Busy busy busy ^ nth

When I was living in SoCal, I felt like I was in a Disney movie every day of my life. Now I feel that way even more than ever with the sun, the balconies, the palm trees and all those good things. It makes me want to run out into the street, Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music style, sometimes. Then something like a guy urinating in public will bring me back down to earth.

Other bad thing that happened? Eye infection. You can see it in the picture, click to blow 'er up. My left eye is swollen and bloodshot, so while I was out on the town with Emily and Becca, we went into the pharmacy so I could get eye drops. In Spain, though, you apparently need a prescription for those. Seriously? Why. Anyway, I was all annoyed that the doctor's office wouldn't be open, but fortunately there was a 24-hour clinic across the street. I walked on over and filled out some forms and handed over my passport. I need to get my official insurance card, which I don't have yet. Ithaca was supposed to make my alumni email address forward everything to my yahoo mail account, and that hasn't been happening consistently, so I lost a couple of the emails from my program about what to do. Luckily, I got in, anyway.

I had to speak Spanish the entire time, but it was fine. It WAS weird, though, to have two doctors hover all over me and poke my eye with a popsicle stick and get interrogated -- do you wear contacts, do you smoke, do you sleep well, do you itch your eyes, do you produce eye discharge, etc. They freakin' douched my eye and kept telling me to open my eye more, but uhhh, isn't it natural to shut your eyes in reaction to getting a fire hose shot at them? Either way, I got my eye drops and I have to use them on my left eye 3 times a day for the next 5+ days. Oy.

Tomorrow I'm going to the school to get my lesson plan solidified and say hi to the prof's again. I was told to show up between 10:30 a.m. and noon and definitely before 2 p.m., hahaha, I love Spain. Before that, I have to put more money on my phone, get a bike, go to the cop shop to see about getting my visa extension, find some more stuff to put on my white walls so it looks less like a loony bin, etc. Oh and I have to buy some food and do laundry. It'll definitely take me more than just tomorrow to get all that stuff in, seeing how I'll have to commute and figure out the lay of the land along with all of that stuff, above, and I have about the worst sense of direction known to man. When I get lost, I'm planning to walk up to people and ask where the @#(% I am. People don't even care if you approach them in the street, so hooray for that.

Right now I'm getting super tired. Red wine is the best sleep aid probably ever, too. Obviously I'm not getting wasty face, but un vaso de vino por las noches = good stuff.

OK time to faceplant in the pillows, night!

In Cabra :-D

Yesterday we got to Cabra in the afternoon. The night before we had our last dinner with the full group and it was a great time. We all went out to a restaurant and got drinks and tapas. Unfortunately we were all under the impression that we would be fed at a table and get full plates and that didn't happen. The drinks were coming out way faster than the tapas, too, so a bunch of people were getting tipsy without even trying. Woops. The food and the drinks were great and everybody was looking attractive...what's up with everybody in Spain being good looking, even the Americans here?


Maybe I'm just thinking we're all gorgeous because of the piropos (compliments) that strangers give you in the street. It honestly makes me pretty uncomfortable when I hear "oye, qué guapa eres, me gusta" x_x Also, the staring. People stare here all the time and don't understand if you're offended. Oh, and strangers will touch you. My background on my dad's side is pretty hands-off Swedes and Belgians, so it's a bit of a change for me. My mom's side, however, is Italian and the Italians are even more touchy feely than Spaniards. What I really enjoy about the Spanish guys is that they aren't NEARLY as aggressive as the outrageously sexually-charged Italians who think all the regazze americane sono facile. Non mi piacciono questi uomini.

So, Cabra. So far I really enjoy my apartment, my roommates, the people - it's all gravy. I met my bilingual coordinator yesterday with one of my roommates, at his apartment, and he's great. I called him up first and we decided to meet in the parque. I had no idea whether he'd give me dos besos upon arrival, but he did. Everyone kisses everyone here. If you back away when someone enters your nonexistent personal bubble, they'll think you're rude. Can't be shy in Spain, that's for sure. But people here really know how to live, I'd say -- I feel really accepted pretty quickly once I speak to people here. Also it's been a confidence boost to hear that I can understand everything they say and speak almost as well.

Yesterday night after getting mostly unpacked and walking around the city with roommates (oh and after the meet and greet with my bilingual coordinator), we got ready to sign our lease with the landlords. Their apartment is gorgeous, so many of the apartments here are well-appointed and designed. Every time you walk through the door they want to get you a drink and give you the best seat and all those things. We signed the lease and got the key code to access the internet and they told me where I can buy a bike. I have to buy a bike because my school is about half an hour away, walking. Also, I'll be working mostly early in the mornings and I'll be too tired to get up early enough to get there in time. What can I say, I'm lazy. That's why Spain suits me so well, because this is a country of people who appreciate the value of sleep! ¡Viva la siesta!



Post lease-signing, we went to Emily's apartment for dinner. She cooked us some paella and had bread and drinks. I brought a bottle of blush rioja wine and chocolate for the group. So cheap, too. Let me tell you, this is the perfect city as far as money goes, because this lady here has champagne taste and beer money and here I can go hog wild. Once dinner was over and we chatted a while, I called my bilingual coordinator (Carlos), and they told me where to meet them. Meeting half a dozen Spaniards is incredibly nerve wracking and all the moreso when you are jet lagged beyond belief. I may not have mentioned it, but I stayed up ALL night the night before, with Claire, because she was really distressed about being placed in a town all by herself and was pretty panicked. My calming presence coupled with my wit and charm apparently did the trick. Hardy de hardy har. But honestly, I'm really happy she ended up getting a spot in our apartment because she's such a genuine girl and lots of fun, too. She has a chance of ending up teaching with me, because there are supposed to be two language assistants in every school, but one of the girls quit already. If that happens, Claire won't be commuting to Iznájar every day and will transfer to my school. Big change ~ Iznájar is super small. Also, she is assigned to a kindergarten (*cough*glorifiedbabysitter*cough*), and I'm in a middle/high school. It's possible that I'll be teaching kids up to 18 years old. Good. Lord. I really have to sharpen my skills on grammar and all that jazz.

Woops on that tangent. Anyway, going out ~ I met up with them at 11:30 and we walked to a bar. For the first 10 minutes I was kind of in shell shock, but then I had a flashback to orientation when they said that you HAVE to make a big effort at the very beginning because you can't randomly decide you want to befriend them after a month because they'll think you're out of your mind. Makes sense. So anyway, I really pushed myself and somehow used my reserve energy to make it work. They were a lot of fun. Really young, too, which is crazy ~ mostly in their 30s. The director/principal guy is probably in his 60s, but who knows. Carlos is in his 40s and speaks British English when we actually speak English. In the group last night we were speaking Spanish 95% of the time. I kept telling them I thought it was silly that I would speak Spanish to a group of Spaniards I'd never seen in my life and they couldn't speak English to one American girl? (oigame, estaba hablando español con vosotros todo de la noche y ¿no podeís hablar inglés con una americana sola?) They thought it was funny. A few of them did actually speak English to me to practice it. They had better get used to it, because we've been told that we're supposed to speak English, exclusively, in the school.

I start working, officially, on Tuesday. I'll be going to the school at 10:30 to just check it out, on Monday and make a lesson plan and solidify my knowledge of the names of the professors and where everything is and all of that. We'll see how that goes for me. Stay tuned.

Último día de orientación (last day of orientation)

We have reached the end, my friend. Well, almost -- tomorrow morning we all disperse from Sevilla to our respective cities, pueblos and pueblititos. Pueblo = town. And pueblito or pueblitito is a ridiculously small town. I mean, one girl told me her town has 2500 people in it. Seriously, that's a town? My high school had more people than that. Then again, my grandma lives in Cambridge, Illinois, and the sign when you enter that town has said "pop 2100" for as long as I can remember.

My pueblo, by the way, has 21K people. I'd say that's a pretty cozy little town, but at least it has stop lights. It has more than double the people that Sarah Palin's town, Wasilla, has where she was mayor before she was elected as governor, so what does that say? I'm glad I get along with the other girls who will be living in Cabra and they seem completely chill and not catty, crazed chicas who drive me up the wall. Mi opinión is obviously subject to change, but that's my first impresión.

Orientación has been fun. Well, the orientation sessions themselves are sometimes a bit on the boring or tedious side with all the paperwork and such, but I've had a lot of fun meeting people in the program. Also, last night while on the town, I ran into an Australian guy. One of the girls in a group I was hanging out with walked up to him and asked a question in Spanish and he responded "eh, sawry, awy dawnt spake Spaahnish." So after that was over, I was curious why he was there and I really just wanted to hear the accent some more, too, because like all of my double-x chromosed peers, I swoon over a cute accent. And I'm nosy by nature, that's why I studied journalism. :-) He hung out with our group. He was a lot of fun and he gave me book and movie suggestions, which I'm always on the lookout for. Never gonna see Richie again, but whatever! Fun stuff.

Also, yesterday, we broke off into groups before the orientation sessions started to do some field trip like things. My group was off to the cathedral, and let me tell you, it's massive. It's second only to the Vatican in size, I believe. I'm a bit blah about religion, sometimes, but I had a lot of fun taking pictures and walking up to the bell tower to see the incredible view of Seville. Not to mention it gave me ample time to practice my Spanish with our tour guide, Alejandro. Before this trip I hadn't really practiced speaking Spanish with many people other than my Habitat for Humanity trip to El Salvador or the Mexican grooms where I rode horses. Oh and I practiced speaking with professors, which hardly counts. Alejandro speaks Andaluz, a dialect of Spanish, but he was speaking Castellano with us because it's easier to understand for Americans. Castellano, or Castilian Spanish, really isn't that difficult to understand even though it's portrayed to be a different language entirely. It's not. The main difference is the "theta" sound -- they lisp basically everything. Another diferencia is the use of "vosotros," which is the second person informal plural. That's a bit difficult to explain, but basically it just means it's another way to conjugate verbs that isn't used in many Spanish-speaking countries other than Spain. Spain is obviously the mother nation for all Spanish speaking places, so they've retained some of the original elementos while other places have adopted new language rules.

OK I'm off, but before I go, more fotos:

view from the top of the bell tower


la catedral


with Cassie, a new friend

http://www.new.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=33221657&l=9d446&id=13804744

¡tengo fotos, finalmente!

I have pic's up, now!

Check them out here: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2095090&l=0a522&id=13804744 and http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2095089&l=27efc&id=13804744

They're hosted on facebook's server, but that is a public link. Even if you don't have facebook, you can check them out, still.

Here's a preview:



streets of Sevilla


with my roommate at the hotel, Claire, at cocktail hour


one of the tapas ~ it's a mussel in salsa


colleción de postres (desserts)


me and Carter


flamenco dancers

Hola de nuevo / hello again

Why is blogger in Inglés again, for me? I've been getting used to all the websites switching into Spanish and all of a sudden it's not. Wouldn't be surprised if it goes right back again, though.

I've been able to get out of the hotel, finally, and check out Sevilla. I went with a small group yesterday between sessions and we walked around, just nearby, to take out some euros and get water/whatnot. While we were out, we saw an enormous statue (?) person...thing...called La Mujer Gigante, or the Giant Woman. Turns out she is an exhibit of the female reproductive system. Just right out there in the open, full of displays and such. Yes, please tell me more about the uterus....yieeee.

Then again last night, I was able to get out and about the town. First, after the day was over, we had another massive meet-and-greet cocktail + tapas hour at the hotel, which was awesome. Had some vino and some tapas, which are just basically appetizers, but you take a bunch of them. Met a lot of people, but mostly hung out with people I've been getting to know these past couple days. Just like study abroad, it's a bit insane to meet all new people and hang out with them right off the bat -- also reminds me of freshman year, or just any random college party where you mingle and make the rounds but don't necessarily know who you're talking to. After the cocktail party wrapped up, a bunch of people decided to go out on the town to the bars. A lot of the bars were closing since it was late Monday night, but we did eventually find one in the center of the city. I got a ton of pic's last night, so I'm looking forward to uploading those, soon.

Today is my second day of orientation, and it's more about learning about why exactly we came here and what to expect with Spanish culture and how the Spaniards will react to Americans. Surprisingly, for me, many Spaniards don't know or ever use English - that's why I'm here, though, for the massive countrywide bilingual initiative. My school will be in its first bilingual year, so basically they're wingin' it and I'm along for the fun. We learned about how to make the lesson plans and how to get the profesores/profesoras to warm up to us, because they told us that if you don't make amigos with the school staff it can be pretty miserable. Sometimes they're leery, anyway, though, about some random American kid showing up in their classroom just because the government decided it would be a good idea.
I went to a session where 2 girls who taught at secondary schools shared their experiences from last year (they are back for year #2, right now), and I thought that was pretty reassuring. Generally, the staff was accomodating and want to take you out for food and drinks and the like. Also, one girl said she got a lot of tutoring gigs from her job here and ending up making 150 extra euros WEEKLY. For someone making 700 euros a month, that makes me foam at the mouth with glee. Let's hope I can follow in her footsteps.

Mmkay I'm gonna finish putting myself together. Some of us are going to a flamenco show tonight and I need to get preparada. Adiós.

Orientación...día numero uno

I lied when I said orientación started yesterday, it officially starts today. Right now I'm have a 3 hour break after breakfast until the Spanish-track people start orientation session stuff, so I'm not being unsociable by updating this bad boy. I'm hanging out in the lobby with other Spanish-track people.
Yesterday we were on our own to meet and greet and figure out the lay of the land and resist the urge to faceplant in the pillows of our hotel beds. When we all trekked to the hotel, we set out to check in with the hotel, check in with the program people and get all our goodies to start orientation, and lug our stuff into the tiniest elevators that ever existed up to our rooms. Oh, and let me tell you, the group of us migrating from the aeropuerto bus to the hotel looked reeeeeeally special lugging our 2 massive suitcases + 2 carryons into the lobby.

So far this is all very dèja vú for me after studying abroad in Firenze, Florence. There are some key differences, though, mainly the fact that this whole yay-let's-all-hold-hands-and-be-amigos is entirely shortlived, because we're all going to disperse in about a week and most of us will probably never see each other again. The people in my province of Córdoba are a different story, and I've been making more of an effort to seek them out and do the meet and greet thing. My roommate in the hotel will be living in Iznájar, a tiny town less than an hour from Cabra, where I'll be, and I plan on keeping in touch with her, for example. She's a lot of fun, I enjoy hanging out with her. She's way more outgoing and peppy than I am -- anyone who knows me probably wouldn't put "peppy" in the top 100 adjectives to describe me, but it's good for me to hang out with someone like that, I'd say.

Anyway, ¡España! Like I said before: dèja vú. I haven't even seen that much, but just walking down the streets of Sevilla has a very familiar feeling, except for the American restaurant stuff which I never ever saw in Florence. No Starbucks, for example, in all of Italy (ironic, too, seeing how all the size names and a bunch of the drink names are in Italian). In that regard, I guess they haven't succumbed to all the westernization crap that is rampant in many countries. I've been to other European countries, and they all share a little something in common, it seems. But yeah -- Sevilla. By the way, Sevilla is the Spanish spelling of "Seville," and here it's pronounced "Seh-vee-ah." It's gloomy and HUMID today, but there are a bunch of palm trees here and it's relatively warm, so hooray for that. Honestly, I don't have many cultural experiences to share yet - the food at breakfast this morning was pretty tasty, but there were some weird things -- I really hate the milk in Europe, from what I've drank so far. They don't refrigerate it and who even knows if it's 1% or 2% or whatever. The other food that was there, and there was a lot, included potato and spinach omelettes, a lot of bread stuff, cereals, weird grilled veggies, a cheese bar thing...other stuff.

About pictures ~ unfortunately, I don't have a photo card reader, so it'll be awhile before any pictures pop up on here. :-( Until then, distfruten mis observaciónes culturales (enjoy my cultural observations). Adiós.

¡Ha llegado en España! (I have arrived in Spain)

Here I am in in the Barajas aeropuerto in Madrid equipped with my triple espresso at a mini internet cafe thing. The waiter guy raised an eyebrow when I ordered my espresso triple (pronounced "tree-play"), but whatever, a girl's got needs. I was crestfallen when I got to this cafe and saw that the coffee cups are about half the size of a "tall" at Starbucks, and then I remembered that small sizes in Europe are just that: small. I decided an espresso triple, which fills the entire cup, would be my best opción.

Anyway, the flight...I left LAX airport at 9:30 a.m. on the 27th and now it is 9:51 a.m., the 28th of September. Keep in mind there is a 9 hour time difference between California and Spain, but yikes. Also, I changed planes in Chicago. I was in the clear minority of Americans traveling to Spain, but it was fine. I was konked out for most of the 8 hour flight, but I did awaken to experience the deliciousness of plane food for la cena and el desayuno (dinner and breakfast). Hardy har har. Turns out the flight was delayed getting into Madrid, so I had to hawl booty to get to my gate for Seville in time. Well, the Madrid airport turns out to be the size of Rhode Island, so it took me half an hour to get to the next gate. I am not a slow walker, either -- to get from my arrival gate to the departure gate, I kid you not, I had to go through about half a dozen moving walkways, up AND down several escalators, take one elevator trip, one 5-minute TRAIN ride, go through customs, go through security AGAIN (!), and then RUN to the J gate. Once I arrived, I was just in time for última llamada, last call. However, I was informed by the guy at the counter that I could take that flight if I wanted to, but my luggage wouldn't be on it because of the delay. #@($*!(*#% So then I went to a nearby info desk and got a ticket for the next flight to Seville, leaving at noon. AHHH! Luckily, I'll get there, hopefully with my luggage. If not, I came prepared with 5 extra pairs of underwear in my carry-on and a couple extra shirts. I'm not being paranoid, either. When I arrived in Florence for my study abroad trip in January '07 my luggage didn't arrive and I was stuck with the clothes on my back for 4 days.

Today I have my first day of orientation in Seville where we'll go over a plethora of things we all need to know to live and work here. Gracias a Dios, I have an apartment already, but I'm still anxious about the whole transition process. It's a bit exhilarating, though, and I'm looking forward to meeting my housemates Becca and Michelle, who seem to be friendly if email and facebook is a reliable indication...There are 2 other girls who will be living in Cabra, Emily and Kim. Kim and Michelle are starting their second year in the same program and Emily was studying abroad here a couple semesters ago, so it's a comfort to know they loved it so much they didn't want to leave. I take it with a grain of salt, though, because 2 of those 3 girls have Spanish boyfriends.

OK well I'm going to surf the web for awhile and bask in boredom for the next two hours before I leave for Seville. I already went to the bathroom and changed clothes and attempted to look more presentable and less like the undead. Maybe I'll go into the little shop I see in my periph and pick up some Spanish reading materials. Sounds like un plan. Adiós.

Leaving for Spain in a couple days

¡Hola! A few weeks ago I discovered how to make my teclado (keyboard) do accents and upside-down exclamation points and accents, so I'm dorking out and using them all the time, now. The novelty will probably wear off within a week of living in Spain, I'm guessing.

Anyway, I'll be leaving for España the morning of the 27th. I'm stopping in Chicago and Madrid on the way to Seville for my 10-day orientation. After orientation is over, I'll be off to Cabra, which is the city I will call home for the next eight months. Cabra is in Southern Spain, in the province of Córdoba and the region of Andalucía. I'll be a language and cultural teaching assistant at a bilingual middle school and somehow managing to live off 700 euros a month, ¡ay! Fortunately, my piso (apartment) is relatively cheap, especially because I'll be living with two other girls. The cost of living in Cabra is lower than it is in Southern California, not that that's hard to beat since it's ridiculously pricey to live in SoCal.

I decided I wanted to go to Spain partially as a tactic to delay reality and decide what I really want to do with my life, also because I want to solidify my Spanish language knowledge since I've been studying it for years. Living in Europe also appeals to me. :-) When I come back from Spain, I hope I'll have more of an idea of what I want to do. Right now, I'm thinking I'll get back into feature writing or go to grad school and specialize in some communications field. I also have to figure out where exactly I want to live, but that's another story.

On the agenda right now I have finishing packing and getting all the loose ends tied up here at home. I have no idea what my life will look like a week from now, but that's all part of the fun. I'm not too freaked out about throwing myself into the deep end as far as new places and people goes, since I have lived in 5 different states in my life ~ Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, New York and California.

Soon I'll post pictures of my soon-to-be new apartment in Cabra and post more información about my upcoming orientation itinerary and whatnot. Adiós.