Doing Stuff that is Fun

It is Thursday night, which means my work week is over. I am pretty tired, but oh so content. I really feel like I am hitting my stride here in my making a home away from home happiness project. I mentioned before (I think) that I felt like I had been here long enough for the newness of my life here to wear off, but it still didn't have a comfortable meaningful layer to it.
Well, I have been a busy bee over here in La Linea. I joined the rugby team, which was an excellent decision, socially and recreationally. I've been to three practices so far, and I am still getting to know the rest of the team, but they are a pretty jolly group. The vocabulary was a bit of a hurdle, because the words I had looked up were the South American terms for the positions. Oops.

A mini rugby vocabulary lesson:

-placar: tackle
-ensayo: try
-forwards: delanteros/gordas (in an affectionate way)
-backs: tres cuartos
-depressiones: push-ups
-mele-scrum
-Ruck-ruck (pronouned 'rak')
-I'm just realizing right now I mixed up the order of English/Spanish on all of those...what does that tell you about my thinking patterns right now?

A teacher at Hilaire's institute, Raquel, invited me to play padel with her on Wednesdays, which fills the hole in my heart forming from separation from racket sports. Padel is wonderful, the child of tennis and raquetball and pickleball. Look it up, it is as fun as it looks.

This weekend I am going to watch the men's game in Algeciras with the ladies team...just the group of people I was looking for and didn't have two weeks ago. Talk about things taking a turn for the better! I am just so happy and grateful to be in a position linguistically and self confidence wise that allows me to pick and choose activities that I love to do in a second language. Really just pleased as a peach. And tiiiirreeddd, between school, private lessons, padel, rugby, running, weight training for injury prevention, social time with other teachers and other auxiliares...leaves Jack tired.

In other news, I went to a town called Castellar last weekend with my friend Rocio and her friends from Huelva that came to visit her. It is about 20 minutes outside of La Linea, and it is an old castle on the top of a hill that people still live inside. Very cool.

After we went to a 'venta', a countryside restaurant with local food. We had some wild boar and venison...nom.

Dead Ends and New Challenges

This weekend I had big half baked plans. Friday night we went out to The Cuban, a restaurant in Gibraltar that has very good food, fun decor, overpriced weak drinks and is location on a dock over the water. I went with a group of 13, the 8 auxiliares in La Linea plus Erin from Los Barrios, plus 4 American girls who were placed in/around Malaga that Elle and Millie met in their pre-program thing in Sevilla. We were a very jolly group. On our way back we staggered out a bit because half of the group stopped at the gas station before the border/airstrip to pick up cigarettes/gum/alcohol depending on the person. A fifth of vodka there is 3.75, whaaaaattttt, but they don't sell after 9pm, we found out, leaving some in our party SOL. I got the gum I came in for and we headed back. Once we passed security we found the rest of the group... and my crying roommate. She had jumped up on one of the plastic road barriers expecting it to be weighted, but it was empty, so it shot out from under her and she landed back on her wrist and fractured it. That took the wind out of our sails pretty quickly. Two people went with her to the sala de emergencias and the rest of us went to Molly Bloom's, the Irish bar in town.

I lasted a few more hours before I headed home. By that time Hilaire was home and in a cast up past her elbow. Talk about an awful end to her evening.

Saturday was my half baked plan with a teacher from my school to go to Castellar, a medieval castle the people live in. Principally hippies, as I have heard. But that teacher, Noelia, went back to her home city of Cadiz (Capital) to see her family, so that was a no go. I am discovering, after 24 years of trial and error, that in order for something to happen, one must plan and communicate. There is a free nugget of wisdom from me to you. We might go some time later this week...pending on my ability to plan ahead. In the end of it all, I slept instead and then went on a run. Now I have talked about my first dead end, the trip to Castellar, so it is high time to mention one of my new challenges.

Last year on Westerns rugby team we had a French exchange student, Maeva, who I did a half marathon with in January. She is back in France this year and asked me about a month ago if I were interested in doing a marathon with her and I immediately said 'no!'. Too much running, I thought. Nahh. But I kept thinking about it. I have plenty of free time here, and if I want to do a marathon at some point in my life, why not do it europe? So then I started considering it, and I had I started thinking 'I don't know if I can do it..'. And that annoyed me. There is no reason I shouldn't be able to do it! So to prove it to myself, I got back to Maeva. I'm in. April 28th (barring any sort of injury, knock wood) I will be running the Rock and Roll marathon in Madrid. Say whaaaaaat. I have been working up my miles slowly, I am up to 8.75 now. Only 17.5 miles to go...

My plan for Sunday, today, was to go to Malaga for the day to watch the women's rugby team from the University of Malaga play the University of Granada at noon, followed directly by the men's team. I was really excited, a day of rugby spectating, a new city, maybe a few beers, recipe for a delightful day right? Unfortunately I couldn't find a buddy. I generally don't like to not do things because no one else will do it with me, but traveling for 3 hours to watch a sports game in a foreign country is one of those things. And there was an 80% chance of rain today. I pulled the plug on the event, which was disappointing. They have another home game in a month, so I think I will go for a weekend trip.

But speaking of rugby, I am going to go this week to play with the newly formed women's club team in Algeciras. I emailed the Malaga team who emailed me the phone number of a player in San Roque who I called who told me she'd pass my info on to a guy in La Linea who plays in Algeciras who could give me a ride, and who texted me this morning. What a string of communication. In another language! I am a champion! And also pretty excited; I miss team sports and people who work out and are competitive. This past year has been the first since I was a toddler that I wasn't on any kind of sports team. Plus I will meet more Spanish people in their 20's. Woohoo! That is new challenge number two. That is a lot of new people to meet in Spanish, and also nerve racking is the language itself...how do you say tackle in Spanish? or spandex? Or ruck? Scrum? not to mention all of the positions on the field... They say do something everyday that scares you right? Okayyyyy

So today I decided to hike up Gibraltar for something to do, so after puttering about the house for a few hours drinking coffee and having a lazy sunday, I get ready and head out the door. Within 2 minutes of getting out the door it starts to drizzle, which two minutes later has turned into heavy rain. I stood under the eave of the building by the border and studied the clouds and things did not look promising. After 10 minutes I gave up and headed home, taking a few pictures of the center of La Linea as I went. I got home and a half hour later it stopped raining...it looked like it would rain again in a moment, but here I am an hour later and it still hasn't rained. The weather is teasing me. Ha. Ha. Very amused.

The good news is that it inspired me to write in my blog again. I will let you know how things develop this week! And Happy early Thanksgiving!

The photos below are from today in the rain; the first from the border where I waited in vain for the rain to stop, the others from the pedestrian bridge over Avenida del Ejercito. You can see the park across the street from my apartment, and the picture with the car going around the roundabout is my street, I live just behind the buildings on the left!

The central plaza, 'Plaza de la Constitucion'

Things that are different in Spain

I am reading a book my dad sent me, "A Home called Your Own" by Steve Hanna, and he has so many little observations about Spain that remind me of my experience with my host family in Argentina and my first time out of the country. This reminds me in turn of all of the small things I haven't thought to write about but which would be interesting to read about from a computer desk in North American. So here is a list of "Things that are different in Spain", big and small.

1. There is no central heating here. Not in any house I have been in. In Andalucia or Madrid. Most places don't seem to use heat except at night, during the winter, keeping the doors closed to each room.

2. Water heating is done by bombona, a propane tank. It remains off unless you need to take a shower, in which case you hold down the spark thing and twist the knob and slowly transition it to the 'on' position, a technique that takes practice.

3. Spanish apartments seem to all be built around the same pattern of a door that opens into a hall that has rooms off of it. So in our apartment there is one long hall, the kitchen is a room with a door, the living room is a room with a door, etc.

4. Apartments almost always come furnished, with everything from tables and sofas to towels and cups and cleaning supplies. There is generally one of two decor styles: a) Decorated 25 years ago by grandma and has never been updated. b) Decorated recently, and as cheaply as possible, with kitschy stuff from the US equivalent of dollar store decorations.

5. Everyone dries their clothes on the clothes line.

6. No carpets anywhere. Tile floors fo dayz.

7. If you go out in the rain without an umbrella, the whole world is concerned with your health. If you get wet, you will get sick. Without at doubt.

8. 50% of people say you can drink the tap water here, the other 50 say no. I drink tap water 50% of the time. Seems logical to me!

9. Teachers scrub it up. T shirts and shorts and sneakers, etc.

10. Teachers change classrooms, not the students.

11. Many classrooms just have blackboards, and as the teachers change rooms, they don't decorate them. So most classroom walls are blank.

12. It thunders here so much that even though there was an enormous thunder and lightning storm going on outside a class full of bored 13 year olds, not a single one looked outside when there were huge claps of thunder. I, on the other hand, was extremely distracted.

13. Breakfast is a 11:30am, lunch is at 3-5pm, and dinner is from 9-12. No joke. I've had dinner here at 1am. Followed by coffee.

14. There are two types of coffee here. Cafe con leche, or cafe solo. Coffee with milk or espresso. Period.

15. The classic breakfast here (again, eaten a bit before noon) is cafe with a tostada, which is a 6 inch piece of white baguette toasted with tomato paste and olive oil.

16. If you order drinks you get olives, at most places. I have learned to like olives.

17. Gyms close during siesta and over the weekend. Annoying.

18. People call and hang up before you pick up to confirm something, to avoid being charged for the call.

19. Roasted chestnuts are on about every 5th street corner.

20. You always kiss people on both cheeks when you greet them.

21. Teachers take and pass a test when they finish school. According to how they did on that test, they are put on a list of available teachers, with the best grades at the top. You get placed in your region when your turn comes up, so teachers have little control over the cities they live in.

22. There are a lot of strikes here.

23. That is all I can think of for now, next update: a day in the life. I bet you're on the edge of your seat!! I don't blame you!

Internet access and time spent writing negatively correlated

Turns out when I have unlimited internet access the amount of time I spend writing and reflecting goes down...isn't that surprising? When I have all of the tv/movies/youtube videos on the internet at my fingertips it is hard to say no...

Last week was Halloween, a slightly anticlimactic holiday, as only small children dress up. But I did go to see a very good pianist for free (we all know how much I love cheap and free things!) at the Palacio de los congresos. My science teacher friend tipped me off, and I am very glad I went. When Kara and I heard the World Youth Orchestra in Riva del Garda it made me remember how much I love and appreciate classical music, especially when performed live, especially when it is free. Afterwords I went and had a beer with the couple I give private lessons to, and went home, for a very tame halloween.

The next day I went to Madrid! A 5.5 hr train ride north, (or a 9 hr bus ride, for 40 euro cheaper-my selection for the ride home) I was met at the train station by Raquel, who took me back to her place for dinner. What a trip to see her again! The last time I saw her was in 2009, between Peru and Italy. On this same long weekend we went to Morocco together and had quite the adventure-Raquel has an amazing ability to meet and befriend the most unlikely and most friendly people.

To sum up Madrid, I walked around the whole city seeing all of the beautiful sights and beautiful people. La Linea suffers from the small town syndrome where it loses a huge percentage of their 20 somethings, as they have gone to larger cities, leaving teens and families and grandparents. So it was nice to see people my age everywhere, not to mention gay people! A sight for sore eyes. Imagine living in downtown Edmonds and visiting Capitol Hill... For all that though, I have to say it was nice having the 'home' feeling when I got back to La Linea. I know the streets, I know the restaurants and the bars and I see people I know walking around town.

I met a number of guys from Senegal, met a Senegalese holy man, had Senegalese coffee (very sweet, very herbal tasting, good!) paid twice as much for everything as I do in La Linea, I went to a scream-o concert,I chatted with a lot of people from Sweden (my other friend in the city, Charlotte, is from Sweden), bought a scarf and a new leather purse (my ugly multicolored one finally broke- I took it hiking the other week, and I jumped off a boulder and the shoulder strap ripped through the bad. Time for a new one!) and an umbrella. So many people here were very concerned with my lack of umbrella state. Here getting wet from the rain = you will get sick obviously. People are starting to get colds now, and it is because of the rain. Period. The good news about the rain is that it controls the jellyfish population, which was a huge issue here this summer, as it only rained a few times last winter. People couldn't swim here because the water was thick with the 'medusas' (jellyfish) (I love that they are called Medusas- Little Mermaid much?) They apparently had boats with nets in Barcelona, trying to clear the water so tourists wouldn't be scared away. But I digress, back to Madrid:

I took the night bus back, getting in at 530 in the morning. I slept for 2 hours and went to school, the bank to cash my check (I got a check!) and pay rent, the grocery store because I had 0 food left. I then had two private lessons. One of which is with a 14 month old, and he is finally comfortable enough with me to stay in the playroom without his mom. He loves me; when he sees me he gets a huge grin and squeaks 'ordan!' I went on a walk with a few teachers from my school with our umbrellas, hoping they wouldn't break as the winds popped them inside out and back again with regularity.

Then I slept like a rock.

Most recently, I have to say that I am so so content with the results of the elections. It felt strange to sleep through the final sprint on voting day, and waking up today was like waking up on Christmas-a huge feeling of expectation, forcing myself to be patient as my computer loaded and I typed in 'US election result' and then the project of containing my glee at seeing the answer. Obama won by so much! So many states swung in the right (left...) direction! And just as important to me, gay marriage passed in Washington! It did surprise me how close it was, I guess I get used to living in King County, or I guess it really is surprising that so many people would want to strip me of this right, seeing as they it won't affect their lives. I like the sassy quote I've seen floating around - "if you don't support same sex marriage, don't get married to someone of the same sex..." Why is the majority voting on the rights of a minority? I mean, granted, they voted well, but I just don't like it.

Obama! I have health care! I can get married! Recreational marijuana!
cue the Proud to be an American song please....

Hiking and Internet at home!

Two exciting things to report,

1. We have internet in casa!! I am sitting at my dining room table as I write this

This week is only three days long because of the celebration of All Saints day on the 1st and 2nd of November. My roommate Hilaire and I are going to Madrid, visiting friends of mine that I worked with in Peru.

2. This weekend I went hiking with my couch surfing friends, Gina, Marjo and Jackie. We went to El Pincacho, outside of Alcala de los Gazules about 45 minutes NW of La Linea. There were cork trees and purple heather everywhere. As ever it was refreshing to get out of the city!

There is apparently a ratio based on the tree's circumference and height, and they are a surprisingly dark shade of red underneath the cork. According to the natural sciences teacher Jose, that park has one of the largest cork tree forests in the world. Who knew?

I am about to skype with mom!!

Words words words, and too much thinking eating and drinking

It is hard to step outside your own schema to see things from a different culture’s perspective. I have undeniably American roots, and when I say American I don’t use it as they do here in Spain. Here, when people ask where I am from I say ‘estadounidense’, literally that I am from the United States. In my first ventures outside the country (aside from BC) I went to Latin America, where I opted for ‘Americana’, because it was easier to say. But I was routinely corrected; I was not allowed to claim all of North and South America as synonymous with the US. This objection to me is totally understandable from the point of view of the countries constantly in the shadow of the United States. But here in Spain they call me Americana, and I always then specify that I am from the United States.
Why?
Maybe out of respect for the other American countries, to acknowledging their existence by recognizing the separate pieces that make up our continents.
Maybe because of an exaggerated sense of patriotism and a desire for there to be no confusion or ambiguity about my possible country of origin in the Americas.
Maybe I am happy the word ‘estadounidense’ no longer presents itself as a linguistic challenge for me, thus would like to roll it out on all possible occasions.
Maybe I am ready to stand up to anti US sentiment in a way I wasn’t before, due to my age, inexperience and possibly the fact that the Bush administration was in office.
(I will admit when I was in Argentina I was so tired of being told I was a fascist because I was from the US (mostly by cab drivers, to be fair) that I started claiming that I was Canadian)
Maybe the principle of it annoys me-if I had a friend in the US in from Europe and always described them as being ‘European’ as opposed to their country, I would find that to be inadequate. They should too.

That being said, I am American, as in a person that has grown up in the Americas-where at very least we are united by a history of colonization, inhumane treatment of native populations and revolution in the formation of our nations and national psyche. The other day in class my teacher asked me to talk about the 4th of July and how we celebrated it, and then without thinking I asked if their independence day was coming up. But of course, Spain doesn’t have an independence day, because they are the country most of the Americas were becoming independent from. They were celebrating the day that Columbus set sail to conquer new lands-reminding me in an unexpected way of which side of the Atlantic I am on right now.

Here and now Spain is one of the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) that are ‘causing problems’ for the rest of Europe. With such an international crowd in the area because of Gibraltar I have heard a number of times something along the lines of ‘this is Spain, they don’t do anything properly/promptly/efficiently/logically/(insert positive adverb here)’. Spain is the underdog. I can’t help but think back on all of the history lessons I took for my minor in ‘Studies of La Raza Latina’- elaborate caste systems in Latin America with a specific name for every possible mixture of Spanish, African and Native blood. They allowed different possibilities in life according to that system, which included reserving the highest positions of power to those actually born in Spain, giving them privilege even over those born of Spanish parents on Latin America soil. Such was the division that women would sail back to Spain to have their babies, and they had to make up a line in the Atlantic because so many babies were being born on the ship ride east. Born past that imaginary line they could be counted as full blooded Spanish and accorded all of the rights associated with this highest of high births. But if mom couldn’t keep her shit together and had the baby off the coast of Florida, well than no luck, your potential in life was just shaved several inches shorter. (Although not nearly as short as that of a mestizo (Spanish/native blend) or god forbid an African person.)

It just feels like a math equation that doesn’t add up right. Or that my perception of Spain is based on a historical perspective without giving adequate weight to its present reality- which is a 25% unemployment rate and an inability to adjust their currency due to their membership in the EU. The rise and fall of nations-where will the US be in 400 years?

On a more day to day note, last night I invited my couch surfing hosts over for dinner which turned into a 11 person dinner party at our place and man oh man did we eat well. My contributions were butternut squash gnocchi sautéed in honey garlic and rosemary, and Berenjena rebozado, or fried eggplant, drizzled with honey and reduced balsamic vinegar. Nom. There was so much food, and so much wine, and at 1 we went out for dancing until 5. We successfully threw an excellent party.

Ronda and Tarifa

This weekend I flirted with the idea of heading to Sevilla to explore a bit there, but in the end of it all I decided to stay in La Linea to explore from here. Friday however, was a day reserved for working off a tremendous hangover from the night before. Thankfully I am not a real teacher so I don’t work on Friday, thus I wasn’t one of the many teachers I went out with on Thursday night that stumbled into work Friday morning quite the worse for wear. The culture at schools here surrounding teachers is quite a bit more relaxed than in the US. For example it is acceptable for teachers to come to school wearing jeans, sneakers, t-shirts, t-shirts with political messages on them, unshaven, etc. All my worry about shaping up to looking very professional was not really necessary. Although I will say that looking nice gives more confidence going into a new job. On Saturday, Hilaire (my roommate from NY), Gonzalo, Rocio (both math teachers at my school) and I piled into Rocio’s car and headed to Ronda, an hour and a halfish drive North from La Linea into the mountains. The gorgeous views as we wound upward were accompanied by a very, very, very winding road that left us all feeling pretty carsick. There was enough altitude gain that our ears were popping and the air became noticeable crisper, colder and cleaner. (In La Linea there is an oil refinery that brings down air quality a bit). There were enormous rock formations that looked like the backs of armadillos emerging from the mountains, and the rock of Gibraltar came in and out of view as we twisted around and up. Ronda is one of the most beautiful cities in Spain that I have seen so far. It was built on either side of a huge old bridge that spans a canyon carved out by a river. When we were there the river was pretty pathetic looking, but I would have liked to see it during the floods that happened because of the downpour that happened as I arrived in Spain. It has the small winding streets typical of cities that were built/occupied by the Arabs, who were in charge of the Iberian Peninsula for about 700 years until the Catholic King and Queen Ferdinand and Isabel got married to join the two large kingdoms of Castilla and Leon. With their combined powers the ‘Reyes Catolicos’ led the Reconquista and kicked them and all of the Jewish people out in the 1400s. Andalucia was the last place the Arabs held onto). There were beautiful old buildings and arches galore, and best of all great walkways along the cliffs, which offered stunning views. About 15 minutes outside of Ronda was the small town of Cetenil, which we also visited. It is built around the Caves of Sun and Shadow, which made me feel like I was in the Lord of the Rings or something equally epic.



Sunday we went to Tarifa, a much closer destination with fewer but equally potent twists in the road. Carsickness is a lovely feeling. For those of you who are curious, no I did not puke, but I felt bad enough that I am going to go to the pharmacy and get some anti-nausea pills for next time. Tarifa is famous for its Kite Surfing and great beaches-the sad was white and oh so fun to play in. We didn’t swim because it was not really beach weather; windy and cloudy, and it had rained a bit earlier in the day. We did meet up with the auxiliar de conversacion posted there, Bree, who we met at our orientation. Bree looks/smiles/moves exactly like my friend Caitlin Ochs, enough so that I inquired about any possible relation to Caitlin, but no dice. But I wish I could put them in the same room, and maybe the similarities wouldn’t hold up to close scrutiny, but here there is no one to contradict me so I say they are twins separated at birth, case closed. Back to Tarifa-a mix of international Roxy/Billabong wearing kitesurfers sipping Cañas at the Chiringuitos (sp?) (cafés/bars/restaurants that are on the beaches themselves) in flip flops with anklets, and hippies wearing the typical hippy clothing that you can find anywhere in the world, like at the Bellingham Farmers Market, for example. Hippy shops full of hippy clothes and woven necklaces, necklaces with a polished rock on a leather cord, braided bracelets and feather earrings abound. It is a surfer town set in an Arab medina; the entire center of the city is pedestrian only because the ‘streets’ are not wide enough for more than 2 or 3 people to walk side by side. It was great, and so drastically different from La Linea in terms of atmosphere. This place could have been in Southern California, whereas La Linea is absolutely a Spanish city. Overall impression: I will have to go back there again on a nice day, if not for kite surfing than for the great beaches.

Student Strikes

I am here on the comupter in the English department instead of with Juan Carlo´s science class because of the student stikes that are on this week from Tuesday until Friday. The stikes are about resource cuts, increased class sizes and staff being used to teach multiple subjects even if they aren´t qualifed to do so. All classes here that I have seen have at least 30 students and some classes have a screen connected to the computer, but it seems a 50-50 chance that it works on any given day. Most of the classes there are just chalk boards. While that is definitely limiting I have to admit that it is fun to use actual chalk and not a white board. I am still here and not back at hoeme or doing something more exciting with my day because high schools here are from age 11 to 19 and the first two years aren´t allowed to participate in the stike. Or rather, they are allowed but their absences will not be excused whereas they will with the older students, provided their parents sign the sheet explaining the stike etc. My next class is with second years, so here I am. This past weekend I was planning on going to Tarifa on Sunday, as I have been told there are amazing beaches there by a numer of people. But, on the day of I slept in and didn´t know the bus schedule blah blah in the end of it all HIlairie and I went to San Roque, the two which is a 25 minute bus ride North and up the hill from La Linea.As we were there on a sunday it was very very quiet, there were people out eating at cafes in the central plaza but other than that the streets were deserted and businesses closed. That set the stage for a bathroom emergency when we were wandering around and all of the sudden there were no businesses anywhere that were open with a bathroom...but I digress.



San Roque was absurdly quaint, a cute Spanish town in everyway that La Linea is not. Everything was painted white, with cobblestone roads and tiled entranceways to houses and most importantly the views. It it situated at the crown of a hill with 360 views of the surrounding countryside. La Linea, Gibraltar, the Strait, Algeciras, Los Barrios, the oil tankers waiting expectantly for what I´m not sure, the tall stacks of the oil refinery outside La Linea, the rocky green hillside north of the city dotted with windmills, giving it a very Quixote flavor, with blue skies as the background. Very satisfactory. We had lunch with the woooorrrrsstt service ever, really they outdid themselves, which is saying something because restaurantand bar service in Spain is bad, as a rule. Anyways, I have class soon, so I must go! I can´t wait for my camera cord to get here ! Also I finally got keys to the apartment!! I can get into my house all on my own!! yay!!

Settling In

It is Thursday, which means for me it is Friday! They set up our schedules so we only work M-Th, and in this weeks schedule I don't work until noon today, and I am done at 3. My life is so hard. I am at a cafe right now and I just watched Djokovic beat Lopez, which makes me think of my dad because I am watching tennis on tv. Hi dad!

I have started giving private English lessons as well, which is a very new experience for me. As with starting any new job I feel awkward and inexperienced, but I'm sure it will get easier, in fact even with the second lesson I felt more comfortable, although I chewed my nails to pieces before hand. I am giving them to a 24 year old named Carolina and her boyfriend Elias. Carolina wants to be a bilingual teacher, and Elias is an electrical engineer who wants to improve his english for job interviews. A mom at the school talked to me yesterday about coming to 'work' for her, playing with her one year old, speaking in English. I think that sounds perfect, toddlers and playing is a no brainer, it is just a question of how much I should charge... My classes at the school are going better as well, at least I am starting to feel a bit more useful, as I am communicating more with/meeting the teachers I am working with. Interesting tidbit-here the teachers change rooms, not the students. So teachers carry all of their things around from room to room instead of the kids. Strange.

Editing my post from earlier, because I am back at a cafe to use internet! my address, for all of you would be penpals:

Avenida del Ejercito Bloque 6, 2B La Linea de la Concepcion 11300, Cadiz Espana

So I will be checking to mailbox :) I shall tell you now (this makes me think of my english lessons I've been giving to Elias and Carolina, 'Shall is another, less common way to talk about the future, as a substitute to will'.) about my roommates. Hilaire is from NY, went to NYU to study Spanish, she is funny and upfront and fun. James is from England and we enjoy long arguments about proper pronunciations of English words. Us three, combined with the rest of the auxiliares in La Linea make quite the fun group. Jean Luc is a 20 year old also from England, Tatiana and Esteban from SoCal, Millie and Elle from the Georgia and Tennessee respectively. Tonight we are going to make merry, and also hit up the grocery store because tomorrow is a bank holiday and all the grocery stores will be closed. Period. No exceptions. Same deal with earlier today I wanted to make some photocopies before my private lesson a 5, and I wandered the city for 15 minutes looking for anywhere that was open with a copy machine, but they all close between 3 and 5 for siesta, that is actually for real.

Speaking of which I have managed to convert myself to the Spanish eating schedule as well... which is have a coffee when you wake up and maybe a small snack, eat some toast or something at 11:30, have lunch when school gets out at 3, and have dinner at 8 to 9 to 10. That is all, ta ta for now

Exciting Sunday

I wouldn't be writing again so soon but several great things happened today, so I feel inclined to share. A. I finally was on the internet the same time as Kara! We got to skype for the first time, which was very exciting. B. I moved into my new apartment! Address soon to come I promise, so you all can begin to send the letters and presents you've been stockpiling while I found a permanent residence. c. I went hiking today! I unfortunately forgot my camera, so naturally that means I shall have to go back so I can share the experience visually. It was to a place that was semi Zionesque, in it's tall stacked rocks that we had to scramble over. The trail went up a dried river/stream bed, and passed under a number of loud bees nests. They gave me flashbacks of my nasty experience at Lake Chelan all those years ago. For all of you who don't know that story-I was exploring the woods around our family campsite with my brothers and co. when we happened across an underground bees nest. And when I say happened upon I mean walked into and stirred up. I was swarmed and got about 17 stings, with bees in my clothes as I went screaming like a banshee back to camp to strip off all of my clothes. I still remember being horrified as I plucked a bee out of my armpit. Anyways, today there were no incidents, they let us go by without any show of curiosity at all. At the top there are a number of windmills, which made me feel like Don Quixote and I felt like I should have been on a horse with a lance. We wandered back down and went to the main attraction, which was the roman baths! Milky white stanky water from some underground source, covered with an arching brick roof. The water was cold, refreshing after the hike in 80 degree weather. There was a stream that drained out of it, and it joined with a sulfuric river near it, where people smeared themselves with mud before washing it off in the river, a sort of rural spa experience. A very stinky rural spa experience. I took a shower and I can still smell it a bit...a special treat for my classes tomorrow. Anyways, that is all the news for the day, I am going to go back to my new home now! Woopee!!!

Hot dayzz

I wish that I could put up photos to give a better idea of where I am staying but I forgot my camera cord. At some point I will go on a an adventure looking for the appropriate cord at some store around here but it will not be today. Last night I had a copious amount of alcohol, which means that today I have little to no motivation to get much done. It is about 80 degrees and quite humid and it feels quite natural to move about at a sluggish pace.

The last few days have been great, I've met a number of new people and tried a number of new foods and visited a number of new places. I had my first class on Thursday, a math class with a teacher named Gonzalo from Jerez, the city our orientation was in on Wednesday. All of the classes I am in are part of the bilingual program at the school, so the students are taught different subjects, like math, physics, chemistry and biology in English. As I walked into Gonzalo's class I was greeted by a LOT of noise, the class was 14 years olds that were pretty rowdy. Apparently they aren't usually as loud and chatty as they were that day, having a foreigner in the class was pretty exciting. They all came up to me and asked my name and were totally flummoxed by 'Jordan', not a known name here, especially for a girl. Next I was asked if I like heavy metal by a very excited girl with very good english. I said I don't usually listen to it, but what were her favorite bands. She said Slip Knot.... The rest of the hour they asked questions about me, my hobbies, if I knew famous people, where NY, LA, Miami, North Carolina, Michigan and Nevada are. They asked why Nevada is called Nevada if it is a desert, why I would want to come to Spain when there are so many handsome strong blond blue eyed men in the US...

After class Gonzalo and I had coffee and chatted for an hour, his English was incredibly good. He invited me to lunch with other teachers who all go out to lunch on Thursdays. So at 3 we went and got a drink and a tapa, and then moved on to lunch. (I was confused because I thought tapas was lunch, and they laughed). We walked to a Seafood place and ordered a bunch of different things: clams in garlic sauce, fried dogfish in vinegar, fried something that was similar to shrimp, and 'secreto Iberico', a type of ham. Plus a mixed salad plus cake. Then we went to coffee, and at 730 we parted, agreeing to meet up with the other teachers at 9, for drinks and tapas. I met more teachers, and brought James, Hilaire and Jean Luc, other auxiliares.

Last night I went for tapas with my couch surfing hosts, Gina and Marjo, and friends from their work and got quite drunk drinking cheap steins full of beer. That plus the beer I had with the auxiliares after, plus the Irish bar, plus dancing, equals didn't end up back at the apartment until 4 in the morning. Tomorrow I am going to go hiking with Gina and Marjo and their hungarian friend Ana. It is apparently only about 20 minutes away in car, and you hike up to a sulphur spring that you can swim in. Yay! I am excited so explore Cadiz' parks a bit. I will work on the picture problem soon, I promise. Hasta luego!

School and Explorations

Yesterday was my first day of school, sort of. I went in and chatted with the coordinator of the bilingual program, Maria Jose Parado while she multitasked, and she explained that I would be working on a rotating schedule, in 5 different subjects, being in each classroom once every 15 days. We will see if I ever remember a students name! I met about 10 different staff members, including the teachers in the bilingual program with whom I will be working, all friendly, and then I was done for the day. Now I must go back to sunday night. When I got home from my hike on the rock, I was met with three ladies deep into their wine and polinka (sp?), a Hungairan alcohol. Marjo and Gina, my hosts, and their Scottish friend Jackie. I promptly joined them and we stayed up for several hours chatting and taking care of their overly stocked wine rack. Jackie works at The Three Owls, a bar in Irish Town in Gibraltar and told me to stop by if I was free the next day. Seeing as I only was at school for an hour, I ended up having a lot of free time yesterday. I went and met Hilaire and James, two auxiliares with whom I might live and chatted for a while at their apartment. Then I walked over to Gibraltar. I was stopped however, on the way. By a plane. The Gibraltar airport crosses the road on the way there, so the plane took off right in front of me...all in a day I suppose. The plane took off and I continued on my way. The bar was very british looking, with cricket on tv. I proceeded to have a number of beers before I walked home at 530 to catch a bus back to Santa Margarita where I am staying.





(Windsor and Newton, the company my Grandad worked for!)

I started off today running to catch my bus (I remember the wrong time it came). Because I cought it though, I had an hour to sit at a cafe and drink a coffee and read Wicked before going to school.

The director, Angel, took care of my trasportation issue for me. He is quite the character. Maria Jose I can understand quite well. Angel, however, has an extremely thick Andalucian accent and I have to ask him to repeat himself quite often. I am getting compliments left and right though on my Spanish, which is good for the ego when I am having such trouble understanding this accent. I can only compare it to an English learner who can understand Seattlites perfecty, but then goes to some random tiny Irish town... Now I am going to meet up with the auxiliar from NY to get some lunch. Hopefully the orientation tomorrow is informative... Here is a picture of my school! school!

Gibraltar

So yesterday was my first day in La Linea, which I spent walking around with Tatiana and Esteban, a couple from southern california who are also in the program. The city itself is...interesting, for lack of a better word. When people describe La Linea they often say "it is not your typical Spanish town" and I can see why. The city is very working class, and a lot of people are unemployed. The very center of the city is cute, lots of cafes with people eating tapas and drinking coffee. As you get outside of it it becomes more run down. It looks like it was on the upswing as a resort town and then the economic crisis hit and everything was left where it was. So there is a beautiful beach lined with palm trees and a nice sidewalk that a lot of people run and bike on. But then one block in it looks a lot like Peru, which is not something you generally expect of a European city. A huge percentage of the people here work in Gibraltar, and there are lines of cars up the street along the water every morning of workers waiting in line to get through the border, which is literally a 5 minute walk from the center of La Linea. I only have 9 minutes of internet so I will write more on La Linea as I learn more. In the afternoon yesterday I took a bus out to the community of Santa Margarita, which has newer houses and is pretty purely residential. I am couch surfing there with a Finnish and Hungarian couple in their earlir 30s who have traveled all around the world and currently work in Gibraltar. We chatted and had dinner and a few friends of theirs came over, and Italian and Hungarian couple. They told me about a gym near my school that has tennis and padel, which apparently is a combination of squash and tennis. So obviously I am going to join this gym and learn padel. Today I walked to Gibraltar with Tatiana and Esteban. Very British, with banners celebrating the Queens Jubilee and everything in pounds and pence. It is very beautiful there, and cigarettes and alcohol and chocolate are all very cheap. Apparently a big business is smuggling cigarettes over the border to sell in Spain. We hiked up to the top of the rock, which had gorgeous views of the Atlas mountains in Morocco and the strait of Gibraltar, which was full of barges heading toward the Atlantic. There were the monkeys, which were a little freaky but very cute, and a plethora of lizards and olive trees.



Time to sign off, love to all of you wonderful readers! Jordan

Arrival in La Linea

I have just arrived in La Linea de la Concepcion, my home for the next 9 months; it is dark but it looks beautiful. The road in is lined with palm trees, the beach and a big sidewalk with a number of people, both guys and girls, walking on it at night, which says a lot about safety. Apparently, according to my taxi driver, people walk over to Gibraltar to go out drinking-which reminds me of 19 year olds in Bellingham going up to Canada to drink. The rock of Gibraltar is lit up at night, and with the full moon as a backdrop it is quite the sight.

I want to take a moment and recognize the amazing timing, 'magic' as we have deemed it at home, that went into the fact that I am here right now. Up until noon the day before my flight I was convinced that my passport with my visa inside would NOT return from the consulate in San Francisco in time, despite the amount of frantic emails and phone calls they received from me. I was prepared (more or less) to lose the money and miss the first day of my job and the orientation that is this coming wednesday. Peter's theory on the whole matter is that I didn't smile in the passport photos I took for my visa, and I look like a thug and potential terrorist. Maybe that is why it took 3 weeks when I was hearing from others that it took 12 days, 2 weeks, 2.5 weeks....who knows. The important part is, it did arrive! Magic! All of my transportation went smoothly, although there was a slight hiccup in my plans. First I thought I was going to be able to get an interregional bus from the airport, but I have learned that there is not such thing. I searched it thoroughly. So, I took the metro to the bus station but the bus to La Linea didn't leave until 9pm, and it was 830am...so I got back on the metro and went to the train station and asked the ticket man where the closest station was to La Linea and he told me San Fernando, which is actually about 2.5 hours away. How did he get that job? He literally has a computer with google maps on it. So I went to the ticket self serve machine and figured out that Algeciras was the closest. Problem was that the next train didn't leave until 3pm, so I waited around for 6 hours. I bought a phone, a spanish SIM card and some credit all for 20 euro! I also got 20 free national or international texts too. Score! The next problem was that in the last 24 hours in Spain there has been intense rain which has caused flooding that wiped out the ground under the tracks on part of my rail route. Thus, the train was 45 minutes late, and then 2 hours into it we all had to get off the train, get on a bus for an hour and bypass the broken rail line, then get back on another train. The exact same thing happened to me and Kara in Italy on our way to Munich.

Anyways, I got off in San Roque, which is about 10 minutes north of La Linea and had a very friendly taxi driver who I could barely understand because his accent was so thick. (southern spain is notorious for its heavy accent). The hotel is nice! I have a deck and view of the rock of gibraltar and the port. Very nice, but the nicest part is the bed! Horizontal! Sheets! Clean! No arm rests and seat belts! I am going to sleep like a baby. Good night!

I am much better rested now, thanks to sleeping in a bed for the last two nights as opposed to a bus that stops every hour and turns all the lights on. Amazing, eh? We spent about 3 hours in Milan and that was perfect, we saw the Duomo, walked around a bit and mostly sat in the piazza, where I read and Kara curled up and slept. Genova has been a great experience. The people here are amazingly helpful and eager to strike up conversations with foreigners that speak broken Italian, and most know English as well. For example, while walking into the center of town yesterday we passed a 60 something year old woman sitting on her wall with her cat and a bowl of food. I said bongiorno, and she replied with, 'I'm just waiting for him to eat'. So we stopped and chatted for 5 minutes in a mix of english and italian and she gave us recommendations on where to swim. Genova, unlike Paris, is build on one big hill rising up from the port. Stairs run up and up and up the hill, making a much more direct route into the city that the narrow roads that form winding, narrow switchbacks. The hostel, which is the only hostel here, is at the very top of the hill, a 20 minute walk down but a very long sweaty walk up, so we take the bus up. But the reward for that is a stunning view of the city. We have walked around quite a bit, eating pizza, pasta, gelato and vino. Yesterday we took the bus out to the edge of the city and went swimming in the sea. the water was warm and the beach was packed with people, all of whom seemed dead set on getting as tan as possible with no regard to the possibility of skin cancer. It was wonderful. Now, we are getting ready to head to the train station to get on the bus for the cinque terre. We are staying slightly out of the area, in La Spezia, because when I thought I booked us a room in a hostel almost a week ago, the email response 'room is fully booked' I read that as we were set and I had booked the room. But no, when I opened it again it was abundantly clear that it meant there are no available rooms. All I can say is that I was tired...oops. So Kara has taken over hostel bookings now, she is very good at it, very organized. Really so much better at it than I am it is pretty amazing. The other great move I pulled was buying our tickets online from Milan to Genova. Everything was great except for the fact that I booked them for 26/8/12 not 26/7/12, so they were perfect for the 26th next month, but for this month we had to buy tickets on the train at double the price. Ouch. Anyways, live and learn! Double check your tickets and your reservations!!

Buona Sera!! Checking in from Genova, Italy, where it is HOT. Just a bit sweaty all of the time, ideally with a few cold showers thrown in a day. Since the last time I wrote Kara and I have 1. Left Berlin via train 2. Arrived in Paris to stay for 4 nights 3. Took an overnight bus to Milan 4. took an intercity train to Genova 5. Rode all around the city of Genova with our backpacks on figuring out the train system.

Kara and I spent our last two nights in Berlin staying with a friend of hers, Craig, a 29 year old New Yorker who just moved to Berlin. He was super nice and went with us to treptower park, where we walked around and explored some more huge soviet monuments and sat by the lake enjoying patchy sunlight.

We went to Tacheles, an urban artmovemnt?building takeover/cool art studios that are controversial because they attract about 500,000 visitors a year but the city wants to kick them out and re do the building so they have shut off electricity and water and sent in private security forces to close the building but were forced to reopen due to public protest. That night we went out! To a club called E4 near Alexanderplatz and we stayed out until 530 am, the metro ride home all I could hear in my head was the '5 oclock in the morning song'...very fun going with Kara's language studies friends. Next day, to the train station!

We arrived in Paris at about 930pm and followed directions to my friend Kyra's apparment. She lives in the historical/jewish/gay section of town, a very cool combination. Their building is super old, on the 5ht floor with a wooden winding straircase that is all worn down in the middle from ages of people stepping on it. Their place was tiny but very picturesque, with exposed wooden frames and hardwood floors, and from the window you could see the Church of Sacre Coure, sacred heart. In Paris we walked and walked and walked and walked, saw the Eifel Tower, the Lourve, walked along the Seine, had a romantic dinner with Vin rouge, fromage, baguette et salami along the canal. We saw the Moulin Rouge, the Lafayette gallery with it's free and gorgeous view of the city, the Hotel deville, the arc of triumph. Paris is great because you hardly have to try to find something beautiful and cool, because there is something everywhere you go, so it is easy to just wander. A fun city, but very hot and very full of people and very expensive! So far it has been nice to get to Italy so it is easier to communicate. It makes life so much easier...

Berlin

I won't lie, it just took me 10 minutes to figure out how to write a new post, because everything on the site is written in German, and after 36 hours here in Germany, I still do not speak German. I am at City Hostel in the center of Berlin, it is overcast and just finished the buffet breakfast that consisted primarily of bread meat and cheese, which seems to be the big thing in German cuisine for all meals. But let me start at the beginning of my travels and then lead up to the present. So on Monday evening I flew out of Seattle with a direct flight to Frankfurt, a 10 and a half hour flight. I sat next to a very interesting and chatty 31 year old man, who told me quite a bit about himself in the hour after take off and before the movies began. He is a successful entrepreneur who with his brothers started up his own software something company, he and his brother fly all over North America meeting with their clients, while their younger brother went back to Harvard to finish his degree. Their younger sister is midway through Law school at Stanford. He is a 100 mile marathon runner, and likes to run at high altitudes on mountains. At 15 he went to Berkley school of music in Boston and at 17 release an album. He recently became single and has been constantly propositioned by women ever since he noted 'single' on his facebook, and when he puts things up on facebook, approximately 80 people 'like' or comment on them. Clearly very successful and clearly is very proud of his accomplishments. He told me multiple stories about personal experiences with women, with an unabashedly condescending attitude. He told me multiple times how 'women are'....Thanks man, I've been waiting for someone to tell me how I am for so long. All in all, a very interesting fellow. I arrived in Frankfurt and had 30 minutes to get to my train, so I had enough time to change some money and get some water and a snack. I then had a beautiful train ride through the countryside for 6 hours, with one changeover in Naumberg, which was a bit stressful because I had 2 minutes to change trains. That neeeevvvver would have worked in Italy, because the trains were so erratic, but I am in Germany, so it was not a problem. Compared to my experiences in South America and other European cities, it seems quite safe here. People sit on trains with Ipads and leave there things at their seats in trains while they go use the bathroom. Wow! Kara picked me up at the main train station, Berlin Hauptbahnof. Our hostel the first night was near the Augsburger Strasse, Southwest of where we are now. We woke up and saw so much! We went to the DDR museum which was a really cool hands on museum of life in Eastern Berlin before the wall fell. After, we went to Checkpoint Charlie, the main point of entrance/exit into East Berlin and saw part of the wall. I felt like it should have been bigger for how much it divided the two halves. We saw the crazy TV tower, the museum Island, the Holocaust memorial site and the accompanying museum-really cool memorial, really sad museum. We went past the Berliner Dom and through Tiergarten and went to the Soviet monument. I had currywurst and Doner kebab and Berliner beer. We went out to have a drink with Kara's friend Peter from the UK who is taking classes here and had a very jolly metro ride home. All in all a very pleasant day. The only sad part is that is rained quite a bit yesterday, and my shoes got soaked through, and they smell really bad now. They were already on their last legs: holes in the bottoms, holes in the inserts...I'll keep my eyes out for replacements. Tonight we are going on a pub crawl with students from Humbolt University (here, not Northern California). I hope I can stay up late enough!!