Day Trip to Mérida

Today I got 2 things accomplished... I went on a day trip to Mérida and the internet guy came to set up my line.

First, I received a phone call at 10 AM from the internet guy who I´ve been so patiently waiting for.  I´m VERY glad I decided to not postpone my trip to Malta because I basically had to pay this man to come over and tell me that some cable box that was already in the wall was better than the one he was coming to install, so he left without doing anything and told me they were still going to send the modem and router, and that I had to hook them up myself.  Wow, gotta love the business here...

Anyway, after that I was off to Mérida.  We have a fellow American auxiliar staying at our piso for a few days.  She´ll be working in Mérida so we decided to all take a trip out and explore the city.  Mérida is the capital of Extremadura, but it´s part of the province of Badajoz.  It´s actually smaller than Badajoz, but a much larger tourist destination because of its Ancient Roman ruins.  In fact, I had already been to Mérida with API to see the ruins, although we hadn´t seen much else of the city.  It was so much fun to go back to a place that I had seen before, it brought back a lot of fond memories.  We were able to walk around the whole city in just a few hours.  It has so much history, with a lot of beautiful architecture and random excavations all over the place.  You can tell that many of the structures have been there since ancient times.  It also seems to have not been hit as hard by the ´crisis´as other cities in Spain, especially Badajoz.  For the most part it was a very pretty, clean city and we never saw any areas that didn´t look safe.  The pictures below show the route that we walked as well as a picture of the Plaza de España in the downtown area.

Hotter than the sun in the south of Spain

I hear that it's starting to get chilly back home.. I wish I could send some of this heat there!  It's 90 degrees and sunny all week long...  I'm certainly not complaining!  But the song is right, when the sun comes out here it's brutal!

This post is a random montage of updates.. enjoy :)

So we continue learning new things everyday here.  I absolutely love our apartment but, as all apartments have their issues, we have such quirky ones.  For example, our hot water works when it feels like it.  In order to shower we first run the kitchen sink, then the bathroom sink, then finally the shower and HOPE that eventually some hot water comes out.  Or, sometimes it works right away.  Just the fun of moving into a new apartment I suppose.

So updates to the travel agenda... we may be doing a trip to Malta.  We've set up an internet contract but have to wait for a man to come make the installation in our apartment.  They won't make an appointment and only call to give 1 day's notice, just slightly inconvenient. The flights we found to Malta leave Tuesday and we still haven't heard from the internet man.  The contract was completed Monday and it's now Friday.  We're thinking of just blowing off the call and taking care of it when we get back.. I mean, how often can I go to Malta??  I'm pretty sick of dealing with setting up utilities anyway, it's scary.  I don't know what people are saying to me.  Between having to do a verbal internet contract on the phone and signing 40 pages of bank account papers, I could literally have just sold my soul and have no idea.

I also met one of the teachers that I will be working with.  I have to admit, though, it's a little scary that I haven't met or even heard from any teacher from the second school I'll be working at yet.  Worse, the teachers from the first school still haven't filled me in on what my schedule is going to be, what kind of classes I'll be teaching, how well my students will know English, or how old they are (the range is 12-18 in high school here).  I have little idea what my responsibilities will be.  I wonder if my other school even knows I'm in Spain.  It's a little scary, seeing as I will be starting in 2 weeks.  We have an orientation coming up, so I'm hoping some things will be clarified then.  Other than that, I just have to go with it..

Aside from meeting a Spanish couple last weekend, we just met our neighbor who is a little younger than us and super nice!  He has a terrace that is just above ours so we can sit outside and talk.  He's a great guy and very intelligent.  Last night he brought us out to a botellón with him and a bunch of his friends.  We were a little nervous because some of the kids there were as young as 18, and we definitely did not want to run into future students.  We met a few former students of our schools, but I think we managed to not meet current ones.  They were a very cool and open group of people.  A bunch swarmed around us when we first arrived because they were so eager to learn about us and practice their English.  Spaniards know a lot about the US, more than Americans know about other countries.  The funniest thing was that they wanted to know why we were HERE of all places.  It's a small city, and most of them grew up here so they're really bored with it.  They say we'll be bored of it too if we give it another week.  I hope they're wrong!!

Those are pretty much all of my current updates.  We had a few more small successes today.  Our Tarjetas are finally being processed and will be ready to pick up in a few weeks.  We've successfully opened a bank account and received a visa card today, AND made our first deposit to the new accounts.. exciting stuff.  We also bought some soil/flower seeds and hope to give our terrace a little sprucing up.  We also found a new great part of town yesterday.  We haven't been there at night yet, but it seems like they have some nice bars and restaurants.  We found a pretty cheap chinese restaurant, too.  Surprisingly, legit restaurants are hard to come by here, as people mostly prefer to grab a beer and pick at some tapas.  I miss going out to eat though!  That's about all for now.  Missing all of my family and friends back home.  I strongly urge you to come visit :)

Yesterday we finally asked for a bit of help getting everything arranged.  We've decided to put off our trip until all of the important details are taken care of.  It's unfortunate because putting off the trip means we probably don't have time to do our nice long path through the north.  We may have to just settle for a trip to the coast of Portugal or the Costal del Sol (poor us).  So within the next few days/ week we should have our Tarjetas almost set, cell phones, internet (fingers crossed!), and a bank account set up.. now all I need is some income and things will be perfect.

Last night we finally found some nightlife in the Centro, and a couple people who had the patience to be friends with us for the night, which was pretty exciting.  Oh how I've missed going out in Spain.  We went to this cool little club where the bartender just passed out free shots/took them all night.  It's funny how Americans stick out like a sore thumb.  As soon as I open my mouth the first response is, "where are you from?".  And I was shocked to learn last night that I was the first American most of the group had ever met.  I'm not in Sevilla anymore, duh.

Adjusting to the Spanish Lifestyle

"Culture Shock": What I didn't think existed because I didn't experience it in Sevilla.  I guess it's much different when you go in a group of 60 Americans, have all of your accomodations taken care of, food on the table, a piso waiting for you, school already arranged, and a cell phone already in your pocket. Not to metion you're in one of the biggest cities in Spain with millions of things going on.

It's not so easy here.  Not saying I don't like the adventure or that I wasn't expecting it, but I think I've redefined Culture Shock.  Between catching every other word people say to me, and them catching 1/3 of mine.. getting around here is a bit more difficult.  Last night we tried to order 2 Desperados and ended up with 2 sprites.  Como?  After getting help finding the apartment, we've been trying to be a bit more independent, but there are so many limitations.  Today we weren't even able to buy a cell phone because we don't have our Tarjetas de Identidad de Extranjeros (basically a temporary residence card).  But in order to get those cards we need to get another certification from the Spanish government, but in order to get that certification we need to file ourselves in some other archive, and in order to do that we need to contact our landlord, and in order to that we need cell phones, which we're unable to buy because we don't have the Tarjeta that we need in the first place.. and so on and so forth.  It's getting pretty frustrating, and throw in a language barrier on top of that and it's near impossible.  Along with no cell phones we don't have internet, and have little hope of getting a contract, being illegal aliens and all.  Try booking a trip only using some rinky-dink wifi at a coffee shop!  And not being able to Skype with my family and friends back home only adds fuel to the culture shock fire.  So I think finally we have to break down and ask our guardian angel for a bit more help.  Despite the rant, it isn't so bad, and will definitely get better.  We're also having problems finding the nightlife!  Finally last night we came across several really fun looking clubs in the center of the city... but they were still dead at almost 1 AM.  I know nightlife starts really late here, but come on!

So hopefully we will be leaving for a beach trip soon to unwind and escape this heat... 41 degrees at 7:30 last night!!

Bienvenidos a Badajoz

After getting one last fill of chowder, clam cakes and bakes, and Dunkin Donuts, we’re
finally off to Europe. First stop is Lisbon, Portugal. After hours of painstaking packing,
weighing, repacking, reweighing, and finally sneaking into Long Island’s local airport
to get a final weight on the bags, everything is finally in order and here we are sitting
in Newark’s airport. It dawned on me today that I’m flying into Portugal and the only
word I know in Portuguese is “obrigado”. So, as we were running out the door I had to
frantically look up phrases like, “take us to the bus station please” and “we need 2 tickets
to Spain”. It’ll be fine, though, I think Elliot and I are professionals at winging it.  The only bad thing so far is that I lost all of my music and brought the wrong charger for my brand new camera.  At least I remembered my passport...

......

The flight from Newark to Lisbon was great.  The challenge of locating and buying bus tickets in Portuguese was not so great, but luckily I have outgoing Elliot with me or I'd be done for.  In a haze I almost forgot to get off the bus at Badajoz, but alas here I am.  One of Elliot's coworkers is an angel sent straight from heaven.  She's letting us stay at her apartment, and to top it off agreed to let us trek her around town being our translator while apartment searching.  But it paid off... in one day we found an absolutely AMAZING piso in one of the nicest areas in town.  It has an extra bedroom for whoever comes to stay (hint hint) as well as a huge patio on the 6th floor with one of the prettiest views I've ever seen in a city.  It's perfect.   I've officially been awake for 32 hours and counting.  It's about 10 pm, so I figure it's time to rally and just adapt to the time change.. Update: We ended up at 100 Montaditos, which I'm sure my Sevilla friends fondly remember :)
 Next day..
After 14 hours of sleep, we were ready to go.  I spent 5 hours walking through the city.  Despite having everything you could want in a city, it's pretty small.  After getting completely lost we walked OUT of the city and nearly walked into Portugal (that's how close we are).  My question is:  Did Spain get Americanized while we were gone???  While packing I made sure to include conservative clothes and only 1 pair of sandals, and exclude flip flops and short shorts.  But while walking around the city I see short shorts, dresses with butts hanging out, and.. flipflops?? What? I can remember being gawked at for wearing flip flops.  So much so that I didn't even pack them, despite this temperature.  Times have definitely changed, but I like it.  Tonight is a city-wide event called "La Noche en Blanco", which I just learned basically means to not sleep all night. When we slept til 2:30 this afternood I feared we had missed it, but silly me I haven't quite adjusted to the Spanish lifestyle... it didn't start until 10pm.  La Noche en Blanco is an event with different shows and exhibitions throughout the major sites of the city, along with free entrance to monuments and museums.  Pictures to come..