Springtime Fluttering

Once again, it seems like years have passed since I last posted. Since Carnaval, I’ve been busy with work and finally got to travel a little, so I actually have things to write about. Hooray!

Since I didn’t know that I would have a week off of work for Semana Santa until about 3 weeks before (thanks for that...), I wasn’t able to plan any grand trips.  I ended up catching the bus to Madrid on Saturday and bummed around the city for about 5 days. It was actually really nice to just do nothing. Juan had to study for his last exam, so I entertained myself a bit by watching TV, playing a delightful videogame called “Ratchet & Clank”, and going shopping. It felt I was back in college and on my traditional “Wear Your PJs All Day” Spring Break (whoops, I guess I forgot to do that whole Cancun thing).  We did eat some delicious food, including awesome Thai food (oh, how I missed it!) and some authentic American hamburgers. They were better than the soft, purple stuff that the Spanish call hamburger meat. For the second half of Spring break, we came back to Navalmoral and hung around. We took a Saturday day trip to a nearby city called Trujillo, which turned out to be a lovely day.

I guess the view made the climb up the hill worth it...

Since the end of Spring Break, I’ve been working, chasing around 4-year-olds and having beers at the bar during my adult conversation class.  So I can’t really complain.

Spring= picnics, tinto de verano, and sun.

Last weekend Whitney and I went to Cagliari, Sardinia (Italy) to catch some rays.  We had some serious bad luck with transportation (the bus to Madrid decided to make about 108 unscheduled stops and we had to book it to the airport in a taxi; a marathon caused a city bus ride from the beach to Cagliari center to take an hour and a half, instead of the 15 minutes it should have taken...), but all in all it was a great trip.  Saturday was by far the best.  We signed up for a mini-bus beach tour and our guide, Tanned-So-Much-He-Was-Almost-Black Alessandro, took us and a few other twenty-somethings to three of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen.  The first two we went to were completely private (though officially public beaches) and there wasn’t another soul in sight.  The waters were so clear and even though the day began with some clouds and a breeze, the sun ended up shining brilliantly (even giving me a pretty solid tan/sunburn). We also ate arguably the best meal of my life on Saturday night. Whitney and I splurged for this one, but it was totally worth it. We had cauliflower puree, eggplant with tomatoes, some type of delicious meat, ravioli, and a typical Sardinian pasta. We also had a bottle of wine, which we weren’t even able to finish because we were so full...yeah, we ate that much.

See my tansunburn?

Sunday was spent, for the most part, on the city bus, navigating the stupid marathon. In the afternoon, after a heated argument with a screaming Italian man about cutting in line at the airport gate (a great story), we headed back home.

Other news: This whole year Whitney and I have been pretty unhappy with our apartment. While a wonderful location on the main street, the apartment is super old, the beds bow in the middle and are super uncomfortable, the pipes smell, etc... One of our friends, a relator (who knew we were unhappy), told us she had the perfect apartment for us (this was about a month ago). The second we saw the other apartment, we said YESSSS!!! It was so much better- bigger, memory foam bed, new appliances, no weird smells from the pipes... So, the week after we got back from Cagliari was spent moving our stuff in, little by little.  After making several trips between the two apartments (maybe 4 minutes walking), loaded down with suitcases and boxes, we were so surprised that in 5 days, not a single person on the street passing by offered to help either of us. Way to go, Spain. No chivalry points for you.

After an exhausting week of running back and forth between the two buildings, yesterday I spent my first night in the new place. There’s still some stuff in the old one and cleaning to be done, but the new apartment already feels like home. I can’t even express how much better it is than what we were living in.

More other news: For the first time since study abroad, I won’t be making the trip over the Atlantic alone this year...Juan is coming to America with me! I guess I should take this opportunity to apologize to my students...trip planning is WAY more exciting than teaching...one word: worksheets.