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!!