My first paletilla

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..

10 Oddities of Cartaya

This is my second year teaching in the Cartaya, a town of roughly 16,000, just 5 miles from the Atlantic Coast of Spain. Fortuately, this is also my second year commuting to work because living in there has never felt like an enticing idea. Some mornings when I have a free hour from teaching and bilingual meetings, I like to take a walk through the town or sometimes even grab a coffee and take a seat. I have to admit, the people watching is top notch in Cartaya City.
Here are some of the things I have noticed over my time there, things that would really make you go hmmm if you saw them happening in the US of A.

1. Abuelas mopping the sidewalks outside their humble abodes as a part of their morning routine
2. Being asked if I'm an immigrant from Poland who came here to pick strawberries for a living.
3. Old men decked out in their Sunday best on a Wednesday morning, sitting on a bench and arguing what year it is.

   

   Cartaya's 'Round' Plaza

4. Paying 1.50€ at any bar for the breakfast of champions: café con leche and a half toast with tomato and olive oil.
5. Castles and cathedrals older than my country are simply part of the landscape.
6. The main plaza in the town is called "Round Plaza" when it is definitely a square, or perhaps, a trapezoid.
7. It is not uncommon to hear locals blaming their bad hair day or bad weather on the economic crisis.
8. It is totally acceptable for the entire student body of the high school to skip class the days after the local fair and pilgrimage because they are hung over.
9. If you can understand the older folks of the pueblo, you can give yourself a pat on the back and bask in the glory of how well you have mastered Spanish. Or at least, the Cartayero 'dialect' of Andalú
10. How good it feels to work a second year in this white-washed pueblo of Huelva, but how equally nice it feels to take off for Ayamonte everytime that last bell chimes through the halls of the good ole IES.

La vida en la frontera

Ayamonte by night

It's been a month since I arrived back to Spain and to say the least, Ayamonte has not disappointed. I've been more active than ever (future blog might feature the amazing running and biking routes along the wetlands, river, and beach) and since it's my first year off college I have so much more motivation to study. To improve my Spanish, I am going back to high school! This year, I am sitting in on advanced math and Spanish language and literature classes with the oldest students. I'm at the high school all day anyway most days of the week, and it's a free opportunity, so why not?

On top of that I wanted to take advantage of the language school here which offers German, French, English, and Portuguese classes. Seeing my English is already pretty good, I don't want to offend the French speaking their language, and the German classes were full, I've started learning Portuguese. It is rather convenient since Portugual is just a 5 minute drive or 10 minute ferry ride from here. I already understand a lot of the language since it's so similar to Spanish, but speaking it is veryy difficult. My goal is to change that.

Las compañeras en la terraza

Above is a  picture of my roomies and me on our terrace on a typical weekday night. The lights in the background are from the Portuguese town on the other side of the Guadiana River, Vila Real San Antonio. Our house is a diverse mix of girls and I'm so glad I found them, although our girl from Kansas City dyed my hair a very chocolately color and I had to tolerate an entire day of my students voting rather they liked me better as a rubia or morena.. gotta admire the brutal honesty of the Spanish people.

Ayamonte tiene un color especial

Somehow or someway everything went over smoothly this summer and on Monday, as planned, I got on my plane in Seattle, touched down in DC to sprint to my next plane, and landed in Madrid to see the Spanish sunrise early Tuesday morning. I spent a few days with amigos in Sevilla before I made my way down to Ayamonte, my new pueblo on the border of Portugal- a pleasant change from the un-fresh airs of Huelva. I'll be spending another year working at the same high school and I have returned with ganas. It feels great to be back and I am so content with my new town, new piso, and new roommates.

The view from our terrace: Portugal, La Guadiana, and the Atlantic Ocean.
I have a good feeling about this new etapa in my Spanish vida.

Labor Day again

This weekend marks the second time I've got to have a long weekend for Labor Day in four months. Why would Spain feel the need to observe this holiday in May, while America in September? Either way I am not complaining. I have been immensely enjoying three days off of my ridiculous summer job. Nights out, shopping in Portland, floating the river in the hot sun, and more... life is good.


Oh yeah, I got a job at a frozen vegetable factory. I work 7-4 most days of the week boxing corn cobs, sorting packages, throwing bad vegetables, and meeting all kinds of new characters. When all is said and done, I'll definitely put working this job as a 'good life experience that I do not desire to repeat'. It has its positives though: I have good hours, get paid to exercise, make decent money, practice Spanish most days, and have met some bizarre people I may never forget.


But work is only so many hours of the week and there has been so many more to fill up with adventures, embracing America, and quality time with the family.There's been spontaneous road trips, baseball games, bbqs, lazy days at the lake, fireworks, bonfires, hiking, beaching, nights in, nights out at the dirty, small-town bars, the culinary amazing-ness of American pizza, Mexican food, and Chinese, fun dates, speaking English, listenin' to country, waking up at 6am to run because that's what we do in America, reuniting with old friends to find nothing has changed, seeing my family every day and knowing I will miss them so much when I leave for Spain again. You get the picture.. in spite of having all my plans for summer in Spain thrown out the window, everything has fallen together oh so nicely and maybe there is a reason I had to go home for awhile.

 

This year I did NOT miss out on the annual family pig roast. 

My visa paperwork has been all done and sent out to my consulate so now I'm just playing the waiting game. I am set to take off in a short three weeks for Spain again.. I'll admit it's almost bittersweet to see this summer come to an end, but I'm excited for one more year of international adventures.

Wouldn't it be nice...

If the extranjería called me saying the they made a mistake and I didnt have to get a new visa, and I didn't have to waste several hundred dollars and hours and hours of time on beaurocratic nonsense? I can dream...

I've been in America for 6 weeks already. 6 weeks. Half of the summer is over. With the rainy weather and whatnot, I am longing for the land of siestas, fiestas, Spanish speakin', and sunshine.

What I've been missing:
1. My amigos
2. My awesome job
3. The weather
4. La playa
5. Speaking Spanish everyday
6. Tapas y cañas
7. People looking good.
8. Meeting interesting internationals
9. Fresh markets
10. The liveliness...
11. White-washed pueblos
12. Sevilla
13. And I could keep going on...

Don't get me wrong, I am very thankful to be spending time with my family (I've barely spent more than a few days with the fam in the past years), so it's been great getting to see my cousins, aunt and uncles, and spry 84 year-old grandma everyday. I'm staying with my cousin and her husband outside of Chehalis, Washington, so far up in the woods I don't even have cell service at home. I love it.

The visa paperwork has been a challenge (mostly to my patience and creative loophole finding), but the paperwork is doing its processing thing and I'm just doing what I can in the meantime. It's really proven how much Spain means to me and I feel like it'll all be worth it once my passport with fresh visa is back in hand and I'm on my red-eye flight filled with the anticipation of seeing my friends and livin la vida española all over again.

to be continued with fotos ... I'm off to the washington coast for the afternoon, the sun is trying to come out!!

América in a new light

Last week in a matter of a few days, everything I had planned out for the summer- work, travels, etc was all thrown out the window. After various phone calls, emails, and visits with the extranjería, delagación, bilingual coordinator, embassies, and consulates, I found out Spain wasn't going to accept my application to renew my residency for next year even though I already have a work or 'study' contract. I was told I had to go home to get a new visa 5 days before my 2010-2011 residency expired.


It was Friday when I got the news, so I did what any good Americana in Spain would do and went up to Sevilla for a despedida o, es decir, hasta luego fest. I returned home Sunday morning and packed, cleaned my apartment, met with the landlady, got my deposit, and headed to Lagos, Portugal with a good friend who was visiting me at the time. I bought a ticket to fly home Wednesday and tried my best not to think about how everything I had spent months planning out was taken away. Might as well try and enjoy my sudden last few days of vacation.



Jackie in Lagos, Portugal.


I left Tuesday at midnight for the 30 hour trip. Passing through customs in NYC, the only questions asked in my half-asleep, drained of everything state: are you ok? do you speak english? STAMP-STAMP. 'Welcome home.' Got to love America.


I landed in Seattle feeling alive again and more than thrilled to see my family. During my 30 hours in transit I realized, maybe this is a good thing. I've been hit a little by reverse culture-shock, but for the most part it just feels good to be home surrounded by my family here in Washington.


Some observations after a year away:
-There's a lot of English spoken here, and I cannot speak Spanglish. I'm trying hard to speak like a normal American.
-It's freaking cold.
-Wal-mart is simply too much to handle.
-There is an entire aisle of cereal, an entire aisle of bread, an entire aisle of pickles, etc., etc.
-Coffee is weak. So. Weak.
-FRIENDLY waiters/waitresses/customer service (maybe too friendly)
-Driving takes a lot more thinking than it used to.
-And it's pretty much impossible to do anything without a car.
-There's fast food everywhere.
-People are a lot bigger.
-are the past two points linked?
-Houses are big and carpeted and COZY.
-Everyone has a smart phone now.
-Living in the woods without street noise/drunken idiots in streets at night is simply wonderful.
-The fridge is huge and has automatic ice and water. ¡de lujo!
-I thought I was cool because I didn't have 'jet lag' in spite of the nine-hour time change. 3 days later, and 2 days full of naps, I found out that is impossible.


So here I am, without a plan, fighting jet lag, working on visa paperwork, family and friends all trying to convince me to stay with them for the summer and I feel the love. But for now, I'm off to fill out more applications!