Catch up

I wrote this sitting in the Madrid airport as my computer was about to die, but I'll go ahead and post it anyway. I'm in Athens, Greece right now, and am running the 10 km portion of the Athens Classic Marathon in the morning! Anyway, here it is!

Things at the school I was working at were going great. I’ll get to why I’m talking in the past tense later… Anyway, I was finally getting settled in, getting to know the teachers and the students a little better. Like this for example – one of the English teachers is allergic to chalk – most ironic job-related allergy I’ve ever heard. I was starting a couple of video projects for them – one to send to their sister school in Togo and another with all of the footage from Halloween.

Oh my gosh. Halloween was insane. Every single person at the school went all out with their costumes -- mummies, witches, devils – the whole nine yards. I actually felt like a bad American because I went the lazy route and dressed up as a “thief”. Basically I wore all black and had gloves and a hat. I forgot that people here wear all black all the time, though, so I just looked a little more European for the day. But I had fun with it. People kept asking me what I was, so I just made up something new every time. I think throughout the day, in addition to being a thief, I was a karate master, a backup dancer, an angry ski bunny and a mime (it works because of the whole pale skin thing haha).

The gym/mad scientist’s laboratory was the best part of the whole day, though. It would never fly in the states. The gym teacher had the whole room decorated, creepy music playing in the background, and a group of the 6th graders to help him put on a show for all the different classes. Each class would walk in and the 6th graders would “rise from the dead” to welcome them into the laboratory. Then the teacher would get up and invite them to have some finger tapas (tapas are like appetizers) or drink some blood (tomato juice). Then he would blindfold volunteers and have them put their hands in intestines (wet noodles) or eyeballs (peeled grapes). It’s the same kind of thing people do in America, but it was more intense than anything I’d ever seen. Honestly, some of the younger kids started crying. That was when the other American girl and I came in. We’d already been informed by the 5-year-olds that our costumes weren’t any good because we weren’t scary, so we were pretty good at calming kids down.

So now for why I’m no longer at that school - the Junta de Andalucia decided that they need someone to work at the high school in the same pueblo, and I get to be that lucky someone. It should be interesting. The bus I used to take home from the elementary school takes me past the school I’ll be at starting next week, and the students there all look like they’re about ready to beat someone up. I think I’ve spent enough time in Houston and Waco, though, to hold my own haha.

I'm about to run out of battery life, but here are a few things to come:
- Pictures from Halloween
- Accidently attending Spanish poetry readings
- Getting hit by a moped (I'm fine by the way...)
- Obama election madness
- Dealing with the Junta and other residency card shenanigans

Holy plethora of English speakers.

So the entire time I was getting ready to come to Spain people kept telling me that no one really speaks English here, so I'd have no problem coming back completely fluent. All lies. I'm basically in a college town full of foreign students. There are English speakers everywhere. And since it's my job to do nothing but speak English, I'm going to have to find a way around this. Anyway, here's what's been going on over the last little bit...

The first couple of weeks I was here were full of apartment searching, finding my way around Sevilla and dealing with people from the internet company. Needless to say, it was a mess. Either way, I now have a tiny apartment I'm sharing with two other people from the program I'm in and it's right in the middle of everywhere I need to be. So the fact that we handwash the dishes and hang-dry our clothes, or that there's no microwave or oven, seems a little less important. As far as the kitchen goes, we're just all getting really good at making things on the stove. And have discovered the Spanish version of Ramen.

I've also started my job! I work as basically an assistant English teacher in a school right outside of the city. I go to eight English classes, one bilingual P.E. class and one bilingual art class a week. The kids are anywhere from 3 to 12 years old, so it's kind of a wide range, but I really like it this way. The 3-year-olds are crazy to work with, though, haha. Today the teacher I was with got a kid to stay in his seat by putting a picture of a spider next to his chair and telling him if he didn't want to squish the spider he couldn't get out of his seat. And he really didn't want to kill the poor paper spider. I love it. My mom always refers to teaching as the "T word," but I get to have all of the fun of teaching with none of the responsibility. No grading papers, no parent-teacher confrences, no disciplining kids when they misbehave - it's awesome - I get paid to play. The downside? About an hour and a half commute each way. But even that cloud has a silver lining. Here's just a small example of what I get to see on my way to and from work each day:

The last one is actually from a photo exhibit they have on one of the main streets next to the cathedral. It's all pictures of these crazy/amazing flamenco dancers. On that note, I'm starting flamenco classes soon!

On top of everything else I'm tutoring a couple of little boys. They're two brothers I call Gonzo and Pepe, 5 and 7 respectively, and are hilarious. They're also very concerned for my social well-being. They know it's my first time in Spain, so they're very anxious for me to align myself with the right soccer team - picking the wrong team seems to be social suicide in their minds haha.

Go vote.

Wednesday, after another day of sitting through orientation sessions, I went out with a couple of friends to an area called "La Macarena." From what I understand it's an area with a mostly artsy/hippie type population. It's also very popular there to have large dogs. Which aren't on leashes. Honestly, while I sat at a cafe eating some of the best quiche I've ever had, I watched this guy walk around the same area for like 30 minutes with his dog. He was on the phone most of the time, so he would start walking down one street, realize his dog wasn't with him anymore, and then go back, get his dog, and start the process all over again. He also kept stopping to chat with everyone he met on the street. That's another one of the amazing things here, everyone knows everyone else and they just stand in the streets talking for hours on end. It's incredible.

Then we went to a little wine bar and walked around the plaza that's supposed to have the best feria parade in Sevilla. Ok, correction, it's supposed to have the best Virgin Mary come through it. Feria here I guess is kind of like the Spanish/Easter version of Thanksgiving. A week-long religious holiday with a parade full of saints rather than Snoopy and Garfield. Supposedly it's pretty intense. It's really making me look forward to the spring.

Thursday was mostly just more classes followed by a tapas (things that are kind of like appetizers) dinner that CIEE put on. I got a call before the dinner, though, that made things a little more interesting. See, for my job I'm supposed to basically be an expert on American language and culture, but I'm called an "auxiliar" for my school. Well there's another auxiliar assigned to my school and she's already been there for a year. So that's fine, no big deal. But last night she calls me to say that the director of the school got the official auxiliar assignment sheet and my name's not on it. After freaking out momentarily and calling the CIEE director, I calmed down and now I'm just waiting to figure out where I'm supposed to go on Monday. And whether or not I'm supposed to go to the school I was originally assigned to. The CIEE director says I should just go, the school director says don't, it's interesting to say the least. But hey, I'm in Spain, either way, life's good.

Today I spent most of the day apartment hunting. I got to see a heck of a lot more of the city than I had before, which I was really glad of. The only thing is, it's kind of been hard to find a place close to where my bus to my potential school leaves from. There's only one bus station it leaves out of, so it makes my choices kind of limited. But I looked at a bunch of places today and I'll look at some more tomorrow. I'm sure I'll find something, I'm not really worried.

After that I went to a pub called Merchant's to meet up with a bunch of other Americans to watch the Vice-Presidential debate. The debates come on at 3 a.m. here, so the pub owner (who's Irish) lets us hook up a computer to the screen they use to watch football matches to watch the debates. There was an amazing mix of people there - all the way from retired ex-pats to study abroad students. It's crazy how much the Spanish people have paid attention as well. I was at a bar the other night and I say a Spaniard offer a girl 30 euros for an Obama/Biden pin she was wearing.

On that note, I got my absentee ballot today - wohoo!

Accordions and stomping feet

Over the few days I had before orientation I just kind of spent some more time wandering around the city. I went to a "world fair" type thing with my friend's roommates. It ended up being tents representing maybe 12 countries - all countries around Spain or which speak Spanish. The Mexico tent was interesting - full of Aztec decorations and Easter Island heads. TexMex here is also NOT what I think of haha.

But now orientation is going on, so I'm in a hotel over the next couple of days. The stuff we're being taught I've mostly already heard before, but it's not so bad. We all went to a flamenco show tonight which was amazing, and now I'm sold on taking flamenco lessons. I mean come on, put passionate dancing/stomping and amazing guitar music together and you've got yourself a winning combination. I've also been kind of scoping out yoga classes and places to go run - so if this keeps up I'm going to come home more in shape than when I left haha. It won't take much, though, with the amount of walking I do all over the city.

Tomorrow I'll actually start the apartment search. We have free time until 3, so I figure that's enough time to give myself a jumpstart on looking.

One last thing...

So I'm walking home from the flamenco show tonight with three other girls and we see a guy a little ways ahead of us with an accordion strapped to his back. One of the girls yells "play us a song!" The guy stops, turns around, and begins to play. He walks with us and plays for us all the way to the hotel, and then yells "buenas noches" to us as we all go inside. I love Spain.

I'm finally here!

After more stairs, buses, trains, trams and airplanes than I ever imagined, I'm in Sevilla! I'm staying with a friend who had to work most of the day, so I just kind of rested up and then went and explored a little on my own. I didn't take any pictures or anything like that, but I found my way to the main Cathedral in Sevilla and to a Mas grocery store. And I found my way back. All without a map. I was so proud of myself haha.

Tomorrow starts the apartment search... should be interesting.

After Ike

Post-Ike life in the area I'm from hasn't been all that bad. Like my dad said, "It's like camping, only you can't go home because you're already there."

We were fortunate and never lost water and we got power and electricity back within 24 hours of my getting home. Everything does have a weird Alas, Babylon feel to it, though. Like I should be telling people to conserve their whiskey to clean their wounds or something.

Also, a huge chunk of the pine trees in our neighborhood got knocked down, so there's that distinct piney scent everywhere you go. It makes me feel like I'm living some twisted version of Christmas - except you give away half of your trees and don't get any presents; kids aren't in school so they can play whenever and wherever they want - as long as they avoid the downed powerlines; and instead of 'don't eat the yellow snow' the saying is 'don't play in the green pools.'

But we have been really lucky, and I'm thankful. We only lost two trees, and although they were massive, they avoided our house and only took out part of our fence. Things could have been much worse. Here's an idea of what our backyard looked like right after:

On a different note, Spain prep is going well - only a few more days!

Eleven days

The countdown has officially begun before I take off for Spain!

So in preparation I've spent the last week travelling all throughout Texas saying goodbye to friends and family, which has been wonderful. But now I'm stuck away from home. I was supposed to be headed back to Houston tomorrow to really start packing, but Hurricane Ike has put a stop to that. Oh well, we'll see just how skilled and quick of a packer I am when I finally get back down there haha.

And just a quick not to anyone who may be applying for student/work visas in the future:

An Apostille of the Hague is essentially a notarization of a notarization - confused much? I was.

Basically, if you've had anything notarized, like a background check, the apostille says that the notary you used is legitimate. If you're from Texas you get an apostille from the office of the Texas Secretary of State. If you mail it in it takes around 10 business days, if you take it there yourself it takes about 15 minutes. Don't put it off to until the last minute!

Here's the Web site with the phone number and everything:
http://www.sos.state.tx.us/authinfo.shtml

Also, be nice to all of the secretaries you have to deal with at all of these offices - they can be your best friends if you're stressed for time!