NEVER FLY RYAN AIR .... and other news

Hello all,

Let's see in the last week and a half or so... I worked Mon-Wed as usually then last Thursday the plan was to go visit my Uncle Lou and his family outside London, and also my grandparents who are there now visiting them. Well, that didn't happen , because I foolishly booked with Ryan Air. Friends, do yourselves a favor and NEVER fly (or I should say, buy tickets with...) Ryan Air. I don't feel like telling the story in great detail again but basically here is what happened: Maggie and I booked online with ryan air and decided to do "online check-in" (since they charge you money to check-in at the desk for your flight...) and it said that do do online check-in one would need a european government issued identity card. we have cards that identify us, given to us directly by the spanish government. we put in our information, it cleared, we were allowed to print our boarding passes. so we thought we were set. but no, but government issued identity cards, that meant we had to be european CITIZENS to check-in online.... they failed to mention that little detail soooo.... maggie and we very rudely REFUSED to be allowed onto our flight for which we paid and checked-in.... because... as the ryan air lady screamed at us after we had been ripped off: "YOU ARE NOT SPANISH!!!!"... yes, thank you, mi corazon, i actually realized that on my own. i asked for customer service, i asked for a manager... these are are things that only exist in the US, appearently.
moral of the story: Ryan Air are lying liars that tell lies. They steal your money, and they do not feel bad about it. In fact, they are incredibly rude about it.

So anyway, after I called Uncle Lou and told him my sob (wah, literally) story Maggie and I concluded that the only way to really make those bastards at the airport sorry was to go out and get drunk. THAT would teach 'em.... haha well, we did forget our sorrows for a while! I met up with my intercambio Macarena and her friends from work and I told my story in Spanish with perfect usage and accent of every Spanish palabrota (bad word) that i know and Macarena was very proud of her new little Andaluza. The next day the only people really sorry about what happened to us was us.... big surprise.

Saturday, since we were in town, we were able to go to a Matanza (which literally means killing or massacre) put on by my our organization. Don't worry, they just killed two huge pigs, and it was their time anyway. We were invited to watch the slaughter, but I opted to walk down to the town to find a cafe con leche instead. The Matanza was at a huge country home of the big boss of our program who is an american lady that has been living her in spain for about 20 years now with her spanish husband. they built this huge house out in the country that they someday want to turn into a hotel. now though, it is just a huge place well suited for having about 150 people over for lunch. An afternoon of really good free food and drink and a chance to catch up with a lot of our fellow teachers that we hadn't seen in a while took a little of the sting of our stolen weekend. That night I met up with Macarena and a different group of her freinds and had a great time. They also wanted to make sure that I was well equipped for any argument i might have in spain, so the latter portion of the evening was spent translating various foul andalucian phrases literally into english. oh, fun with language. one thing about these andalusians... they are creative!! The next day we had planned to go to the beach but since I had been out with spaniards and therefore didn't get home until 6am, that was fine with me.

This week we wrote a very strongly worded letter to Ryan Air demanding a refund. We got a response very quickly. It basically said: Too bad. So, my only alternative is slander. I intend to send out quite a few emails warning my fellow participants here not to use Ryan Air.

This weekend we are planning on taking it easy because in March we intend to travel alot! Morocco, London (hopefully for real this time...) Semana Santa here in Seville, Barcelona... I shall update of course.

Take care!
Beso,
MC

A brief peek at carnaval in Cadiz

This past weekend we went down to check out the week long madri-gras-esque celebration of Carnaval in Cadiz. Cadiz appearently has the biggest and the best celebration in Andalucia, thus the logical place to go. There was some confusion as to when would be the best time for us to go and after getting advice from many different spanish sources we ended up going sunday afternoon because that was the best day to go see the "cultural stuff". (My intercambio Macarena had recommended that we go instead on Saturday night because that is when all the young people go out dresses up and party until the next morning, but this particular weekend calmer heads prevailed. haha i know, booo...)

Sunday evidently was the more family-orientated day of carnaval, as we were surrounded by so many adorable little babies in costume! (Mags managed to get a few pictures of the more adorable ones, they are linked to my picassa!) More family-oriented day, does in no way mean that partying of the grown-ups really stops. There was evidence everywhere that the partiers from the night before had done the event proud, and many of them at 2pm were crawling off to bed to rest for a few hours before doing it all again, but many were still going strong! Sundays main even was "Los coros", or choruses that compete before carnaval in a big 'theatrical espectacular'. The winners get to ride on floats pulled by tractors and sing their songs for the crowd. I was thinking alot about my dad watching the coros because although i did not understand all of the words, the coros basically sing very silly songs with light-hearted and low brow humor. Certian gestures were frequent and children and grandmas sang right along to silly songs about the follies of the town-idiot and this encounter with the town whore. All around good family fun. There was one group of old people in particular, i would say well into their 70s,about 10 of them, stinking DRUNK by 3pm, in these incredible matching go-go dancer costumes, singing, clapping and marching toward the festivities in a congo line. now THAT is the way to age.

We unfortunately did not have time to stay for the big parade and fireworks that night because they weren't until late and we needed to make the last train back to seville for work the next day, boo. on the train though, sitting righr behind us was a group of coro singers (all quite inebriated) who proceeded to sing all of their songs to the whole car. One of the pre-recs for being a member of a coro is you have to be a HUGE HAM so needless to say, they were QUITE amusing and we had literally a front-row seat. Mags has some video , which I will try to post here!

Here are some pics from Carnaval:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mclauerman/CarnavalCadiz


It is now Thursday, almost the weekend again! My weeks fly by now because of all of my classes I am pretty busy! I have also been trying to not get sick because nearly all of my fellow teachers are. I was thinking about going down to Cadiz again for another round of carnaval but I think my sinuses may prevent me from doing so.

also big news: JENNIFER GETS BACK TOMORROW!!! hooooray!

haha and because of that fact... we need to clean up the apartment!
hope everyone is well at home.
beso,
mc