Feliz Halloween!

Si, hoy es Halloween!

I'm in Puerto again, my little hide-away to the south. Hayley and I were debating which would be the best place to dress-up and run around like the weird Americans that we are , and finally Puerto seemed the better choice. It's raining, which will literally put a damper on our plans, but I have confidence that we will have fun anyway. I have put together a 4 euro pirata costume and H is borrowing some angel wings (the plan is the force her novio to be a devil so they are be a duo). There are more than double the amount of American assistants in Puerto this year and two of them are especially cool, and one is going to use my jacket to be Sarah Palin.... haha SCARRRRRRY!!!! She's got the creepy-Stepford-smile downpat. We will see if anyone gets the joke here.

Work continues to be ridiculously chill. I had a free hour last week so I looked online for Halloween word problems for my math classes. I printed out around 5 and showed them to one of my teachers and she about fainted she was so delighted! They are easy to please here.... its amazing, I do little work and am greatly appreciated, whereas last year I gave my literal blood sweat and tears to that place in exchange for 2 government-paid lunches a week and some light abuse. But hey, that was them, and this is now... Hurray!

......

The first half of this post while Hayley was taking a siesta on Friday. I am now back at home in Sevilla and I have photos!

La pirata, "Twiggy" and Sarah Palin:





Hayley, "Madame Butterfly":





Some of the girls had been invited to a purportedly huge house party in Puerto, but Hayley and I were skeptical because no one has house parties in Spain, mostly because people either 1. Don't have houses, they have flats. 2. Live with their parents until they are about 30. We eventually went to check it out because we were still feeling pretty silly being dressed up downtown because we were defiantly the little group of stupid dressed up Americans plus bartenders dressed to theme. We, or at least I, felt a little stupid. Well, we got to the party and it was CRAZY. There is appearently a MANSION disguised as a normal apartment building in Puerto. We walked in the huge castle-like doors into a huge entry hall, FULL of people, all dressed up, there was a DJ, and enormous bar, and chandeliers?! Imagine if you wanted to pick a set for a movie that involves a Halloween party, in Spain. The place was HUGE. It had a back yard (which also don't exist in Spain) and a POOL, complete with greek columns?! There were these huge paintings on the walls... the occasional religious statue... it was SURREAL. The inhabitants turned out to be some American Navy guys (there is a base one town over), who only pay about 1,200 euro a month to live in a Mansion that they could probably charge entry fees for tours.

A week of friends!

Last weekend I had the pleasure of visiting my amigita Hayley in Puerto, and the visit came just in time, because that morning I had to deal with probably the single worst thing about Spain.... spanish bureaucracy! I spent about three hours total trying to pick up an ID card, and ultimately FAILED. To give you a peek at what this all entails, it went a little something like this:
9:45 - arrive at Register's office, where in May, the man at the register's office had told us to come pick up our residency cards.
10:15 - arrive at "foreigner's" office. Turns out, man in May was either misinformed or a liar. I go to the dreaded window, to get a number, at which time, woman at window says to me that I do not need to take a number and wait forever, I can simply proceed to office 1 and talk to man A and get what I need. EXCELLENT!(I was a FOOL if I believed that even for a second) Man A of course sent me to Man B and both of these men looked at me as though I was asking for a life-sized gold plated elephant rather than the standard residency card that I assume over half of the people waiting in that office are looking for. So then, incredulous man B says I can just go to office 2, I go to office 2, am stopped by door man and repeat that I just need to pick up this card. It should be ready. I just need someone to give it to me, that's all. He is equally confused and tells me that I should go to office 1, NO I say, I was just at office 1! He sends me back to office 1. I go back, Man A and B are irritated to see me again and take me back to office 2, where man A asks who I talked to and I respond, the doorman, because I didn't get past him to talk to anyone of consequence because he didn't let me. WHAT? You just talked to the doorman?! GO take a number and WAIT like everyone else! What are you trying to do, cheat the system?!?!
11:30 - sitting in waiting room with my number. I have B-80. They are currently on 36.
11:55 - The number is now 39. They office closes at 2... Let's do the math...
12:00 - FUCK. THIS.

Luckily afterward I had the opportunity to flee Sevilla to Puerto and Hayley and I had a great weekend and I was able to put Spain on a brief time-out, which it sorely deserved. We spoke English, relaxed, it was great! By Saturday I had let Spain out of it's time-out and we went out for tapas :)

Then by Tuesday, my roommate from last year, Jennifer, was here!!! She brought her brother Johny to show him what was the "big deal" about Spain. I had work and uni, but every evening this past week I was able to go to dinner with them and visit which was splendid.


My weekend so far has been very quiet, a little too quiet. I basically live alone on the weekends... and well, I am just not used to it. The good part about being a little bored and lonely is that I go running when I have nothing better to do. I should be in marathon shape soon! Later today though, I am supposed to give a tour to the Swedish girl that has come to work at our school. I told her I would make her some typical fare, a tortilla Espanola! We'll see how that turns out...

Besos,
MC

Estoy malita!

Si... I woke up today with the worst cold. Not just the sniffles, but like head ache body ache, the effing works. I feel really crappy, so much so that when I got home from work today at 7 I literally got into bed. Upside for my faithful blog readers... haha that's maybe 3 people... is that I'm posting pics, yay. My room, or as I call is, "mi propio cajita de sevilla." Also pictured is my window and its inhabitants. Mis peces de plasico, Juan Jose and Maria Carmen, and my cactus, Pablo.

The Lazy Spanish Sunday

I have managed to book up my weeks for the semester fairly well but my weekends are wiiiide open. On a Saturday this is fine because one can go shopping or get errands done around town and do useful things. Sundays in Spain however, are somewhat a forced day of rest because NOTHING is open. If you are between the ages of 15-65 this is fine as well because you probably need to sleep off a little bit of the night before. As I explained to my new co-worker, Sharita, Spanish nights out are as follows based on times you get home:
12pm-2am: you just went to dinner
2am-3:30am: you went and had a drink after dinner, nothing crazy
3:30am- 5:30am: pretty decent night. You had drinks at a few bars, maybe even did some dancing if you went to a place with good music.
5:30am-8am: Intensely-awesome night. Multiple bars plus you went the distance and hit the Discotecas! If you are smart you got some churros con chocolate ont he way home.

Saturday night I went out with Maca and her freinds. I got home at about 3:30, so as you can deduce from the time-table, it was a fun, chill night. So, today I slept in and proceeded with my Spanish Sunday when I got up around 1pm.

Sundays in Spain I have decided are best for lovers. You can see them, and evidence of this theory everywhere: they are making out on city streets, laying around in parks, passing the day with nothing to do but love each other. Yeah, I watched tv then eventually went for a jog in the park. Not a bad day all in all. Especially because I got to talk to both my mom and The Steph for equally long periods of time because I now have the internet en casa, YAY! All the better that I got a good deal on it because, although this may not seem like a big deal to you, when your are the only American that you know in a whole country.... talking to loved ones from home is like sanity crack. And today I got my fix :)

"I'll be 23...."

Hey kids, here is the REAL TIME update.... I had been writing those other posts at home, kind of as a mental dump/diary.

Monday was my birthday, as many of you know and it wasn't too bad for being away from everyone that I know and love. I went to Spanish class and organized myself/ got ready for school. Then that evening I went to tapas with all 3 people that I know in Spain: My good friend Macarena and her boyfriend Antonio, her sister and my former boss Noelia, and my new roomie Rocio, who is very nice! Maca and Noelia even brought me some presents :)

Tuesday I got to relax and finish getting my apartment settled and TODAY was my first day at school! I can already tell, it is going to be SO much better than last year. Now I am actaully an ASSISTANT, as I am supposed to be and not a mother/prison guard/english classroom teacher. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my boss Rocio... example: she COLOR CODED our schedules!!!!!! COLOR CODED THEM!!! I have all math and science classes because I requested to work 3 condensed days a week (which was aparently a huge pain for Rocio, but she did it anyway, LOVE HER!) And I am almost all set with all of my afternoon tutoring classes, which means I should actaully see a little bit of MONEY by the end of next week!

En fin, things are going really well.
I must go home and do my homework now :)

BESOS!
MC

Short, and rather impromptu, trip to GERMANY

I had been talking to Garret about possibly meeting him and Dominic at Oktoberfest in Munich before I had to start work. I went back and forth because I wasn’t sure that the logistics were going to work out but finally I ended up booking to the day before I left CA. What made me do it on such late notice was my friend and co-worker from last year, Lydia, emailed be back and said that I could come and visit her for a couple of days before meeting up with the guys. She leaves only about an hour south of Munich so it seemed only too perfect. The trip was long and got off to a bit of a hectic start (I forgot my wallet at home on my way the airport, had to literally run home, back to bus stop, take a taxi…. So I was running, sweating and cursing myself for being such an idiot….all before 8am) but I finally got there and I was really glad to get to see Lydia. Unfortunately, she was still working on a final thesis paper due that next week. She had planned to have it all under control before I arrived, but as we all know, things happen, so most of the time I was staying with Lydia she was either upset about doing the paper or actually doing it. Oh, and MC-is-an-idiot item #2: I showed up to Germany in flip-flops in a tee-shirt… yeah it is definitely WINTER there already. I just didn’t think about it because basically from when I arrived in Spain until I got on the plane, I was sweating. Luckily, as an after thought, I brought closed to toed shoes. Anyway, while she was working at the library, I went shopping and spent entirely too much money… but hey that coat, jeans, scarf, socks and sweater (ok, fine, and cute top)were all necessities because I brought NO Germany-appropriate clothing!!!
Friday I left Lydia to go meet the guys in Munich. Dom and Floyd were dutifully at the train waiting for me. Dom told me that Garret wouldn’t be there until the next day and Floyd wasn’t feeling well so Dom and I headed to the ‘fest. We got into one of the big tents and ordered beers literally the size of infants. We made friends at our table and had a really good time. SUCH a good time in fact that we lost track of the fact that 3 LITERS of beer tends to go to one’s head after a while. So we decided to take the subway back to our hotel… well apparently Dom and I took a little nap and missed our stop… and ended up about 10 stops and 45 minutes outside of the city. All is well that ends well though; we made it back just fine after we woke up and realized our folly. I had to leave Saturday afternoon but we still had a chance to go down to Oktoberfest to get some lunch…. A half meter bratwurst! And a beer of course. Garret never showed up which was another bummer but, all in all, not a bad international jaunt.

Now I am back in my apartment and I have spent the ENTIRE day resting…. I finally slept for though the night, 12 hours of unconsciousness never felt so good! Tomorrow I have more errands and things to do… oh yeah… and it’s my birthday. Hopefully I get Macarena and maybe her boyfriend to have dinner with me.
Other new roommate just walked in with her boyfriend….(and scared me to death because Rocio left and this chick wasn’t supposed to be here til next week)… they have turned on metal music in her room and are not talking to me…. Awkward…… ok well thinks that’s my cue to head of for a bit. Luckily I have a tapa-date with the other 50% of my friends in this city: Noelia!

Oh Lord, here we go AGAIN!

OH LORD, here we go again…. First few days back in Sevilla
It hit me once when during the fiesta how incredibly fast time flies (yes, when you are having fun) and then it hit me again when I got to Boston to repeat the Alicante reunion we had on my way to Spain last year. Talk about déjà vu. It was just crazy to be doing exactly the same thing, one year later and to think about everything that can happen in a year… what changes, what stays the same.
I had an amazing time in Boston, needless to say. I stayed with Alycia and Kelly, we visited Rob and the usual shenanigans ensued. I also had the pleasure of going to see Boston-contingent of the fam, which was really nice. As oldest cousin, it never ceases to amaze me how the little ones grow in between the times I get to see them. “You feed those things they grow!” as mom would say. ALSO got to see my roommate from this past year, JENNIFER!!! Or, as they say in Bean-town, “Jen-a-FA”! She was amazing and did her very best to give me an authentic Bostonian experience. We picked apples for the love! Also went to Salem and had dinner with her fam, which was amazing.
I still hadn’t quite grasped the concept that I was going to Spain again, even in the airport…. Or during the excruciatingly long journey. It wasn’t until the cab ride from the airport to my apartment when I saw the twilight sky and smelled the Sevilla air that I realized that I was here, back in Spain. Back with an amazing second chance for an even better experience than my last one which set the bar pretty high.
Things are off to a pretty good start. I was successful in enrolling for my Spanish high level grammar class and I am going to meet my new boss tomorrow. I bought a fan so I don’t asphyxiate in my tiny bedroom and I have got a tiny start on unpacking.
….Upon awakening from much needed siesta I met up with Macarena and it was awesome to see a familiar face. She has big plans for being study- buddies and seeing as that she is my only really good friend in this entire country right now… I would probably rob a bank with her if that is what she wanted to do.
Tuesday I met my new boss Rocio (my new roommate’s name is ALSO Rocio… this could get confusing!) I am basically in love with her. She is SO nice. My very first impression was NOT showing up at the time I was supposed to meet her… jetlag overtook me I guess and I completely and literally missed the train. I finally went that afternoon though and she could not have been nicer. She bustled about showing me around and introducing me to whom she could since I showed up 2.5 hours later than expected. I had been pretty worried to say the least about this new school, it being in the same gypsy ghetto as the first and literally next door, but I am happy to say that I feel from only about one hour there that it will be a MUCH better work environment than last year. There are teachers that actually know my purpose and WANT me to be there! Hurray! And Rocio is just so cute I want to squeeze her! She is a little “gordita” and excitable woman who appears to be very open, warm and well organized. I am foreseeing a beautiful relationship.

Summer lovin!

Summer blog-
My 22nd summer was defiantly one of my very best. One of the key factor to its awesomeness was the fact that I wasn’t officially employed, something that I haven’t done during the summer since I was 16. Believe it or not, I actually didn’t just lay around as a lady of leisure, on the contrary, I was very busy! “Soccer-moming”: not for the timid. It was great because I kept busy doing things for my mom but I also had plenty of time to run around and have fun with my friends and to hang with the fam.
Some highlights:
4th of july
Chows
Fam time
MDS youth camp! “meant to be”
Went to visit Holly!!! LOVE THAT LADY!!!
Cambria with my favorite women on the planet
Soul- Half adventures…..aaaaaamazing!
Spanish fiesta… part 3!
As you can see… it was a pretty amazing summer. I am so grateful for it and for basically everything the good Lord has thrown my way. Can’t complain ladies and gents, I just can’t.