Cúpido Ha Llegado

I am so excited for Carnaval. It officially starts this Friday and goes through Tuesday night. There are parades, costumes, drinks, parties in tents, and apparently, so much more. I’m just counting down the days until I can put on my superhero outfit and celebrate Carnaval in the town with the 3rd best party in Spain. Finding costumes has been filled with drama. Well, really just one day of drama. I bought a detective costume (don’t ask why…it was a bad decision) and when I got home and tried it on, it looked awful. Not only did it look awful, but also there were holes in it. So I took the costume and the magnifying glass accessory I had bought back to the store, not twenty minutes after buying it. Upon trying to return it, the owner lady showed me the holes and said, “These weren’t here before.” I said, “Um, yes. They were. I promise you.” After some debate, she finally murmured something incoherent. I asked her to repeat herself and with an eye-roll, she told me to go talk to one of the worker men to get a store credit. I went to the man and got the credit. He told me to go back to the lady to see if I wanted them to order anything from their catalogue. I went over, the lady said something, again incoherent, repeated herself upon my request, then looked at another customer and said (in Spanish of course), “Ugh, she doesn’t understand anything.” Referring to me. I said, “I understand you, “ starring her straight in the eyes, then told her I would come back later to use the credit. So stupid. Eventually I went back and got a firefighter costume…never going back to that store again. Oh, and they never gave me the money back for the magnifying glass. They robbed me of my 3 euros.

These past few weeks have been pretty uneventful. I went into Madrid to see a friend from the States who was there on vacation with some of his friends, so it was good to see a familiar face. Other than that, I’ve been saving money by not traveling too much for Carnaval and my spring break trip at the end of March. I’m going to be going to…ITALY! Yes…again. But I’m obsessed with it. I love that country. One of my best friends from college is going to meet me there and we’re going to see Florence, Pisa, Cinque Terra, and wherever else we can manage to get to during our weeklong vacation.

School has been good. I should seriously be documenting all of the funny stories I come home with each day, in case I ever feel the need to publish a bestseller about my life here…but there are just so many. For Valentine’s Day this week, the students have been writing “Roses are red” poems. They’re hilarious. Even the bad ones are great. “Roses are red, violets are blue, I am me, and you are you.” “Roses are red, Violets are blue, I think you might be sick, Go take a Tamiflu.” Classic.

Here’s a nice, romantic picture of the Moralo sunset for you…Feliz Día de San Valentín!

Wine Makes Teaching Easier

It’s so cold here. I mean, compared to Virginia, it’s probably warmer…but everything is relative. Compared to the wonderful weather we'd been having, the frigid wind is not something I look forward to facing when I leave my apartment. Every winter is always the same. I’d rather hibernate than be social on a Friday night. This would happen in university too. Especially fourth year, I remember going out every Thursday night to “Survivor Hour” (cheapest drinks in the world all night long) in the first months of the year…but come December, I would spend my weekends in my living room with roommates watching movies and building up our fat stores with popcorn, pizza, and whatever else. Main point: I want spring to come to Navalmoral. Although I have managed to keep up with el jueves social here a bit…

I think spring will be here before I know it though. January absolutely flew by. On February 1st, I second-guessed myself as I was writing the date because I could have sworn it was only just Christmas. Especially with Carnavales coming up (could not be more excited) and having a week off of school to party, it’ll be March really soon. Then, at the end of March, I’ll be spending my Semana Santa (spring break) with one of my biffles, Ivana, traveling through Northern Italy. I know Italy is the only other country I’ve visited this year so far (Venice and Rome), but I’m in love with it. Let’s just call this year "the year of Spain and Italy." I have the rest of my life to see other countries…but for now, I want to eat all of the pizza and gelato I can.

In the next few weeks, I found out I have to know for sure if I want to come back here or not next year. My tutor/mentor/coworker told me that I if apply and then later decline, my school won’t get a language assistant next year. So, it all rests on my shoulders. If I decide not to apply, they will definitely get a new one. If I do apply, I have to be certain I’ll accept, or else I’ll be screwing them over. I’ve made so many pros and cons lists over the past few weeks, but one major pro to add to the list happened this past week…

On Wednesday I was sitting in the teacher’s lounge in the period before break time, looking up stuff to do with my tutoring classes when two women came in and started laying out long white table clothes on the big table in the rooms. As they set up, I got more and more curious, but I had work to do. I turned back to the computer and a few minutes later heard, “Plop! Plop! Plop!” The women had placed about 6 wine bottles on the table and were starting to put cans of beer out. I decided work could wait and moved to different table where another teacher was working so I could have a better view. Then, the women started bringing out plates of cheese, ham, chorizo, tortilla, other meats, and cans of soda. Eventually, I caved in and asked the other teacher what was going on. She said that one of the women setting up, a grounds caretaker, was retiring after over 30 years of working at the school and that this was her going away party (yes, the guest of honor throws their own party...just like birthdays). When the bell rang at 11.15, all of the other teachers came in and the bottles of wine were popped. For the next 30 minutes, everyone ate, drank, and chatted. Even the school director was in there, having a glass of wine or two. Then, when the next bell rang, everyone left and went to teach class. I couldn’t believe it. Day-drinking at school, on the clock, then going back to teach. Not that anyone was drunk, but it’s just a whole different mentality over here and I love it.