The Hardships in Life, Part 2: The Rain in Spain.

“Andalucía has the best weather in all of Spain!”

Lies lies lies!  I was not expecting the weather in the south of Spain to be as cold, cloudy and rainy as it has been/is.  A lot of people said that last year was exceptionally cold and rainy, but that it’s normally not like this at all.  My question: What weather IS normal these days?

Lovers.

From the above picture you may get the impression that us teaching assistants live in the pure, unadulterated sunshine of the famous Andalucía.  That’s simply because I’ve chosen not to show you pictures such as these:

This is not snow.  It's pollen.  Huge, throbbing pollen.

I took this picture just before the proceeding one.  The three of us go to the park whenever it’s sunny, which until recently, hasn’t been for a few weeks.  On this day in particular, I fought my way there, the whole time inhaling those little white things, or having them attack my eyes, we got to the park, had about an hour or so of intermittent sun, and then it started to rain.  Hard.  I didn’t take a picture of that, obviously, but…it happened.

That same weekend was a 4-day weekend for most of the teaching assistants, and I desperately wanted to get to the beach, either Nerja or Cádiz, but the stupid weather forecast said:

4-day weekend fail.

Of course it would decide to rain all over the long weekend.

Not only did it, in fact, rain all weekend, but during most of the Semana Santa, when my parents were here, it rained buckets and buckets.  Córdoba and Ronda held true to their tradition of raining on me every time I visit them, and even Granada came through with some dreary weather during the time they were here visiting.

Honestly I shouldn’t complain too much.  I think the biggest factor is that, when it rains in the States, I dash from the house to the car, drive somewhere, then dash from the car to a store or whatever.  Here, I have to dash from overhang to overhang during my 30-minute walk downtown.  It’s decidedly less fun.

There was a particularly cold and rainy stretch in November and December where all the teaching assistants were reaching their breaking point.  I think this status update from several of my friends illustrates the point quite well.

Dire straits.

I think that’s enough complaining for now.  I only have a week and a half left of teaching!  Unbelievable!  I’m not ready!