Y la vida continúa...

So I realize it's been almost two weeks since I last updated, and I must admit, I haven't felt a huge urge to write anything as I feel like I'm fallinginto a rhythm and that my everyday things are just happening that aren't worth documenting.

And then I realize that, despite that feeling, there actually has been a lot going on!

Two Thursday ago, we had our orientation in Albacete, the capital of the province, which is about 70 kilometers to the west of Almansa. There, all the auxiliares from around the province came with their head teachers and we had an entire day full of presentations and meetings. It was a lot of information to take in at once, and most of it I had already read in the guides that I had previously received, but it was still nice to get to meet some of the other assistants and to hear about others' experiences. I also took advantage of our being in Albacete to start the process of getting my NIE (número de identificación extranjero) and my residence card (which is turning intoa multiple-week affair).

After hearing what the auxiliar job typically is (in general, it's to work in a school and help teachers of all different subjects to teach their courses in English), I realized that my role in my school is quiteunique. My main purpose is to work with the teacher of one of the professional vocational studies programs for students who have completed the compulsory part of Spain's secondary education system and/or (sometimes) the Bachillerato. So basically I'm working with her to give classes about marketing and business and leadership... something I don't really know much about. And on top of it all... her English is quite limited.

That said, I must admit that I really enjoy my job. It doesn't matter that I'm teaching a subject in which I have very little experience. What matters to me is that I feel like I'm actually getting a chance to TEACH something (which is precisely the reason why I wanted to do this job here and the one last year in Annecy). I love standing infront theclass and helping the students learn. I love making sure that everybody understands what I'm talking about. I can't wait to be doing it with material that I actually love!

On top of the professional courses, I help out in three English classes as well, working directly with the teachers to bring a little change of pace to the classroom.

And my schedule is pretty awesome, too. Like last year, I only work twelve hours a week (...so much, I know), but unlike last year, I get a three day weekend! That's right, I work Monday through Thursday and have Friday off to do what I want (relax/travel/etc.). I also live only twenty minutes from my school, so the commute is really easy (and actually kind of nice).

So pretty much, school's pretty cool.

Last Sunday, Manuela, one of the English teachers invited Clare and me to her hometown of Ayora, located 22 kilometers to the north of Almansa. There was a honey festival called the Corte de la Miel. She showed us around the city where she grew up, through the winding medieval streets and up to the castle on top of the mountain. They had set up a medieval market (where I bought a bar of soap) and there were all sorts of stands and vendors. Down in the main square, there were all types of food, many of which we tried (tortas fritas [basically fried dough], lots of different sausages, and, of course, many varieties of honey). We were also able to watch a live demonstration of how honey is extracted from the honeycomb. It was a lovely excursion,but I was definitely exhausted by the time we made it home!

There's been much more going on, but I've got to get to bed... I've got work at 8:30 tomorrow morning! More to come, though. Not to worry :-)

Besos,

Lorenzo

Sunday paella

What a day!

On Friday, I received a message from Marga, the head of the English department at my instituto, inviting me over for paella Sunday afternoon. Delighted with receiving the text, of course I responded by saying something along the lines of “absolutely!” She gave me a call on Saturday afternoon, and we arranged that she would come pick me up around 11:30 Sunday morning, after which we would go on a tour of a couple site in the countryside before heading back for paella.

Well, I had nothing less than a blast as soon as she and her family arrived. Accompanied by her husband and two adorable boys, Marga brought me out into the countryside, where we visited two sites in the vicinity of Almansa. First was the pantano, apparently the oldest reservoir in Europe (maybe the world?) that’s still in use. It dates back to the Roman times, and you can note the changes it went through as it was passed through the hands of the Romans, the Moors, and the Christians. Until very recently, it hadn’t been cleaned in a really long time and had many feet worth of muck at the bottom, but within the last few years, heavy machinery was brought in and the entire reservoir dredged. Since it has rained more than usual over the last couple of years, there are now 13 meters of water and it’s opened up from time to time when need be.

Then we went to see the Sanctuario de la Virgen de Belén. I don’t really remember much of the story of how it came to be (or maybe I just didn’t catch it in the first place), but the chapel was pretty, although I was kind of weirded out by the offerings in the back left by people for the virgin. For example, if someone was praying for a family member or friend who had injured his leg, this person may have left a note accompanied by a small plastic or wax leg. Or let’s say, for example, someone needed her back to be cured. She may have left a back brace hanging for the virgin. I don’t know. I thought it was kind of creepy. But maybe that’s just me.

After our little excursion, the whole gang (Marga, her husband, the kids, his brother, his brother’s girlfriend (who, incidentally is a French teacher), and me) headed back to their house for Sunday lunch. Marga having admitted to not being a particularly good cook, we made a quick side trip to a small restaurant in town that, according to Marga, has the best paella in town. It was quite amusing as her husband sat in the back seat, gripping the huge paella pan with cardboard and lifting the hot meal high above his lap.

In typical Spanish style, we didn’t begin to eat until about 3:00 pm, at which point we continued to munch and chat well until 6:00 or so. Paella is one of those specialties of this country that I will never get tired of. It’s got everything all crammed into one big dish: rice, vegetables, [this one had] chicken. So good.

The extended family left after we finished eating, but I hung around and let the elder boy Hugo teach me how to play a board game. But when Hector, the other, insisted on playing by his own rules, the game sort of just fell apart and we just moved our pieces every which way.

What was really cute was that the boys kept asking if I was going to stay there, to which Marga replied that there was no room for me to stay. Hugo took it very seriously, and when I said I was sure to see them again soon, he would say, “Sí, ¿pero cuándo?” as if he doubted that it would actually happen.

I’ve never been one to really appreciate children. But these two were nothing less than adorable. Maybe it’s just that I’ve never given little kids a chance?

Next we all went to the park, and we adults sat and had a drink while the boys played the the other children. It was about 8:45 when we were finally heading back for good, at which point I eventually split ways with the family and headed up the street towards my apartment.

I knew I must have been smiling big when I came in because Clare said, “Must’ve had a great day” when I saw her.

And it was true, I sure did have a great day.

¡Que simpático!

I’m telling you, the people here are just so nice. I really can’t get over it. First, this morning after my one class, a couple teachers invited me for a coffee during the mid-morning break. Then the head of the English department Marga invited me to her house on Sunday to have paella with her and her family. Then Clare got an invitation for the two of us for dinner from her coworker Juan. Then she and I met this woman named Nansi at the centro de la juventud (the youth center) who took us around town to help us investigate internet options (more on Nansi in a little bit). Then I got a text from Óscar inviting Clare and me to dinner tomorrow night. Would you believe that that all happened in a matter of ten hours? Before you know it, Clare and I are going to be serious Almanseño socialites.

But really, though, I can’t believe how friendly everyone has been. Being invited by all these people in these first few days is really making me feel like I’m wanted and appreciate here. I think that they’re truly fascinated by us foreigners. That we’re able to speak different languages really impresses them, too. When I mention to people that I spent last year in France, they ask with much surprise and curiosity, “¿Tú hablas también francés?” And then I go on to explain that I actually speak French a lot better than Spanish, and they’re kind of amazed.

I don’t know, I guess at this point I just don’t really think much about it anymore. It’s just what I love. Would you be shocked if a carpenter told you that he’d built enough furniture to fill an entire house? Probably not. What about if a doctor told you that he’d written over a thousand prescriptions and treated hundreds of patients in a lifetime? Tampoco. I guess for me, language are my thing. They’re what fascinate me and inspire me. What a nerd, huh?

Anyway, I mentioned Nansi before and said I would tell you more about her. She works at the youth center across the way from our apartment building, and as soon as we came in there, she was talking away, trying to be as helpful as possible. It turns out that five and a half years ago she moved here from Bulgaria. She didn’t know a word of Spanish; even worse, she didn’t even know how to read the Latin alphabet! (Bulgarian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet). But somehow she came across a woman around her age who decided she was going to help her. Through drawings and hand gestures, they set up a coffee date for the next day. When Nansi (which is actually her adopted “Spanish” name) arrived at the café, her new friend was already there, ready for a Spanish lesson, with a Spanish-Bulgarian dictionary at hand. Nansi didn’t know where her friend had found the dictionary, but that was the beginning of a long-lasting friendship, and now all these years later, she says they’re like sisters.

Nansi is one of those people who loves to talk to people and to help them, so it’s no surprise that she was able to overcome such a difficult feat of moving to a foreign country where the speak a foreign tongue which is written in a foreign alphabet. She’s a real go-getter, and one of her goals in life is, basically, to pay it forward. She said to us, “I’ve been there, I know what it’s like to start from scratch, to know nobody, and I want to help you feel as comfortable as possible as I had people do for me.” It’s really a beautiful thing, I think.

So she asked us to wait for her to finish closing up the youth center, and when it was all done, she took us around town to try to find a way to get us internet in our piso. The problem is that in order to get the super-fast ADSL, you have to have a contract of 18 months. Otherwise, we can opt to get a USB drive that has a 3G card in it. According to the girl at Vodafone, the connection is actually really good, and you can even buy a router-type thing that will let you share the internet among up to five computers. I am skeptical about the speed of the connection, especially since Clare and I will be wanting to use it for things like Skype and Google Voice. But it is sin contrato, so if we don’t like it, I suppose we can just choose not to renew for the following month.

Oh, and one other funny story. Yesterday, I lay down to take a siesta. But when I got into bed, the legs started wobbling, and all of a sudden it just collapsed underneath me! Although it was pretty annoying, it was still really funny, and I yelled for Clare to come look at my crippled bed frame. So I called Rosario who said she would come by later with her husband to take care of it. She felt so bad when they arrived, but we just laughed and brushed it off. They must have a furniture warehouse or something because they came back half an hour with another frame. And her husband is simply hilarious. While she’s relatively calm (despite her screaming at me to make sure I understand), he is a bouncy man of about 65 who’s flat out hilarious. I secretly hope we have more issues around the apartment so that he has to come by because he is just so funny (that’s only half serious... I don’t really want to have more maintenance issues).

That’s all for now. Busy day tomorrow: coffee with Nansi, dinner with Óscar and Miguel. Gosh, this is the life, isn’t it?

Besos,

Lorenzo

Bienvenido a Almansa

¡Hola a todas y a todos!

So my first week here in Almansa is coming to a close, and so far, the experience has been everything I could have asked for and more. More details on Almansa itself to come below.

First, let me tell you about the adventure I had simply to arrive in Spain. I left Dulles airport at 5:30 pm on Sunday, September 19th and arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris at approximately 6:30 am after a flight where I had red wine spilled all down my left leg. It definitely was not worth getting worked up over, and fortunately I was wearing dark jeans instead of that pair of white linen pants that I do not actually own. I ended up having a nice conversation with the woman who was going to Paris on a trip for the organization she works for. Anyway, so I arrived at 6:30 am in Paris and actually had to change airports. I took the bus to Orly, where I arrived at 10:00 am... and had to wait until 9:55 pm for my flight to Valencia. I ended up buying a day’s worth of internet access (I mean, what’s more valuable: 10€ or my sanity?). And I was also able to nap in the airport and get myself adjusted to the time difference, so it definitely wasn’t a day completely wasted. I finally arrived in Valencia around 11:30 pm and took a taxi to my friend Margaux’s apartment downtown.

Margaux is doing a program quite similar to mine, but it’s through the Fulbright program. She lives in a nice piso with three other girls from her program, all of whom are lovely people. I spent six days in Valencia with them until Sunday the 26th.

Valencia’s a really beautiful city. It’s on the coast, so I was able to spend two days basking in the sun so I could renew my tan for the last time this season. How funny that my tan both started and ended in Spain (in May on Mallorca and now in Valencia). There’s also a lot of history in Valencia, which goes all the way from the Roman times to the present. The different architecture reflects this wide range of eras. There are Roman ruins, medieval cathedrals, the modernist Mercat Central, and the über-contemporary Ciudad de las Artes et la Ciencias.

Anyway, that’s enough about Valencia because I have so much to tell about Almansa. This town of about 26,000 is much larger than I had expected. Yes, it’s small and quaint, but it’s not miniscule and there are definitely more than four stoplights. Although I can walk from one end to the other in a short 25 minutes, there’s still that hustle and bustle of something larger than a village. What does make it seem like a small, tight-knit community is the fact that everybody knows everybody. And that’s something that I think is so cool. Running into someone I just met twice in one day just goes to show how small it actually is.

So, before coming to Spain, I’d sent a message to a couple people on Couchsurfing.com, which is an online community where people from all over the world have profiles and offer their couches to travelers. The idea behind it is not to be just a free place to crash, but also to be a cultural exchange and to meet new people from all over the globe. I’d couchsurfed with Margaux when we went to Switzerland in April, and it was a really great experience. This time, however, I did not send couch requests; I didn’t want to impose on anybody after just arriving, as I would have all my stuff and would be really stressed with everything I had to do. I just sent out messages so that I could introduce myself and basically find myself some friends. I got one response, and it was from a well-travelled and quite experienced couchsurfer named Óscar, who in fact offered to let me stay at his apartment with him and his boyfriend Miguel while I got myself oriented and found myself a place to live.

I arrived the evening of Sunday, September 26th and was warmly greeted at the train station by Óscar and his friend Antonio who then drove me (and all my luggage) back to Óscar’s place, where they had prepared the guest room for me. Óscar and Miguel have a gorgeous home, and they welcomed me into it as if I were a longtime friend. They are wonderful people, both teachers; Óscar teaches English (and his defending his doctoral dissertation next week) and Miguel teaches history (at my school, incidentally). For my first night there, they prepared a meal chock full of typically Spanish dishes, gazpacho and tortilla de patatas. We hit it off really well right from the bat, and they were incredibly helpful. They are funny and friendly, and we’ve got a lot in common. I am so lucky to have been able to contact them because now I feel like I’ve made a pair of good friends who will really animate my experience here in Almansa.

The day following my arrival, I went with each of them to their respective schools to check out all the “for rent” signs that were posted in the lobbies of the high schools. I jotted down probably about 40 phone numbers, and that afternoon I started making calls.

Woof. Talking on the phone in Spanish is not easy, let me tell you! I did manage to make a couple appointments to see some vacant apartments, and I contacted one person about an apartment that she wanted to share. I ended up seeing four apartments throughout the afternoon and early evening... and they became more and more depressing one after the next. They were all old and dingy and I hoped to God I wouldn’t have to end up finding myself in one of them. Óscar had warned me about what I was likely to encounter, but I really didn’t expect what I saw. After seeing the fourth piso of the day, I was on my way back to Óscar and Miguel’s when I got a phone call from the landlady of the shared apartment, who asked if I was free to come see it then. I figured “why not?” so I went to meet her.

And when that door opened, it was like the gates of heaven opened before my eyes. I was blown away, especially after having witnessed the dreadfulness of all the other apartments. The piso was completely redone with brand new IKEA furniture throughout, with three bedrooms, one and a half baths, and a fully equipped, granite countertopped kitchen. It was divine. There was no way I couldn’t take it. And there was even another room for the Australian assistant, Clare, whom I had met in Valencia and who was also going to be working in Almansa. And to top it all off, the young lady currently living there was a Spanish girl who was a maestra in a colegio in town, which would provide a perfect opportunity to speak Spanish. I arranged to come back with Clare the next day, when I would officially tell the landlady that I would take the room.

Speaking of Rosario, the landlady, she’s quite a character. Always accompanied by her son Manuel, she is an absolutely adorable, typically Spanish mother. She wants nothing more than to make sure that Clare and I are comfortable in our home, providing us with all sorts of kitchen supplies and two sets of sheets each.

And she doesn’t speak a word of English. Here’s something interesting I’ve learned about old people who have probably never learned a foreign language: when you say you don’t understand something (or give an equally obvious facial expression), instead of speaking more slowly and/or simply, they just shout at you. Rosario, for example, always checks to see if I’m following by yelling in my face, “¿¿ME ENTIENDES, HIJO?? ¿¿ME ENTIENDES??” to which I’ll either respond “yes, I understand you,” or laugh and shake my head. But it’s impossible to get frustrated at her lack of communication skills towards foreigners because she’s just so gosh-darn adorable and kind.

What’s so incredible is that everyone I’ve met here is as nice as Rosario, Miguel, and Óscar. I chatted it up with Carmen at the cell phone store. All the teachers I work with whom I’ve met have given me their phone numbers and told me not to hesitate to call them if I need anything at all. Even the neighbor next door offered to help Clare and me with anything we might need when we passed her in hallway. Just as many French people seem to fit their stereotype of being closed off at first (that is, until you break through their shell at which point they become friends for life), the Spanish have shown me that they fit their own stereotype: that they’re nothing less than warm, friendly, sociable, and welcoming, even if it’s the first time you meet them.

Oh, I forgot a crazy story!! So Clare came to town the day after I did, and she called me at about 10:00 pm the night she arrived. I asked where she was, to which she replied she wasn’t sure, only that she knew she was close to her school (which is in the same building as mine). I said that I was close to the school, too, and we realized that we could both see the castle from our windows. So I proposed the ridiculous idea of sticking out heads out the window and trying to find each other. It took come convincing to get her to do it, but eventually she did it... and she was IN THE APARTMENT NEXT DOOR. Small world, right? How crazy!! She was staying temporarily with a teacher from her school who had just moved into the apartment next door and who didn’t even know Óscar and Miguel. So nuts.

Anyway, so fast forward two days, and Clare and I both moved into our new, beautiful piso, but our third flatmate (whom we still hadn’t met) was not there because she was recovering from an operation at her parents’ house in her hometown of Hellín. She did sent me a message, though, that said she would be coming by to meet us. And at 6:00 pm, she came by with her parents. Her name is Beatriz, and like I mentioned before, she’s a teacher at one of the elementary/middle schools in town. She seems very nice, and I think everything’s going go go really well. Her parents were, once again, typically Spanish: incredibly friendly, open, warm, and talkative. Clare and I brought out our maps and showed them all where we were from. The seemed to be fascinated by the exoticness of both the US and Australia, and I’m looking forward to hopefully being able to tell them more about it. A little while later, they left again. Beatriz is still recuperating and should be coming back to the apartment within two weeks.

The only issue I have with this apartment is that it does not have internet, and I don’t think that obtaining it will be as simple as it was in France. Apparently you’re required to have a contract and have to pay ridiculous fees if you have to break it, even if you are leaving the country. So for the time being, I’m living internet-less in the apartment. I mean, I do get internet on my phone which doesn’t cost too much, but I can only do simple things like check my email and check my Facebook. I’m hoping to get friendly with other residents of my apartment building, at which point I will strategically mention how much I miss my family and friends, and how I can hardly speak to them because I don’t have internet access in my home... I’m thinking that will pull at a Spanish mother’s heartstrings and I’m hoping that someone will hand over their network password. But until then, I’ll be depending on my phone, the locutorio down the road, and on the computers at school. Don’t worry, I will make sure the whole world knows if and when I get internet access in my apartment.

Well, I suppose that’s enough for now. I had intended just to give you a little update, but it seems to have turned into a mini-novel. And now, after writing all this, I've created another blog. I know, I know... I was good with the one last year for about a month, and then it died. But the way things are going (and after looking at all I’ve just shared), it seems like I’m going to be really inspired to write.

Os quiero todos,

Larry

P.S. If anyone wants to be fun and send me snail mail, my address is:

Larry Komrower

av. José Rodriguez Ruano, 45

2º planta - puerta C

02640 Almansa

Albacete

España