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.”)

What a love-hate affair I have with blogging. My inspiration to blog comes and goes like a fleeting afternoon breeze. HOWEVER, given my upcoming (SO SOON, eep!) move to España, my home-away-from-home, I realized something. Every time I create a new tumblr, they basically all fit within the scope of the original, this tumblr, Lo que me inspira.

Thus, here is where they all shall be from this point forward. (Except I’m still keeping the one of all my published writing separate, because that just makes sense, at least in my addled brain.)

Lo que me inspira is where all my updates, thoughts, feelings, inspirations and so on and so forth will be, whether related to Spain or not. I’ll try to keep you entertained. And if I’m not holding up my end of the bargain, I expect you to tell me. I’ll repay you with a home video of me doing The Wobble or something.