¡Disaster!

This may be the worst thing that's happened to me in all my abroad travelings.  This includes the time I was deported from Africa, as well as the time I walked into a train station in France trying to get to Paris, only to find the last one pulling out of the station for the night.

I was going out with some friends the other night.  Naturally, I took my cell phone, keys, camera, some cash, my ID and a credit card (just in case).  We were walking the Alameda de Hercules, a very popular neighborhood for bars, clubs, restaurants, and hanging out.  We went to the first bar, had a drink or two, then moved on to another bar so that we could all sit down.

We all got a drink, moved a few tables together, pulled up the chairs, and sat down.  I decided to take a few pictures, so I reached into my pockets to find my camera.  I pulled it out.  Turned it on.  And that's when it happened.

My LCD screen on my camera had cracked.

Yes, that is a tear you see slowly falling down my cheek.  (Just kidding.)

But it is very sad all the same.  So I'm not sure quite what to do.  I'm going to Lagos in Portugal this coming weekend, and I'm not going to miss the opportunity to take a few hundred pictures!

It's true that my camera is still fully capable of taking pictures.  In fact, I went to visit some ruins near Sevilla today, and took a couple dozen pictures.  The thing I realized very quickly, however, upon review of the photos on my computer, is that I can't change any settings on my camera as I take pictures. All the pictures I took today were all taken under the setting used for lightbulbs while inside.  So the white balance is messed up.  Not only that, but I can't change the flash, aperture, shutter speed, white balance, or any of the other awesome features my camera has.  I'm not quite sure what to do right now to be perfectly honest.  Everything is much more expensive here in Europe.  So if I were to get a camera here, the same camera would probably cost around $50-$60 more here as it would back home.  Ugh, decisions decisions decisions.

That's the life update over here for now.

The Communication.

Things continue to go well here in Sevilla.  The weather has finally given us some relief.  The high for the past few days has been between 85º and 95º.  And combined with the fact that I’ve been siesta-ing during the hottest part of the day, it’s been quite nice.

That still hasn’t kept me from working up a prodigious sweat whenever I walk somewhere.  I swear, if I even think about being outside in the sun, I can feel my forehead start to glisten.  I complain, but it’s not nearly as bad as when it was 110º, claro.  Aside from the whole “teaching English” thing, my primary job has been drinking an absurd amount of water every day.

There are many benefits, however, to living somewhere really hot, dry and sunny.  At night, the weather is beautiful and you don’t have to worry about being rained on if you’re sitting outside.  Also, when you wash your clothes and hang then up to dry, you can go and take them down later the same day and they’re perfectly dry.  It’s almost miraculous.  At first I didn’t understand where our clothes were being hung up, because I never saw them in the apartment.  I found out only a bit too late one day.

Carmen, my host mother, was talking to me the other day and was talking to me about our clothes.  We have very little problem communicating anymore.  I don’t always get every word, but the gist more or less comes through.  This was not the case in this instance.  Our conversation went more or less like this:

Carmen: Hola, Peter.

Me: Hola, Carmen.  ¿How are you?

Carmen: I’m good.  I cmmwr to ask you if slkjflkj your lwkjelk in the alkjsdlkj or if I can sdlkjjl weqwe mrmw.  What do you want to do?

In this type of situation, you generally have three options: Sí, no, or repeat.

Me: I’m sorry, one more time, please?

Carmen: (Smiling) Wlmrlw.  Movour lskjqwz (subjunctive) cmogwu your clothes cwiipsxwen or smroo oic up wmmer vbngwm2?

At this point, your only real option is to say “sí” or “no” and hope that it strikes some distant correlation to the question.

Adding a little emotion to feign confidence, I shrugged, shook my head, and said, “No.”

Wrong.

It wasn’t really a big deal.  She just said, “No?  Ok then.”  And then left.  I sat staring at the empty doorway for a few seconds, trying to reflect over the half-conversation I just had.  Eventually I was able to recall the words, “do you want,” “show,” “up,” “clothes,” and, “dry.”  Which of course means, “Do you want me to show you where I hang up the clothes to dry after I wash them?”  Sorry to sound like such a douche, Carmen.

I later realized that, not only would it be a good idea to know where our clothes hang out, but the roof of the building is also a great place to get una buena vista of Sevilla.  Plus, it’s nice to be able to help out around the apartment.  A single, working mother has plenty of things to do besides cook my meals, wash dishes, and do laundry.  Obviamente.

That’s it.  Just something I wanted to share.

Here are some other pictures from Sevilla.  Loving it.

Bridge near my house at sunset. 

View of Triana (my neighborhood) and the bullfighting stadium from the Giralda (Cathedral). 

Rick Steves' Tour, clearly.

Katie and Amy K in the Barrio Santa Cruz (Judería).

Random Cathedral shots.

Until the next time,

Adios.

Fui a Marruecos.

I had the very rare opportunity to go to the beautiful land of Morocco last weekend.

It was quite the cultural experience.  We were in a tour with about 30 students from all over (Germany, France, USA, Argentina, Spain, etc., etc.) and we went to three cities: Tetuan, Tangiers, and Chefchaouen.

Our first stop, Tetuan, was quite the experience.  We started our trip off in the Medina of Tetuan.  "Medina" in Arabic means "city," but it's also used to refer to the oldest part of the city, which is generally where the markets are, and is the most twisty and historical part of the city.  It was very interesting to see how markets like that work in other countries, but it was also quite overwhelming.

You don't quite get the effect of the medina from the pictures.  Imagine the smell of raw meat and fish, all kinds of fruits and vegetables, the sound of meat being chopped up, chickens being killed and deplumed, people yelling at each other from opposite sides of the street, mangey cats dissecting fish heads, flies buzzing on all foodstuffs, and a mysterious liquid running down the middle of the street.

Lots of culture.  Culture in your face, in your ears, splashing on your feet, and in your nose and mouth.  All kinds of culture; it was intense.

We toured around the medina for a few hours and learned some history about the various neighborhoods.  It was very interesting.

We were also taken to a carpet co-op where they showed us all kinds of carpets and blankets and things all hand made, hand-dyed and really really cool.

After our time in Tetuan, we went to Tangiers, and walked very briefly through the Medina.  It wasn't great.  We got to the medina just as everything was closing for the night.  I think we got to walk around for about 15 minutes, not really worth the trip there, in my opinion.  Especially because the only thing you could buy was like...Moroccan clothes, jewelry, knock off dvds and other assorted nonsense.  Plus everyone gave you stinkface and/or stared at you and followed you as you walked down the street.  Let's just say...it wasn't the ideal environment for shopping....or existing.

We went back to our mediocre hotel after our long day, ate a mediocre dinner, and then went to bed, after most people took cold showers, for lack of hot water.

The next day we got up super early and headed to Chefchaouen.  It's a few hours into the heart of the country, over a few mountain ranges.  The whole city is painted blue and white.  It was spectacular.

I would love to go back again some day.  Next time, hopefully, I can go to visit some friends who know the cities they live in.  Also, I won't have to walk around in a group of 30 white people.

That's it for now!

¡Hasta luego!

Muy rápido.

Just a quick hello.  Trying to get back into the swing of blogging semi-consistently.  I have lots of free time right now in my program, so I want to try and establish some sort of habit before I start teaching.

Right now I'm living with a host family, along with one other American, Jason, from my program.  It's kind of nice to have another student in the house because I have someone to go do stuff with while my family is otherwise occupied.

This is mi cama, please notice the beautifully decorated sheets.

This is the first year our host mom, Carmen, has had boys in her house.  She's been hosting students for 9 or 10 years, and it's always been girls until now.  Why the sudden change?  It may or may not have something to do with her 9 year old son, Carlo, who told her he's sick of having girls come into the house all the time.  It's worked out well for me and Jason though!  We have a super sweet apartment in a great location, and a little brother to play video games with in Spanish.  ¡Qué guay!

This is Jason:

In other news, I came very quickly to the conclusion that I should have spent more time planning my suitcases.  When I moved to France last year, I started packing a week before I left.  This time?  I started about a day and a half before.  So far I've discovered that I accidentally packed a pair of my mom's socks, did NOT pack a single sheet of blank notebook paper, and managed to squeeze in enough winter gear to survive the next ice age.  Sorry Spain...I'm praying for record breaking cold this winter.

I also only brought one pair of shorts, neglecting to heed the reports that Sevilla was experiencing 100º+ weather.  Not only that, but for the first week I was here, I couldn't find the shorts I packed, so I was forced to choose between wearing full-length pants and dying, or wearing my basketball shorts 24/7.  After a few days, I finally bit the bullet and bought some new shorts.  They're actually great: nice and light and not too expensive.  It only took me about 12 hours after I bought new shorts to find the ones I packed.  Obviously.

Yeah, so it's been a pretty interesting trip so far.  Aside from all the new cultural things I've been experiencing.  I'll update later about all that.

Oh, and here's our other roommate, Alex:

 

¡Chau!

¡La vida es fanástica!

Welcome welcome one and all to the first edición of "¡La vida es fantástica!"

It's been quite a ride so far, let me tell you.  I'm not even sure where to start.

How about the beginning?

I arrived in Spain last Monday (August 23rd).  My flight was no problem.  I, of course, was utterly unable to sleep at all, so that was fun.  I took a taxi from the airport to the train station in Madrid, then took a 2.5 hour train ride to Sevilla--Santa Justa, then a taxi to the hotel, my final destination.  Renfe, the Spanish train company, decided that I should sit in first class because I had 200 lbs. of luggage and looked very tired.  Or maybe not.  But whatever the reason, I got to sit in "Preferencía" as opposed to all the plebeians who were stuck hugging their knees in “turística.”  Not bad, I should say.

So I get to the hotel.  I go and find the desk to check-in with my program and talk to the ladies (all of whom are super nice, btw), get my keys, and head up to the room.  Side note: The members of the program were asked to arrive between 12 pm and 7 pm, so I figured that…considering that 99% of everyone were coming all the way from the States directly, I was probably one of, if not THE, first person to arrive.

So you can imagine my surprise when, while sweating profusely and swearing fluently, I finally get the hotel door open, only to find a dude sprawled out on his back, in naught but his underwear, snoring away, with all the blinds pulled shut.  My first thought was, “Oh no, I hope I don’t wake him up.”  Followed quickly by, “I wonder if he’s supposed to be in here.”  And then finally, “Is this my room?”

Well, as I was slowly and quietly trying to get my stuff settled in the room, he woke up and wasn’t shocked that someone else was in his room, so I figured everything was ok.  Turns out I was right.

So that was Monday.  We spent the next few days doing various orientations to life in Spain and teaching and other important things: everything from buying a cell phone, to a quick review of essential Spanish phrases and grammar stuff.

Our group has about 33 people in it.  While most of them have just graduated from college, there are quite a few who graduated with me, or a year or two before.  They’re a lot of fun though.  It’ll be sad when we all split up and go to our separate cities to teach, but a lot of people are in sweet towns: some near the beach, some near Portugal, some near Gibraltar.  So it’s exciting to have places to go and visit people (and to stay for free).

Ok, here are some pictures from my life so far.

Tad and Katie (former roommate and current neighbor)

Carl, me and Dana

La Giralda y la Catedral

View of the river from my bedroom

La Giralda and the moon from my window

Ok, that's it for ahora!

¡Adios!