getting behind on el blog

Woops to neglecting my documentation of my expatriation, gotta get on that.

First, let's cominciare col viaggio d'Italia. But not now, because I'm a zombie after my late night (actually, morning) that I spent in Málaga last night after getting back from Ireland...which, I'll be covering that trip, too, soon.

My zombie-ness together with my nightly second wind is quite irritating. What's the deal with that?

This week is my last week teaching, which is beyond loco. I'm getting more and more anxious about the closely impending unemployment. I had a phone interview for a teaching position as a Journalism teacher/newspaper/yearbook advisor on Thursday, which I was told I would be a perfect candidate for if I had a valid teaching license. Frown Town. I figured that because I was granted an interview at all after doing an online application and a questionaire in addition to submitting a resume, it didn't matter that I didn't have the teaching license (that question popped up in all the above mentioned things). Sigh. At least it was more interview experience. I'm used to being the interviewer, not the interviewee. And this one was insanely nerveracking, because there were 5 people on a phone conference with me. I go into the zone under pressure and when I'm expected to perform, though, so it wasn't really a big deal. I did the interview while on the train to Málaga, too, so I took comfort in the fact that probably no one had any clue what I was talking about, seeing how few people speak English in Spain. Anyway -- I'm super bummed and plodding on with my employment search.

Tomorrow after school I'll be heading with some of my fellow profesoras to see the Feria in Córdoba and I'm super excited, other than the fact that my feet are still blistery and scabbed over, because apparently that's a sign that I shouldn't ever be wearing open-toed shoes with heels. I hat the fact that my skin's so sensitive. Oh, and the point of that tangent is that I have to dress up for tomorrow and stick the orchid flower I have into my hair. :-)
After that, I'm meeting up with the girls for our "last hurrah," which is insane. Emily is leaving on Friday and is the first to jump the coop, while the rest of us will be sloffing off in the next few weeks. Claire and I will head to Madrid, together, on June 6th and I head off home, again, on the 7th.

OK, hafta get up in 6 hours, gonna hit it. Wena noche.

Sun Hangover

Casa del Campo en Llano .... Nuestro día al lado de la piscina


Livin' the life...at the time, anyway. Give it a couple more hours and I would start to see the merit in living life in a Berqa as a way to prevent sun burn when SPF 50+ cannot protect we Albinos. Few things in life are as miserable as being burned. "The guy who invented steam sucks."

We had a lot of fun, though, all in all. The time flew by pretty fast. So fast, that none of us really thought "oh, pass me some more sunscreen for that reapplication thing you're supposed to do, yeahhhh." Ah, well. I slathered it on my chest and I'm still in mucho dolor, but what can ya do.


Yesterday, I went to Becca's bf's family's summer pool house in Llanos to spend the morning/afternoon makin' some dogs + kebabs + some brew. Apparently drinking alcohol lowers hydration levels so the skin is more apt to get burned. I have some burns of death all over my chest, even though that's the area I focused on the most, since it has a tendency to crisp off into oblivion. My face escaped sun damage, probably because I was keeping my straw hat over my face while tanning. It's my legs that got it the worst - I didn't bother putting any sunscreen on the thigh region, cuz I said to myself I wasn't gonna take off my bermudas, I just wanted to chill. And then when the temps hit the opposite of chill, I just took those bad boys off and walked around swim suitin' it up and I eventually got in the pool, too.
I also made our hot dogs in a frying pan, inside, because there was no grill, oven, or microwave. I guess if you plan to cook there, you gotta be a stir fry virtuouso.

At the beginning, I was reading and tanning and in the zone while Claire and Emily played ping pong. At one point, Emily whacked the ball at the side of my face and I was not so pleased - luckily my hat blocked the blow, but yikes. I already have been hit with pool objects, in the face, so I don't need one Emergency Room visit for face stitches every decade.

I ended up joining in on pool games when I got tried of the dronings of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar -- there was some ping pong, pool badminton (didn't work so well, especially without a net)

Which founding father am I? Yeah, the old dude wig didn't work as well on me, I guess.

Jose Carlos' dog Kiki made her maiden voyage out to waters unknown

We tried to hit the ball midair when Claire throwed it to us. Pretty sure ended up winning, cuz Em jumped way too soon!

Claire and JC playing pool badminton before taking it out of the pool

Beach day was all in all a success, minus said burns. I got to cook, I helped clean, I picked out the brew and helped bring it there, I read 100 pages in The Bell Jar, and its Debbie Downer plot contrasted pretty sharply with the environment, which was interesting.
Anyway...Burns. I always, always, always burn. I mean, look at my skin tone -- hardly any melanin at all, right? Back in the day, it was considered much more desirable for women to have white white skin. I guess I would've been revered for my albino-ness in those days. My whitewhitewhiteness doesn't bother me, actually, I just wish I didn't burn so easily.

Other stuff ~ This week I'll be trying to get a video of me teaching to send people for phone interviews, since I can't teach in person for them to see me working. I think it's a good idea in any case, though, because it'll be a way to see how I look in front of the kids and get feedback later about how I could improve. I asked a couple of the English teachers at my school if I can go into their classrooms and get somebody to film me. Doesn't really bother me, either. I am the opposite of camera shy. What does bother me is the anxiety I'm getting for all these interviews, cuz I don't wanna be unemployed for long...it's going to drive me crazy until I decide a) where I'll work b) where I'll live and c) all the other fun stuff that you start to ask yourself once those 2 things are filed away, like social network, will I ride again, will I take my cat out with me when I move, how will it feel to be back in the USA again...Truth be told, I'm super psyched to get back to my own culture. I like being a novelty over here, too, it's just different. And let's face it, I'm a novelty everywhere I go for having lived in so many places. That's something that's going to come up in eeeevvvery interview I do, I'm guessing. Fugitive's gotta have somewhere to live, y'know.

A few observaciones

Does this look appetizing to you? Because to me it looks like things I see on the sidewalk and make me shudder. It looks like an insect to me, but to the Spaniards, it's a delicacy. Nearly all the fancy restaurants here advertise that they serve snails as a selling point, generally with an image like the one above. So disgusting...and I thought that the omnipresent pig leg (with hoof still attached) was disturbing!

Another unrelated thing -- I went to el doctor this afternoon, because the ear problem I've been having for the past week or so hasn't cleared up on its own, which I thought i would. I figured my ear was out of whack after my trip back from Italy, because it kept making obnoxious popping sounds -- more than usual for a flight, but I didn't think anything of it. Then the next day after I got back, the pain in my ear was so sharp I thought it was bleeding internally and I didn't go to school the next day. Then the pain went away, but the feeling of it being blocked and my reduced ability to hear persisted. Arghhhh.

So today, after getting flack from the guy at the front desk of the health center here in Cabra, I went to see the doctor without all that fancy pants stuff they do in the US before you even see a doctor -- namely, weight/height/blood pressure/vitals/medication history and then you wait half an hour before you see a doctor, generally half an hour AFTER your scheduled appointment (can you tell I hate American health care?). Well, there was none of that ridiculousness, today -- I got in to see the doctor after waiting for the people in front of me in line, which was about 20 minutes and I didn't even have an appointment. After the whole consultation and asking what I was allergic to, which is nothing (the only things I think I'm allergic to are insect bites, seeing how I swell up to the size of a golf ball under my skin when even a mosquito bites me). Anyway, I'm rambling....

Point: the visit to the clinic was completely free (yes, free -- Michael Moore wasn't exaggerating, for once, in his documentary Sicko) , and the THREE medications the doctor gave me were...guess how much?? Seven euro, TOTAL. They include 40 max strength ibuprofen, 20 Claritin, and some pill called "Ambroxol," which is to get rid of the mucus making a lovely little trip from my nasal passages into my @#^%ing ear, causing this entire problem. Sure enough, I haven't been able to breathe through my left nostril, the same side where I have the ear problem. Oh, and that problem is a Blocked Eustachian Tube....Say that 10 times fast.

I'm guessing that if I went to see my lovely family physician at home, it would cost around $40 for the doctor visit, WITH insurance, and then probably another $40, with insurance, for the damn drugs. And here it was a measly 7 euro for doctor visit + med's. Unbelievable.

Now I just hope my ear clears up, because it's been really annoying being able to hear my own heart beat but hear pretty much nothing else out of my left ear. Oh, and when I walk, I can hear my footsteps really loudly in my left ear, which is bizarre. And it's painful. And miserable.

Anyway -- I still need to write about Italy. That'll come up soon...stay tuned.

A l'il bit of Negative Nancy-ing

I forgot to include a few other things to the list of things I won't miss about Spain...

• Mullets. Especially the terrifying, but less common, FE-mullet. I've asked the Spaniards what the word for "mullet" is, but there's no translation. Also, I find it kind of ironic that the "cool" kids in school are almost always donning a gel-caked mullet. It is unbelievably unattractive.
  
• Random facial piercings, usually below the lip. I'm curious why this is considered attractive, because to me, I do a double take because it looks like acne.
• Freakin' motos, or little motorcycle/Vespa things, ALWAYS buzzing by. If there were a soundtrack to my life in Spain, it would include these sounds. My only source of joy about this annoyance is that those annoying a-holes who drive the motos will be partially deaf in a matter of years. Ah, schadenfreude.
  
• DOG SHIT (excuse me, but when you see it EVERYWHERE, it deserves the word). I was jogging this afternoon and every couple feet I would see a mound. People just don't give a (forgive me) shit about this issue!
• No clothes driers, hence, you have to plan your laundry days around the weather if you want your clothes to dry in less than a week.

OK, that's about all that I have left to add to the list. I just want to have some documentation about the things that drove me insane about España. That way, when I get all nostalgic about my time in Spain in the future, I'll just look back at this list and think oh yeah, it wasn't ALL fantástico.

¡Solamente queda un mes más!

One more month left here...less, actually. Qué loco...

Things I will miss about Spain:

• Taking lots and lots of pictures of lots and lots of cool things. Europeans always say they're shocked at how big everything is in the USA, but I think estadounidenses are shocked at the size of and age of all the monuments here and the entirely different feel of the big cities.
• ¡SIESTA! I have the happy talent of being able to sleep at any time of day, in any contorted position imaginable, sometimes with the help of an obliging roommate letting me put my feet on their lap while on a train or leaning my knees on their lap. And I dream, too, so I guess I hit my REM sleep or whatever it is.
  
• Lots of opportunities to travel and at a waaay cheaper price than in the USA
  
• Lots and lots of time to read. I've managed to read about 30 books since I've been here. Back in college I didn't read too much for fun, since it was all I was doing in my Journalism and Spanish classes, not to mention sometimes having to write several 20 + page papers and writing for the newspaper...Since the last list I posted in my blog, I've read The Appeal by John Grisham, Sea Glass by Anita Shreve, All He Ever Wanted by Anita Shreve, and right now I'm reading Conflicts of Interest by John Martel
  
• My ridiculously cheap apartment... even though it's had so many problems since I've been here, such as the gas cylinder holder nearly exploding/having to be replaced, the washer having to be replaced, the hot water not working, calcium getting stuck in the pipes all the time until January, water pressure not working right until January, hardly any climate control whatsoever, dust bunnies constantly popping up for unknown reasons, the top shelf of one of our cupboards collapsing, the toilet in one of the bathrooms being completely useless in the past month and until we leave, stuff getting stuck in the wall sockets, the inability to sit on the toilet because my legs are too long and they hit the tub/so I have to sit at a weird angle...um...I think that's it. You get what you pay for.
  
• My nice long walks to and from school
  
• Everything being within walking distance in my little town
• Everything being cheap in my little town
• The generally nice temperature
• All the history in Spain
• Cool buildings and art
• Fans! I have a nice little collection going
• My novelty to the Spaniards -- especially being an Amazon woman
• Speaking Spanish every day

Things I won't miss as much

• The food -- I was warned about "jamón" before I came here, and it was as weird as described, with bajillions of pig legs hanging everywhere and making me nauseated.
  
• The Spaniards being sometimes uncomfortably direct in their conversation, e.g. "your accent is really weird" or coming up to me in the street to tell me I'm GUAPA or one time being FOLLOWED (yikes)
• The streets being insanely small
• STARING. People will just outright look at you until I look back and raise an eyebrow as if to say "what the hell do you want?"
• No carpet
• The utter lack of discipline for kids in the education system. I lay the smackdown on a daily basis at school and don't respond to kids yelling my name incessantly.
• Having my name pronounced "MEHHHK"
• Lack of personal space...I guess I got the Swedish genes in that respect, because I get kind of uncomfortable being touched by people I don't know well. Sometimes just in general.
• SMOKING EVERYWHERE! I absolutely hate it when my hair smells like smoke, my eyes sting, my clothes smell, etc.

OK that's about it for now. I still have to update about Italy, so I'll get to that when I can/when I'm not feeling lazy.

België, part.....XII???

Previously, in Meg's blog....*cue culturally relevant music in the background* I suggest "The Brabançonne"

EVERY DAY SIGHTING

There were many a delicious, uniquely-shaped easter candy!

I decided to "tan" on one of those rare sunny Belgian afternoons. By the way, I do not tan, I only burn. If I do manage to pick up some more melanin and look tan, it goes away if I'm not consistently outdoors, workin' on it.

Visiting the Vanderbauwhede family and riding their little mare, Naveena. Darlien Schaubroeck, Hans' wife, is a descendant of my great grandma's brother. Put more simply, my dad and Darlien are second cousins.

Forgive the time warp, but I never really wrote about the second half of my trip to Belgium since I went on that long tangent about my Belgian ancestry. Woops.
(Insert whatever phrase the Flemish say here for "let's start!" ...)

FRIDAY (part 2)

It looks like I have yet to describe the rest of the day when I went to Kortrijk with Stephanie and Sophie. We went back to their parents' home and I got to see Stephanie's little kids, twins Victor and Marie. They saw me earlier that day before we left, but they were a bit apprehensive about getting to know me. I asked if I could get a picture with Marie and Stephanie went to get her and she started crying! Poor thing...I guess I'm scary? She changed her mind later, though (all little kids like me, generally). After that, Stephanie and the kids were off back to Huise.
After we ate lunch, Sophie left, too, and then I went with Marlene and Dirk to Deinze to see my grandma's cousins hosted at Albina's home.

Sisters, Albina and Christiana Adam, and Christiana's husband Daniel

She's so funny - I was so looking forward to seeing her again



A bit elaborate, I think...and that's not even all of it!

Albina's granddaughters (they would be my 3rd cousins), Delphine and Lesley showed up, too. Lesley and I used to be pen pals after we first met in Belgium in 1997 and we hadn't seen each other since then. I last saw Delphine in 2000

While we were at Albina's doing some chatting about a little of this/that (and Dirk translating like a madman), I told Albina how much I admire her decorating. So, she decided she HAD to take me to her bedroom to show me her handmade bedspread and curtains and everything else. And she showed us all how she puts on -- get this -- white satin gloves when she makes the bed, so the sheets say nice...which made me ask if she also wears special pajamas ???
Lesley and her husband Pascal and I went out after that to their house and then to an Italian restaurant. I looked at the pictures from their wedding from a few years back and their vacation pictures from Istanbul, which seemed pretty cool.
After dinner, we headed to an outdoor bar/music place called Het Gouden Hof and chatted with their friends, and Lesley's mom and stepdad showed up after that. Lesley's stepdad is Albina's son, Mark (my dad's second cousin).

Holding a Kriek, a fruity (bitch) beer

Me and Mark and a drummer named Kwinten

While I was there, I managed to arrange yet another meeting with a Belgian cousin, Louis, who is actually biologically related to Lesley on her dad's side. Interesting. So anyway, we planned on meeting on Easter Sunday in Gent. Louis speaks perfect English since he lived in the USA for a year, in Colorado. All Belgians speak at least 3 languages, or at least the younger crowd does.
Keep in mind that Belgium is the size of Vermont, only there are 8 million people in the country and various languages and dialects (Dutch, Flemish, French, German). Also, Spaniards occupied Belgium several hundred years ago, and that's where Flamenco dancing originated -- "flamenco" also means "Flemish" in Spanish...also "flamingo."

SATURDAY

Sophie showed up at the VanLancker house on Saturday morning, and we were going to go to Bruge, but it turned out that there was a train strike, so we just decided to go to Gent, instead. The weather was very not Belgian, meaning it was hot hot hot. I was wearing a sweater that has some wool in it, or something, so I was a bit roasty toasty, but oh well. Meanwhile, Sylvie was rocking a skirt, tank and heels...
Sidenote: I just recently decided to break my no heels in Spain rule, by the way, because even though I'm in the 95th-ish percentile of female height among the Spanish shorties (I'm 5'9" and change), I don't care anymore. It's an immediate posture corrector + leg + booty boost. /girly tangent

She is pretty

After eating some panini al fresco by the water, doing a bit of shopping (new swim suit, so excited!) and planning a potential trip for Sylvie to visit me in Spain, we were off to Eveleen's house - her older sister.

Me, Warre (her 2-year old son -- ridiculously adorable) and Eveleen

We had just played together in the sandbox and I felt like an idiot because a 2 year old can say more words (in Flemish) than I can!!! I would say certain words and he would repeat me, which was really amusing...things like "woo" and "no," "yes," and such. I can say here, there, where, the numbers 1-10, hello, bye, how are you, papa, mama, grandpa, grandma, working, is, Dutch, English, Flemish...I think that's about it. Oh, and I learned "beautiful," and sand and hand, which was extremely helpful.

We went to Sylvie's apartment afterwards and she made us dinner, which was some kind of Japanese noodles and a ton of veggies - yum yum in the tum tum. We were planning to go together to a concert that night, but it was sold out so she wasn't able to get another ticket for me, unfortunately. So we just decided to go out for beers and I made the decision to try a Duvel (which means Devil) just to say I'd done it. It's suuuuper strong, probably one Duvel is the equivalent of 3 or 4 American beers. I only had one, after eating, and I was prettttty buzzed.

yum

SUNDAY

Last full day in Belgium, and Dirk drove me to Gent in the morning after meeting up with Marlene's parents, in Nazareth. Her mother, Madeleine, is my grandma's first cousin and the oldest sibling to Albina and Christiana -- also Julian, who passed away, and another sibling named Andre. And surprisingly for me, Marlene's sister Rita was also there.

While we were there, we looked through a lot of old photos and Madeleine's scrapbook. It's funny to see Madeleine, for me, because she has an uncanny resemblance to my grandma (Adams) Boberg.

That's my grandma -- pushing 84 and still tearing it up on the golf course and beating everybody in the over 65 female competitions!

...Back to our regular programming.

Dirk and Marlene drove me into Gent after that to meet up with Louis and his girlfriend, Barbara and some other people. It was pretty amusing to see Barbara speak with her brother at his restaurant, because she would speak English to him and he would usually reply in Flemish, and it wasn't even awkward for them. Barbara has a Swedish roommate, so I guess that's the story there.

We talked about their 90s music quiz that they were planning on taking that night, had some pastries and coffee, I bought chocolate while Barbara helped me decide, we went to Louis' place and listened to music, we went to the flower market where I got a cute little bouquet for my lovely hosts...that was about it for that trip, relaxing and fun. Louis is "awesome," as my brother says. Louis actually seems really similar to Pat in a lot of ways, minus the accent and different sense of style (read: any style at all...no offense, P@).

Louis, Barbara and I headed back to Nazareth, to the VanLancker house, and then we started the afternoon-evening-night party shortly after I got there, complete with their daughters + significant others + the twins - it was a lot of fun. I told Sophie's boyfriend Anthony that I really wanted to hear him play keyboard (he's a pro musician), so after dinner he went to get his equipment and we spent most of the rest of the night listening to him, doing some karaoke, and I sang a bit for them. I used to think I wanted to pursue some sort of career in vocal performance, but my music theory is pretty bare bones -- I can read music fairly well, but the nitty gritty is over my head. Frown town. Plus, it's too volatile a career, so I'd much rather write, instead.

Anyway ~ here's some pic's of that night:

No trip to Belgium is complete without frittes! I also really want one of those fry shovels.

Marie decided I was the Devil, after all (but I was the only person present who was refused a kiss when she went to bed...sad times!)

Marlene, Anthony, Marieke, Sophie

Victor and Anthony -- is that not the most AWWWWW worthy picture in the history of time?

Victor looks like a cartoon character!

I got some gifts! Too generous, as usual

The twins

Me and the girls :) There's a picture of me and the boys, but it's on Sophie's camera, I think

Sven and Marie -- Marie is a total daddy's girl!

It looks like I've wrapped up all my Belgium trip. Whew! Tonsssss of relatives there, seriously. Good records, I suppose, since my grandma was essentially a first generation immigrant, more or less, even though she wasn't born in Belgium... her siblings were.

Looks like that's it for this installment of my expatriated adventures. Vaarwel!

Ho acceduto nel mio acconto di google.

It's a bit amusing to see yahoo and google change to Italian on my laptop....

Right now is my last pomeriggio in Firenze, at least for this trip.


That's the duomo/skyline. Florence is also known for being the capital of Italian Renaissance art, with artists like Raphael, Michelangelo, Giotto, Fra Angelico, da Vinci, Botticelli, etcetera. I took an art history class while I was here so I'd have more opportunities to travel and get to know some stuff about art, since I'm pretty ignorant about it in all aspects. It was difficult - for exams, you had to know the year something was done within 3 years, who made it, the artistic aspects of it, where it is/was, what it's made of, and what it represents. I seriously hate rote memorization, but the class was still cool, and I got a chance to write in it, which I, of course, love.

I got here a few nights ago and went over to Gianna's, my ex host mom's house. She and her appartamento are essatamente how I remembered, i.e. bravissime. She gushed for about 5 minutes about how I was "molto bella!" and "come sta la tua famiglia??" and all of that stuff. It was pretty difficile for me to use Italian for the first hour or so, but then it all came back really naturally, as though all my Italian was stored in some encrypted hardrive of my brain. Strangely enough, my Italian has improved dramatically, which I definitely have to thank for living in Spain for the past 7 months. I can understand everything I hear, too, which I was about cinquanta-cinquanta (50-50) the last time. It's pretty exciting.

Anyway -- Gianna had made me and the other girl who is still at her house, Sarah, some yummy pasta with spinach and then chicken. They always eat two courses here for dinner, and the Italians load your plate with stuff unless you flat out refuse to eat it. I only ate about a third of what she offered me, I restrained myself after my 10-15 pound weight gain from when I studied here! It's hard to resist though...and this time I had her teach me how to make some of her food. After dinner, she showed me how to make espresso and apple streudel while we chatted and watched Italian game shows (a game show she was actually on, a few years ago, called L'eredità). Yesterday I learned how to make some more stuff, including this meat dish wrapped around cheese with artichokes and her fruit salad. She doesn't have any of the recipes, so I just had to watch it and write it down and translate it in my head. Pretty cool.

...I should probably save the rest of my Italy stuff until I get back to Spain. As it is, I still have to post about the rest of my trip to Belgium. Woops.

I'll put up my pictures ASAP. :-D I have some pictures of Cortona, too, which is the city in the movie Under the Tuscan Sun. Yesterday I bought the book translated in Italian, Sotto il Sole della Toscana (which I hope is better than the movie, which is one of the corniest chick flicks of all time).

OK that's it...the girl sitting next to me on Skype in this internet caffè is driving me crazy, so I'm off like a prom dress. Ciao!