Still on break, stateside

Here I am in California, still -- my latest project is making a Spain scrapbook. Yesterday, while looking for photos to scan with my mom's new scanner (which she got from my dad, for xmas), I came across a ginormous stack on scrapbook materials. That got me to thinking that I would make a new scrapbook ~ one of my favorite pasttimes. Cheesy, I guess, but whatever. I guess I have a little bit of Martha Stewart in me or something.

Not much else to say...I've been reading El País, Spain's main newspaper, online, to keep up with my Spanish. I also just watched a Spanish movie on Netflix the other day, for kicks. I'm thinking I should keep up with that once I get back to Spain, or maybe just watch a bunch of Spanish TV, so I can acclimate my ear to Spanish more. Living with Americans and interacting with them more than anyone else really cuts down on my Spanish speaking practice, unfortunately.

I have my GRE test in a week and a half -- I feel really unprepared and a bit freaked out about it, but oh well. I might just take it twice, anyway. Right now I'm working on a couple grad school app's, but I'm not sure if they'll lead to anything. I'm not quite sure what I want to do with my life, still...stressful decision making, bleh.

it's the future: wireless internet in flight.

Was anyone previously aware that wireless internet is available in flight, these days? Bizarre.

That would probably be the best thing that has happened to me today -- and that is a sad, sad statement about my day. To sum it up, I arrived from Madrid to NYC yesterday at 5:30 p.m. and sat on the runway for a solid hour after landing, just idle, doing nothing; then I missed my flight to LA because by the time I went through customs my flight had already taken off. Gone. No more flights left to LA all night, so I had to be put up in a hotel for the night and given a voucher ~ then I woke up this morning for my flight, but it turns out it took SO SO long to get through check in and security (not to mention the fact that I had to be randomly screened, for no reason), that I missed THAT flight, too. Aaaand then the whole day I had to keep waiting to be picked up from the standby list -- 6 times! And the agents who assist with the standby list were complete a-holes to me, until the time I was waiting for my 4th standby flight and I couldn't take it anymore and was near tears and the guy who was behind the counter managed to magically confirm a seat for me for a flight that was 2 hours out from that point in time.

Now I'm on said flight, but THIS flight, too, just sat on the god forsaken runway for TWO. HOURS. before we even took off. Now I have 5 hours left of my 6.5 hour flight....AHHHHHH.

/end of complaining.

I'm kind of sad to be out of Spain, even though I'll only be gone for 3 weeks. I had some sort of weird, reversed culture shock getting off the plane, yesterday, and looking at my American money, which also feels weird (texture) compared to euros. The FOOD, however, was something I had completely missed in the past 3 months I've been expatriated in España. Truth be told, I'm not the biggest fan of most Spanish food. I'm not a picky eater, or anything, but certain aspects of Spanish food freak me out (enormous pig legs always on display, fish with the heads always attached, everything bathed in olive oil because it's muy sano "very healthy," etc.).

While I'm home, I'm going to have to read El País, the newspaper, a lot while I'm home so I can keep up with my Spanish. Also, I'm planning on watching some Spanish movies -- I started watching some while I was waiting for my flight, today by the magic of netflix instant viewing. I did a bit of reading in Spanish on the flight, already, because for some reason there's a magazine in Spanish provided by the airline in the pocket thing in front of my seat.

Anyway...what did I do before I left Spain, since my last update? I went to the city of Córdoba, which is the capital of the province where I live, to get my NIE card. I've mentioned it before -- it's called NIE which means numero de identificación de extranjeros, or foreigner's number identification card. I also went to a Christmas dinner party with the faculty of my school, and got to witness a bunch of blitzed Spaniards, it was great. I, too, was feeling pretty piripi (tipsy) by the time I left. Unfortunately, I had to leave early in order to make it to Seville, since my flight was going to leave the next morning.

Cat, a girl I met in Seville during orientation, was my lovely hostess in Seville, and she was really generous about everything in her apartment and let me sleep in her bed and she went over to her boyfriend's apartment to sleep that night. I met her boyfriend, Kike (short for Enrique), and he is fluent in English, so that was cool. We spoke in Spanish almost the whole time, regardless, just because I want to practice it as much as I can.

Good news: some random guy named Pablo, who is my age, got in contact with the American girls in Cabra through his mom, who is an English teacher at one of the language academies, there. He met up with us the other night, and he, also, speaks pretty good English. I'm hoping when we get back that maybe he will hang out with us girls some more so I can get in more Spanish practice. Even though I'm living in Spain, I don't usually speak in Spanish for long periods of time, since I'm living with Americans. I am trying to speak Spanish a lot while I'm at school, more and more, and strike up conversations with the professors so I can get more experience. Hearing people speak and reading Spanish is all well and good, but speaking a foreign language often and perfecting it is the best way to actually learn it. I could read something in Italian right now and get the gist (I minored in Italian, fyi), but my speaking ability in Italian, at the moment, is abyssmal, unfortunately...don't use it, ya lose it, y'know.

I'll get back to España on January 12th. I'm not sure if I'll be traveling much in January, yet. Truth be told, I get a bit tired of the constant frenzy of deciding where to go every single weekend...sometimes I just enjoy being a bum at home and not having to pack and plan a commute and so on. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing new places, it's just the constant trip planning that can be a bit exhausting.

Speaking of upcoming travels, I do have one trip planned, already ~ I'll be heading to IRELAND in late February to meet my Irish relatives for the first time, and I'm thrilled. It should be a great experience. And I'll probably be heading to Italy in April for holy week, but other than that, no other plans yet.

Anyway, I'm gonna wrap it up for now...I'm fading. It's 5 a.m. in Spain right now and I'm all disoriented and exhausted after my long, ridiculous day. Well, two days, since I left yesterday morning, from Seville. Buenas noches.

Singin' "wonder do I ever cross your mind"

Christmas time is here. Spain is all about the belén presentations (nativity scene), and that includes massive, ridiculous displays. I was all confused about why there were bricklayers in front of the town hall in Cabra with a big tarp lying over a chain-link fence, but now I know...it was for this.
In the spirit of Navidad, I played "Feliz Navidad" and "Frosty the Snowman" approximately 12 billion times for the little kids that I tutor, and I'm pretty sure they loved that. We also are learning the alphabet, and so far we've gotten through F and then just "la la la."

I was told that the next town over one-upped us by having live animals at their belén.

Amusing: baby Jesus isn't at the nativity. He'll magically appear in a few weeks, I suppose, but for now Mary and Joseph still have wistful expressions on their plastic faces. Also missing are the wise men, but I guess they wouldn't show up before Jesus did, right?

Next week, the day before I leave, there will be a big "comida" for Christmas for everybody who works at my instituto. I already saw the menu, and it's typical Spanish fare with a few things I've never heard of but am afraid to try, such as murcillo. Essentially like chorizo, only with pig blood in it, or something...


My bilingual coordinator asked me to make a Christmas poster for my school, and the thing is huge. Not wanting to clip out pictures from magazines, I decided to print out pictures that are mostly all mine except for a few that show gaudy displays of Christmas lights on homes.

I have a photo of Pat and me on Santa's lap in 1988, another with me + Dan + Pat in 1992, a picture of the three of us in an actual Christmas card from 2001, the family in front of the Rockefeller Christmas tree in NYC, a turkey dinner picture that Marieta and Pat made, Sam and I in front of a Christmas tree in 2003, Mandy and I walking outside in the snow...that's mostly it. I also printed out a cartoon with a turkey holding a newspaper saying "Gee, I hate to read the obituaries after Christmas." I told Emily I told my kids about turkey dinners, and she said "What about ham?" and I said then I'd have to specify that Americans don't have "jamón" like their Spaniard counterparts (ham literally shaved off an enormous pig leg, hoof still attached -- creepy). I also made more than 20 paper snowflakes -- yes, I made all of those. Hooray for me. I also made the block letters.

I've also been filling up my time hanging out with my profesores and their kids. Good opportunity to practice Spanish and play with little kids. Yesterday, Claire and I went over to one of the English teacher/Gym teacher's house (they're married) and play with 3 year-old Anita, their daughter. Anita was like I was as a little kid, that is, really shy and leery of strangers. I had already met her once before, but she still was a bit hesitant to play. Next time, hopefully.
After that, Claire, Becca and I went over to our landlord's other work place -- they're dental technicians and make crowns/dentures/dental appliances, so that was cool to see. I mentioned I wanted an "abrigo blanco," and of course Europeans aren't like "gee isn't that cute," they actually go find one and put it on you. So we took pictures wearing them and "working." Then I watched my landlord, Juan de's, brother working. His name is Jose Luis, and his son Pablo was watching, too. I would pick up the instrument things and tell Pablo I would take out all his teeth -- he's so cute and travieso.

Today I might go back over to my bilingual coordinator's piso and hang out and maybe play with the dog, Canela. So cute. David and Elvira, the gym and English teacher (respectively), live directly above Carlos and Noelia, his girlfriend, who ALSO works at my school...follow?

back after a long derilection of duty.

Here I am in a hostel in Madrid at 2 a.m. and I realized I haven´t updated this bad boy in a long time (relatively speaking). My bad.

Madrid has been awesome, I´ve met a bunch of new people, too. Turns out all those British conversation assistants are swarming about Madrid, since I met a ton of them. Today I also got the chance to travel outside of Madrid and hit up a little city of 55K people in the Castilla y León region called Ávila with a group of Brits. It´s also a province and the capital of its own province. It is most famous for its enormous medieval fortress and it´s been preserved since it was built in 900 AD. Impressive, right? It´s a mile long and pretty tall, too, and offers a great view of the town and the mountains in the distance. The weather was pretty crappy and cold, but oh well.

One of the best parts about going to Ávila was getting to travel with the Brits I met at my hostel the other night. I was downstairs in the hostel bar and we struck up a conversation with a group of Brits, an Aussie and an Irish guy. Yesterday I met up with a bigger group of them and we went out for drinks and tapas -- the best part of that was the fact that the tapas were free with the cheap drinks. The catch to that was the fact that the bar was loud and extremely crowded. Also smoky, but that goes without saying in Spain. I really hate it when my clothes and hair reek of smoke after being in a bar here, but what can ya do.

Other things I´ve seen since I´ve been here...I hit up the Museo Reina Sofia with Carole and her sister and saw the Guernica by Picasso. It depicts the Spanish civil war and if it weren´t for the cubistic surrealism, it would pack a bit more punch, IMO. It was pretty impressive, not to mention huge. We all had to stand pretty far away from it. Luckily, I spent 3€ in order to have a headset, so that increased my appreciation for the painting. That would probably be the highlight of the Reina Sofia. Tomorrow my goal is to hit up the Prado Museum before I leave Madrid at 2 pm...the bus ride back to my pueblo is 6 hours and change, since I have to change buses in Córdoba on the way.

Speaking of Córdoba, next week or the week after I´ll have to pick up my foreigners card thing, which is essentially Spain´s equivalent of the green card. It´s been really obnoxious getting around without it, at times, but I just show my passport with my Spanish visa and usually that´s good enough. But it´s been a huge pain getting into the health clinic without it.

That brings me to something else - this past week I was getting over strep which I caught from Carole in Scotland. I came down hard with a massive headache right when I got back from Scotland, and then another the night of Thanksgiving. The morning after, my throat looked like a red and white golf ball and I was sweating profusely. So I went with Emily to the health clinic and managed to sputter out a few horribly grammatically incorrect sentences about how I felt miserable and achy and I ended up with Paracetamol and Erythromycin. I went back in 3 days and ended up getting stronger antibiotics (500 mg of zithromax) and another kind of painkiller and chloroseptic spray. The chloroseptic spray nearly made me yak, but it was also a lifesaver. Anyway, enough of that grossness.

I don´t have any pic´s for this post, my bad. I´ll have pic´s in the near future when I swipe them from Luke and the Brits who I was with. It turns out I left my camera in Cabra, oh well. I realized this as I was on the way to the Cabra bus station, but I didn´t think I´d have time to turn around and get it and still make it. Sucks, but oh well.

Next week I´m going to have to get ready to teach the Spanish kids about American Christmas traditions, so I´m going to teach them about how we put Christmas lights on our houses and have turkey dinners and whatnot...it took me awhile to think of some American things that they don´t do in Spain, too. We also have songs that they´re not familiar with, so I´m going to play those for them. I plan on playing the ¨Feliz Navidad¨ song (I wanna wish you a merry xmas from the bottom of my heart) since I teach kids who are in their first year of English and those dozenish words will be enough for them to digest, no doubt. Maybe I´ll do Feliz Navidad and one other song. I just really need to get my kids to SPEAK more, since they freeze up and don´t want to say anything in English to me or will just say ¨¿eso qué es?¨ or related BS when I ask a question. Drives me crazy.

Anyway, I´m thinking I should get off this computer so I don´t get told to get the eff out of this room like I was last night while I was reading. I´m so happy that tonight I´m in a room of only 8 people -- so nice. You may think ¨wtf¨ to that, but the first night I was in a room of 16, at least 3 of which were snoring. Absolutely obnoxious.
All right, I´m off. Hasta pronto

back in españa

Today I walked into the teacher's lounge and I was a bit shocked at what I saw on the front page. The headline for the main story is "An average of 100 women report abuse every month in Córdoba." But that wasn't the shocking part.

Look at the women to the left. Notice anything strange? Well, apparently if you're Spanish, you won't notice anything in particular. I was a bit shocked to see half-naked women on the front page of a newspaper, then I remembered oh yeah, I'm in Europe. Still, isn't it kind of ironic that the women are protesting domestic violence but they're just out there lettin' it all hang out?

By the way, yesterday was the National Day Against Domestic Violence here in Spain. Apparently that involves outdoor interpretative dance in the nude?






Anyway, I'm back from my trip to Edinburgh, or in Spanish, Edimburgo. We got there on Thursday night and drove on the left side of the road (hooray UK) to our hostel to check in, then get food. We went to a traditional Scottish place and got some fish and chips or shepherd's pie or whatnot. Scottish food isn't really all that exciting, in my opinion. Two of the other girls really wanted to try haggis, but I wasn't all that thrilled about the prospect of eating sheep intestines, so I passed on that. We went to bed a bit early because Carole was still recovering from strep -- yes, strep. Two of the other girls, Corey and Steph, went out to see more of Grassmarket plaza, which was right by our hostel. I, for one, was ready to get out of the cold since it felt like the windchill would make the temp somewhere under freezing. Horrible.

We did our guided tour in the a.m. and went around the tacky tourist shops in central Edinburgh, too. The tour was helpful in teaching me about Scottish history, which I knew almost nothing about. It turns out that Edinburgh has a whole bunch of morbid stories from torture and witch trials and war prisons to serial killers who sold their victims to the medical college for money. Who knew? I also got to go on a nifty, nighttime underground tour of the creepy Edinburgh vaults. So creepy. Apparently there's paranormal activity down there, too, if you happen to believe in that hoohah. Either way, it was creepy to be down in some cold, wet, dark vault where there used to be rampant crime and death. The vaults were unknown for 150 years because they were boarded up. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_vaults . Creepy.

Other stuff we did there was sample some real Scotch whiskey, see the Scottish parliament, see the Edinburgh castle, and do some general shopping. I managed to find a bookstore which was a welcome discovery. There are no English language bookstores near where I live, so it was nice to find some books to take back with me. Today I'm going to start reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, the same guy who wrote Blink, which I suggest you read if you haven't already. Last night I just finished Running With Scissors and that is a ridiculously weird book. I would recommend you read it if you have a strong stomach and aren't grossed out by some vulgar stuff. Pretty funny, too, though.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It's kind of weird that I'll be spending the day in another country, but them's the breaks. I'm in charge of making apple pie for tomorrow, so I have to jump on buying those ingredients and looking up translations for the ingredients in Spanish. Fun stuff.

Other than that -- not much is new. Life is back to the grind for the next couple weeks until I go home for Christmas. I am going to Madrid with a couple girls in a few weeks, so that will be fun. Not much else to report.

OK I'm gonna go down to the little cafeteria and get some espresso (they just say café, but no, it is ESPRESSO to our American standards, thank you very much).

Back to school, back to school, to prove to dad that I'm not a fool...

...I guess song that doesn't exactly apply when I'm the profesora. Vale, no me importa.

Random observation: I find it a little strange that students here don't address the teachers at "Mrs." or "Mr." whatever, they just say "Maestr@" (teacher). Another thing: the "@" symbol denotes a masculine or feminine adjective or noun. I just thought about that because a student walked into the teacher's lounge and said that...

Today I don't have all that much to do other than conversation hours with teachers. I'm not going to the music class today because they have a test, so I'm just hanging out in the teacher's lounge. I'm lucky to have internet and a little café at my school, too, so I can relax while I'm not doing anything in particular. Today I've been looking at El País online, which is one of Spain's biggest newspapers. I have an enormous list of vocab just from reading up online.

The most helpful resource to improve my Spanish is chatting with the professors, especially the ones who are bilingual. Usually they will speak to me in Spanish, though, but that's good for me. I keep freezing up every so often and I can't think of even one sentence in Spanish...so frustrating. Good to know I studied Spanish for years on end and I still stress out about subjunctive verbs, especially when they're irregular or in any tense other than present. I really need to review subjunctive...I should have brought my Spanish grammar books with me to Spain. I'll have to get those when I go back to the US. Not to mention I'll have to bring a bunch of English books with me in order to teach it better for my tutoring classes.

Speaking of tutoring, yesterday I got two calls from the fliers I have been putting up. One call was from a lady who teaches at one of the language institutes here, and she was p.o.'ed that I put up a flyer for classes near her school. OK, lady, it's a public place and it wasn't like it was right on the door of the school or something really brash like that. Another call was from a lady who wants classes for her 8 year old daughter, but I was really distracted by the music playing at Mercadona (grocery store), so I have to call her back to talk about today. Tonight I'm going back to teach Marta and Paco, at seven.

I met other professors' children last weekend -- Beatriz invited me to go out with her and Daniela in the parque, and we ended up seeing Elvira and David with their daughter, Ana. So I got to play with little kids, which was a lot of fun.















I learned some new vocab words there, too, such as columpio, which means "swing." Tobogán is "slide." And the little rocks (roquitas) on the playground, which Daniela wanted to put in her mouth, are "caca." Clearly.

What else is going on...oh yeah, big news in Spain today: two of the leaders of ETA ("Euzkadi ta Azkatasuna," which is the terrorist group in the Basque country here in Spain), were captured and put in prison in France. The main guy's name is Txeroki, which is pronounced like "Cherokee." The Basque Country is a small part of Spain where they speak Basque and Spanish, but some of them want to secede. Basque, by the way, is a completely different language from Spanish. Unlike Catalan, Valencian or Galician, which are all separate languages spoken in regions of Spain, Basque doesn't derive from Latin. In fact, it doesn't have a known parent language. I don't know much about it, yet, but I've seen the terrorists doing their...terrorism (?) on the news. It's weird, too, because a lot of the things they show on the news here would never be played in the US. And when they show the terrorists being arrested, it's the cops who wear ski masks so they won't be recognized and hunted down by other ETA members. Loco.

Y ya está por ahora. Or...that's it for now.

keep on keepin' on

Hopefully today will mark the end of having to do official stuff foreigners have to do to live here. Well, that's not true, because I still need to set up a bank account. Lameeee. Today I had to go to Córdoba (before the sun came up) in order to do more junk to get my NIE card: numero de identificación por extranjeros which is more or less Spain's version of the green card. I left on the 6:30 a.m. bus here in Cabra to get to Córdoba for an appointment at the police department to turn in even more paperwork and get fingerprinted. Joy of joys. I got the actual number of my NIE card, but I won't get the actual card for another month and then I'll have to go back to Córdoba AGAIN to pick it up. Rahhhhh, curses.

Other stuff ~ this evening I did my first tutoring class, ever. I worked with Marta and Paco, who are brother and sister. Marta is 7 and Paco is 4, and their mother is Carmen, a teacher at my school. They were adorable, but I'm going to have to figure out methods that work to teach young children, because it's clearly different from middle/high school-aged kids. The attention-span issue is frustrating for me, but it's hard to get angry at a 4 year-old, especially when s/he's so cute. I started as a language TA for 101 classes in college, now I just keep going down in age...eek.
This weekend I'm doing another private tutoring class for a college student who comes home during the weekends. She originally was going to be taught by Emily, but Emily is already doing so many classes that she is offering to give a bunch of her people to the rest of us girls since she feels swamped. Must be nice, though, since she's making an extra 300 euro a month for her efforts. If we were in a bigger city, we'd be able to make almost twice that, but the cost of living would eat up all the extra cash, so it's the same in the end.

Over the weekend I put up a ton of flyers advertising tutoring, but I was frustrated to see that a lot of them were removed. I guess they were either in places were posters frequently get removed, but I'm still annoyed. I'm going to copy more flyers tomorrow at school and put up more around town on lamp posts and big bulletin boards I see in town. I'm confused why my flyers were pulled off the bulletin boards, too. How irritating. I have a feeling that word of mouth advertising is much more effective than the flyers, but I'm going to do both and see where it gets me.

Other than official stuff -- life's not bad. Emily was here for the weekend and I showed her around my little pueblo and had some fun. This weekend will probably be low key and I'll just be hanging out in Cabra, but the weekend after this one I'll be in Edinburgh, Scotland with Carole, who lives in Málaga, and two other girls from Málaga who I've never met. I'm super psyched, yay!

Anyway, I'm wiped from getting up at 5-something this morning, so I'm going to faceplant in my pillows. Buenas noches.

Fin de semana que viene aquí en Cabra

More fun stuff -- Emily is on her way from Canillas de Aceituno! That is the name of her town, by the way, and it only has 2500 people. When she told me how small it was, I asked her if it was some kind of tribal village where they live in teepees or something. I forgot that some of the people in my program are in SUCH small towns. Like I said in here once before, my high school had more people than that. Loco. But it should be a lot of fun, I'm totally excited.

Yesterday after school, I went to Baena with Rosana, one of the English teachers. She is great. We went out to get lunch, first. I should add that we got lunch at 4 p.m. which is completely normal here -- remember that Spaniards eat at weird times: breakfast is usually at 11 a.m. and it consists of a something light like toast with olive oil and an espresso or café con leche, then lunch is between 2 to 4 p.m. and that is the biggest meal, there is a snack somewhere in between, and then there is a light dinner which can be anytime between 8 p.m. (at the earliest) and midnight.
Anyway, woops on that tangent -- after we ate, Rosana and I shopped around town, walked through the park and saw the sights of Baena, we went to Carrefour, which is the equivalent of Target here in Spain, and I met her grandmother and her mom, briefly. It was fun, and I should also add that I spoke Spanish almost continuously with few lapses into English. I speak Spanish here every day, but never for hours at a time, so I definitely got a mental workout. It's normal for me to think "crap, what is the third person past tense of 'to bring'" and "what preposition should I use in this sentence" ? Also, if I don't know how to say a phrase, sometimes I'll just use the direct English to Spanish translation, and usually that doesn't work so well for me. Woops.

Other things coming up this weekend include hanging out with Carlos and Noelia, who are my bilingual coordinator and his girlfriend/one of the professors I work with, too, respectively. We'll be going out to the country to "tomar algo" (eat/get some drinks) and just hang out. Also, Raul, the Chief of Studies will be coming, too (not sure what his exact job description is, but that's his title at my school). I haven't asked Carlos if Emily can come with us yet, because he just told me about this plan to go out and get drinks in the country after I had invited Emily to visit me in Cabra, but I'm pretty sure it will be fine. We'll see!

One other thing I haven't mentioned in here, yet -- I have a private tutoring class planned for next Tuesday! Yay! I'm going to teach two children of one of the teachers at my school. They are 4 and 7 years old, so I am going to have to rack my brain for what to teach little kids who have virtually no knowledge of English. This will be completely new territory for me, but I'm still excited. Their names are Marta and Paco, by the way -- Marta is 7 and Paco is 4. I'm sure they'll be adorable. Carmen, their mother, told me that they're super excited to meet me. Yay.

Yay for fun things in Spain. Hasta luego.

O-BA-MA!!!!!

Tangent from my usual musings about my life here in Spain....

OBAMA WON!!! I'm really happy, too. Also, I still can't believe that the USA decided to put that racial pish posh BS aside, for this. It's not like it's the end of racism in the United States, but it's definitely a huge leap towards more acceptance. I just hope that Obama can steer the USA back to the great country it is supposed to be, on the international playing field, and less of an economic flop of doom and a war monger that we can include among George W. Bush's accomplishments in the past 8 years. I can't believe that I'll always have to say that Bush was the president for the majority of my high school and ALL of my college years -- he is just such an embarrassment.

Last night, the girls in my apartment had a mini fiesta for the election. We played some games and had some bebidas (drinks), but the election results were finalized after we were long asleep -- at about 5 or 6 a.m.

It's funny to me, too, that all the profesores are asking me a) who I voted for and b) all my opinions and then they will also throw something in about un político negro (black politician) and how they can't believe he was elected -- but they are happy, because they overwhelmingly support Obama in Spain. When most Spaniards brought up the American presidential election, they would ask in the same breath if I would vote for Obama. Amusing...

Anyway....phew. I'm sure I'll bring up politics in this blog again at some point, but back to the rest of the junk I usually talk about in this blog.

I'm going on a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland, in a few weeks! :-D I'm really excited, too, because I've been to England, but never to anywhere else in the UK. I'd like to make it to Ireland at some point, since I'm part Irish, but who knows when that will happen. But yeah, I'm going with Carole and 2 of the people she knows in Málaga. Originally we wanted to go to Rome, but the flights were ridiculously cheap to Edinburgh, so we booked that instead. I'd love to go to Rome, but I've already been there. Scotland should be a lot of fun.

As for THIS weekend, I changed my plans -- I'm not going to Málaga anymore, but Emily F. is coming to Cabra. A couple of Michelle's friends from Seville, who I have seen twice already, will be coming to Cabra, too. Emily B. and Kim will also be here. I figured, if all these people will be here, maybe it would be better to ask if Emily F. just to come here. I love to travel, but I'm getting a little bit of travel fatigue, because I'm definitely a homebody and I think traveling takes a bit more energy, planning and €s!!! I want to save a bit of €s because it seems like I've been blowing through a lot of money lately, and it would be nice to have some finances left over by the time I leave Spain! Ay ay ay. So yeah, it should be just as fun to be here in Cabra, even though it's a dinky town and there's not as much to do here as there is in Málaga. I'm definitely excited to see Emily again, too, since I haven't seen her since orientation. The fun thing about being abroad in groups like this is that social life for everyone is like potpourri -- so many different types of people that you would never interact with if you were in your comfort zone/social bubble that most people rarely leave when living in their hometown.

Speaking of random social events -- this weekend, I'll probably be going out just to hang out with my bilingual coordinator and his girlfriend, who also works at the school here, so I see her every day I'm working. They're both really relaxed and fun. They have 2 dogs and when I mentioned I wanted to see them again and offered to walk them if they ever need someone, she said that maybe we could all go out this weekend. Carlos and Noelia (those are their names) already have my number, so they can contact me whenever. Should be fun. It's definitely a completely different experience to hang out with people from another culture, but in a way, I'm used to being a fish out of water after moving so many times. But this is a whole different thing, too. Exciting.

OK, gonna get some work done...unfortunately, my bilingual coordinator, Carlos, isn't here today. I would be in an hour long meeting right now and actually being productive, but today I can't. Usually Carlos heads a weekly meeting that I sit in on and receive assignments from the teachers I work with: Mónica, the music teacher; Beatriz, the art teacher; and Victor, the French teacher.
So yeah, right now I'm kind of aburrida (bored). I don't have much work to do, either... I really wish that they used the language assistants for 24 instead of 12 hours and we made twice as much money -- that would be so much better. But I guess the average teacher 30-something hours in a school a week, but they're not constantly in class, so...I don't know how many hours teachers work on average. I just wish I could work MORE and get paid MORE. That would be sweet. Oh well. I just know that if I were in the USA working at a newspaper, right now, I'd probably be working 2-3 times as many hours in order to make the same money, which is ridiculous.

On that note, I return to being bored. Hasta luego.

Yay España

Exciting news: one of the English teachers, Rosana, offered to take me to her town Baena to walk around and have lunch together. She is going to drive me to Baena on Thursday after work and we will probably meet up with her fianceé, if he has free time, or I will just have coffee with her and look around Baena. I'm really excited to get to spend time with profesores fuera de la escuela (teachers outside of school).

Another fun oportunidad -- next Monday, which is a free day for me, I will be going back to Córdoba, this time also with teachers and maybe a friend or two, if any of them are free. I'm going to see an art exhibit that raises awareness for a day in Spain that focuses on domestic violence. I think it should be pretty interesting, I'm always drawn to topics like that (I am the biggest Law & Order nerd on the planet).

I was in Álora this weekend to visit Cassie and it was great. Cassie, like I said, is a girl I met during orientation. She is probably the person most similar to me that I have met here in Spain, so far, because we are both share similar interests and we have similar personalities. It's rare that I meet someone as cynical as I am, but when I do, my cold black heart sings with joy. OK, maybe not so much, but whatever.
Anyway, I met up with Cassie on Friday afternoon, once I got to Málaga. She lives in a little town about 30 minutes away from Málaga, so we met up there, just as a meeting place and so we could shop in the city, since Álora is so small and doesn't have any places. I did some damage with my finances, especially since I just got paid, but also because I legitimately needed some stuff. I got rain boots, since it is raining all the time here, lately, and I bought new slippers, because the 2€ slippers I had bought here in Cabra were falling apart and literally busting at the seams. No good. I also bought a coat, because I didn't have a winter coat here with me. Good stuff. I also found a new wallet, because that, too, was falling apart on me. So yeah....did some damage. But at least they were all pretty practical things and not stuff I just wanted to buy.
We were having fun shopping around, and we managed to miss our train, though, so that was kind of a bummer, since we had to wait 2 hours for the next train to Álora. It wasn't too bad waiting, we just ended up eating Halloween candy that we got at a nearby store. The problem arrived once we got to Álora and there were no taxis and the number to get taxis there was busy, constantly. We finally got a taxi when Cassie called the local hotel and the hotel desk guy gave Cassie the HOME number of a taxi driver, who told her he'd come get us, but it would take him 20 minutes to pick us up. We said we would wait forever, because there was no way we were going to walk up the MOUNTAIN up to where she lives. Álora is seriously on top of a mountain, it is the hilliest city I have ever seen in my life. Well, it wasn't too bad. We got there in one piece.

That night, we met up with Nick, another language assistant who is in our program. Funny story -- Nick also went to school in Ithaca, except he was at Cornell and I was at Ithaca College. It's strange that we were both in such a small town in the USA and now we are meeting in a small town in Spain -- what are the odds? So yeah, we met up with him and we met his Spaniard friend, Paco. Paco turns out to speak fluent English, because he studied it at Málaga University. He was a nice guy. We went out with Nick and Paco to a couple bars and then went to the dance club, or discoteca, as they are called here in Spain. We ended up going home at 5 a.m., in typical Spanish style. Ridiculous to American standards, I know, but it's normal here to stay up even past sunrise and then sleep most of the day and do the whole thing again the next day. Big cultural difference, what can I say.

This weekend I'm planning to meet up with another girl in my program, Emily, who also lives in a small town, but in the Málaga province, and I'm in the Córdoba province. We are going to meet up in Málaga and spend the weekend there for her birthday. Should be a good time.

Ay, I've already written so much stuff, but I feel like there's so much more I could say. It's so different living in a foreign country in that my schedule is completely different and life doesn't feel as lather-rinse-repeat as it can be in the USA. Sometimes it can be a bit exhausting, trying to jam pack so many activities a short period of time and interact with so many people, especially for me -- I can be a bit of a home body and an introvert, so I feel like I expend a lot of mental energy trying to get everything done that I want to do. At the same time, I don't want to say that I wasted my time in Spain and didn't see as much of Spain that I could and do everything I want to do.
Apart from all the excitement of life here, sometimes it can be a drag with things like the weather or other small things like lack of consistent hot water and perpetually cold apartments. Every once in a while I get frustrated with the language barrier and I think of how much easier it would be if I could speak to my landlord in English about things like the washer being broken, or tell the guy off who delivers the mail that he is a jackass for ringing my doorbell a million times and then having the nerve to be rude to me when I was in the shower and not just igorning him ringing my doorbell 9 million times. Seriously, the machismo that is present in Spain can drive me crazy. There is definitely sexism here in Spain, and I don't really consider myself a hardcore feminist, but some of the things that happen here just rub me the wrong way. The sports section of the newspaper, for instance, has TONS of stuff about men's soccer, but the section with women's soccer was barely bigger than two postage stamps together. Ridiculous.

Anyway, not to leave on a Debbie Downer note, but I should probably get back to work. I leave school in about half an hour and then it's back to the grind in the morning. Adiós!

recreo at school

¿Qué tal, amigos? I'm at school on break, right now, so I figured I'd update this bad boy.

First, I would like to present *drumroll* the Spanish keyboard. It probably looks the same at first glance, but notice where the question mark key is, the @ symbol, the addition of an ñ, etc. Also, you have to push the space bar after an apostrophe. If you push the apostrophe key and then write a vowel directly afterwards, you'll get an accent over it. Even if you type a consonant, sometimes those will get accents, too. Which is just weird. Same thing goes for quotation marks, but they put umlauts over letters. Anyway, I just wanted everyone to feel my pain, for the moment.

In about 10ish minutes I'm going to art class to talk about the environment/maintaining cleanliness in the public space. The problem here is that a lot of the kids will just throw a half-eaten sandwich on the ground after eating it, or they throw trash out an open window like it's no big deal. So I am teaching stuff about reduce/recycle/reuse and we're going to make posters that say stuff about keeping the public space clean with cartoon drawings on them. Fun times, right?

Other stuff I've done this week is help the jefatura de estudios, or the second in command guy (like a vice principal, I think?) with his English classes. Yesterday we went over furniture vocab and talking about our families. Vocab is a bit difficult, since you just have to memorize it. Later today, I'll be practicing with the secretary guy. Part of my job description is these "conversation hours" with professors.
If nobody asks for me, then I just work on presentations or translation work for other classes. I have to translate a part of a chapter for the social studies class about layers of the earth and types of deserts, and I'm translating a short play for another class. Fun times. I also get to help cast the play, because I do small groups with the students, and I know who is the most confident and outgoing and can handle the pressure of speaking English in front of everybody. Yesterday, I had to go over the play and practice it with the professors in a meeting -- we went over 3 plays and they gave me the freakin' lead in all of them, "to practice my Spanish." Luckily for me, Spanish is an entirely phonetic language, so even if I have no idea what I'm saying, it's relatively easy just to rattle it off.

OK the bell just rang. Time for art class. Later today, I'm going to Lucena with Emiliy to get some errands and shopping done. Yay. :-D

yay $...actually €

I got my cheque today, yay! Here she be. Tomorrow, between the hours of 9:15 and 1:15, I'll open my new account and deposit that. Yes, those are the hours of the bank on weekdays. Insane, no? What the @#* do they do when they're not working, I wonder?

Hmmm...not too much else to report. I just thought I'd let everyone know I am now 700€ richer. And don't laugh at my perceived poverty, cuz I'm only paying 95€ monthly for rent. Which is incredible. Hooray.

mornin'

Ack, I absolutely hate waking up on cold, dark, rainy days. Also, November is the month with the highest average precipitation, so boo to that. I guess that's good as far as all the crops and whatnot are concerned, but bad for getting me out of bed motivated. Added bonus: I forgot that my cell phone doesn't automatically change times for DST, so I woke up an hour early. Laaaame. I could go back bed, I guess, but now I'm already up and hear the rain pounding. Blech. Displeased.


One thing to turn my frown upside-down is the flowers I got delivered yesterday - they are insanely large and in charge. Adam had flowers delivered to me, and they're too big for my room, so they are living out in the salón. Me gustan.








Birthday celebrations are over, now, until March. Yay. I have hit birthday fatigue, I think. Last night we all went out to eat for Emily's b'day, but I'm glad I had already basically had dinner before, since I knew I wouldn't be able to make it until 9:30, which would clearly turn into 10:30, because this is Spain and no one is ever on time for anything ever. Bleh. Yesterday was beautiful, so I'm glad I got in a big long bike ride and was able to dry my sheets up on the roof in the sun (see mom, 4 girls in one apt isn't that big of a deal, really, as far as laundry is concerned -- there are spats for getting in line for the shower, washer, and who has to do dishes/trash/cleaning/buying communal things).

Today all I have is music stuff, prep for tomorrow, and conversation time. I'll make some power point presentations during breaks and read my book. I'm guessing it would be poor form to faceplant into my papers in the teacher's lounge, so I'll have to resist that temptation. Rainy days make me tired.

Hopefully the rain will ease up for this weekend, because I'm planning on taking another trip. :-D This time, I'm flying solo (not literally) and I'm off to see my friend Cassie in Álora. I haven't seen her since orientation, so it should be a ton of fun. Also, Álora looks absolutely gorgeous if the photos I've seen on facebook are any indication.
This is Cassie, by the way -- look familiar? She is my female soulmate, obviously, since "ignorant slut" is our mutual pet name of choice, bahaha. We're not completely unhinged, it's a line from The Office, haha...

Now the time has come to reload on wake-up tea and get ready for today. Bleeechhhh unmotivated.

Ah, Monday

Oh Monday -- a day of such misery for the general public, but Mondays for me in Spain are fantastic, because I'm not working. I'll be working on the stuff I'll need for tomorrow by the end of the day, but for now, I'm being lazy. Well, I already hung out a load of laundry to dry (dryers don't exist here) and threw in my sheets to wash, but other than that I've been pretty lazy.

Another fun weekend has come and passed. A bunch of guys came in to help us celebrate, so that was nice -- always good to get some testosterone in our group full of females. A guy from our program came from Baena on Becca's invite, 2 of Michelle's friends came from Seville, and Emily's boyfriend Antonio came from Granada.

We kicked off our weekend by going up to Via Verde (green path), which is a nature trail type thing that's directly behind my school. Since you have to walk up a ginormous hill in order to get to Via Verde -- the same one I go up to get to my school, which I mentioned in here -- it provides a nice view of Cabra. Cabra is small, but how many of you can say your town has a castle? That's right. Castle. A kind of weird dinky one that is more like a weird, huge rook chess piece, but whatever. Via Verde itself is dotted with olive/palm/fruit/other trees, bridges, some animals, and the view can't be overemphasized, it's awesome.




































We also hit up Fuente del Río (River Fountain), right next to it. It has a cute little bar next to some bridges over a little river thing. Me gusta mucho.






























The main event this weekend was Emily's b'day celebration. She's the skinny one with long blonde hair that I'm molesting in that picture. Her actual birthday is today, but we all put on our party hats on Saturday night. First we made food, and I experimented making some empanada, and it was delicioso. I've discovered my cooking skillz ain't half bad.




Apparently I didn't take a long enough siesta, though, because I couldn't bring myself to stay up past 2:30 a.m. and had to turn in before anyone even went out to the club. Woops. People don't show up to clubs until 3 a.m. and they don't leave until sunrise, it's insane. When I got back to my apartment, I had to go out on the balcony and ask a group of guys if they could move, so I could sleep. I find this amusing, especially because my bro put on his sassy pants when I contacted him at 1:30 a.m. one night (4:30 p.m. California time).

Also, the time changed this weekend, in Spain, so Emily was all excited that she'd have an extra hour to get some partying in, to which I responded time change or no, nothing would stop you from getting in an extra hour of partying.

Other stuff I fit in this weekend...I got a gym membership, started reading The Lovely Bones, which I love, so far, I ordered slippers online, because my 2 euro ones aren't workin out so well, I had a mini marathon of The Office with the roommates, I walked to the hospital (again) with Claire and Michelle...about that last thing: Claire was having stomach bug problems and had been feeling miserable, so we convinced her to go to get it checked out, since health care is basically free in Europe. The downside to this luxury is the fact that people milk it for all it's worth and will go in for virtually anything. Also, the health care providers sometimes act like they hate their jobs. Fortunately, Claire is feeling a lot better now, even though she couldn't go out with us to par-tay, which sucked. We are gearing up to go on our first run together some time in the near future ~ I don't usually jog faster than a 9-minute mile, so hopefully her tiny butt won't try to race ahead of me on Via Verde.

OK I'll leave everyone with some a video which I captured at Fuente del Río of a little boy feeding a duck. I love this:

whee stuff

Fact of the day: Spaniards have mullets. Yes, mullets. The mullet apparently never went out of style, here, and it's a bit weird whenever I see one. I think they think it's cool, in fact, to have a mullet and spike the hair on top.

I totally woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning and probably hit snooze a dozen times. I hit it without checking the time and had to haul booty to get out the door on time, which I didn't because I have a problem with punctuality.
When I left my apartment, I was all crestfallen because it was cold and rainy and miserable. Then, joy of joys, my bike pedals would NOT move. At all. Something was wrong with the chain, so I just walked it back to my apartment and left it in the lobby since I didn't have enough time to bring it up to my apartment, again. I was all agitated since I knew I was going to be even LATER because walking takes a good 10 minutes more. BAH. Also, I really need to figure out this !#%$(* shortcut, because the way I take is way too long, but it's the easiest route. I'm in a bit of a bind, though, because I have no sense of direction and I'll probably just get lost unless I really plan it out ahead of time. Oy.

When I got to school 15 minutes late, I apologized to my bilingual coordinator guy, forgetting that Spaniards aren't really sticklers about things like time. It didn't matter that much. I started conversation groups when I got there, and I felt much more organized this week with my powerpoint presentation and whatnot. I think the visuals really help the kids learn the vocabulary, too. I, for one, am a visual learner, so it would help me out a ton. It's also easier and faster to make a powerpoint than something concrete like a poster or flashcards. I showed Carlos (my bilingual coordinator) the powerpoint presentation, and he loved it. Yay.

Tomorrow the agenda includes art class and conversation time with one of the English teachers. I really wish I were utilized by the English teacher I'm speaking with, tomorrow, because she teaches the upper levels. I'm a bit of a grammar dork, so I want to get past this easy crap and delve into this like the conditional tense and passive voice. I'm pretty content with what I'm doing, though, especially because I'm not in any left-brained classes like math. I can't do math - I always hit up my dad for help with that, growing up. Also, I'm pretty sure the only reason I passed my freshman year math classes (in college) is because one of my friends helped me. This friend was a Pre-vet major and valedictorian of his high school class, so I was in good hands.

What else...oh yeah, I finally got a key to a garage, so I can lock my bike up in a secluded area instead of carrying it up 3 flights of winding stairs, every day. The landlord walked up to my apartment this afternoon, and I answered the door wearing girl boxers, an Ithaca shirt, and knee-high socks rolled all the way up, because I'm awesome. So that was awkward, but he seemed completely unfazed. He told me in his thick Andaluz accent that he'd take me to the parking garage to lock up my bike. Yay! He also fixed my bike and I have no clue how he did it. Something to do with the chain being off the little wheel thing that it needs to be on in order to switch gears. Freakin' bike. Luckily, my bike has a year warranty, so if is ever unfixable, I'll just return that bad boy and get a new (pink) bike. Mental note: must get a bell for my bike. It would be absolutely crucial in a big city, here, but it's still pretty necessary here, too.

More things I have to do: sign up at the gym for yogalates, possibly sign up for dance classes, find a way to ride horses and potentially make money exercising somebody's horses, join the local choir...I think that's it. I need to join stuff here since I still don't really know many Spaniards other than my townmates' boyfriends and my coworkers. Lame. Boo, Meg.

OK I'm going to finish this rambling entry and work on stuff. Hasta mañana.

School stuff...

Back to the grind -- today I worked on a bunch of junk for school: learning music to sing for my class, brushing up on opera info to teach, making a powerpoint presentation about basic English grammar & vocab, finding a 10-minute one-act play, preparing stuff for "conversation hours" that I have with various teachers, and the like.

Today in music class, I went over songs to sing for my class. The music teacher found out I have a music background, so she asked if I'd be interested in singing for the class. I decided sure, why not, I already sing all the time in my apartment. So I'm in the process of learning the soprano solo in a Benjamin Britten song featured in his composition "Ceremony of Carols," and the song itself is called "Balulalow." I found a clip of it on youtube with an all-boy choir...it's kind of insane to hear a boy soprano, but apparently these treble boy choirs exist. Anyway, here it is:



Nifty, right?

For the powerpoint presentation I mentioned, I'm be reviewing "do you like?" , definite and indefinite articles, possessive adjectives, demonstrative pronouns, and junk like that. Here's a slide of my presentation:
I'm going to ask them if you use "a" or "an" and then the little phrase will show up on the screen during the presentation. Fun times. Really basic, like I said. I also made a slide that's really similar to one that's in the English textbook the kids read, except I plugged in a different person's information. Shoutout to the big bro, P@ --











Other than classes, life is starting to solidify more and more every day, here. I put more stuff up on my wall, like posters and birthday stuff, so my room is looking more lived-in, thank God. I finally got a hamper and all my hangers for my closet and other basic stuff for the kitchen, and whatnot. Yesterday my roommates and I had a little pow-wow to decide who would buy the stuff used by the entire group and when it would be done and when we would clean and all those fun things. The biggest pain, probably, would have to be the bombona. The bombona is what provides our hot water, and once the gas runs out, you have to buy a new bombona thing or it's sayonara to hot water. You have to call a certain number to get it delivered and it's the biggest headache imaginable. I hate it. And I'm beginning to hate our main bathroom here, too, because it's so small and everything is smashed together in there, as though constructing the bathroom in this apartment was an after thought. Luckily we have a second one, but no one uses the shower in there, since it's basically the size of a phone booth and really uncomfortable. BAH.
Other than that, my apartment is peachy. Oh, except I hate the cold tile floor, still, but it's like that everywhere in Spain. My 2 euro slippers and falling apart, too, so it'll be curtains for those, soon. What can you expect from 2 euro slippers, I guess?

OK, enough complaining -- good things, let's see...My roommates and I will be celebrating yet another birthday this weekend, Emily's. Emily lives in Cabra, too, and she's also turning 23. We'll be staying in Cabra this weekend, though. She can't travel because she's being observed this Thursday or Friday, can't remember. I might be traveling by myself, though, since I've received an invite from Carole to go back to Málaga, but I'm not sure if I'll go, yet. I want to, though.

Now I'm going to finish that powerpoint thing and attempt to sleep. Slept crappily last night, so I want to get to sleep earlier tonight and stay asleep since I have to get up earlier in the morning on Wednesdays. Bleh.
Oh, one more thing to complain about: every time I get to my school I am sweating from biking up the enormous hill and I take about half an hour to get back to normal, which sucks. It reminds me of The Office when Jim starts biking to work and is gross and sweaty, only hopefully I'm not that bad...It is seriously a 20-minute bike ride constantly going uphill. I don't even pedal 95% of the time on my way back home, I just coast. That's not an exaggeration -- I'm going to take a video of my trek to school, someday. Blech! At least my leg muscles are gonna be stronger.

back from sevilla

First off, I found this video on Youtube about the town where I'm living in Spain. Enjoy this vid about Cabra:


Sorry, it's narrated in Spanish. ;-)

Anywho, I was in Sevilla for the weekend with 5 other girls to get away and to celebrate my birthday. I'm 23, btw, eek. My mom got married at 23 years old and my grandma had already had 2 kids and number 3 was a bun in the oven by the time she was my age. Dang. I don't see marriage in next few years, though, so I'm going to assume that with each generation that age will get older and older.
Sorry, tangent...Sevilla was great. The morning of my birthday it was pretty miserable, weather-wise, but it cleared up and was gorgeous by the end of the day. We had a lot of fun seeing more of the stuff that we had missed during orientation.

We had a 2-day celebration, basically, since we went out the first night for when I turned 23 at midnight and then the next day when it was more-officially my birthday. It was fun. We hit up the swankier bars, since I enjoy that atmosphere more than a bar filled with ridiculously drunk 19 and 20 year-old Americans here to study abroad.

The Plaza de España was probably my favorite part, as far as sight-seeing goes -- it is the most ostentatious display of architecture that I have ever seen in my LIFE. Walking around the plaza is serious sensory overload, and it makes sense why Seville went into serious debt when it was constructed in 1929. I took approximately 9 billion pictures while in the Plaza because of the amount of stuff, there. It's a huge semicircle loaded with fountains, tall buildings, bridges, a moat, towers, painted tiles and spotted with greenery and horse-drawn carriages.
















For birthday dinner, we went to an Italian restaurant near the center -- it was pretty swanky. They heard us speaking English or just could see that we were American by looking at us, so they mainly spoke English to us, which was fine. I appreciate having menus in English because I don't know all the food vocabulary yet, especially if it's something weird like braised duck with whatever kind of sauce. Jessica, a girl in our group, told the waiter that it was my birthday, so he brought out helado (the ice cream they have here) with "23" candles in it. It was cute. He also sang the Spanish version of happy birthday, which was really funny. He looked like Derek Jeter, it was really weird. We invited him to hang out with us after he was done at work and he actually did call us, but I had no idea how to tell him where to meet us -- I have enough problems with directions in English, let alone my 2nd language. I gave the phone to another Spanish guy who was with us (a friend of Michelle's), and I guess the fact that more guys in the group scared him away because he never showed up, haha. Oh well!

After dinner, we all went back to our hostel to change into our party attire and go back out on the town. We ended up going back out at 12:30 a.m. Yes, people go out here that late in Spain, that's why the entire country takes a siesta for 2-3 hours, daily. We hit up center Sevilla again and got 2 pitchers of sangría and just chatted. The girls asked me what I wanted to do, specifically, and my stipulations for a fun birthday were 1) I didn't want a ridiculous amount of smoke surrounding me, I already got a damn eye infection from that, 2) no dancing, because going to the dancing spots here generally consists of ugly guys coming up and grinding on you without any sort of invitation, 3) not so loud I couldn't talk to anybody. That makes me sound like a grandma, doesn't it? Whatever. I enjoy all those things besides the smoke, sometimes, I just don't want some ugly guy in a loud dance bar grinding on me on my birthday, sorry. So I thought sangría outdoors would be fun, and I think it was. Michelle invited a group of her guy friends, so they showed up, too. It was pretty fun.

Sunday was just more sight-seeing and relaxing by the big bridge where there's a lot of grass and ducks swimming, and the like. I asked several random Spaniards on the street if they would take pictures of me with the girls.

To be honest, in the past 5-ish years, my birthday was completely unmemorable and blah, usually (with the exception of my 21st, probably...). My birthday ALWAYS fell during finals week, so hardly anybody was up for a big party of anything along those lines. But birthday time in Sevilla definitely made up for that, I'd say. :-D