Month: July 2018

7/29/18

(Warning: this entry is not PC.  It’s my personal observation)

Oh my God!  I think I’ve hit ‘giant size’ in this country.  All the men are smaller than me.  What the heck?  Do these people not eat or something??  Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but I think Spanish men are considerably shorter and skinnier than men in the U.S.   I have, more times than not, had a conversation at eye level with a guy and never had to look up.  To add to it, they are usually the size of a fourteen year old boy.

To all Spanish men:  please eat something!

The young college kids I attend Spanish language school with are all fairly normal.  Well, I guess ‘normal’ to me is not really normal to the world.  The majority of people (mostly men) I’m used to are at least an inch or two taller than I am.  I’m five foot, three inches and, therefore, not very tall to begin with (in my ‘normal’).  So when I see Scandinavians or Brits, I’m elated.  They make me feel short, pudgy and normal again; not so damn gigantic.

I was having drinks with some classmates a few days ago when a group of Scotts sat at the table next to us.  I was so happy I almost wanted to jump up and hug them. Don’t worry. I didn’t.  But they were taller than five feet!  Ok, ok, ok…I’m exaggerating.  The average Spanish man is NOT short.  He’s just shorter than MY normal, ok?!

This has been a very busy week for D and I.  As you know, we’re in a Spanish immersion program.  Classes are four hours a day and then we participate in an activity to practice the language.  One of the activities was learning how to flamenco and salsa.  During the dancing lesson, we got to talk to our partner for a minute before we had to move to the next partner.  It was great, but when you’re trying to count the steps in your head and translate them in Spanish while trying not to step on your partner’s foot, it’s ridiculously hard.  Suffice it to say, that activity most definitely ended up with an alcoholic reprieve at the end.

Most days, by the time we come home, our heads (cabezas) are exploding and our bodies are exhausted not just from the lessons and activities, but from the heat.  The temperatures these last few days have been in the high nineties (as I’ve heard, you have also experienced this week).  Not the kind of temperature our Seattle bodies are used to.

I wasn’t paying attention when I was watching the weather forecast on television last week when (in Spanish) they announced a warning for high temperatures this weekend.  So what do I do?  I book a day-long tour to walk around an historical city.  I really have to get my Spanish down quick or I’m going to get us in trouble.  It’s a good thing we didn’t die from heat exhaustion.  We spent the whole day walking in the sun.  As soon as we got home, we peeled off our clothes and sat under the air vent for almost an hour.  Yeah, I know, try not to imagine it.  It wasn’t a good sight.

The trip ended up to be a great experience.  We learned a great deal about Ronda, the city we visited.  I won’t go too much into detail, but Ronda is where the torero, or the bullfighter, originated.  It’s where some of the best bullfighters learned their skill, or art, as they prefer to call it here.  Ronda was also a refuge for all non-Christians, especially the Muslims who tried to flee persecution, after Isabel and Ferdinand conquered Spain. It was built by the Phoenicians and then the Romans before it fell to the Berbers, and finally, the Spaniards took it in 1485.

Another interesting thing about Ronda was that Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles both had a heavy presence there.  Finding the people and the place inspiring to their writing, they lived briefly in Ronda and published stories about the art of bullfighting. Welles met his future wife there.  If you are an aficionado of classical American movies, you would know her.  Her name was Margarita Carmen Cansino, or better known as Rita Hayworth 🙂

Ok chicos…hasta luego!

It took three men to open the metal door where the bull is kept. The men would stand on the second level and pull the rope.

The bull path to the arena. It’s made out of wood so the bull doesn’t injure its horns.

7/19/18

Our sleep cycles are still off.  We stay up all night and practically sleep until mid-afternoon.  The few times I woke up early and went out, there was no one around.  Yesterday was one of those sleep-all-day days.  When we ventured out in the evening, I had a ‘what the duh’ moment.  I looked around and there was a world full of people.  “Are these people all jet lagged too?  Oh, wait…we’re in the land of siestas!  People don’t come to life until late in the evening here…”

I can’t blame them.  The sun and heat are pretty intense.  It was 104° yesterday. I wouldn’t be able to go out even if I wanted to.

So what do you do when you’re frustrated and don’t feel like you’re getting much done??  You go shopping, of course.  Buying something always gives one an instant sense of accomplishment and gratification.  “Look, D…I found the perfect socks!”  Not that we don’t have any socks, mind you.  But hey…you got something done…instantly!

We went to El Corte Ingles, or ‘the English quarter’, which is a department store located in the shopping district.  I am still awed by the fact there are hardly any people in sight during the early afternoon hours.  The shopping district was the only place where people were still around. Thank goodness for shopping!

Check out these pictures of day versus night…

7/18/18

Being in this beautiful city, I almost forgot why we came here in the first place. I got carried away with the sites, the food and the beautiful m…

Ok, it’s time for some serious work…to get D registered for school.

The thing about Spanish schools is that it’s complicated.  You’ve got the international private schools, the Spanish private schools, the Spanish semi-private schools, and finally, the public schools.  We decided that an international school might not be a great fit for D.  From previous experience, international schools usually teach in the school’s main language (English, Swedish, German, etc.), and then teach you an hour’s worth, or less, of the local language.  The idea for us is to be totally immersed in Spanish.  This means either a private Spanish school with a little English or full on public school.  Since it was difficult for D to get into a Spanish private school, as she has zero Spanish language, public school is the only option at this time.  Unlike the States, public schools here are not quartered within your living boundaries. You can live in neighborhood A and be assigned to a school in neighborhood G.  We have registered her at a bilingual French/Spanish public school. Students can choose to study in both languages or just one. It’s the luck of the draw.  D has chosen Spanish for now. We should know by early September if she makes it in or not.

Too much work gives me a headache.  Well, maybe it’s the heat.  It’s 9:30 pm and it’s time to go to the beach…

7/18/18

What do you do when you get to a new place on the other side of the world? You sleep. And then you wake up at the crack of dawn and see what’s out there. Malaga is a beautiful city, but at 7:30 am it’s a ghost town.  You can forget about meeting humans on the street.  We walked around a bit until a few places began to open. The great thing about this city is that almost all the impressive sights are in a twenty minute walking radius.  We started out by visiting the Alcazaba.   The Alcazaba, or the ‘citadel’, is a palace-fortress built in the 11^th century by the Muslim Hammudid dynasty.  It’s a beautifully built fortress with fragrant gardens and flowing fountains. Pretty impressive stuff for that time period.  We never got to the palace, though. It was really hot by 11 am.  And our Seattle blood was getting too warm.  We will save the palace for another day.

7/15/2018:

Five minutes. A lot can happen in less time than that. You can win the lottery in less than five minutes, have a conversation with a stranger who ends up being your life-long friend in five minutes, or miss a flight and have to deal with a crap load of problems from Delta in five minutes.  You know I didn’t win the lottery (or you’d all be flying with me to catch a party on an island somewhere).  I’ve met and became friends with many of you in less than five minutes.  And yes, D and I missed our connecting flight in exactly five minutes.  A lot of crap followed after that.

They said it was the weather, but the flight was a smooth ride, sunny skies all the way to New York.  I then spent the day begging and pleading with Delta to find another flight. They finally decided to send me on an Italian plane, but the Italians looked at our Delta vouchers and threw it back at us. “We can’t touch this,” said the little itty-bitty, half-balding Air Atalia guy in disgust. “You need to go back to Delta. They need to issue you a ticket. We can’t do anything with THAT.”

I’m not going to bore you with our four-hour ordeal of trying to find a solution to a problem Delta said they would initially take care of if something like this should happen. We had an hour to connect.  They said not to worry.  They said they would take care of everything IF anything should happen and we miss the connection.

We missed the connection.  Then they shooed us away.  The weather is not part of the deal apparently.  But I will tell you, after going from one Delta counter to the next and finding no resolution, they found me crumbled on my knees on the floor crying like a baby. I had been traveling since 5 am.  It was 9 pm by then and I had lost it.  They must have taken some pity on us because all I remember after that was checking my phone before putting my head on a pillow in a dingy hotel room.  It was 12:37am.

7/16/18:

Yesterday was a very bad day.  I should have known it would be when the 40-something year old guy sitting next to me started picking his nose and wiping the flakes off of his tray as he played his screen games. I cursed my fate when he added fidgeting and rubbing his chest vigorously to his repertoire. But when he overheard me telling the flight attendant we had fifteen minutes to catch our connection, this man, who I had secretly labeled as ‘gross’ and ‘psychotic’ earlier in my mind, rose to retrieve our bags from the overhead bin and, in a strong and manly voice announced to all to please move out of the way as these two “young ladies” need to catch a flight NOW.  I believe the ordeals we encountered yesterday was a result of my mean thoughts towards this man. I know I was punished for my unkindly thinking behavior, and serves me right for doing so.

Today is a new day.  I have sworn off all unkindly thoughts of anyone.

I have resigned myself to whatever comes.  So far so good.  We are on a plane to Malaga!  Finally.