Y después...

Seeing as time is flying by.. I visited Sydney in Badajoz this weekend and we planned some of what we're going to do after the job is over. Three weeks in Hungary, Croatia and Bosnia, then back to Madrid. To San Sebastián on the 22nd of June to start the Camino de Santiago. We've decided to do the Camino del Norte because I wanted to see several cities in the north and the coast is absolutely beautiful. So, two birds... So we'll hopefully arrive in Santiago de la Compostela by the 25th of July, in time for the Santiago festival. Then to London on the 31st, and back to the US on the 3rd or 4th of August. It seems really far away but it's not! It's almost the end of February! I've gotten to the point where I can't quite remember how certain things are in the US. I find myself asking Jenny or Sydney "would this happen in the US?". No one's quite sure. This (among other things) made me realize that the reverse cultural shock of returning to the US is going to be tremendous. Yes, it's a long way off but not so much.

Todo va bien

Nothing new, nothing special, pero todo va bien. I am slowly resigning myself to the fact that nearly everyone in Coria recognizes me, as the lectora and as an extranjera. This is not acceptable in the US: calling someone a foreigner. But it's fine here. I use it as an excuse: I didn't know, I'm foreign... (ah, no sabía, soy extranjera...) Every high school age child recognizes me as English is a required class here. If I doy un paseo, I will hear "Hola Amy hola Amy" more than a few times. It's difficult. I'm used to living in relative anonymity, in addition to being a private person, so that I feel watched in the pueblo makes me uneasy. It's how it's going to be so I'm trying to laugh about it. As one of Jenny's teachers said, "They're savages among themselves". When I changed pisos over two months ago, I went to my bank and changed my address. They continue to send my statements to the old address, even though I have brought it to their attention several times. This last time, the man I was dealing with asked the other teller why this continued to happen. Her answer? Es porque es extranjera. What?! That doesn't even make sense. Por lo menos, the man recognized that it didn't make sense and is "working on it". Entre comillas.

Let's see. More typical of Spain: I got paid for January on the 12th of February. Yes, nearly two weeks into the new month. Yesterday, they finally fixed our shower door after two and a half weeks. Yes, sixteen days of showering without a door, water ALL OVER THE FLOOR. But, we still haven't paid rent for this month. No one seems to care, and I doubt they've realized it yet. Yes, landlords are far superior here (hah, let's see what happens if there's a real problem).

Classes in Torrejoncillo continue... the same. However, I don't really care anymore, so it's not as bad as it was. It's really pretty funny. And I've been working about 9 - 10 hours a week since January, instead of 12. Yeah. Así es España. It's commonplace in both Torrejoncillo and Coria for a teacher to get fed up and spend ten minutes lecturing students in Spanish. It's sad that it comes to that. I learned the other day that these students start learning Spanish between the ages of 3 and 5. Yes, I know. And at 15, they have the about same level of knowledge and pronunciation that I had as a sophomore in high school, having studied Spanish for 2 years. It is absolutely pathetic. I want to blame the students because they're so terrible but if they are all failing like this, it has to be a problem with the whole education system. I never thought that the United States had a particularly good system, but I am incredibly impressed now in comparison. These children can barely use a dictionary!

One month until Semana Santa and my parents come! I can't wait. I know time is just going to continue to fly. I'm starting to think about what will come next, in June.

Carnavales

What can I say... Los carnavales here in Spain are like nothing I have ever experienced before. I can't begin to describe what happened in Badajoz on Monday, the day before Fat Tuesday. This isn't just because I can't remember all of it, either. Pretty much, it was Halloween but fifty five times better: the streets were packed with people of all ages, in amazing costumes, drinking as if there was no tomorrow. And it wasn't a holiday for children asking for candy, just children (12, 13 year olds) wearing next to nothing drinking along with everyone else. It was excellent. I chatted for half an hour about LOTR (yes I did just employ the acronym) with a Nazgul, some bees to helped me order a drink because the bar was so crowded, I interrogated a man-plant (plant-man?) as to what he was: una planta, I ran into teachers (pirates) from Coria. And from the series of events on Monday, I was unable to return to Coria yesterday, Tuesday, so I had to sheepishly text (can you text sheepishly?) Ángela to tell her I'd make it in when I could on Wednesday. I missed my only class. No pasa nada.

The weekend in Sevilla was less eventful (only slightly). We got a ride to Sevilla on Friday, cutting out at least 2 more hours on a bus. We did the tourist things: Plaza de Toros, Museo de las Bellas Artes, Real Alcázar. The Alcázar is amazing: the mudéjar tiling is exquisite. We went out for tapas on Saturday night, ended up getting three free rounds of cañas from the Brazilian waiters, went to a flamenco bar for free flamenco and sangría (we each had a liter, a liter!), received a lecture on how the English learned in Denmark is superior to the English we speak in the US (from some Denmarkans.. what's the word), tried to go to a club, got semi lost in Sevilla and ended up back at the hotel somehow. It's so nice to be able to speak Spanish! The next day we saw Plaza de España, but the cathedral was closed so we had to put it off until Monday. Then to Badajoz!

All in all an excellent if enibriated weekend. Ah, Spain. And to think that I didn't used to like sangría. What the fuck was I thinking? It's excellent! I also got to try the gazpacho and espinacas con garbanzos en Sevilla. Wonderful tapas. Y ya.