The voice in my head has an accent.

Aside from submitting some paperwork for my more permanent visa (beyond 90 days) and opening a bank account, I am officially living and working in Spain.  I feel fairly comfortable here already and sometimes have to stop and visualize myself standing on a map of the world to remember where I am. 

I’m living in a neighborhood of Malaga called Pedregalejo.  I’m about two blocks from a grocery store and about 15 minutes walk from a pretty major shopping center so convenience is an asset to my location.  I’m living in what was probably at one time a huge house lived in by one family.  Now, about 15 occupants live here.  It’s funny, I specifically did not want to live with an American and it turns out that I am living right next to a guy named Cody from San Francisco who is also an auxiliar.  We have taken a vow to speak Spanish to each other all the time, and have been doing pretty well for the most part.  That’s not to say we don’t cheat, sometimes it’s nice to be able to speak English to a friend.  Aside from Cody, I am living with one person from England, four people from France, two people from Belgium, one from Italy, two from Finland… you get the idea.  Our common language is Spanish so we speak Spanish in the house and help each other with our grammar. 

My room is about the size of a dorm room.  A thin layer of thatched roof shelters the stoop of my door, and a fountain that probably hasn’t seen water flow in years sits in the center of the courtyard.  To be honest, this house feels like a dorm.  There are a lot of young people around all the time, you have to take a shower caddy with you to the bathroom, and we’re all hanging out in the common areas constantly.  It definitely has its upsides though.  I’ve made instant friends and never feel truly lonely.  However, I have to say, I miss you all dearly!  There is something magical about the relationships I have back home and I can only hope to find a glimmer of that here.

School is fantastic.  The pictures above are of the school itself and the neighborhood across the street. To the south, I walk down a pathway to the bus with a view of the ocean.  I’m teaching ages 12-16, more or less, which is way more like middle school that high school.  I had my first day teaching yesterday.  Pepe (pay-pah) and Andres are the heads of the English Department at the school and my supervisors.  Pepe is my specific guardian, so I have her to go to for anything that I need (see Mom, you have nothing to worry about).  For the first day in class I introduced myself and let the students ask me questions and then I gave a presentation on the school system in America and the life of students in America.  I’m not sure how much the kids understand, but I think it’s good that they are getting to hear English every day.  I spend a lot of time clarifying information when I get blank stares, miming, and writing on the board (it takes a lot of energy!).  I will be giving the presentation and introduction for the next week and then I will begin seeing the kids in small groups of 7-8 in a special classroom set aside for me.  I’m looking forward to putting together lesson plans and leaving the teachers materials that will be helpful to them in the future. 

The kids are great for the most part.  Friday afternoon they were a little testy, but that’s to be expected.  They’re all trying to get me to speak Spanish.  Andres told me I had to ONLY speak English ALL the time, because if they find out I speak Spanish they won’t respond to me in English.  Makes sense, but it’s going to be hard to do!  Overall, they ask great questions, and seem to take a genuine interest.  I thought it was incredible that every class asked me about the election in America.  They all wanted to make sure I was voting for Obama.  One class even wanted me to explain the voting system in America to them.  How great!  I am really looking forward to developing relationships with the kids.  I think if I’m engaged and make it interesting it will be a great year! I also got another job as an English tutor for one of the teachers and her sister that are taking English exams at the end of the year.  

You may notice my English getting increasingly worse over the next few weeks.  That's because I've started thinking in Spanish and most of the time the English running through my head has an accent so writing is pretty difficult sometimes.  And yes, it is even more difficult when I'm trying to teach.  Hasta luego!

I Thought I Couldn't Live Without It. I Could Have.

Is it too late to declare myself insane? I think it may be.  I'm sure you all have other words for it, but spending the first night alone somewhere foreign always makes you question your sanity just bit.  If the notion wasn't based on the move itself, then I begin to consider it based on the amount of crap I decided to schlep here.  You would have either felt pity for me, or laughed and pointed as I hauled close to 100 pounds of luggage across Malaga this morning after a 5:40 a.m. flight and only 2 hours of sleep, cursing myself the entire way. Why did I bring so much stuff!?!  

I had good fortune until arriving in Malaga.  Brooke and Jake took me to the train station in London and then these two wacky Brits escorted me to my terminal at the airport (you make a lot of fast friends being a solo female traveler).  After arriving here, however, it was just painful.  The airport resides in a less than friendly Malaga landscape, where the arid and industrial backdrop paints a grim, albeit inaccurate, picture of the rest of the city.  After making my way to the city center I walked a good 45 minutes (a lot of it meandering) to find the main strip of buses and caught the number 11 to my hostel.  I definitely got my exercise for the day and everyone around me knew it, seeing as I was dripping in sweat by the time I got on the bus.  At the hostel I was greeted by a congenial trilingual Frenchman who hauled my 70 lb. suitcase up four flights of stairs to the hostel entrance.  He pulled out a map to orient me with the city and gave me the friendly tongue in cheek suggestion that I stay away from the shopping areas.  

I had an appointment to meet with someone about an apartment later in the afternoon so I decided to explore until then.  The picture was taken just a couple of blocks from where my hostel is and reminds me of Waikiki, Honolulu.  Actually, a lot of my exploration today reminded me of my life in Hawai'i, which I take to be a good omen.  What I've seen of Malaga is beautiful.  It definitely caters to tourists, and is a bit more raw than some of the other European cities I've traveled in, but that just adds to its character.  My efforts to navigate, buy a cell phone, and a purchase a bus card reinforced my growing concern that my spanish really does suck.  The accent here is also really difficult to understand. They speak very fast and leave the ends off some of their words.  I have quite the challenge ahead of me on that front.

I did find an apartment living with international students.  Our common language is spanish, so hopefully proficiency is on the horizon.  The place is a bit more than I wanted to spend, and is a really small room with big common space, but after talking with some people here it sounds like a great deal.  The deposit is next to nothing and I only had to 'commit' to three months. Apparently a bus goes right by the apartment and takes me to Rincon de la Victoria, which is where I'm teaching.  Needless to say, I'm glad I don't have the stress of looking for something else right now on top of everything else.  Not having your own space in a situation like this is the worst!

Tomorrow I am headed to the school and will hopefully get to meet the teacher I'm working with.  It will be nice to have some kind of routine.  That's all for now.  Hasta luego.

To commemerate an hour long stay in Dublin…

Installment 1 

I’m sitting in the airport writing to let you all know of my successful arrival to the British Isles.  I can see the beautiful land of Ireland from where I sit, and I only wish that I could have a few more hours to take a walk outside, find a cab, and have a beer in an Irish pub.  But it's 10 a.m., I've been awake for almost 24 hours, and I would miss my flight.  Aren't you all glad I have common sense?

I started my journey with some sadness and anxiety, but I started smiling to myself as I was walking through the narrow and somewhat claustrophobic corridors of the quaint Dublin airport.  One walkway in particular reminded me of traveling through France, where repetition of advertising posters are placed at hip level rather than at eye level.  Except the Dublin airport had the added bonus of having every walkway feel like some space age hamster tunnel, complete with advertising, of course.

My flights were fairly easygoing.  I had a bit of a baggage conflict due to the weight of my bags, which unsurprisingly exceeded their limit.  It was nothing an extra duffel bag and an extra forgiving baggage clerk couldn’t fix.  Upon arriving in the Chicago airport, I realized that I had arrived at Gate C and had to find my way to Gate M (I assumed correctly that these would not be close to one another).  I was warned about the size of the Chicago airport, but was not expecting to run through seemingly endless hallways (complete with ambiguous signage), escalators, elevators, and a train that took me to two other terminals before ariving at the international terminal.  Obviously I was successful.

Installment 2

Brooke and I are now sitting in her room in London.  Her current home is a converted pub in Camden Town where she lives with 14 other people who refuse to wash their own dishes, one kitchen, one shower, and 14 cats.  I’m sure it’s no surprise to hear that she and Jake are in the process of looking for another place to live. In fact, they plan on being moved out by Monday, which means that their life right is about as hectic as mine.  We spend a lot of time on the internet looking for places to live in our respective cities, and randomly reciting the positive qualities of some that we are fortunate to stumble upon. 

It’s a moving experience to be walking down the streets of London and have every block, alley, corner, and overheard conversation confirm everything I’ve ever expected from London.  Of course, my personal attatchment to certain British authors adds to my enthusiasm (I’m going to John Keat’s house this weekend).   I plan on staying up at least another 5 or 6 hours to add to the full day that I’ve been awake with not more that ½ hour of sleep. 

Installment 3

This will be the last seeing as I started writing for my blog a few days ago, but didn't actually start my blog until today.  Today is worth mentioning though, because we saw Big Ben, walked by Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (not the original, that burned down some time ago), and spent quite a bit of time in the Tate Modern Museum (don't be too jealous, Neil).  We saw some originals by Monet, Picasso, Dali, Litchenstein, Rosenquist, etc., which was a treat.  I know little about art, but I have to mention how mesmerizing Monet's pieces are up close when you realize that there is more layering of color than blending to create the effect you see on canvas. 

There was one installation piece in particular that was fantastic.  This artist had collected several hundred pieces of metal silverware, trays, plates, and bowls, and bulldozed them to flatten them.  Then she hung the pieces with silver wire from the ceiling next to one another with the flat sides of the items on the top and bottom.  She shaped these groups of metal into flat circles that were about 2 feet in diameter.  There was a grid of 30 of these circles (5x6) perfectly spaced and hanging about a foot off the ground. It was really something to see, and pretty difficult to explain.  I'm sure you have a pretty cool image in your head even if it looks nothing like the actual piece.  We weren't allowed cameras or I would have spared you a stretch of your imagination.  Cheers!