You know you have lived in Spain when...

I found this group on facebook actaully, but most of the points are so true!

This list should give a little insight into my everyday life!


You know you've lived in Spain when...

1) You think adding lemonade, fanta or even coke to red wine is perfectly acceptable. Especially at lunch time.
2) You can't get over how early bars & clubs shut back home - surely they're shutting just as you should be going out?
3) You aren't just surprised that the plumber/decorator has turned up on time, you're surprised he turned up at all.
4) You've been part of a botellon.
5) You think it's fine to comment on everyone's appearance. And to openly stare at strangers.
6) Not giving every new acquaintance dos besos seems so rude.
7) You're shocked by people getting their legs out at the first hint of sun - surely they should wait until at least late June?
8) On msn you sometimes type 'jajaja' instead of 'hahaha'
9) You think the precious aceite is a vital part of every meal. And don't understand how anyone could think olive oil on toast is weird.
10) You're amazed when TV ad breaks last less than half an hour, especially right before the end of films.
11) You forget to say please when asking for things - you implied it in your tone of voice, right?12) You love the phenomenon of giving 'toques' - but hate explaining it in English
14) You don't see sunflower seeds as a healthy snack - they're just what all the cool kids eat.
15) You know what a pijo is and how to spot one.
16) Every sentence you speak contains at least one of these words: 'bueno,' 'coño,' 'vale,' 'venga,' 'pues nada'...
17) You know what 'resaca' means. And you probably had one at least once a week when you lived in Spain.
18) You know how to eat boquerones.
19) A bull's head on the wall of a bar isn't a talking point for you, it's just a part of the decor.
20) You eat lunch after 2pm & would never even think of having your evening meal before 9.
21) You know that after 2pm there's no point in going shopping, you might as well just have a siesta until 5 when the shops re-open.
22) If anyone insults your mother, they better watch out...
23) You know how to change a bombona. And if you don't, you were either lazy or lucky enough to live somewhere nice.
24) It's not rude to answer the intercom to your flat by asking 'Quien?' 25) You don't accept beer that's anything less than ice-cold.
26) The fact that all the male (or female) members of a family have the same first name doesn't surprise you.
27) The sound of mopeds in the background is the soundtrack to your life.
28) You know that the mullet didn't just happen in the 80s. It is alive and well in Spain.
29) You know the differenc between cojones and cajones, tener calor and estar caliente, bacalao and bakalao, pollo and polla, estar hecho polvo and echar un polvo...and maybe you learned the differences the hard way!
30) On a Sunday morning, you have breakfast before going to bed, not after you get up.
31) You don't see anything wrong with having a couple of beers in the morning if you feel like it.
32) Floors in certain bars are an ideal dumping ground for your colillas, servilletas etc. Why use a bin?!
33) You see clapping as an art form, not just a way to express approval.
34) You know ensaladilla rusa has nothing to do with Russia.
35) When you burst out laughing every time you see a Mitsubishi Pajero
36) You have friends named Jesus, Jose Maria, Maria Jose, Angel, maybe even Inmaculada Concepcion...
37) You know that 'ahora' doesn't really mean now. Hasta ahora, ahora vuelvo...etc
38)When you make arrangements to meet friends at 3, the first person turns up at 3.15...if you're lucky!
39) Central heating is most definitely a foreign concept. In winter, you just huddle around the heater under the table & pull the blanket up over your knees...and sleep with about 5 blankets on your bed!
40) Most women under 30 own a pair of those attractive 'Aladdin' style trousers with the crotch around the knees (you know what I mean!)
41) Aceite de oliva is 'muy sano', of course. So you help yourself to a bit more.
42)When women think that clear bra straps are in fact invisible.
43) When it's totally normal for every kitchen to have a deep-fat fryer but no kettle.
44) Te cagas en la leche....
45) To avoid that cheap Eristoff vodka you have to ask for 'un esmirnoff'
46) When you know what a guiri is / have been called one
47) When you add 'super' in front of any adjective for emphasis
48) When it's completely normal for men and women to have at least one facial piercing
49) When you pay for something that's, say, 8.50, you always ask, 'Quieres el cincuenta?'
50) Blonde girls actually start to think their name is 'rubia'
51) When you accept that paying with a 50 euro note is going to get you a dirty look if you're buying something that costs less than 40 euros
52) If something is great, it's 'de puta madre'
53) You can eat up to 5 times a day - first breakfast, 2nd breakfast around 11.30, almuerzo, merienda, cena
54) You know the jingle for Los Cuarenta Principales...
55) If you see someone wearing a T-shirt with something written on it in English, you can almost guarantee it won't make sense. (Pebble Night was a personal favourite)
56) When you go into a bank/bakery etc, it's standard practice to ask 'Quien es la ultima?'
57) Who needs a dryer when you have a washing line outside the window of your apartment?58) You know what 'marcha' and 'juerga' are. (Of course!)
59) You are more likely to call your friends tio/a, nena, chaval, macho or even tronco than their real name.
60) Love it or hate it, you can't escape reggaeton.

feliz navidad!

FELIZ NAVIDAD!

This pic is from our Christmas party in the piso. We were worried right before that it wasn't going to be good because alot of people cancelled last minute but it turned out to be really fun! A grand success! At first the party was mostly Americans, other English teachers but then we had about 15 Spaniards in our house! So, needless to say, the party was lively indeed. I bought a CD of christmas flamenco songs so eventually the party burst into song, as it should!

Today I went on an excursion with my gitanitos to see all of the natividies in Dos Hermanas. Let me tell you they takes their "belenes" very seriously here in Spain. There is a life size one in La Plaza that people line up for a few hours to see. Even the smaller ones are pretty intense, not just your typical jesus manger deal, oh no. We are talking like all of bethlehem , the wise men, teh shepards, light, water, moving effects... intense stuff. It was cool to see all of the belenes but walking from place to place was pretty tiring, screaming at the kids in Spanish the whole time to get in line, not steal the baby jesus, not to touch the belen, not to run away, not to kill eachother, etc. But then after that I was invited to the faculty christmas lunch which was by far the BEST meal i have had in spain. SO delicious. It was fun too, the teachers are much cooler when you get them away from school and give them a glass of wine. The PE teacher is really funny, he was telling jokes and for some reason I only understood the dirty ones haha, oh well, at least I got some of them! And, Ana Maria the directora (dictatora we say haha) came over to me twice to make sure i liked everything and, when we were going to leave she gave me a besito! hehe i think i am the favorite, yay.

Tommorow Maggie and I set out on our journey home. First we take the bus from Sevilla to Madrid overnight, ge tto Madrid at 7am, then take a flight from Madrid to Philly, then i continue to SF from there. Everyone say a pray for me!

See most of you soon!

Besos!!!

MC

A lovely weekend in the south of Spain

oh what a lovely time!

Wednesday evening my flatmates and I met Lydia at the train station and set out for El Puerto de Santa Maria, which is where our freind Hayley lives. The train was packed as I am sure many people had the idea to go to the southern province of Cadiz to pass the puente. We had heard there is quite the bustling night life in El Puerto, so of course we had to check it out.
First we hit a tapas bar and sampled some exceptionally delicious bacaloa, then we continued out with a very mixed group consiting of americans, brits, spaniards and of course our german.

The next day we headed to Jerez de la Frontera, the home of sherry wine. Jerez actually means sherry in Spanish, go figure. We went to the bodega of Tio Pepe which is one of the most well known sherry producers in the world! We had a great tour of the bodega, it was so much fun! We also go to sample two sherries ( one sweet and one dry, i liked both) and some tapas. It was the most lovely afternoon.

Friday we headed to Gilbralter by way of Cadiz. It was freezing in Cadiz that day so although we intended to do some more sightseeing there we decided to cut it short and catch an earlier bus to La Linea, which is the town right next to Gilbraltar since you can't actually bus in Gilbraltar itself, being a different country and all. In La Linea, we actaully had a lovely indian dinner, quite surprisingly delicious. (International foods in Spain are usually risky.)

In Gilbraltar itself we only had time to go up to the top, snap a few pictures, see some monkeys and come back down againt o catch the bus to go back to El puerto because our poor little Hayley FORGOT her passport so she couldnt cross the border into Gilbraltar! So the poor thing had to stay ont he Spain side will we ran up the rock. We didn't run, we cable car-ed, but still we did so quickly. I would like to go back there and explore more, it is a very interesting place. You literally cross a fence and you are in a teeny tiny peice of Britian, surronded by Spain. Which is still a bit of a sore subject with the Spaniards, all of whom highly discouraged us from visiting there. (haha on of Hayley's friends in El Puerto told us that is was a "shit hole".... he spoke some English.) We were very glad that we ignored them though, it was awesome!

Saturday night we were back in El Puerto and we ended the weekend proudly, staying out with the Spaniards until about 5am. Sunday we managed to get ourselves on the train back to Sevilla and pour our tired little bodies into bed.

Photos of all of these events can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mclauerman/ElPuertoJerezGibraltar

This week, probably as a result of such a packed weekend, we have all been a little sick. I continue on trying to teach "Jingle Bell Rock"... they are getting it... slowly....

Today a very exciting thing happened: We got our NIEs! This was the last buerocratic hoop we had to jump through, to get our resident identification cards. With these cards, we will not only be let BACK into the country after christmas but we are also let in for free to many sight seeing spots around sevilla. So to celebrate we met Lydia and went to the Alcazar Gardens and I climbed the Giralda! What a full and productive day!

Tommorow we are going to have a Christmas-themed dessert potluck at our piso... should be fun!

I fly home next Thursday, less than a week!

Better go with 'Jingle Bell Rock'....

Que pasa chicos....

I beleive my last post was about Thanksgiving and we are already doing Christmas! Noelia informed me since my class has the most time with an English teacher, we are expected to sing our song for the christmas program in english. So I had the bright idea to do "the 12 days of christmas' because then every student could have one line each. i had such grand ideas for our performace... (actually mom thought of it) i was going to have them all holding cards of a partridge, turtle doves, etc... but what i forgot when planning all this is that my students are completely incapable of being quiet much less waiting their turn to sing their part. en fin, the 12 days of christmas went down in fiery fiery flames. after the second day trying with 12 days, i brought a back up. now,we are going to sing 'Jingle Bell Rock' because it is only 3 verses long, they already kinda of know the regular jingle bells, and i told them they could wear sunglasses and pretend to be rock stars and they thought that was super. we already have about 2 lines down. Fi-ja-te.

Que ma.... oh here is a weird story for you... so I'm jogging last week... wait, but first let me just mention that people don't really jog in spain. well the spaniards don't. pretty much the only people that jog are the american college students. and me. so ok, im jogging along and i pass in front of the university. there parked in front, is a car of 4 chicos. the one in the back proceeds to pull out a STUFFED HAMBURGER. it was like a pillow, but in the shape and likeness of a hamburger. he proceeds to kind of shake the hamburger at me and try to say, in english, "Jam-beer-gur! Hambur-a-gur! Hamburger!" I just gave them a weird look and kept jogging. ..... but seriously WHAT THE F?!?!?! i mean i know i looked pretty american with my long sleeve tee, calf length work-out pants and my adidas.... but what the hell?!? what are they thinking, "oh, yes if i just shake this thing at this girl as shes jogging and say 'jamburger'....' i dont even know. but, i guess on the bright side, if the worst cultural harassment i am going to get for being american is to have a stuffed hamburger shook in my general direction while im jogging.... thats not so bad. just weird.

kat has illustrated this incident:



anyway, this weekend is the puente, a 4 days weekend! woohoo! we are going to stay with our friend Hayley down in El Puerto de Santa Maria, from there we are going to spend a day in Jerez, and we are also going to Gibraltar to see the monkeys. YES, if you didn't know there are monkeys in Gibraltar. and i am going to visit them!! my friend Lydia, the german girl from my school, is going to come with us, should be heaps of fun.

Hasta ahora,
MC

I will post about it next week, hopefully without mention of a rabid monkey attack.

The best Thanksgiving ever not in America

Queridos amigos,

I hope you all had a great day full of turkey, full tummies and good cheer this past Thursday. Although there was no turkey to be had here in Sevilla, there was plenty of cheer. We decided to have our fiestas de Gracias on Friday so some of our freinds could make it up here from Cadiz. So Thursday night Jennifer and I went to our friend Mati's to use her oven to make apple pie! I don't even really like apple pie but it was still exciting. We also created a batata (sweet potato more or less) pie/bake. While waiting for our creations to cool we ordered pizza and drank cruzcampo beer, a true celebreation of american culture. We explained to Mati that if you really want to be cheesy on thanksgiving, you can go around and everyone says what they are thankful for. Mati insisted that we do this tradition and some of mine included: being in Spain this year, of course my family and freinds at home, finding such a great apartment complete with great roommates and being able to come home for a christmas visit. :)

Friday afternoon our freinds Hayley and Jennifer arrived and we started to make ( in a true Grammy tradition) un MONTON de comida. Jennifer tried to send Maggie and I out to get more at the last minute because she was still somehow worried that there wouldnt be enough but we put our foot down and, behold, it is now Tuesday and we still have a few leftovers. The party went very well. We had basically every other tradtional thanksgiving food other than turkey because jennifer received a huge package of goodies from her aunt in the states. we also had a tradtional thanksgiving flan, made by Lydia, the german. 9 ladies total, lots of food,wine, laughs and estrogen. what could be better, haha. On Monday both Noelia and Lydia said that they had a great time and they love American thanksgiving! It was Noelia's first experience of the holiday and I think we definatly did it justice.

Saturday we continued our revelry and we 5 American ladies headed to Cordoba. We went to visit the Mezquita ( a large Cathedral was that originally constructed by the Moors, then took over by the Christians, then by the Moors....etc. For example, on one wall, completely carved in sancrit, they simply stuck a statue of St. Peter in front to make the Catholic presence known.) We also went to the Banos Arabes, which is basically a bath house. There are 3 pools of warm, hot and cold. Beleive it or not you are supposed to go from warm to hot to cold, because the cold water gives your body such a shock that when return to the warn water it is very relaxing for your muscles. Included in our visit was a short massage and tea in the tea house upstairs. It was lovely.

There is another Bano Arabe in Sevilla and I think I am going to buy a trip for Noelia and Lydia and I for a Christmas present to relax ourselves after a semester with our little gypsies. Yesterday for example, Noelia got completely fed up with them and had them copying for 2 hours. I got to play grocery item memory with a few of the good ones that had escaped punishment, but even that was difficult to maintain for 2 hours.

This week we intend to lay low and relax in Sevilla. I may buy myself a space heater though, it is SO COLD! It is always colder in our apartment than outside because we have cold floors and our building is blocked from the sun so it is liek an ice box. I may go and buy myself a little space heater, or at the very least another blankie.

Bueno pues, nada.
I hope all is well at home!
Beso,
MC

Rain, Rain, GO AWAY!

It hardly ever rains here in Andalucia. But when it does... watch out! I literally almost drown on the way to my carpool this morning. It is only about a 15-20 minute walk normally, but that was plenty of time for it to start POURING. MY umbrella blew out about half way there and by then there was no turnig back and I was SOAKED. By the time I got to Noelia´s car I was completely soaked, through to my socks... even my undies! We put on the heat full blast in the car but I was still soaked when we arrived at school (parts of the highway had flooded, we are lucky we made it). My sweatshirt was wet so hte lovely Noelia let me wear her jacket in the classroom and after I was done with my lesson she sent me to ask for una calefactor (a little tiny space heater). Tehy have enough for almost all the classrooms so while she was teaching I sat at her desk with my feet in front of the little heater. It managed to dry me, my shoes are still a little damp but at least i didnt have to be wet all day long. I normally leave at 1 on Tuesday but today I decided to stay until 3, eat lunch here at school with Noelia and then drive with her ( I am going to ask her to drop me off at my door if it is still raining). I won´t go if it is still like this at 5 when I have to go to one of my private lessons because without and umbrella, I wouldn´t make it. Go ahead, call me a whimp (dad... I can hear you now...) but seriously it was a freaking monsoon and there was thunder and lightning and yeah. I am not going anywhere once I get home!!!

Anyway, Jennifer and I made it Madrid Friday night. We met up with two of our freinds from orientation at our hostal, a charming place with a front door that looked like it could very possibly be either a whore house or a crack den. (Julia booked the hostal, I guess there were no pictures of it online???) But lucklily the inside was just fine, no whores, no crack. That evening we went to find soem tapas but we ended up in a restaurant that was expensive and then the food wasn't even very good. The next day we went to El Prado, to see the royal palace, and we had an amazing lunch at a delicious Indian restaurant. The highlight was though, at least for me, seeing, the broadway adapted play "JESU CHRISTO SUPER STAR".... thats right, jesus christ super star.... in Spanish. It was.... amazing. We didn´t get every word but we kind of are familair with the story, especially me after 17 years of Catholic school so it was easy enough to grasp what was going on. It was an experience. That night Julia and I tried to go out and check out the Madrid night life but when we went to go get a cab it was 2 degrees C· and all of the cabs were full! After a half an hour we just gave up because or else we would freeze. So that was a bummer, but we did hang out for a little while at one bar near our hostal and met some really strange Swedes. I usually like encountering interesting characters but these guys were even freaking ME out. The next day we went to El Rastro which is the biggest flea market that has ever been. Or at least that I have ever seen. I purchased a pair of delightful earrings for 3 euros. Then we headed to another art museum, La Reina Sofia de arte moderna. There we saw Guernica by Picasso. Quite impressive. Then Jennifer and I had to catch the train back to Sevilla around 5. Hayley and Julia stayed for another night and I imagine they will tell us what else they saw this Friday because they are coming to Sevilla from where they live in Cadiz for a Thanksgiving party! It will be at our apartment and wil consist of 5-7 Americans 2-4 Spaniards and 1 German (this girl Lydia that I work with at school). Should be fun! We are going to have Pollos Asados (a rotissery chicken place) instead of turkey because there are not turkies in Spain. Well, actaully, Jennifer and I found one in EL Corte Ingles ( a HUGE department store taht has EVERYTHING you could possibly ever dream of : car dealership, makeup cds, lawn mowers a grocery store, tailor, travel agency post office tvs microwaves.... etc etc) The turkey was in a box and was 70 euros. SO, pollos asado wil do just fine.

fotos!

I have finally have some pictures up!

http://picasaweb.google.com/mclauerman

Jennifer were supposed to head out to Madrid this morning but all trains were sold out until 8pm tonight, so we have just been waiting around all day. So i had time to finish the pictures!

The rest of my week turned out well. Wednesday I managed to have a 25 minute conversation with the PE teacher who has the thickest accent and speaks faster than any of the other teachers and I understood everything! Wednesday night I got a chance to relax. Thursday I just got a chance to catch up on errands and I have my private lesson at night. The 16 year old that I tutor (who has a band, hehe aw) said that his guitar teacher also wanted an American English teacher- sweet mas dinero para mi!


We are heading out in a little while to finally catch the train!
Hasta Ahora!
MC