Settling in a little

Dia Uno: 12 de Enero, 2009

1 p.m.

Una dia bueno- este cuidad es adorable! A good day. This city is ADORABLE! After 12 hours of sleeping (freezing my rear off, there are no heaters in my apartment except for one space heater I promised not to leave on while I slept) Leo woke me up with 3 minutos to spare before we left. Which was fine since I was already wearing everything I have here and only needed to brush my teeth. Then we walked uphill about 15 minutes to the Albacin- the old town up on a hill overlooking the city- where my school is and where she works as a cafeteria lady for an elementary school. There are only about 7 other students currently, whom I met after 2 hours of a ridiculously hard test. After that test, I was placed in the beginner’s class with an Australian named Paul and a girl named Caroline (I think) from some Island that’s a British territory (she must have told me 5 times but I can’t for the life of me remember). They are both very nice but I think I surprised the instructors because I was above the level they expected of me from my test. I have some conversational skills, but no grammatical training that I can remember. So I think I will be moving up pretty soon. Today we talked with our first instructor, Miguel, about food and our second instructor, Victor, about clothing. (Men’s underwear is “calzoncillos”. Victor likes “biquinis”.) Later on today we are going out for tapas and Spanish games, none of us were quite sure what that means. I also met a nice girl from Switzerland and another from Holland, and there are two more I haven’t met- one from Thailand and two from China. Paul, the Australian, has a girlfriend/wife/partner named Jullian who I also like a lot. They are going to be here for 6 months total.

Last night after I arrived and found my apartment and the internet café, I bought myself a slice of cake from one of the two bakeries NEXT DOOR. Seriously. I brought it back to my apartment to share with Leo and a friend of hers, Miguel, who I am sure Nabeel will look and act exactly like in 40 years. The three of us ate something Spanish (a tasty little treat about the size of a golfball wrapped in wax paper, apparently a left-over navidad confection) and the cake and had this AMAZING tea. Leo made fun of me for drinking 6 glasses of it. I am still super dehydrated. Then Miguel gave me a birthday present, it’s like a computer bag he got at work? Maybe? I was a little confused. I think he works as a gardener but not entirely sure. Anyway he left and I showered and went to sleep. My favorite thing about my apartment is that Leo has constructed this genius set up in the salon, a big table covered in thick blankets that go all the way to the floor, and underneath is a heating coil so you can put your legs under there and toasty up a bit. I also have a thing on the outside of my bedroom windows which is kind of like a garage door and makes them completely dark.

Still without todos mis cosas- Although the word is that they found one of my suitcases in Madrid and the other is still missing. As soon as a flight takes off from there to here, it will arrive but with the pilot strike it could be days. I got my phone working again but I am without charger and without minutes, so hopefully sometime this week I can remedy that. I am hoping for the best but just in case I bought an extra shirt for tomorrow- a hot pink turtleneck sweater. EVERY Spanish woman in her 20’s and 30’s, and some in other decades are wearing pants tucked into tall black boots, so I am feeling right at home in my black stingray cowboy boots, despite the fact that my feet are sore and swollen. (Not enough to ruin my good mood or keep me from walking around a lot though).

2 a.m.

I’ve just returned back to my apartamente. A lot of the students and I went to a bar with lots of games. After my second cafe con leche of the day (and year) we started to play Trivial Pursuit en Espanol- my team suffered an embarrassing defeat- it was me and a girl from China (Bianca, married to William) And although I knew all of the questions asked about Teatro Espanol y liturature espanol we kept getting the science questions. Anyway, it was a good time and we all had a few beers (a Spanish brew called “Damm”, very strong) and then everyone left. I went with a girl, Caroline, to her flat that she shares with Anita (the girl from Holland) to have some wine and celebrate her birthday which is today. The wine ended up being from California, which I found hilarious. I also made each of them blush as I asked very personal questions about their love life and past relationships- in my opinion sharing this sort of information guarantees fast friendship, and in this case I was not disappointed. After we killed the bottle, we went out for tapas y vino at a bar recommended to us by Miguel, our professor. The platter of tapas we got was very good- i tried everything on it. There was some jamon, some potato-y/bready/quiche-y thing, some chorizo, some tomatoes and corn, bread, olives and some white stuff i tried which ended up being some sort of mayonnaise with tuna (sick). We all got a good laugh when I accidentally ate one of the discarded olive pits thinking it was a pistachio. The bar was pretty empty so when we left I asked some passer-bys where the action was and we ended up following them to an irish pub not far from there. I ended up practicing my Spanish with three pharmacy students from here (my new favorite word is "callarte", which means “shut up now” and I used it very very liberally throughout the evening) and we also made friends with some irish folk who have been here for 7 or so years. I was surprised at my proficiency at bar-talk, and it is apparently the best sort of Spanish I know. Caroline (the birthday girl) and I bonded, and I am happy she will be here at least for 6 semanas. Tonight I was corrected in saying that I have “cowboy boots”, which is very similar to the phrase “a lot of body hair”. This caused some disgust at the bar, but now I know, and knowing is half the battle, si? 
Now I am off to freezing bed again. I hope my luggage comes tomorrow but if not, it’s ok, I believe it will make it eventually and it is too pretty a town to get upset over luggage.

Buenos Noches!!!

(In honor of Marly, I am going to include a “Did you know…” in each entry (“sabes que…”)

Sabes que…
That there are establishments here that are half bar and half heladaria? (they have the normal wall full of bar things and liquor but also the case of ice cream!!!!!) I am a BIG fan. I will hence forth think badly of bars that don’t come with some form of tasty treat.