I wish ...

I wish that I worked every day.  The days are so much easier when I'm able to go to work, see people, get things done, and then come home.  Then I only have 4-5 hours to fill instead of 16-18 on the weekends.  It just feels much more manageable.  As you might imagine, this meant a much better day for me (although I did bang the crap out of my arm on a door handle at work - sure to be a nasty bruise).

I was worried this morning because I really had to drag myself out of bed.  Then when I got downstairs, I realized I'd forgotten my sunglasses upstairs, so I had to turn around and let myself back in.  I got upstairs to realize I had also forgotten to grab my lunch - so it's a good thing I remembered the sunglasses!  After that, the day was pretty much smooth sailing.  I even took a little walk at work in the afternoon as a reward for being productive.  Plus, we can't open our windows, so I thought I'd enjoy a little of the fresh air, since it was a beautiful day today!

I figured out a lot of things over the past couple of days, including how to change the language on my ATM card and bus card to English.  I was tempted to leave it in Spanish, but I figured if I made a language mistake, I would rather not lose money over it!  I also got paid for the first time and will hopefully figure out how to pay my rent (via bank transfer) tomorrow.  I still need to sort out utilities, but hopefully that won't be too hard.

I had Spanish again today and I'm feeling ahead of the class, which is good.  I think I need to feel like I'm ahead while I get used to all of the rest of my new life.  Especially since mostly I associate Spanish with feeling behind and like I don't know enough.  Once in a while it's good to feel like I'm doing okay. :)

It's been very interesting watching the reactions to the Osama bin Laden business here.  Obviously, people are very interested in the news, but also interested in the American reaction to the news.  This is my first chance to observe America from outside, so I read a bit of the coverage in El Pais (the biggest(?) newspaper in Spain - or at least around here) and El Diario Vasco (the local paper).  It's really interesting because it covers the same factual information that most of the American news I've read, but is really disconnected.  Very interesting.

In other news, I am at my wits end with this stupid kitchen and cooking.  I NEED to start figuring out other things to cook - things that don't require ingredients I can't find here or equipment I don't have (which right now includes a functioning oven), because I can only do so much improvisation.  [Did I forget to talk about my oven quitting on me?  I think I mentioned that the power went out briefly a couple of days ago.  I used that as an opportunity to reset the clock on the oven.  Then about an hour later, the power went out to that clock.  The ceramic cooktop, dishwasher, and all the lights work. I asked the doorman yesterday to come up and look at it.  He poked at it for a few minutes and announced, "It doesn't work."  He said they'd try to get someone to repair it Monday or some other time. I'm not holding my breath.]  Back to the cooking.  I really need to figure this out because I am going totally and completely crazy eating like I am.  Fortunately, I'm eating tons of fruit and salads. But unfortunately, I am also eating lots of pasta because that is easy to cook in this kitchen.  Hopefully someday I'll figure it out.  I'm going to start searching for Spanish recipes in hopes of finding something that's really tasty!  I'm going to also try my hand at a tortilla this weekend.  In Spain, tortilla is sort of like an omelette.  Or a cross between an omelette and a quiche.  It usually has potatoes in it, and is SUPER tasty and cheap when you get it as pintxos.  I've been too lazy to haul home a bag of potatoes so far, but if I ever get my hands on a little shopping cart, I will definitely try to cook it here!  Once again - soliciting recipes that require few ingredients and are tasty!