Interring the Sardine

Ok, so it's been a month since I last posted a blog. I've been meaning to, a lot has happened, it always just got pushed aside. Pictured above is a white chocolate and curry candy bar that I picked up a little over a week ago. Trust me, it was as nasty as it sounds.

About a month ago it was Carnaval, here in Madrid. Unfortunately, Mildred and I both had to work during the times of the major events, so we saw very little of Carnaval. Her students did dress up as fish for school. One of the major events that we desperately wanted to see was "The Burial of the Sardine". For well over a century this tradition has prospered. A group of Madrid citizens (they have their own cult for this) march through the city streets with a dead sardine that they have placed in a small coffin, of which they have fashioned. It's a long procession, and everyone is dressed in burial garb. Whether or not anyone is shedding a tear for the sardine I do not know.

There are plenty of strange cultural occurences like this in Spain, and so far I haven't gotten a chance to really experience them. I also missed out on Las Fallas, where giant structures made to look like people (kind of like 60 foot tall piñatas) are constructed and burned, creating an enormous blaze. There is another one coming up, but I don't expect to be making it to that one either.

Also, during this past month it was my birthday. On my birthday Mildred, Valentina, Xavier, and I went to an authentic Korean restaurant, so I could get my fill of kimchi. The food was very good, and everyone had a good meal. Thanks, gf for the dinner! Also as a part of my birthday was a trip we took to Avila, a nearby town. But I'll discuss Avila in my next blog. Pictures are already available on Facebook. Also, my roomies had a Friday night dinner in honor of my birthday, which was good but expensive.

The economic crises is hitting people hard here. My friends Valentina and Frederick lost their jobs this past month, but fortunately for them they were able to find new ones right away. I'm still always looking for work. I picked up one class teaching two adults at a company known as, Praxair. It's an American company that deals with gas. So far this class has been a breeze because of the six times that I was supposed to teach it has been cancelled 5 times. Only for this company I still get paid for cancellations. My other private classes have been cancelling a lot as well, but I don't get paid for those. Two weeks ago, all but two of my classes cancelled leaving me with just 40 euros for the week. Still I'm accumulating more work, and I'm able to pay the bills.

One of my adult students, Enrique went on a business trip to Athens, where he had to give a presentation in English. So I met with him on a Saturday to help him prepare for this project. He works for the government, helping design satellite imagery, so his presentation was interesting yet somehow boring.

Mildred and I have decided upon the best pizza place in all of Madrid. It is not Pizza Hut, and it is not the other major chain, Telepizza. There is this Italian place in the center of town, near the metro stop, Tribunal. We have been there a couple of times now. It's nice that you can take your pizza and then go and sit down in the plaza nearby. We are both happy that neither of us live close to this pizza place otherwise we'd be there all the time.

A couple of weekends ago Mildred and I spent a Friday night walking around Madrid, getting ice cream and sitting down by the royal palace at night. It was a very nice time and it was good for the both of us after a long week.

I've been reading a lot of books in my spare time, and studying Spanish on my own. I thought I was going to get into this school that gives free Spanish classes, but unfortunately I arrived too late and am like number 25 on the waiting list. I still hear Spanish constantly and am surrounded by it, so I'm slowly getting better. My reading abilities have gotten a lot better. My listening abilities have gotten a bit better, and my speaking abilities are still pretty poor.

I've been involved in a number of interviews, one of which was for a camp to work at for the summer. Because during the summer it is so hot that everyone leaves Madrid and finds somewhere cooler in Spain to be. So July and August are bad months for English teachers. The only real work to be found is at these camps. I just found out today that I'll be spending the month of July working in a camp in a city north of here called Ucles. They do pay you to teach English during the week.

At another camp Mildred and I are trying to get into they don't pay you, but instead they take care of all your meals and room and board. That would be for the upcoming Easter week, known as Semana Santa. During that week at the beginning of April everything shuts down as well, so we are trying to get into this camp, which would be in a couple of weeks. At this camp you spend all day talking to Spanish people in English, 12 hours a day, its divided up so you are spending about an hour a day with different people. Mildred says this place is nice though, even though you don't get paid, because the food and the hotel you stay in are great.

That's enough for now, I'll write again soon and talk about my trip to Avila.

ETA, Swedish Night, and the Bad Luck Girl

Hello again blog, and blog reading people. I have no internet at my apartment and haven´t for a little while now which has made blogging (something relatively low on my list of priorities) difficult to accomplish. I´m making the attempt today from an internet room near my house. It´s like a euro an hour to use this facility, but I´m here everyday now because I have to get online to remain in contact with certain job possibilities and to keep in touch with people. Also, I have to say that to the people who wished to see more pictures on this blog that that will most likely be an impossibility. First of all, I won´t be uploading pictures anywhere anytime soon from an internet room, and secondly my internet connection was so bad at the apartment that it took me hours just to write in the blog before. Plus, I uploaded my pictures to Facebook, which took me two days to accomplish, and the people who do read this also have access to my pictures on Facebook, so no one is missing anything by me not spending a lot of energy and frustration trying to upload pictures to the blog.

Phew, so plenty has been happening around here I just thought I would mention three things that have stood out over the past couple of weeks. First, ETA, our local terrorist organization. Maybe you´ve heard of ém. They come from the Basque region of Spain in the north and represent a small percentage of the people there that want independence from Spain. They´ve been attacking areas in the country for the past 20 years with the occasional car bomb, that sort of thing. A little over a week ago, my roommate Freddy awoke me, freaking out, and telling me that Madrid was under attack by Al Queda. I looked at him puzzled, still groggy, he then told me to call Mildred and make sure she was safe (because it was about the time in the morning that she would be on the train to work and I had no idea what was happening). I called her and there was no answer, Freddy looked at me like it was the end of the world. One thing about Freddy, he´s a very emotional guy, and quick to respond with his emotions. Me not so much, I went to the TV and watched a little Spanish CNN. It didn´t take me long to discover that the entire city was not under attack but that ETA had blown up a van in the northern part of the city, nowhere near Mildred. The television also alerted that someone had even called in the bomb an hour and a half before the explosion and everyone was evacuated, and no one was hurt. Only a few cars were destroyed and some windows in a nearby building. Thanks ETA. Mildred was fine.

Almost two weekends ago now Mildred and I attended ¨Swedish Night¨. Mildred´s friend Asa is from Sweden and she invited us to her place in northern Madrid, along with a few others, to experience a Swedish movie and some Swedish candies. I had been warned about the candies that I would not like them, but surprisingly I did not find them all that revolting. They were mostly a dark licorice, but covered in salt. The first chunk in my mouth was a bit strange, but as I kept cramming more in there I found the candies to be pretty nice. Still, give me chocolate any day of the week. We ended up watching a really good vampire movie that was unlike any other movie I can think of, it´s called ¨Let the right one in¨or Låt den rätte komma in¨ in Swedish. At Swedish night was one friend, her name is Melissa, and from talking with her a few times it would seem I have met the person who has the most bad luck of anyone.

I met Melissa first at Mildred´s birthday party, but we did not talk for long, I´m sure if I would have I´d have discovered something bad that had recently happened to her. Because it seriously seems to be a daily occurence with her. My second time meeting her she had just escaped mutilation by metro car. She was not looking and her leg slipped in the gap between the platform and the metro and she was stuck. The doors began to close on her and the Spanish people on board were watching what might happen with dulled interest. She managed to free herself before the metro left the station and avoided mutilation, but she had still bashed her knee pretty well. I´m reminding you that I´m just giving you a sampling of Melissa´s hardships and that I would be sitting here for hours if I were to give you a full report of this girl´s difficulties. I believe she has been robbed five times now. She recently found out that she has to have two teeth removed and that it would cost her over a thousand euros. Over the past week she´s had a root canal and multiple times where she´s gone in to get work done but the dentist´s office seems to have screwed up her appointments. Also she paid them the money, but then a few days later received complete dental coverage from her school. She´s told me a number of mind numbing tales about all the hoops the Spanish government has had her jump through (although that seems to be more of a Spanish government thing and not a Melissa thing). And just today I received a long email from her about a computer problem she is having. I´m leaving so much out...so much...but this is just a taste. I´m sure Mildred will have to add a few things about Melissa and her bad luck.

Other than this, the economic crisis is hitting Spain pretty hard and at the interviews I´ve been to that always seems to come up. I´m still teaching private lessons though, and earning something.

Cow Parade

Currently, the streets of Madrid are filled with colorful cows. The one I have pictured is the Olympic cow, Madrid is a candidate city for the Olympic games in 2016. There are already plenty of interesting sites in Madrid, but so far I've found myself stopping to take pictures of cows mostly. They are all throughout the city, and I'm sure I haven't seen all of them. I have been walking around a lot, getting a feel for the city, what major streets connect to where, that sort of thing. I'll probably walking a bit less in February though, now that I have my Abono. That is my monthly pass which allows me to take the subway, train, and buses all within zone A of Madrid. And zone A is usually where I go, all of my classes are located within this area.

Mildred's school is a bit south of this zone. And occasionally, since I have a lot of free time during the day (for the moment) I'll hop on a train and visit her when she's on break at her school. On Tuesdays through Thursdays she has a break from 12:30 to 3pm so we get a good chance to spend some time together. Yesterday we bought some food at a grocery store and sat down in a secluded area of the local mall to eat. But, a security guy kicked us out into the cold and we sat in a cold park and dined on our bread, cheese, and sausage. Which didn't help Mildred much since she's been sick for over a week. We both blame her snot nosed children (and by snot nosed I mean she's wiping noses ) and the fact that her school provides little heat.

One of my flatmates Freddy, (he's Argentinian, but his mom is British, so he speaks English well) and I have been working out twice a week at the building where Mildred lives. Freddy's ex-girlfriend also lives in the same building. We get to work out and it gives us an excuse to see the both of them. But, last night Freddy went to the hospital because he injured his knee. Possibly during one of our times working out, not sure exactly. Aparently he has a bone in his knee rubbing up against some tendons that's causing him a lot of pain. Last night he was telling me that he will likely have to have surgery. He still wants to go work out though! He just won't do any running, all upper body.

Let me explain briefly the people I'm teaching English to. There's Ana: Female, around 30, works at Camper (a fine shoe company) engaged, loves cats, and is still struggling with English even though she's been studying it a lot of her life. There have been large gaps of time though when she hasn't studied (like 6 year gaps).

Enrique: Male, around 30, works with the Spanish military mapping satellite imagery. We talk mostly, and he's highly proficient with English. He shows me a lot of his stuff from work and I realized quickly that I never want anything to do with satellite imagery.

Guillermo and Lucas: Boys, 12 and 10 roughly. They like Xmen, Harry Potter, Sports, normal boy stuff. Lucas is the elder and knows a lot more English than his brother. Our time together isn't very structured and we do activitites and go through some books.

Alex: Boy, early teen. A lot more grown up than his age. We go to his room and we chat about school, and the weather, he loves talking about the weather. He's also attached to his computer and the internet at all times. If I bring something up, he's all over the internet searching for it.

Juan Antonio and Fernando: Boys, 12 and 11 roughly. Typical boys who laugh and have a good time when we are together. Their English is pretty basic so we have a fun time trying to communicate.

That's it for now, just 7 and a half hours of work during my week. I've done a few interviews and I've sent out my resume to plenty of places. Still looking for a lot more work, if I can get up to 20 or more hours I'll be doing more than alright for myself. As of now, I have just enough to pay the bills...actually maybe just a little under. But that shouldn't last for long.

Star Wars, It's Everywhere.

Okay, where to begin. Oddly enough, I felt like I haven't had a lot of free time to just sit down at the computer, or think about writing, even though I only work 7 hours a week currently. I've been filling my time with other things, and at times my internet connection has sucked so when I want to sit down and get online I can't.

Well, let's begin with work. It's very different than Korea, here I have to travel around from class to class via the metro to teach a student at their home for an hour or an hour and a half. Add into that time about 45 minutes of subway riding to get to these places and 45 minutes back. Mildred was right, it's the travel that wears on you, not the actual teaching. And, I've been exhausted by the end of the day because I've been trying to walk to a lot of my places. Because currently I have the time, I'm trying to get to the know the city, and I'm saving money on subway fare, until next month when i can get the monthly pass. So, I've been walking around 3 hours or so a day I bet. Just trying to get familiar with my environment.

And, I'm accomplishing that goal, the language is starting to come along, after two weeks here I can already see some improvement. That's all I'm looking for really, as long as I keep learning and it keeps making sense, even if it's just a word-a-day, I'll be happy. I had a good time yesterday morning. I got a free Spanish paper, met up with Mildred before she left for work, sat down with a coffee and croissant and studied Spanish in the paper, and then went for a walk through Retiro Park. Retiro Park is the enormous park (like the central park of Madrid) which is right near my flat. It was still early in the morning, so it was an enjoyable 40 minute walk.

Everything is starting to feel pretty normal, my place, the teaching, the people, the lifestyle. I haven't done anything really touristy, and probably won't for a while, so far these two weeks have been spent trying to find work, learning what classes are like, orienting myself to my new surroundings, getting to know people, and of course spending time with Mildred when I can.

This past weekend six of us visited a Star Wars exhibition here in Spain, that's probably the most touristic thing I've done. It was a nice exhibition with a few real sized space ships, lots of authentic costumes, videos to watch, models of weaponry and planets, it was a good stroll down the memories of my childhood. And, I wasn't the only one. Mildred who grew up in Venezuela commented to me about her friends having Star Wars toys, and another guy Chris, who's British, also grew up with the same merchandise. Those of us who went, perhaps my entire generation, all have a connection with Star Wars and our childhood.

I haven't done anything too fancy yet though, since I'm just getting started working I really only make enough to just pay the bills, so I won't be doing much that is too extravagant for a while. Which is fine, life here is still new, and I'm enjoying spending time with Mildred, my walks, meeting people, my classes, and my daily attempt at learning the language.

New Beginnings

Hola! It has been a week for me in Spain now, and it has been a very overwhelming (yet enjoyable) first week. This post is not going to be able to contain all of the emotions and events I've been feeling and going through, but this should give some people a glimpse into my first week.

It has been an amazing week of new beginnings. From just a week ago I find myself living in a new country, surrounded by a new language, living with newfound friends, starting a new job, and involved in a new/old relationship with Mildred. It's old because we dated before, but new because my feelings have changed and we are both in love. Trust me, all of this has been a lot to take in a short amount of time.

I was extremely overwhelmed my first few days. I've never been hit by jetlag as badly as I was this past week. I was sleeping when I didn't want to, and laying awake feeling the pressures and anxieties of my new beginnings when I was supposed to be sleeping. I had some expectations about work that I had to change pretty quickly. Spain is definitely not Korea. Surprise!

Also, in the beginning I had decided to come here to work, and not as much for Mildred, but as my time approached and Mildred and I talked more we knew we were going to be back together. Then, I realized that she was more than a part of my coming here, she really is the reason I'm here. And, when I wasn't able to spend time with her, at least as much as I'd hoped, that also weighed on me. Another expectation that I had to deal with, and have dealt with. I still want to spend all my time with her, but now that I'm getting accustomed to this place, it's easier to be on my own. In Korea, I didn't have the expectation of going and wanting to be with somebody, I think that has been the big difference with the opening transitions.

So, I have a flat in Madrid living with three other guys. Two Argentinians, and an Irishman (who is in Ireland right now). Frederick and Alex are the Argentinians. I've been able to hang out with Frederick the most, he works at the airport and he picked me up when I first arrived. He has an ex-girlfriend that lives in the building where Mildred lives, and he's still nuts about her. Mildred and I both think that his ex is the reason I got this apartment in the first place.

I'm going to be teaching private classes at first until I can find more work. I was anxious about what these classes were going to be like, but now that I have two under my belt I'm excited about these classes. Basically I'm getting paid (pretty well) to speak English to people for an hour or so. Mildred has helped me out exponentially, with every facet of my being here. She has been amazing. She's helped me find a place, shown me around Madrid, found work for me to start, introduced me to friends, help interpret for me, and well just about everything I have done so far she has had her hand in.

We've had some time together. It was her birthday on the 19th, and I got to experience the Spanish night life for the first time. Spanish life seems to be a late one. Mildred and her good friend Valentina celebrated their birthdays together at a bar in Madrid that is like a bar/bookstore, it was interesting. This went on till about 3am and then we went to a club till about 4 in the morning. I took a cab home, and was fortunate to recognize where I got dropped off at.

So things are still confusing, but I'm getting adjusted, and I'm picking up the language pretty well. I'm already having Spanish dreams!