CASA DULCE CASA!!!!

Now, I am home!

Frist though, I flew from Madrid to Boston, where my wonderful freinds Rob and Kelly picked me up and took care of me til my flight to San Jose the next day. They picked me up pizza and beer which we enjoyed in front of Rob's huge tv... I was back in the USA and in heaven!!! It was so nice to break up the trip and to see mis amigos de Alicante! I am definatly stopping in Boston again on my way back out!

They dropped me at at airport, and after 6 hours of watching tv on JetBlue, I could see Mikey holding baloons that said "Welcome home!" The whole gang was there: Mom, Dad, Wem, Bug, Grammy and The Steph! I was SOOO HAPPY! We all piled into the van and headed home :)

Since then I have been readjusting to home just fine. Today is my first day on domestic duty. I dropped Em at work, came back and made myself and Mike some breakfast, did the dishes and now after blogging I think I will go do some jogging... haha.

Pues nada, es decir que, ME ENCANTA ESTAR EN CASA!
ie: I am loving being at home!

My Euro-travels before coming home

I finished teaching at the end of May but I still kept a very busy schedule until I got home. (YES, I am writing this my from my home in CA, but I am going to keep the posts separate!)

First of all, I had to find an apartment for next year! This year finding housing was extremely stressful, and although it turned out well, our apartmentwas fairly expensive. Since I now have a years experience, I wanted to leave everything all set up. Following Macarena's advice, I used the somewhat archaic-seeming method of posting flyers around the neighborhoods I wanted to live in, saying that I wanted a room for rent. Much to my surprise, this worked amazingly well! Within the week a had a few good options and finally decided on one right next to the train station with 2 Spanish girl roommates. It is in a great location and the rent will be much cheaper next year. Check and check! Let's just hope my roommates what to be my best freinds for the final check.... well the one girl I met seemed really nice!

Then I was off to do some travelling! First I was off to London with mi amiga marvelosa Macarena! As I probably have mentioned before, this year Macarena has been helping me with my Spanish, taking me out with her freinds, and has just been generally awesome. SO, I thought it would be cool to go somewhere where I could be the one doing the guiding and helping. And that I did. Maca found a great guide with a little built-in itineray which we mostly followed to the letter since neither of us had been to London before. We found a moderatly priced B&B (NOTHING is "cheap" in London) that was right on one of the main tube lines, so we had the subway figured out in no time. We tubed everywhere and did a pretty good job seeing all of the sights by day and of course the pubs by night! Maca did a good job talking to locals too, crazy Brit accents and all :)

That Sunday Macarena had to head back to Sevilla for work on Monday but I had planned another leg of the trip for myself to go visit my freind Garret in Germany. My flight didn't leave until early Monday morning, so I went down to Sevenoaks to visit Lou, Mary and the girls. Eeeefs, Rosie, and Caitie are so cute it should be ILLEGAL. It was a lovely day so we played outside and had a great time. While winding down for bed time, I had both big-girls on my lap watching Finding Nemo. When I asked Rosie where the little fishies were going, she cleverly replied, in her charming gruff voice, " MAYBE THEY'RE GOING TO RONDON."

Thanks to Lou, I made it to Stansted in plenty of time and Garret met me in the airport in Stuttgart so I wouldn't have to say "No spreken duetch!". I had a great time with him and he showed me around his university, the towns around and also the bigger city of Stuttgart. I also really got into the Euro-cup! Nothing like sitting down at a bar or cafe with a truely enormous Kristal of Hefferweisen (sp?) and cheering on your favorite Euro football team!

NOTE: SPAIN historically beat the Italians and have FINALLY made it to the semi-finals! This is literally more than 80 years coming! You bet I will be watcing on ESPN! Spain plays this Thursday then the finals are on Sunday.

As always, pictures are the best way to explain:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mclauerman/LondresYAlemania


After that trip I had one weekend to fine-tune everything for my new apartment, pack up my old one, say GOODBYE to my roommates and have a final night out in Sevilla! Our landlord this year has an amazing summer terrace-bar that is really awesome, right on the river. It's beautiful. It's also rather shee-shee and pricey but luckily Pablo loves us and he invited us and our freinds for a few rounds of ron y colas! It was a pretty crazy-intense weekend but I managed to get everything done and have a fun last hurrah with my roommates.

Then I headed to Malaga to family-vaycay with mi amgia Hayley and her fam from Texas. We stayed in their grandma's time-share in Marbella which is a very beautful (although totally runined by rich, British tourists) beach town. From there we headed to Granada where Hayley and I were the tour-guides since we have both been there several times now. The high-light was definatly a flamenco show which Hayley and I breifly considered skipping since we have already seen a few. We were glad we opted to go because it was really awesome. (pictures to follow later)

From Granada I caught a train back to Sevilla to do some final packing and then head HOME!!!!

Bueno... pues nada....

These past week getting ready to leave Spain has been a rollercoaster. I have a few leads on apartments, one that I LOVE. I have also seen some horrors. I really hope one in particular works out... it is on an adorable street, it is in a PERFECT location for me AND it would be with 3 Spanish universty students ie built in conversacion practice! If that doesn't work out though I have a few other options. I have also made a freind during the apartment-hunting process. She is an English teacher as well, at another school, next to mine, in Dos Hermanas. So that is awesome.

Bump in the psychy/emotional road today... I went to the delegacion today with Noelia to look into switching schools and I was polietely told to go take a flying leap. I KNEW that this was probably gong to be the case, that I was going to have to stay in orippo,and that they probably weren't going to care. But just being confronted with the fact that I will be in Orripo, alone, and that my only other option is to forget the whole damn thing and go home was upsetting. And THEN for the lady to be like in the office to be like "tu no preocupes, si tengas una problema el curso que viene, my llamas." I literally was like "ummm..... TENGO PROBLEMAS, me lo SE come es.... estoy aqui AHORA." and that lady knew the orippo situation perfectly well.

so basically the answer was: sorry. you don't like it, GO HOME. tough shit. y esta.

SO. I don't know... I mean I have been prepping myself for exactly this, I know it is only 12 hours a week, then I will have the universty, my private classes, I have some freinds here, I can travel, I want acheive my goal and finally get fluent in spanish and I feel like if I leave now and don't do another year, I won't ever get there. Plus now there is the possibilty of this fabuluos apartment, with young fun-seeming SPANISH SPEAKING roomates... I don't want to go home. I mean I DO, NOW, but you know what I mean. It just was a slap in the face. I'm like, oh by the way, you are fucking welcome spain for teaching your underprivalged dilinquent youth. Even though I am furstrated and more than a little nervous for next year, this hasn't changed my mind. I still want to come back next year. It just SUCKS. I feel like as far as the school hours go, I am going to ALONE and it is going to SUCK and I am going to have NO support. But perhaps all of this will be worth the other 146 hours a week. I don't know. The only thing I can do it wait and see.

I went shopping on the way home... probably a mistake... and I cooled off. It is going to be what it is. I know what am getting into. I have my options and I am chosing to stay.

I feel this illustration says it all: