Furry Friends

My roommate, Juan, has 10 hamsters. Ok, fine. A little weird, but I can get over it. Previously, he had 30, but he gave 20 of them to a pet store. Good.

A few weeks ago, I was peeking into the cage in the living room, watching the furry little things run around. Oddly, I could only find 7 hamsters. 'What could have happened to the other 3?', I wondered. 'Did they die? Did he give them to his 10 year old daughter in Marbella? Or to his 6 year old son in Burgos?' I didn't spend much time thinking about it, and continued on with my day.

Fast forward to yesterday.

I've been sick with the flu for a while, and last night I ventured out into the kitchen for some tea and ice cream. I switched on the light, but it was one of those fluorescent lights that takes forever for turn on. So, in the darkness, I heard a quiet scurrying. I paused. It couldn't be the dog, because the dog had gone somewhere with Juan. The light finally kicked in. I saw something small and light colored run across the kitchen floor. 'Oh no!', I thought, 'we have mice!' But, this particular mouse didn't have a tail. In fact, it was furry, like a hamster. In my slightly delirious state, I couldn't decide what to do. The hamster stood near the door, cleaning its paws and staring at me. I stared back. Eventually, I decided to continue with the task at hand: get some tea. The hamster made a dash for the refrigerator. I haven't seen it since.

There are 2 other missing hamsters.

Blair Waldorf

I harbor a secret fear that I will become like the people I watch on television. I have never feared that I would turn into a large mound of ice cream (you are what you eat), but I do fear that I could become like the self-centered, money-obsessed main character of Gossip Girl (you are who you watch) ..but only if I watch too much TV.

Yesterday, for the first time, I had an overwhelming feeling of joy for being here in Spain. It's not that I haven't been happy for the past two months, because I have been. More accurately, it was the first time that I was happy to be happy in Spain.

I set my alarm to wake up early with the intention of running some potentially complicated errands. As I drifted into an awakened state, I noticed the complete darkness in my room, which seemed odd for 8am. Then I remembered that I had closed the contraption (similar to a small garage door) that covers the outside of my window the night before, in an attempt to keep some heat inside. Squeakily opening the garage door, I saw a normal sunlit day outside, with puffy marshmallow clouds and bright blue sky behind. It was an average December day in Estepona (much like a late spring day in Seattle).

I breakfasted my usual fruit granola, yogurt, and honey, and ventured into town, holding back yawns. I headed for the bank. I needed to cash my paycheck. Banks can be incredibly complicated, wait times can be long, and unpredictable complications tend to arise. Accordingly, I budgeted 2 hours for a task that would have taken 20 minutes back home. To my surprise, everything went smoothly at the bank. I walked back out the door, cash in hand, 10 minutes after I had arrived! So, with a few extra hours on hand, I decided to run another errand. I went to another bank to deposit this new cash into my personal account. I thought, surely, I will have to hurry to catch my bus to work after completing this second errand (a former language assistant in Spain once gave me a piece of advice: only try to run one errand per day, it will save you stress). Breaking this rule, which I often treat as law, felt rebellious and cocky. I thought I would end up regretting it, but decided to try my luck.

Again, to my utter surprise, I walked back out of the second bank, €'s (Euros) deposited into my account, 15 minutes later. Trying not to get to excited about my seeming ascendance out of the realm of 'total foreigner' (I imagine a ladder with 'total foreigner' at the bottom and 'native' at the top), I decided to get coffee near the bus stop and try to go over my lessons for the day.

I hopped on the bus, and then off the bus 20 minutes later in Cancelada. My lessons were in order. Listening to Macaco, I walked up the hill into Cancelada village. A strong gust of wind blew my hair into my face, so I paused to fix it. I glanced up at a mountain behind the village, and I was struck by how similar it looked to a mountain outside of Wenatchee. I felt at home.

I felt nostalgia for Wenatchee and America, but at the same time I felt at home, right here in Spain.

I saw some of my students

at a discotheque last night. It was 'normal' for both parties to be there. (My oldest students are 16.) I also saw small children running around a bar at 2am. Their parents, and grandparents, were chatting in a corner, and Michael Jackson was blasting.

Icky Feet

One thing I've noticed about Spain: the feelings about feet.

- being barefoot is unacceptable. In a situation where I would generally remain shoeless (say, just after waking up), I now wear house slippers.
- objects, like purses and backpacks, are not placed upon the floor. Once, a teacher at my school went so far as to pick my bag up from the floor and set it upon a table for me. Special purse hooks are used by many women to prevent purses from sitting on the floor while at a restaurant.
- floors are mopped every few days. This is a combination of the fact that every single floor is made of the same faux-marble white tile that highlights every fleck of dirt, and (I think) the feeling that feet are unclean.

These observations could suggest that Spaniards are somehow 'cleaner' than Americans because of their awareness about the germs that might inhabit the feet/floor, but I don't think it works quite like that. While precautions are high surrounding these lower appendages, hand-washing is at a minimum. I think it all evens out.

What do I do? Well, I'm torn between adapting this particular Spanish trait, and rejecting it. Thus, my actions are inconsistent and a bit odd. I always wear some form of shoes, because that one seems most important, but I can't quite decide what to do about contact between my bag and the floor. So, sometimes it's on the floor, sometimes it's on a chair, and sometimes I switch it back and forth. (I'm only half joking about this.) And I'm completely unable to take up mopping every few days. That would be far too much work. Partial adaptation seems sufficient, for now.

Full adaptation may be further in the future.

AMERICA FOR CHRISTMAS!

I didn't even realize I wanted to come to America for Christmas until the chance was offered to me (by a very generous sister), but YAYAYAYAY my excitement is growing. It's not that I'm especially homesick, or that I dislike living in Spain. It's quite the opposite.

Traveling is fun, speaking Spanish is always interesting, and I like being here in Spain, but there's a different aura to home. I think I'm more excited to go 'home' than I am to go to Barcelona (Dec 3-7) or London (March 11-14), even though I really love traveling. Home is different. I know what to expect from it, and I know that I like it.

So, home, I'll see you on December 18.

This is, by far, the hardest thing I've ever done. I've moved to a foreign country where I know absolutely no one, and I'm trying to do a job that I have no idea how to do. I'm on the most extreme emotional roller coaster that I've ever experienced. Small things, both good and bad, seem amplified. I meet someone cool, and I'm high as a kite, my heart is pounding, and I feel like everything will be alright. Or, my students are talkative and won't pay attention to me, and I'm down in the gutter, nearly crying in the classroom.

It's challenging in nearly every way. Constant translation is tiring, but it's a requirement for daily life. To meet new people and make friends, which I so dearly want to have, means that I must be outgoing and confident, which I usually am not. To teach my students English, which is the job I am paid to do, I need to entertain and motivate large groups of early teens who are required to take the class I'm teaching (thus, many are not interested in what I have to say).

It's intense, but it's getting easier. There are fewer frustrating situations, because I'm learning how to avoid making the same mistakes, and there are more uplifting situations -- whether I like it or not, I have to be outgoing sometimes, and I really have met some great people. Sometimes it's rough, but that would happen anywhere in the world. Any anyway, it makes the sweet times all the more enjoyable.