Things that still make me crazy

Even though I get more and more used to the crazy things about Spain, there's a lot I'm still not used to.  Here are some things that still make me crazy.

• Cooking - I still have tons of frustration when it comes to my kitchen, and to eating more broadly.  I should say this is not because there isn't great food to be had here.  It's just that to eat good food when you go out, you need to pay a lot of money.  I've actually only had two sit-down, going-out meals since I got here.  Both of which were mediocre at best.  The pintxos are typically good, but one cannot live on pintxos alone (well, one probably could, but I can't).  There are also very few places that do take-out and even fewer (none?) that do delivery.  So, on crazy long work days (like yesterday where I was at work for 11 hours + commuting time), I need to cook when I get home.  This wouldn't be so bad if I had the proper equipment or ingredients to cook food that is tasty.  Part of the problem is that things go bad very, very quickly here (which probably means they aren't pumped with antibiotics and preservatives).  It doesn't make it any less frustrating though, when you open chicken from two days ago that looks a little yucky, you cook it anyhow, and it tastes, literally, like garbage.  Cooking itself is also frustrating.  It's really hard to control the temperature on the induction stovetop, and I still haven't bought any pots or pans that are safe for the oven.  I really need to spend some time in a grocery store really looking at ingredients and deciding what I can use to make things here, since a lot of my typical staples aren't available ... but this brings me to point #2.

• "Business" Hours - I honestly do not understand how anyone ever gets anything done here.  A typical store (including grocery store) is open:  9-2 and then 4-8.  That's if it's a store that's open a lot.  It isn't uncommon for stores to just be open 9-2.  Or whenever they feel like being open.  I tried to go to a store the other day that was supposed to re-open at 4 for the afternoon.  At 6, they were not open.  Weekends are even worse when almost nothing is open on Sunday and Saturday hours are nothing short of crazy (10-2?  10-12?  11-3?).  The only time you can really count on stores being open is 9-2 Monday through Friday.  Which is when I'm, you know, working.  Grocery shopping consists of running to the store as often as I can - it's not rare for me to go three to four times a week so I can have fresh food, but also because when you only have 30 minutes 'til the store closes, it's tough to do a week's worth of shopping.  It's hard to get anything done really.  This does mean that you have to spend your evenings and weekends doing things that aren't running errands and are more fun.  However, it's hard to have fun when you're worried about food in your fridge or when you have to do laundry since a lot of your clothing is wrinkled and you haven't been able to buy an iron since the electronics store is only open when you're working.  (Sub-point - I would solve this problem by buying things on Amazon UK which does free shipping to Spain, but the plugs are different ... so a vacuum and iron will have to wait for now).

• Language - This point is the biggest and most frustrating of all.  I am still stymied on a daily basis by not being able to say what I want to say.  I love language, it's what I do for my job, and anyone who knows me knows I love to talk.  But Spanish is hard and frustrating.  Let me clarify - Spanish in a classroom is fine.  I can conjugate verbs and do exercises.  I can read and write in the classroom.  But classroom language is not the language of the real world.  Carefully produced speech on recordings is no substitute for real world speech.  So, it's hard to understand what's being said.  Even harder is saying what you mean.  Even if I'm willing to make tons of mistakes (which I have to if I want to communicate the simplest things), even if I am willing to forego using the subjunctive for the sake of saying anything at all, I don't have the words to say what I want to say.  Vocabulary is far and away the hardest part for me.  I don't know how to get more vocabulary without studying a dictionary or vocabulary book.  And honestly, lists of nouns and verbs aren't going to do it.  Even if I know how to say the basic words around things, I don't know how to convey the specifics that make any good story worth telling.  When talking about my trip yesterday in class, I was trying to explain how frustrated I was by the fact that they announced to me that my ticket was canceled.  But I couldn't remember the word for frustrated ... and angry or sad don't really get the job done in the same way.  I need to figure out some way to improve at the language more quickly.  Because I've been here almost two months now, and I'm running out of patience for myself.

One bright note to end for now - the blanket I'm making is gorgeous.  I'm about 2/3 of the way through it  (not counting the border that will go on at the end).  It's big enough now that I can wrap up in when I'm cold and watching TV and it covers a whole person when sleeping.  I can't wait for it to be done, but I also need to have another (big) project lined up for when I finish it.  I love to have a big home project I can work on in the evenings or on weekends.  Then I have my commuting project (a knit cowl that is taking forever because I work on it in 5 minute bursts) and my travel project (a shawl that I only knit on the plane or in airports).  Then I might start a project that the knitting group around here is working on ... but I need to be able to get to the yarn shop when they're open.  But the blanket?  Fantastic.  I've made tons of mistakes and fixed them in stupid ways, but I love this blanket so, so, so much.

Garbage Street

The street behind my apartment (that my terrace opens onto) smells like garbage at night.  I think this is because people have to take their trash out to the block's dumpster between 7 and 10 pm.  This is smart because then it doesn't sit in the sun, but dumb because the sudden increase of trash makes everything stink like garbage ... and because the sun doesn't set 'til after 9:30, so it still festers in the sun for a while.  I walked in tonight and couldn't figure out why my place stank like garbage, until I realized the smell was coming from outside the house.  Gross.

I went to see a movie tonight with my Spanish friend.  We saw the new Woody Allen film "Midnight in Paris."  I liked it.  I especially liked that it wasn't dubbed like most American films here are and instead was in English with Spanish subtitles.  It was sort of fun to read the subtitles along with the English sound.  Much more fun than trying to understand what's going on in a movie where the actors lips don't match up with the sound.  They actually dub EVERYTHING here so even American tv is dubbed - usually badly. There is something really disconcerting about hearing a voice that is not an actors come out of their mouth (sort of).  It's especially weird when the words the actor says are much longer or shorter than the dubbed words.  It happens with subtitles too.  My favorite example today was in the movie a character says something like "I don't understand what you're saying" and the subtitle was "¿Que?"

Tomorrow if the weather's good we might take a little day trip.  Otherwise, I need to do laundry, start packing, and do some work!  I'll be busy this weekend either way!

Spanglish

I realized yesterday evening and today that I've started communicating in a weird Spanish-English hybrid.  I now know enough Spanish that I can understand a lot of things and express myself more or less if the listener is patient.  But I don't know enough vocabulary to express myself all the time.  For instance, one of the administrative assistants at work was talking to me today - she is pregnant and I wanted to ask her how she was feeling and how far along she was.  While I know the word for pregnant, I don't really know the word for pregnancy, let alone all the other words that go with that.

My Spanish friend took me out for coffee with a few of her friends yesterday. They all spoke very quickly and with a lot of slang, so I had a rough time understanding specifics of what was going on.  I got the general idea even though we were in a loud cafe.  I realized that I was relying way more on contextual cues than I normally might have to.  Because it's not guaranteed I'll understand every word to begin with, I have to really pay attention for those I do understand.  It's a sort of interesting speech perception problem, actually, how the cues I'm relying on are changing over time.  What I really need to do is just spend more time with Spaniards so I understand more of the slang and vocabulary.  Vocabulary is my real downfall in Spanish.  The real problem is that I've always understood grammar, so I can put together a complex sentence, which makes people think I understand and know more than I do.  Still, I've only been here for 6 weeks - my Spanish has nowhere to go but up.

In bug related news, I got a plug in repellent thing that keeps away mosquitos and tiger mosquitos (apparently the bugs that keep attacking me).  Hopefully it will work. I'm also considering getting a mosquito net for over my door, so I can still get fresh air, but not bugs.  Or, I can always suggest what Pete told me to tell the people here:  Invent screens.

Music

Yesterday I played viola and sang in public at the bar where my friend's boyfriend runs a session every week.  I was terrified because I didn't know very many people there (and haven't played a viola in about a billion years), but it went okay.  Hopefully, I'll have some more chances to do this.  Unfortunately, this bar is probably closing down soon.  The location isn't great for generating customers, since it's far away from places where people normally go out, so you have to plan to go there - you won't just walk by and wander in.  I guess they're looking for a new place to open, but rent is really expensive, so it might not happen.  The guy who runs the session is looking at other bars to play in, which I think would be good.

I'm hanging out tonight with my Spanish friend and two of her friends.  The plan is to speak mostly in Spanish ... not sure how that will go!  If the weather is nice we might take a day trip to one of the towns nearby this weekend, which would be more Spanish time.  Since that's one of the points of coming here, I do feel like I need to practice more.  It's just still really hard to have a real conversation with people.

I'm starting to see how much easier things are and how much things have changed, though, since I arrived here.  I found a note in my bag the other day from my first day here, when I was jet-lagged and totally overwhelmed.  It was a list:  Find grocery store, find bus stop, buy food.  The note was simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious.  I remember being so out of it that I thought "I need to write down that I need to buy food, or I might not have anything to eat today."  I moved here knowing nothing.  At all.  And on days that are stressful or where I have to figure out something new (Where do you buy pins?  How about bug repellent?), I remind myself how far I've come so far.  I came here and didn't know where the grocery store was, how to get to work, where to do laundry.  And now I know all of those things, and I figured them out mostly by myself.  So on a day when I have to figure out whether or not I need to pay taxes this year (answer - no, not yet), or figure out how to get to a street that is supposed to be parallel to the street I'm on according to the map (but is actually 7 stories above me and the buildings I'm standing by), I remind myself I've done harder things already.  I've been a little worried about coming back after Puerto Rico in a couple of weeks and about coming back after some time in Chicago and Michigan in July.  I'm sure coming back won't be easy, but it also won't be as hard as the first time I came.  And that's a huge relief.

Success (and failure)

As I implied yesterday, I managed to get my cell phone after two trips to the cell phone stores and a bunch of run around.  I got a great plan that will cost me much, much less than a cell phone plan in the US and I'm pretty happy with the phone so far.

Unfortunately, I went home to no internet.  The internet did decide to start back up at around 11:30, but I had to get up early today to head to the bank, so it wasn't much use to me.  Speaking of the bank ...

I still hate doing administrative tasks here.  To be fair, I hate doing them in the US, too.  But add the language barrier and I would rather be punched in the face than go to the bank here.  After waiting *FOREVER* for a woman to finish telling the bank employee what she was going to do this weekend with her grandkids [side note:  I have learned you cannot be in a rush here.  Even if you are in a rush, things will get done when they get done.  Things sometimes get done more quickly if you try to exchange a few pleasantries first.  But often, they just get done whenever the person doing them feels like it], I finally talked to the employee.  I explained that I have a foreigner's account, but now I have my residence card, so I want to switch to a resident account (so they won't charge me fees).  She took my card, my passport and my ATM card and spent about 20 minutes typing stuff onto her computer.  Then she went to look for some guy because she couldn't do one part of the switch, who wasn't there.  Then she took a personal call on her cell phone (not kidding).  Finally, she told me that she'd have to take my documents and make copies of them and then try to switch it later.  She said they'd call me ... we'll see what happens.  If I haven't heard from them in a week, I'll go back, maybe with a Spanish speaker to try to figure things out.

I also have to go to the post office today for the first time to try to get a package.  Inexplicably the post office is open 8 am-8:30 pm Monday through Friday and 8 am - 2 on Saturday.  This is a minor miracle considering everything shuts down early on Fridays (2pm or so) and most services like the bank aren't open at all on Saturday.

I also applied for my Tarjeta Ciudadana, which is a card you get that gives you access to a lot of services:  Discounted prices at the School of Music and Dance, discounted prices at sports facilities and gyms, free parking in various areas, Free WiFi throughout the city.  Hopefully that will arrive without too much trouble, and then I can be done with bureaucracy for a while!

Good and bad

I'll start with the bad.  I woke up in the middle of the night with a terrible stomach ache.  I'm pretty sure my stomach was not happy with something I ate last night.  My guess for the culprit is the arugula I had since it was sort of iffy in terms of freshness, but who knows.  I'm still not feeling 100%, but I wasn't going to let a little stomach problem stop me from enjoying my day!

I had plans with the friend of my former Basque teacher (who took me out for dinner my first week here).  We had met for a drink on Thursday night, and met again today for a Basque style brunch, so I suppose she's my friend now too.  The Basque do not really do brunch like Americans do, but we had plans to have a big mid-day meal of pintxos.

I think I previously described pintxos as like tapas - but that doesn't quite do it justice.  Basically, the way pintxos work is you walk into a bar and they have some pintxos out on the bar on plates.  These are usually pre-made and typically are eaten cold (sometimes they'll take them into the kitchen to eat them).  You can take what you want off the platters and when you're done, you tell the bartender what you want - completely done on the honor system.  Then, there's usually a menu on the wall of hot pintxos that you order at the bar and are made to order.  These are usually more delicious and a little more exotic than the pintxos at the bar.  Because all the pintxos are relatively small and made for one person to eat (or for two people to have a little bite of), there are also "raciones" which are slightly larger plates made for sharing.  I should also clear up the meaning of "bar" before I move on.  So, bars here are not really like bars in the US whose sole purpose is for drinking.  Typically you have a drink, but it is as often grape juice (inexplicably served with an olive in it) as it is beer, wine or cider.  Mostly it's the primary place most people go out to eat.  You often order at the bar and they bring it to your table, or you eat at the bar.  Bars are also where you go to have coffee most often, so it's slightly less like a bar and more like a catch-all for place to grab some food, drink and company.  Okay, definitions out of the way (for now) - back to the story.

I met up with my friend on the Boulevard at 12:30.  She was with her two friends and their incredibly, incredibly adorable son who is "a year old" (my guess is he's about 15-16 months, but it was a little hard to tell), named Oier.  He was incredibly chatty, smart, and charming with huge brown eyes and eyelashes a mile long.  And he's totally mischevious running everywhere and wanting to do everything himself.  Parenting here is a lot more relaxed generally than parenting in the US.  Kids of all ages run off and play together with parents keeping an eye on them generally speaking, but not keeping them on a leash of any sort.  They also don't typically bring toys or snacks to keep the kids entertained while they're out with their parents.  The kids eat what their parents eat (today I saw Oier try pig cheek with olive tapanade, various other meats in sauces, grilled veggies, plantain chips, and his favorite - patatas - actually french fries in this case).  I've seen this happen a lot, but I was still surprised when I saw him eating (with help from his parents) with a knife and fork.  They were careful about the knife, but let him help cut up his meat and try things on his own.  It was actually really inspiring to see how independent he was - he would try things and if they didn't work, he'd either ask for help, or try again.

Most of the conversation today was in Spanish (fortunately for me, since normally they all speak Basque to each other and to Oier - who is very, very competent in both languages).  I said most of what I needed to say in English, but was talked to entirely in Spanish.  I did manage to ask if Carla Bruni (the French first lady) was pregnant in Spanish and talked about work in Spanish as well.  Afterward I promptly came home and took a nap - processing Spanish is infinitely more exhausting than processing English - more on that later.

Anyhow, we went to the first bar and each ordered our pintxos.  I had a bottle of water, since I was still feeling a little off from my adventures with stomach pains last night, but I tried some risotto (not the best upset stomach food, but I go with whatever sounds good to me).  I'm glad I did because it was DELICIOUS.  We also put together our "bank" - everyone puts in a set amount (usually 20 euro) and then the bills at each place get paid out of the bank.  At the end of the event everyone splits the change.  This is a very common way to do things here - and really nice because you don't have to pay for each thing you order separately and no one is very nit-picky about who ordered what.  After the first place, we went to a second which is sort of a "chain" (I think there are two - one here and one in Madrid) which has more inventive pintxos - olives stuffed with vermouth jelly, for example.  We got miniature burgers, slightly smaller than sliders, with "ketchup" buns.  I'm not a huge ketchup fan, but these burgers were delicious and came with plantain chips.  We moved on to the third bar which I'd been to before.  They have a large terrace on a shared plaza that used to be a bullfighting ring and is now home to several shops and bars who divvy up parts of the terrace.  Kids run and play in the rest of it, often playing pick-up games of fútbol.  We got their famous pistachio croquetas (sort of fried balls of stuff, if you've been to a tapas restaurant you've probably had them).  Basically these had pistachio cream inside and were covered with chopped pistachios and then fried.  Really delicious.  We also got two raciones - calamari and "hongos" which are basically wild mushrooms.  Both were really delicious.  We then tried to get coffee at the bar next to the bar we had gotten food from (which was busy and didn't have phenomenal service, which is saying something for Spain, since the service typically ranges from non-existant to terrible).  They refused since we were on the wrong terrace.  So we decided to move to another bar that was a favorite for coffee.

We walked a ways to get there and Oier almost fell asleep, but once he saw we would be sitting on a couch, he perked up and decided to plop himself between my friend and I.  His mom asked him if we were his new girlfriend and he replied "si, novias" (yes, girlfriends).  We all had some coffee (coffee here comes with a million options, so you have to be prepared for the questions when you're ordering.  I got a small decaf with milk.  When they say small, they are not kidding - coffee typically comes in very small glasses (like espresso glasses in the US).  But the coffee is rich and delicious.  I really liked the atmosphere of this particular bar, which my friend compared to Uncommon Ground in Chicago.  We hung out there for quite a while, watching Oier play.  We ended up having a very animated conversation with the women behind us about parenting - it seems that the debate regarding breastfeeding, working moms, and private vs public schooling rages no matter what country you're in.  It was interesting to hear the variety of opinions (in our group people were:  indifferent about breastfeeding - try it, if it works for you great, if not, you and your kid will survive; very pro working moms; and split on the schooling issue with one mom being a huge fan of Montessori schools and the others thinking that public schools were fine when the kids are really little).  Anyhow, throughout this time Oier had been running between the restaurant and the park across the street with his dad.  He came in and announced it was time for all of us to go see the "qua qua" or "los patos".  Have you guessed what we were going to see?  The ducks that live in the pond in the park across the street.  Before we left the place, he came up to my friend and I to ask us to go see the qua qua with him.  When we agreed he gave us both "besos" (the kisses on each cheek).  The kid was too cute.  After about 20 minutes in the park we decided to go our separate ways - over 4.5 hours after we started our culinary adventure.  I got more "besos" as well as an English "BYE!" from Oier.

I headed to the nearby Chinese shop to buy some plastic tubs to store things in my bathroom and took the bus home, since I was exhausted and still feeling a little yucky.  Overall, I'm glad I went - we'll see how glad my stomach is tonight, but I feel pretty safe since I've passed the last 12 hours without incident!  I really enjoyed being with real Spaniards - I learned a lot and got to practice a lot of Spanish.  It really motivated me to practice more!

I promised a bit more on the issue of processing Spanish.  When I first got here, I could understand a fair bit of Spanish if it was being spoken directly too me, but I found most conversations between Spaniards on the bus or on the street to be far to fast for me.  Now, though, I understand a lot more which is both good and bad.  Obviously, it's great that my Spanish is improving, but it's hard because I CAN understand things now, but not without some effort.  Paying attention to Spanish when it's being spoken to me is exhausting, but so is hearing Spanish conversations around me, which my brain tries to process automatically now on the bus or in restaurants.  It's strange because working hard to understand the language around you isn't something we think about a lot, but it takes a lot of mental energy!

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!

Warts and all ...

Since I'm trying to keep this as honest as possible (so I can look back and see how much progress I've made in a couple of weeks or months!), I will admit today was a rough day with a few bright spots.

I woke up feeling sort of in a funk.  I was pretty anxious about the allergy symptoms I'm experiencing - a slight rash on my face - I saw my doctor about it in Chicago before I left and it had gone away.  I was feeling pretty hopeless about a remedy because everything is different here - the detergent I wash things in, my sheets, my towels, the water, etc.  So I decided to go to the pharmacy to try to get hydrocortisone cream for my face and for my itchy bug bites.  Every kind of medicine is behind the counter in a pharmacy here, so you have to talk to the pharmacist to get most medications.  The plus side of this is that pharmacists can actually give you medication that normally requires a prescription in the US, and for many things, you can just go to the pharmacy instead of to a doctor.  Anyhow, I went in and explained to the woman what I wanted.  I wrote down "Hydrocortisone" and said I didn't know the word in Spanish, but this is what I wanted in English.  She looked totally confused and I managed to pull the word for "itchy" out of nowhere and showed her my bug bite.  She immediately understood and came back with a little box of "hidrocortisona" - not sure why "hydrocortisone" so confusing!  Anyhow, she gave me instructions for how often to apply it and sent me on my way.

I then made my way to the yarn shop which was totally packed.  But I found some beautiful green merino wool yarn, and a pair of circular knitting needles I wanted for a project I'm hoping to start soon.

Finally, I went to the grocery store.  After today, I've realized I either need to shop exclusively in the smaller shops, or try to go to the big shop when it's not the weekend.  It was packed.  And the lines at the meet and fish counters were long.  I was about halfway through the shop when I was looking for cleaning supplies and suddenly I got panicky.  I'm not sure if it was a full blown panic attack, but it was awful and I felt like I was going to pass out.  And/or die.  Not that I'm dramatic at all.  I managed to calm myself down pretty quickly (I sort of crouched down in an out of the way area and tried to breathe deeply - it worked).  I continued on with my shopping but I was still feeling pretty anxious and really, really frustrated with myself.  I just couldn't understand why I was so panicky - nothing in particular made me more anxious than normal (although I'm sure the crowded store and my general anxiety about speaking Spanish didn't help).

I eventually made my way home, made myself lunch, took a nap, watched tv and read.  I spent a lot of the morning sort of beating myself up for not going out with people today; although, now that it's rainy I'm happy with my choice.

In retrospect, I'm also pretty proud of myself for making it through today.  I did a lot of scary things (talking to the pharmacist, for example).  So, I panicked a little - no big deal, right?  I'm sure my morning anxiety did nothing to help me.  Hopefully, if it happens again, I can keep myself calm.  And if I panic, I'll survive.  I'm fine and feeling totally normal now, so I know what to do if it happens.

In other news, I watched some Spanish television - most of what I've seen so far is horrendously bad.  There was a show that is sort of like Jerry Springer.  I found the Spanish version of Ugly Betty "Yo soy Bea."  They also had the tv movie about Prince William and Kate Middleton dubbed into Spanish.  It's really trippy watching dubbed things because the actors mouths are no where close to being in sync with the audio.

Finally, the power went out very, very briefly this afternoon.  I used that as an opportunity to reset the clock on my oven (which I couldn't figure out how to reset).  But now the oven isn't working and seems to have no power.  So tomorrow will require a visit to the doorman downstairs.

Sorry for being a downer today - hopefully tomorrow will bring a more sunshine-y day all the way around!

Success!

I left my house at around 8:30 this morning and made it to work before 10.  I walked about a mile and a half to the bank and spent the whole time practicing conversation for the bank.  I practiced saying, "The ATM took my card.  A woman at my job told me to come here and get a new one" in Spanish.  I practiced saying, "Also, I wrote the wrong signature on the website and I got locked out of my online account!  Can you unblock it for me?" 

I got there and everyone was pretty busy, but I finally got a guy to help me.  I asked if he (or anyone there) spoke English and told him my Spanish was terrible - but no luck there.  I launched into my spiel about the ATM card and he asked if it was a machine in that place that took my card. And here was the real test.  I had to say things I hadn't practiced.  I told him that the woman at my job had called them, and they told her that they would have the card for me.  So, he went into an office and voila!  My card!  It was the actual card that the ATM had eaten with my signature and everything.  We tested it to make sure it worked and it does.  The guy asked me if I needed the ATM translated to English, but then said my Spanish was good enough he thought I would be okay in Castellano.  So now I do all my transactions in Spanish ... I can always change it later if it's too hard. 

Then we moved on to the internet issue - he fixed everything for me there and we tested the key (though not the signature - so hopefully that works).  I had a good combination of Spanish I had practiced and improv Spanish, but he understood everything I needed and was very helpful.

I honestly feel like if I can do this, I can do almost any face to face interaction.  I think the phone would be way harder, because it's harder to understand in both directions.  Fortunately, they're not huge on phone based customer service here, so I should be able to survive.  Overall, I'm feeling so much better about the whole language barrier/culture shock issue.

I am not very good at patience or at making mistakes, and my time here so far has tested both of those things pretty substantially.  Today demonstrated to me that I need to be more patient with myself (a constant struggle) and to be willing to make mistakes.  In a weird way, if I hadn't totally misunderstood the entire banking system here, I wouldn't have had a chance to practice my Spanish today.  While I was practicing my Spanish, I know I made about 4 billion mistakes, but I survived.  No one yelled at me or laughed at me and the guy understood everything I needed.  So, the next time I need to practice, I'll be a little less scared.  And maybe I'll leave this whole experience actually speaking real Spanish - which was one of my big goals anyhow.

Between this excitement and all of the exciting things getting started at work, today is one of the days when I feel like "I can do this!"  I'm sure I'll have more "What am I DOING here?!?" days, but it's nice to feel like I might be able to succeed!

Wish me luck ...

I got bitten by twice by a (or multiple?) mosquitos last night.  I just killed a mosquito that was buzzing around my place, and it squirted tons of blood all over my hands.  Probably my blood.  Jerk mosquito.

And I woke up super, duper nervous about the bank.  This does not bode well for my ability to actually say things in Spanish while I'm there.  That's what a dictionary is for, I guess.  I need to just go be a grown up about it.  Wish me luck!

Like Magic

Today was magically much, much better than yesterday.  I had a great day at work and started to figure things out more in terms of logistics.  One of my new friends taught me how to load my bus card with tickets - I chose the monthly ticket since you only have to ride the bus 44 times to pay for it - and if I go to work and back every day for a month, I will ride it 40 times, so I think it's definitely going to be worth it.

I'm also planning to go to the bank tomorrow to pick up my replacement ATM card and hopefully get "unlocked" from my online bank account.  I have been practicing the things to say, though I'm pretty nervous about the whole ordeal.  I know I'll survive either way, and if I need to I can always drag a Spanish speaker with me on Monday.  It will be really good for me to at least try, I think.

Tomorrow's going to be a short work day:  a late morning due to the bank (they're only open 9-1:30), and an early afternoon since another postdoc is leaving and we're all going out for pintxos/drinks at around 6 downtown (and I want to go home and drop my things off before we run around town for who knows how many hours).

I don't have plans for this weekend after tomorrow night, but hopefully, I can make some!  Otherwise, I might just try to get lots of work done.  I'm submitting to two conferences, and would like to have some new data to present!  I do need to go to the big grocery store as well as go to the "home" store to try to buy some sheets and something not beige for my place.

Better day already ...

It's only 8:20 but I know today is going to be a better day - I feel more awake already than I did all day yesterday.  The weather is supposed to be clearer 'til the evening.  I'm going to get home in time to go to the grocery store.  A friend of mine is showing me how to put money on the bus pass.  And I won't suck in Spanish today, since I've already practiced some this morning.  :)  Plus, I'm wearing pink which always means I have a good day.  I do, however, feel like I need to find some good music to work to - if you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments (click on the "0 comment" link below and it should let you comment)!

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Once again, I forgot to hit "post".  But it's okay because I had something else to say!

The busses here have televisions on them which show ads, where the next stop is, relevant information about the town ... they show where the "farmacias de guardia" are (all pharmacies keep Spanish time - except for one or two in each town which stay open for 24 hour.  This responsibility rotates among the pharmacies - and it's posted on all the closed pharmacies where the nearest open one is.  This is important since you can't even buy tylenol outside of a pharmacy here - and all medicine is behind the counter).  Anyhow, I can't believe I didn't mention my favorite thing, which is that the bus televisions have birth announcements for all of the babies born in the last 24 hours.  How cool is that?  Yesterday four kids were born, so far as I could tell on the tv - two Xabiers among them (pronounced "shah-bee-air").  I feel like every little boy I see here is called Xabier, which I sort of love because the nickname is "Xabi" (Shah-bee).  Too cute.

Operation: Start Speaking Spanish

So this weekend made me realize that I've been here for nearly two weeks, and eventually, I'll have to stop using the "I just got here" excuse for not speaking Spanish. As some of you might know, I hate being bad at things.  So much so, that I just don't do them if I have a choice.  But with Spanish here, I don't really have that choice.  I just have to be a grown up and ... Start Speaking Spanish.

I know more Spanish than I give myself credit for, I think.  I was just going through all my notes from my Spanish teacher last year, as well as some worksheets and books I have, and I'm starting to realize that I probably can hold my own in conversation.  But I need some more work.  Starting this week at work, I think I get to start Spanish classes 4 days a week for an hour a day.  I'm also going to try to watch an hour of Spanish TV a day + listen to Spanish podcasts/radio at least once a day.  There's no reason I can't listen to a podcast while I'm cooking or cleaning.  Then I need to work on grammar and vocabulary.  Unfortunately, I had to leave many of my grammar/vocab books at home, but so much is available online.

I'm trying to put this out there publicly, so in a month, you can all ask me how it's going.  In a month, I want to be much more confident about speaking Spanish in shops and around town.  In six weeks, I want to be more confident speaking to people I meet (and the Spanish speakers at work) in regular conversations.  So, those are my two goals now!  Hopefully, I can meet them.

In non-Spanish news, I'm also working on improving my knitting and crocheting skills while I'm here, so I may update every so often about projects I'm working on.