Today was the day of my appointment at La Oficina de Extranjería (“Foreigner’s Office”) to apply for my temporary residency card. My very kind bilingual teacher at school had offered to drive myself and another girl in the program to Huelva, the capitol city in the province, where the office is and help us through it all. It was supposed to be an easy morning, and we should’ve been back in the morning to finish out the school day. But let me tell you: the world had other plans for us today. So many things went wrong that I actually haven’t stopped laughing all afternoon, due to sheer disbelief.

1. Marisa’s car was having troubles this morning. As 99% of the cars here at manual and her car was recently in the shop, it was having trouble getting up this hill to leave town, and it turned off 3-4 times before we finally had to wave all the other cars past to reverse down the hill and go the only other way we could to get out.
2. In the car on the way to Huelva, my brother called me, and we lost the call almost immediately, because I had bad service in the country hills of the freeway. As soon as the call dropped, I simultaneously ran out of saldo, or money on my SIM card to use Internet, make calls and send texts.
3. We arrived in Huelva fine, made it to the office fine and sat down for my appointment when called. (Also, of note, it was the first time I’ve ever been fingerprinted, which was weird for me.) As the worker was going through my paperwork, there was an issue. There is a form you need to fill out and take to the bank to pay a fee of 15 euros. With no further instruction or numbers other than “Modelo 790” (the form’s name), we printed the only one we could find on the Internet, which seemed like the right one, and I filled it out and paid the fee ahead of time last week in Valverde del Camino. TURNS OUT, there are multiple additional numbers for the Modelo 790 form. I had 006; they needed 012. So after trying to be very prepared, I had to re-fill out the form and go to the bank to pay the fee a second time.
4. It took us 3 banks to finally get one that would accept my form. They kept saying they couldn’t process it with my passport number; they could only process it with a Spanish identity card number - the number I had to fill out this form and pay the fee for to get in the first place. Absolutely ridiculous. And false. Because, obviously, the final bank knew how to do it, and the bank I went to here in Valverde had known how to as well.
5. In the meantime of running back and forth between banks, we lost Nicole, my friend/the other auxiliar that had come with us. Since I had no saldo on my phone and I couldn’t hear my phone in the bank, she kept calling, and I couldn’t call her back. We had planned on meeting her back at the foreigner’s office, but all the bank stuff took far longer than anticipated, and she had no money and no more saldo on her phone either. (Spanish cell phones are tricky. If you have no saldo, you can answer phone calls, but not make them, so if you miss somebody’s call, you’re SOL.) Finally, we called Nicole from Marisa’s phone, got a hold of her and decided to meet up back at the foreigner’s office in between leaving bank #2 and going to bank #3.
6. I stepped in wet mud on the way back to meeting up with Nicole again.
7. Back at the foreigner’s office, we wanted to go inside to ask them if they had missed something on the form, since the banks wouldn’t accept it, but the security guards were not letting anyone in the building. Why you ask? Apparently, someone had had an epileptic seizure, or something similar, on the sidewalk or street by the entrance, and they were not letting anyone in because of that, though I saw no medics or anything, so I’m not sure if the poor person even got help. I never saw them, nor saw what was actually going on, so I’m not sure how that panned out.
8. Okay, fine. We decided to go to bank #3 to try one last time to pay this form again. By the grace of who knows what, Caja Sol knew what they were doing, and they processed the form no problem. *Phew.* Right?
9. Not so much. When we got back to the office to turn in our forms as proof of payment for the fee, they still wouldn’t let us in, but THIS TIME, it was because the workmen who were doing construction in an area of the building had accidentally had cut a gas line. Thus, the security guards, again, were not letting people in the building for another 30 minutes while the workmen rectified the problem.
10. Okay, fine. We all wanted to use the restroom and grab a coffee, anyway, so we went to a nearby café to kill the time. I wasn’t sure if my 3 euros was going to be enough to cover all of our coffees (turns out it was), so I decided to jet off to a nearby ATM, just to be safe. As I waited for the ATM to process the transaction, instead of spitting out money, it spit a “DECLINE” in my face. Call your bank, says the ATM, as if that is so simple from Spain when your bank is in the U.S. I thought it was weird, because I have more than sufficient funds, and I started to get nervous that perhaps someone had drained my bank account. I decided, though, that it was probably just because the ATM was at a small bank, and it maybe it didn’t recognize my card from the U.S.
11. We walked back one last time to the foreigner’s office to try to turn in the paperwork again, and guess what the security guard’s told us this time? They were shutting the office for the day, and they told us we had to come back tomorrow. I am not kidding you - I literally only had to hand someone this piece of paper. Not meet with anyone or anything, just to hand someone a piece of paper. The security guards were not having it. 
12. So tomorrow, a day I didn’t have to work because my school is having a party and potluck in the country with the students that, a day I could been having fun with my students, I have to pay to catch a bus early in the morning with Nicole so we can go back to the office, just to hand someone a piece of paper.
13. Succumbing to our fate of many hours wasted in Huelva, we hopped back in the car and drove home to Valverde. Marisa dropped us off at the school, and I decided to walk to the bank to get my 15 euros back for the wrong form, because the bank in Huelva said they would return the money to me. WRONG. They only return the money to you if it’s the same day you paid for it, because they are just a go-between for you and whatever office you have to pay the fee to.
14. I now have to find whatever office this is, probably in Huelva tomorrow because there are no big government offices here in Valverde, and ask them to give my money back, WHICH is what we were going to do today, until somebody told us that I could just do it at the bank back in town.
15. Okay, fine. The phone store is very close to the bank I paid the fee at, so I decided to go charge my phone up again with money while I was in the area. My debit card is declined AGAIN. Luckily, I paid with my back-up credit card and was still able to charge my phone, so I could call Chase and figure out what was going on.
16. I booked it back to my apartment to grab my computer and drop off my paperwork, and I made my way to the café I have been going to for a wi-fi connection. Because, yes, I still haven’t been able to get Internet at my apartment yet. I called Chase, and you know what they told me? They had absolutely no idea why my card had been declined, because I had sufficient funds. They had the nerve to ask me if I had notified them that I was going to be out of the country until next spring, which, of course, I had before I left. They said it must’ve been an error and that my card “should” work now. They also said that if worse comes to worse, always ask to enter my PIN, instead of swiping my card as a credit card. I told them, “Well, gee, lady, I had to enter my PIN to use the ATM, the place where my card first got declined.” And she really had no good answer for that.
17. Moral of the story? My debit card “should” be working now (I don’t know if it is yet), and I will be missing a lovely countryside party tomorrow with my kids to take a dreadful bus back to Huelva to just hand in a piece of paper and get my 15 euros back (hopefully).

I haven’t been able to stop laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. Qué mala suerte (“What bad luck”). I’m not angry in the slightest - how could I be? What good would it do? I am simply in disbelief. And it is about this time that foreigners and native Spaniards alike say, “Only in Spain.”

Let’s first acknowledge the fact that I’m sorry my last post was 10 days ago. ((I’m sorry.)) Now that THAT’S out of the way…

This fin de (slang for fin de semana = “weekend”) before this past one was a doozie. It was essentially an all-weekend birthday celebration for my lovely friend, Miri, which I was so thankful to be included in. (What can I say? My new Spanish friends are awesome. They are understanding, kind and patient with me, AND they invite me fun things to do with good company. I’m so grateful.)

While dinner and drinks and a surprise cake at the restaurant on Friday were lovely, Saturday was the real deal. Her boyfriend, Carlos, had planned a surprise potluck party in the country, so we all piled into cars and set off for el campo (“the country”). What was set up before my very eyes was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen a group of friends do to date. Literally on the floor of the forest near a riverbank the group set up the most beautiful little area for everyone to sit, eat, drink, smoke, relax and be merry. They brought plastic to cover the ground, blankets for on top of that, pillows and cushions to sit on and more blankets to cover the cushions. They brought a piece of wood to put in the middle to put candles and hookahs on. They brought string to hang above everything a beautiful, ornate purple lantern with a candle in it. It was literally like a room in a house, but on the ground in the country. Incredible.

Everybody brought food or drink to pass or share, and everything was set up in a circle, so everybody just grabbed a fork and dug in. (Is it a surprise that we ALL got sick the next week? Everybody has the same cold right now and has for the past week, LOL.) It was a beautiful day, and I got to know a bunch more of the group who I hadn’t met yet. All in all, a great day.

And one that got even better. After we all drove back home and relaxed, showered and eat dinner, it was the craziest night out to date. It began with karaoke at the peña, continued on with a lot of drinking and dancing and ended with me going to bed at 6AM. Yes, 6AM. Crazy. Those of you who know me have never seen me up that late at night. Ever. Well, you know what they say, when in RomeSpain… 

As I mentioned, the next day, Sunday, I started feeling quite under the weather, but I still went out to watch the big Madrid vs. Barca game at a bar with the crew. (I didn’t drink, though, and actually, not really anyone did. I think we all were already starting to feel the effects of the cold we were all getting.) The next morning and the morning after, I had to call in to work and call off my private lessons and things after work, because I literally could not get out of bed. I had the worst fever I can remember having; I actually think I was delirious on Monday. But finally by Wednesday, the fever passed, and I went back to work. I’m still not feeling 100%, especially not today, but I am a functioning member of society, so that will have to do for now.

This past Friday, I went to Sevilla for the afternoon with friends for yet another surprise birthday event. We surprised Paco while he was at the centro commercial (“mall”) eating at Cien Montaditos with his family and his girlfriend, Laura. After he got over the initial shock and opened his present, we sat down with them and ate, too. And then what did we do to have fun after that, you ask? We went to IKEA together. IT. WAS. AWESOME. As funny as it is, I had never been to an IKEA in the states, even though I wanted to go many a time, and I was a frequent peruser of their website and catalogs. IKEA stores are overwhelming in the best way possible: so many people, so many things to look at and yearn for. If I could pluck a bunch of rooms out of there and put them into an apartment, I would in a heartbeat. Frankly, many people in Europe actually do. With a higher level of population density, the apartments are smaller, and IKEA is a perfect (and stylish) solution to organizing a lot of things into a small space.

When we got home from Sevilla, everyone was pretty well beat from being in the car, so after going home to eat and get ready, those of us who came out only went out until 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning, which is calling it a very early night here. The funniest part is October 12 (which was Friday) is the day they celebrate Christopher Columbus day (not sure why), and so there is no school and all of the businesses are shut, except for the bars/cafés/restaurants, obviously. (I actually got woken up by what sounded like canons in the plaza on Friday morning. Everyone made fun of me that I was startled by them.) The bar we frequent, La Estación, had live music on Friday night, and I wish y’all could’ve been there. The band was a cover band playing mostly English songs, and the first song they played? “She Work Hard For The Money” by Donna Summer. Enough said.

I had a very productive Saturday, running to the market and doing laundry - general household chores that I had been neglecting, due to my illness. Miri came over at 4:30 to help me shave my head, a task long overdue. I was so happy to have someone willing to help me out with the back of my head - the one part I can’t do myself (without cutting myself or screwing up royally, ask Natalie) - and what happens? My electric razor breaks with not even the whole back of my head done. I looked like a freak with a capitol F. Luckily, Miri’s brother came to the rescue with his electric razor, so we could finish the job, and they took mine to their father to see if he can fix it.

There was more live music at La Estación on Saturday, and this time, it was much better than the night prior. We had a small group of people together, and we were having a good time listening to the music, dancing a little, singing when we knew the words and laughing a lot. Again, another early night, however, even earlier than Friday, because the boys had planned a game in the countryside with air soft guns - a hobby of theirs - and they had to get up early in the morning to head out there. All things considered, it was probably a good idea to not drink that night and catch up on some sleep, since I’m still sick.

Problem was that it gave me a lot of time to feel even more homesick than I already was feeling Friday and Saturday. It started Friday before we left for Sevilla. I’m not sure why. In all honesty, it’s probably because I’m starting to feel comfortable here. I have work figured out. I have an apartment. I have friends. I have things to do. So when we were playing it tame this weekend, it gave me too much time to think about the things I used to be comfortable with back home: the food I miss, the people I miss, the activities I miss, the COFFEE I miss.

My friends noticed I was being extra quiet this weekend, and I knew I was being extra quiet, but I didn’t know how to put how I was feeling into Spanish for them. (I’m already more quiet than at home, if you can believe it (ha ha), because people in the south of Spain speak wicked fast, and I can’t quite keep up yet, as far as inserting myself into conversations.) And Miri said something that really struck a chord with me on Friday in the car on the way home from Sevilla; she told me that she thought what I was doing - picking up my life and moving all by myself to another country, away from home - was extremely brave, and she was very proud of my courage. I can’t even begin to tell you how much it meant to me to have someone recognize how hard it is to do what I’m doing. You know I’m not looking for a pity party, by any means, but it certainly puts a mental and emotional strain on a person, and for that to be recognized by someone here? It means the world and then some.

But my two days of homesickness are over (for now). Today I woke up convinced to turn things around. I got a bunch done at home again, and then I dragged myself out of bed to get coffee with my friends. We went to a café I had never been to before yet, and they had the most delicious ice cream coffee drinks. Dea also bought Miri, herself and I another drink, whose name is escaping me right now, but it was incredible. I also think it had booze in it, but no pasa nada (“no problem/not a big deal”), haha. They were bebidas para mujeres (“~girly drinks”), as Miri kept saying, but I was more than okay with that.

After coffee, we went back to the peña to watch the incredible Felix Baumgartner break the sound barrier, díos mío. We watched his ascent for so long that a ridiculous amount of suspense had built up, and we were all waiting on bated breath to see if he could really do it and live. Much to our surprise and excitement, he completed the fall with great success, and we all could finally breathe once more. If you haven’t seen it yet, YouTube it. Immediately. It’s a sight to see.

AND NOW, I have caught you up to this very moment. I walked home to get my computer and straight to the café where I am typing this now, so I could call a few folks, eat dinner and use the Internet. (I still don’t have it at my apartment, but that will hopefully be changing by, at most, the end of this week.) I apologize for the super duper extra long blog post today, but I was negligent, and I hope to have properly gotten you all up to speed now.

All my love and hugs and kisses to y’all back in the states. Keep holding down the fort for me. And send me an email every now and again. ;)

So, I almost died last night. (Okay, no, not really, but we all know I have a tendency for dramatics AND I have a serious hate/fear of 99.9% of bugs.) It was my first night in my new apartment, and everything was going great. I had unpacked my things and made a list of what I needed to buy, and I was feeling good about finally being able to get settled.

And then, I decided to go get a glass of water from the kitchen. As I was passing through the apartment, I saw movement by my front door, and lo and behold, it was una cucaracha (“cockroach”). I have never seen one in real life before, and let’s just say, I freaked. I went to grab a shoe to smash it with (now I understand why Spanish people are never barefoot), but it was too fast, and it slipped underneath the front door into a hiding place somewhere in the stairway.

Heart beating out of my chest, I decided to forget about the glass of water. I walked into my bathroom, for whatever reason, y madre mía por díos, there was another one crawling around in the garbage can in there! I quick filled a glass of water and dumped it in the garbage can, but the stupid little bugger just squirmed right out and onto the wall. I tried to smack him with the shoe, but he was too quick, too, and I think I only slightly maimed part of him.

At this point, I am totally and utterly freaked. I don’t think I’ve quite felt fear like that before, in that way. My whole body was on high alert, and my mind was racing a mile a minute. I felt trapped in my room, with the cockroach in the front hall and the cockroach in my bathroom; there was nowhere for me to go, but on my balcony. I slammed the bathroom door shut and stuffed a sheet under the door, so it couldn’t escape (I hoped), and I set up a battle station on one of the balconies to my room. I dragged my desk chair out there, grabbed my cigarettes, phone and Kindle, and I had decided to wait it out until morning.

That was until I ran out of saldo (money on my pay-as-you-go SIM card). Of course, in my time of need, I had literally no way of contacting anyone. Thankfully, I had already sent a few messages to people at home and my Spanish friend Miri here in Valverde. Miri was a great help in calming me down. Cockroaches are apparently common here; I don’t know how I never knew this before. They tend to be more prevalent in certain areas in certain cities at certain times of the year - especially when an apartment has been vacant for a little bit.

There is a spray you can buy at the store to kill them, and that helps. A teacher at my school told me that you can spray it once or twice a month as a preventative method, so I plan on doing that. She also told me they come up through the drains, so all the sinks and tubs have caps on them that you remove when you use them and put back when you’re not. (Of course, the n00b that I am, I removed them all when I moved in. No wonder they came up. And also, I didn’t find this out until I already left my apartment again, so they are still open. I hope no new cockroaches appear.)

When my phone ran out of money, I decided to make a bold move to the bed where I could continue to stand watch over the door. But, due to sheer exhaustion, I passed out at some point for awhile, and I lived to tell the tale. (Thankfully.) When I woke up, I didn’t even bother changing or doing anything. I feel like a hot mess today, with no shower and no touch-up of make-up or deodorant or anything, but I wasn’t going to risk going in the bathroom until I had sprayed my apartment with the bug killer. I grabbed a juice box and a muffin from the kitchen and made my way to a café to have a coffee before work.

As soon as I got to work, all the teachers were asking me how the first night in my apartment went. I proceeded to spill my guts about the cockroaches, and they all felt so bad. They hate them as much as I do, and another teacher actually had found one in her house last night, too. Apparently, last night was their night to shine. The teachers used the phrase, ¡Que asco! (“How disgusting!”) or _______ me da asco. (“_______ makes me sick.”) a lot, and I quite like it. You can use it in regards to basically anything that you think is gross or awful, and it is certainly fitting in the case of cockroaches.

After my first class, I had a large break, so I decided to run some errands. I added more saldo to my phone, paid the remaining money I owed to the inmobilaria (“apartment finders”) and went to the store to buy things I needed for the apartment, INCLUDING the cockroach killer spray. I scurried home and proceeded to spray the stuff absolutely everywhere in every room. And then after spraying the bathroom quite a bit, I found the little bugger sitting on the top of the door. Needless to say, I let him have it and sprayed him to excess until he basically froze on the door. I knocked him down with a shoe and smashed him with my boot, as you can see here:

(The photo will promptly be deleted from my computer as soon as this is posted. Good riddance.)

The score may have been “Cockroaches: 1, Jackie: 0” last night, but today it is the reverse. #winning

Thinking about when I used to have to be at work for Alterra at 5:30AM (when working an open), you’d think that having to be at my school by 9:00AM would be no problem. WELP, my sleep schedule has not adjusted to Spanish time yet, unfortunately. You’d think that after a week it would’ve changed over, but alas, it has not. I’m stuck somewhere between U.S. time and Spanish time, so it seems that if I lived in the Atlantic Ocean, I’d be doing peachy. Most nights, I cannot fall asleep until at least 2:00AM, which is problematic now that I need to be up between 7:30AM and 8:00AM to eat breakfast, get ready and walk to work.

Nevertheless, I managed this morning (but not without many yawns throughout the work day)! Manuela (or Manoli), the directora (“director”) of my school and the woman who I’ve been living with thus far, and I walked to school together at about 8:30 or so, stopping to talk to people she knew on the street. We got there a little early today, so I could sign a bunch of paperwork and get my bearings.

I received my horario (“schedule”) on Friday, and I was happy to learn I will always have Fridays off, so I will always have a 3-day weekend. (And most times, when they have a day off for whatever reason, it is on Mondays, so I presume that some weekends I’ll have 4-day weekends. Yippee!) I have a set schedule Monday through Thursday, subsequently. I only have 12 hours of actual work, or classroom hours. The rest of my off periods and stuff are for me to talk to people or prepare for classes, if necessary, etc.

Above is my schedule, which I translated into English terms to make more sense to y’all.  Since I’m a language assistant, and not a teacher leading my own class, I get to deal with every age group in the school, which as you can see, means I work with everywhere from 3 year olds to 6th graders.

Today was a lot of fun. I have to pretend I don’t know any Spanish, so the kids are forced to talk to me in English. This is actually pretty hard today, because my first instinct is to respond in Spanish when they don’t understand something. Basically? This means I end up looking like the dumbest person on the planet, as I stand there and smile, shake my head and shrug my shoulders. But it’s funny, so it’s fine. It’s what they want me to do, and it proves to be an effective strategy.

The kids are positively adorable. It’s hard to say which class was my favorite so far today. I already knew the teacher of the 1st graders and her daughter, who happens to be in the class, so that hour was fun. I was already sitting in the classroom when the kids came back from the 20 minute break, and when Natalia, the daughter, walked into the classroom, she made a big scene about me being in there, which was hilarious. She dropped to her knees and said something like, “Madre mía, mira quién está,” which loosely translates to her being in disbelief that I was in her classroom. She’s the cutest. (And speaks way better Spanish than I do, obviously, even though she’s only 6.)

The 2nd graders and 5 year olds seemed to like me a lot, too. The 5th graders came off mostly ambivalent to my presence, particularly one girl who give me the stank eye all hour. But that’s okay; kids start to get moody around that age. I have to remember that I was once that age, too, so I don’t take it personally. There is a little girl named Sheila who I am positively in love with, a girl in the 5 year old class. She told their teacher that I was prettier than her (false), and that gave everybody the giggles. Sheila also said that my hair looks like I have a pompón (“pom pom”) on top of my head. (I was wearing my “longer” hair in my usual baby bun on top of my head.) The teacher and I had a good laugh at that, too.

All in all, I have decided I have the best, easiest, most fun job ever. I literally show up and get to be myself, i.e., speak English, all day. That, and get to be around the cutest kids ever. I can’t wait to meet the rest of the students throughout the week!

Un besito.

Since arriving in Spain on Monday morning, I’ve been playing it pretty tame. With all the travel (and the lack of knowing people), I’ve just been trying to get adjusted to what my life is going to be like here (and still dealing with the never-ending saga of where-the-*!@#$-am-I-going-to-live). I toured my school, I got my teaching schedule, I met some teachers, families and another auxiliar … and so on and so forth.

But yesterday, the eldest sons of the director of my school (whose house I’ve been staying at for the time being) came home from university (they study in Huelva during the week), and almost immediately upon arriving home, they asked me if I wanted to go out with them. Of course I said yes. I was finally going to get some social interaction with people around my own age and experience Valverde’s nightlife on the weekends.

Since they don’t eat dinner until 10:00PM or so, there’s plenty of time in the afternoon and early evening to hang out, drink casually and relax. We walked to a house nearby, which they refer to as a peña (literally translated as “club”). To compare to something back home, it seems very much like a cooperative, or co-op. This group of nine (or so) friends split the cost of renting this house and keep a small kitchen fully stocked with drinks (alcoholic and otherwise) and snack food, complete with menus and prices. It’s their space to hang out in whenever they feel like it, and I think most of them have keys (though usually there is at least one person always there, starting in the afternoon, so there is never much worry about being able to get in, according to one of the members). Honestly, it makes a lot of sense, and I think it’s a really cool idea, one that would work well back at home as well as it does here.

All of these people were incredibly nice and patient with my Spanish. (We also had a lot of fun going over English pronunciation throughout the whole evening, as some of them know a decent amount of English words.) We sat around chatting, drinking a few beers and enjoying each other’s company until dinner time rolled around. Everybody went their separate ways to eat and get ready for later, meeting up again around 11:30PM or 12:00AM. (This is the absolute earliest they go out at night(!). They literally laughed in my face when I told them the bars shut at 2:30AM on the weekends at home.)

Myself and four others had a few more beers at a D’Pinxos, a local bar/café/eatery, while waiting for the rest of the crew to be ready. (Buckets of 5 beers/ea. for only 3.5 Euros = 0.70 Euros/beer = ~$0.90/beer. I know, right?) And this is where things get interesting. In Spain, it is not illegal to botellón, i.e., walk around or hang out in public spaces with booze. SO, at the peña, everyone got a glass of rum & coke, and with drinks in hand, we began to walk the streets, not even going in anywhere for a few hours. We just hung out outside of the bars, drinking for super cheap, unfathomably cheap, because we brought our drinks from home. Once everyone’s glasses were empty, we’d walk back to the house and fill up again and go back out. (This happened at least 3-4 times.)

After one of the refilling stops, we actually did go into a bar in town called La Estación (“The Station”), and we had a great time dancing to mostly American pop. I thought it was crazy that no one cared that we brought in our glasses from the house, but I wasn’t about to question it. After un chupito (“a shot”) and the passing around of many drinks, we walked back once more to the house, and everyone put on a goofy hat (of which there was a collection at the peña), and pictures obviously ensued. (I’ll post them soon.)

Eventually, as the night went on and the group dwindled, it ended in a political conversation back at the peña. I was laughing to myself the whole time, thinking about how much a drunken political conversation to cap the night off was just like most nights going out with friends at home. And all of a sudden, it was 5:00AM, and we were finally walking home. I don’t know if I’ve ever I’ve never stayed out that late drinking in my life, but it was so perfect - a quintessential Spanish night out in true valverdeño style. (Valverdeño can refer to a person from Valverde or be used as an adjective - in this case, the latter.) Goodness knows I slept a large portion of today and didn’t feel like I had really kicked the hangover until 6PM. (My temples throb slightly at the mere thought.)

So much drinking, so much walking, so much laughter, so much happiness. I feel like I actually made friends - and Spanish friends, nonetheless - which may seem juvenile, but it’s kind of a big deal when you move somewhere so unfamiliar and constantly feel like an outsider, no matter how nice people are. I can’t wait for more nights with these folk, but I think I need a little more practice at staying up late and continuing to drink, so I can figure out how to function better the next day. I’m sure this does not even begin to encapsulate the awesome that was last night (I feel like it was kind of one of those “You had to have been there” situations), but now you know what you’re in store for if you come visit.

Un besito.

As of somewhere in between 7:00 and 8:00 PM Tuesday night, I finally made it to Valverde del Camino! Unfortunately, this was not before oversleeping Tuesday morning, due to my complete inability to fall asleep at a decent hour Monday night. (Probably was the 4-5 hour nap I took during the day, no? Whoops.) Thus, I did not get to check out TOMA Cafe, as I had so desired to do. But, that just means I have to make a special trip to Madrid some other time this year! I also shattered my perfume bottle in a tired stupor while getting ready, so add that to the list of things I need to pick up once I´m settled. Luckily, it was almost gone anyway!

After gathering my things — and my consciousness — I checked out of the hostel and waited on the street corner for my taxi to the bus station. I had already purchased my bus ticket ahead of time, which was helpful and not helpful all at the same time. Trying to read the departures board at the station proved to be difficult, but after much fretting, I decided to go to the platform I thought seemed right… and it was! *Phew.* I was nervous the whole time, though, because everyone else seemed to have a seat number printed on their ticket, and I don´t think mine did. No one bothered me about it, however, and no one had the number of the seat I was sitting in, so I got two seats all to myself with no one in front of me, i.e., plenty of space to relax for what would be a very long day of bus riding.

Surprisingly, I fell asleep for most of the first four hours of the bus ride until we stopped for lunch. Reading and listening to music most of the afternoon, I was surprised to be feeling sleepy again towards the end of the journey. Drifting off once more, I opened my eyes to the bus getting ready to stop again, and I knew we had to be getting close. But since I was asleep, I missed the sign saying what town we were entering, and everyone was quite confused when we were stopped, and no one seemed to be getting off or on. I noticed two women and a young girl peering up into the bus windows. All of a sudden, I heard “Jacqueline! Jacqueline!” Unbeknownst to me, I was in Valverde del Camino, and the people calling my name were the director of my school, one of the teachers and her daughter.

They have all been unbelievably nice to me since my arrival: housing me, feeding me, helping me get my cell phone set up. On Wednesday, I got a short tour of my school and met a lot of the teachers, as well as had beers in la plaza (main square in town) with another language assistant who did the program last year and is staying with her (Spanish) boyfriend this year. There are two other language assistants here as well, another American girl and a girl from Turkey, who I hope to meet soon.

The one other (American) girl working in Valverde del Camino is currently in Sevilla. We were really hoping to live together in Sevilla and carpool up here with some teachers from her school, but that does not look promising. If there is room in a carpool (and that´s a very big if), it seems as though there will only be one spot. I can´t keep waiting forever for a place, much less I don´t want to take advantage of the generosity I´ve already been shown at my director´s house. (Nobody ever wants to overstay their welcome.) SO, as of not that long ago, I have decided to search for a place in Valverde del Camino. It´s not ideal to not have a roommate, by any means, for cost purposes and company´s sake, but it will have to do. But Manoli, the director of my school, called me while I was at a cafe today getting writing sent off at a place where I could finally get wi-fi on my laptop, and said something about a woman who may have room and board for me, the only stipulation being that I have to speak English with her and her family all the time as payment. It´s an interesting lead and one that I will be speaking with Manoli about once she gets home.

[Addition at 11:35 on 9/27/12]: JUST kidding. I was having a panicky moment, because I was getting frustrated. I have since calmed down (maybe it was la cerveza (“beer”) and laughs at dinner over El Hormiguero) and realized that living in Sevilla is still a possibility. I am going to try find a place to stay temporarily still in Valverde del Camino until at least Monday when Selma, my *hopefully* future roommate, and I can talk to the lady whose carpool we wish to join. Keep me in your thoughts that day and send me some positive vibes, because living in Sevilla again would be a dream come true. Not only would it make traveling anywhere in Europe, etc., much easier, but it would make it much easier for you all, my lovely friends and family, to visit. I am doing my best to remain patient and stay strong and not let something so silly get the best of me. (And a special shout out to my mom for letting me freak out on her via phone call and text. Love you Mom! I´ll let you yell at me incessantly when you´re old and senile.)

And so begins the adventure! I will keep you posted on my living situation, so I can finally give you my address once I have one.

¡Hasta luego!

(AlsoI apologize for any awful spelling errors or weird punctuation marks; Spanish computer keyboards are a little bit different than American ones. And we all know how big of a proper English nerd I am.)

Hola amantes y amigos. (“Hello lovers and friends.”) I’ve made it. I’ve really made it.

It was a long day of travel; that’s for sure. I was up by 5:30AM on Sunday to shower & pack the last minute things and, of course, to make one last Alterra trip at 7:00AM once Humboldt opened up. Then it was out to New Berlin so my parents could taxi us all down to Chicago, since my flight left out of O’Hare. With a small layover in D.C., I finally got to Madrid’s Barajas airport at 7:00AM this morning. (Spain is +7 hours ahead of Milwaukee.)

Long international flights are always a weird thing. For one? 99.9% of the time I do not sleep while in transit to somewhere, no matter what the mode of transportation is. This held true for this flight, and instead, I watched three romantic comedies on the in-flight entertainment; got told I look like I’m 19 (LOL, wut? That’s honestly never happened before.); and got called “sir” by the same male flight attendant … TWICE. (Don’t worry - United already got an email about the insensitive nature of this employee. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me, and I’m sure it won’t be the last, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting any less. Oh, ignorance.)

After waiting in the sweltering sauna that is the baggage claim area in Madrid, I split a taxi into town with a girl who was on the plane with me. Gotta love random quick bonding moments with strangers! She knew no Spanish, so it snapped me into Spanish-speaking mode fast, communicating with the taxi driver for the both of us, etc. This is what I love about being forced back into a Spanish speaking community; you get a huge adrenaline rush when you have to push yourself to speak all in a second language, and it’s incredibly rewarding when people understand you (and are understanding that your Spanish isn’t perfect).

I dropped my bags off at my hostel, THC Latina Hostel, en La Latina barrio (“neighborhood”) of Madrid, and decided to hunt for wi-fi until I could check in at noon. I probably looked hella crazy. Goodness knows I felt disgusting after being up for 24 hours and on an airplane for a large majority of that time. I drank what probably seemed like a lot of coffee at multiple cafés to kill time (until I realized finally that one of them had wi-fi so I could call home and let people know I was safe), but in reality, I was just trying to not fall asleep in public.

España is home of the long shot of espresso, which is fine and what I expected (this being my fourth time here). Café culture is huge, and everyone drinks coffee, but if only they could taste what my work compadres and I do at Alterra … But they don’t know what good espresso tastes like, because very few people get coffee without milk in it. (Un café con leche is always espresso and milk, and un café is just espresso. There really is no such thing as brewed coffee here. Unless it’s instant. Which is terrifying and another battle altogether.) Alas, there is no use in trying to change their minds, because if there’s one thing the Spanish love, it’s tradition. BUT, I cannot wait to check out TOMA Café tomorrow, because if there’s one legit coffee place in all of Spain, I’m 99.9% certain this is it. My friend Bem, who did the program this past year, ended up hanging out there and doing videography work for them, so I’m excited to see what it’s all about before I venture southwards tomorrow.

Once I finally got into the hostel, I was so relieved that the photos of my private room (with private bathroom, shower, sink, TV, wi-fi and TWO balconies) that I had seen online when booking were spot on, and the room was just as beautiful, if not more so, in person. It’s been the perfect place (other than a café I found while meandering about today and went to twice) to wash the travel scuzz off, finally catch some ZZZs and figure out my game plan for this week.

In other exciting news, there is now a high likelihood that I actually will be living in Sevilla and finding other teachers to carpool with to Valverde del Camino when I have to teach. I found another girl who is teaching in VdC, but at the high school, and that’s her game plan, so I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to find a carpool situation, so we can live together in Sevilla. While I truthfully feel like España is the closest thing I have to home after Wisconsin, Sevilla is really my home-away-from-home. I got to know that city very well studying there three years ago, and it’s maintained a special, special place in my heart ever since. I was looking at apartments tonight, and I got really excited, so keep your fingers crossed that this all works out!

I’m trying to wind down for the night, and I’m not sure if I’ll actually be able to sleep, given my kind of long nap this afternoon, but we’ll see! I have to be up early tomorrow to have ample time at TOMA in the morning before my bus to VdC. Here’s to hoping that I find a better wi-fi connection tomorrow, too, so I can actually finally wrap up the freelance writing work I had been working away at before I left the fine city of Milwaukee.

I shall leave you with this: I’m so excited to be here. I love being back in Spain. My heart is so happy. I can’t wait to share it with y’all.

Un besito. (“A little kiss.”)