To Go to the Doctor.

I'm not one to complain.

Actually, that's not true at all.  I love a good whining session.  Though, it's not really the fact that I really feel very upset about a situation.  Mostly, I think, it's because it's just something to talk about.  I don't mean to sound needy or upset or irritable.  For example, if I'm super duper hungry, I'll say it over and over.  But that doesn't mean that I have to eat THAT second.  If we're walking along together and you don't like the first few restaurants we come across, it's not a problem to continue on our way until we find something agreeable.

There is a limit, however.  And there is a point at which I'll say, "Ok.  Enough.  Let's eat here."

This is also true with my pain threshold.  You see, for the past week or so, I've been experiencing a lot of pain in my throat whenever I swallow, or talk too vigorously.  It's been weird though.  It's definitely not a sore throat: I have no fever, no soreness in the rest of my body, and I haven't had any other symptoms of being sick.  It was almost like there was something underneath my tongue that was hurting me.

I told my host mom.  I don't know if I've said this before, but my host mom is a message therapist by trade, and believes wholly in holistic/natural medicine.  The first thing she said to me was, "that means that you have something stressful in your life, or that you have something that you need to talk about.  Something weighing you down."  Ok, Carmen.  Whatever you say.

But bless her heart if she didn't make me some ginger tea, give me some extract of echinacea drops, and then sit down with me at the table and discuss everything that was happening in my vida.  "Are you stressed with your classes?  Are you nervous about moving to Granada?  How are you getting along with the other students?  When's the last time you talked to your parents?"  She was very concerned.  It was very nice.

So I talked to my parents later that day, told them what was going on, took some advil, drank lots of ginger tea and water, and within a day or two, things felt all better.

When Friday rolled around, however, things started up again.  Except this time it was the right side of my throat/mouth/tongue.  I decided to just wait it out for a few days and see what's going on.  This isn't usually too bad of an idea, except for when things just get worse after a few days.  This was the situation in which I found myself yesterday.  The night before I couldn't really sleep super well because whenever I had to swallow, I would wake up in pain.  Eating food hurt.  Drinking hurt.  It wasn't fun.

Finally, I decided that action had to be taken.  I went to the pharmacy but all they had was Ibuprofen, which I had taken already, and it didn't make any difference.

So, I finally decided to try out going to the doctor.  As long as I've lived in foreign countries, I've never been sick enough to go to the doctor.  Thank goodness for that, too: I don't even like going to the doctor in my home country!

I was very hesitant to go to the doctor.  Spanish isn't even my second language.  However, after a few phone calls with my program, and finding that I could actually understand about 90% of what they were saying to me over the phone, I got renewed confidence, and I headed out on the adventure.

When I finally got to the office, a good 20 minutes later, I stood in front of the door trying to figure out how to get in.  It was just a normal apartment building, with a sign outside that said, "medical farmlww."

As I was standing there, I got another call from the lady at the program telling me that the office doesn't open until 9:30.  It was 9:15. To kill some time I stood on the street, like a creeper, listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and trying to blend into the surrounding Spanish culture.

I eventually got into the doctor’s office and got checked out.  Everyone in the office was very nice, and very patient with me and with my Spanish.  It was great.  There’s nothing worse than trying to talk to someone who acts like they don’t have the time for you.  In the end, the doctor told me that I have “llagas.”  My Spanish, such as it is, has not prepared me for the wide world of medical maladies.  I asked her what a “llaga” is, and she went into her office and brought back a dictionary open to the word “llaga.”  Apparently I have a little sore in the back of my throat that’s making my life miserable.  So she gave me some prescriptions to get filled for various things.

At this point, I’ve been writing this post for about four days, so I’ve been taking the medicine and have been following all the advice that she gave me.  I feel about 150% better.  And, I just woke up from a super siesta.  So I’m ready.  I’m ready to go running, I’m ready to go out with my friends, but most importantly, I’m ready to go to Portugal!

Say whaaaaaat!

Yes, I’m going to Lagos in Portugal this weekend with a bunch of people from my program.  We’re going cliff diving, shore cruising, beach sitting, pool swimming, and all sorts of stuff.

I’ve bought a new camera for the occasion:

So, that'll be fun.  You'll see the results.

Ok, that's it for now.

¡Hasta pronto!

¡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!