, that is exactly what she is. Hillary was raised to be the perfect southern belle, along with fulfilling every position your grandma should. She is a great cook. She sews and knits. She even sends thank you notes on personalized stationary. Yes, she is a throwback to the good old days when the south had hopes of winning the War of Northern Aggression to assert their right to secede from the Union.

Hillary and my story starts back about a year ago. We met in CEE 3610 Introduction to Transportation Engineering with Professor Turnquist through our mutual friend Mo(town). We suffered through most of that class together ignorant of the fact that we would be spending the next year studying together. Several weeks into the class Hillary asks me, “Are you doing the Santander program next year?”

“Yeah, you too?” I responded.

That pretty much ended the conversation. We talked a little bit about our coming year in Spain, but very little like, what do we need for our visa application, where are we going to live, etc. Like in the case of Caitlyn, the first time we actually hung out was upon my first night arriving in Spain.

Also like Caitlyn (since they share a flat), she subjected me to Desperate Housewives at the beginning of the year, but repaid me with some delicious food. As I noted before, we are trying to compose a list of why Caitlyn is useful, but Hillary, hands down, wins her place in the gang with her food. She makes killer falafel, pumpkin and apple pies that shame my mom (sorry mom), pancakes that are just downright delicious, and she even has come close to mastering the Spanish tortilla (potato omelet for all you posers). She also is a good travel planner (perhaps rivaling me at times) with her organization and research. And while I did say that Caitlyn is good for schadenfreude, Hillary takes the cake with this, too.

When we look back fondly on our past trips, it is usually at some random trouble I get into because of how much I stick out for being a blonde male, or for Hillary’s series of unfortunate disasters. Yes, she entertains us endlessly with her tripping, her slips of the tongue, and her spilling food all over herself. One of the best memories of this year so far is thanks to Hillary. I remember being bent over, crying from so much laughter as Hillary tried to put the broken slats of the bed she just broke back together. Not wanting to pay for the damages, she instead brought the evidence to Africa to dispose of.

Another, equally ego damaging occurrence happened when we were on a bridge of Venice, wanting a picture of all three of us. Sheepishly, Hillary approached a passerby, politely asking if she could take our picture standing in front of the canal. She thought quickly on her feet and soon stammered, “Uhh… the train…” and ran off. We all knew she had no train to catch. No, Hillary was one of the first people in Venice to get rejected for taking a picture. Even simple tasks like eating a Nutella filled doughnut end disastrously with Nutella covering her coat, sleeve, and umbrella.

Eventually she took on the name Torpedo, a combination of the words torpe (Spanish for clumsy) and Fredo (the infamously worst brother from The Godfather). Probably the best example of her clumsiness is one of Caitlyn’s favorite stories. One day, we were walking up the stairs to Geo Lab. Trouble ensues as she misses the step, trips, and plants her face directly into Caitlyn’s ass as Jon, a Spanish kid from our class, watches on. She ends up hugging Caitlyn’s rear to prevent her face from meeting the step. Oh yes, she is quite the graceful lady.