Week three brought lots of changes, the biggest of which was my move to Santiago de Compostela. Other things worth noting:
Week {3} in review
Category: Ruminations
Two-week-iversary.
Today marks two weeks since I moved to Spain – can you believe it? Seeing as I’ve done a pretty poor job writing as I go, here are some highlights from my first 14 days as an expat.
- First Spanish word I learned: Escarabajo (as in the type of car I drive – a Beetle!).
- First English phrase I taught my teacher: Couch potato.
- Weather in Galicia: Really, really rainy (ahem.)
- In a manner of speaking: There are two languages in Galicia – Castellano (standard Spanish) and Gallego (the regional language). Residents of Galicia are raised learning both languages. When I first got here, my Spanish was so rusty I couldn’t understand the difference between the two, because I understood nothing at all. Now…let’s be real, that still happens.
- Weirdest food eaten: Octopus. Suckers and all. Suckas.
- Beverages I know how to order: Café con leche and vino blanco. Es todo.
- Peanut butter consumption: Moderate. Still on my second jar.
- My school: Small but wonderful, with less than 200 students and less than 20 teachers. The kids have a terrifying amount of energy, and the teachers, a terrific amount of patience. My face hurts from smiling by the end of every day.
I really like it here so far. Big changes are on the way, though. This weekend, I am moving out of A Pobra (the little beach town I am in) and up to Santiago, a much larger city with a university. I will be living with two Spanish college students (!), and will definitely miss the two wonderful Americans I have been living with here in A Pobra. But Spanish must be learned!
Hasta luego,
MB
In the beginning
In the beginning, there was a plane, and on the plane was Molly. After 17 hours of flying (Atlanta – Miami – Madrid – Santiago – oh my), I finally arrived in Galicia. I could tell the difference between Galicia and central Spain just by looking out the window. While the land surrounding Madrid was craggy and brown, the Galician countryside was a rolling patchwork of green.
Montse, the English teacher at my school, picked me up from the airport in Santiago, carrying a sign the students had made.
Needless to say, I felt quite welcomed. Montse has been an absolute blessing, driving me around to pick a cell phone plan, get my foreign documents in order, and open a Spanish bank account.
Presently, I am staying with two auxiliars (that is, English Language Assistants like me) in A Pobra, which is where Montse lives and a 10-minute drive from school. They have an extra bedroom and are kind enough to let me use their apartment as home base while I figure out where to live.
A Pobra is obscenely picturesque. I will leave you with the following view. This is what you see if you exit the apartment building and walk for about 30 seconds.
I’m sorry, what?
Will wine for wifi
So.
I am in Spain.
There is so much to tell, but that will have to wait. I am still bustling around, trying to figure out which city to live in. Right now, I am on my way to Santiago to meet with a potential roommate. I am currently crashing in a small town (absolutely precious) with two other auxiliares. However, they do not yet have internet, which means we must patronize the cafe-pizzeria a 45-second walk away to get wifi. This is not a terrible thing to have to do, unless you count the fact olives are served with my wine (olives are always a terrible thing).
The important things to know for now are (1) Galicia is gorgeous, (2) buses are nauseating, and (3) olives are repugnant.
Hasta luego!
– MB
Muscle pizza and orange rabbits
Last week I went to Miami to apply for my visa, and I must say it was one of the least fulfilling trips I have ever taken. I do not, however, blame this on Miami. I arguably wasn’t even in Miami, but the district of Coral Gables (where the Spanish Consulate is). Coral Gables’ only attraction within walking distance of my hotel was Miracle Mile, a road of nice-enough shops capped off with a Denny’s. I did not even set foot on a beach. The only time I saw water was when it was being leached from my skin by the heat.
The good news is that my visa appointment went off without a hitch – ten minutes from start to finish. But do you know how irritating it is to spend a few hundred dollars to fly to a city for the sole purpose of handing someone ten pieces of paper? Very. Irritating.
Anyway. What’s done is done. The three highlights of my stay were seeing this orange rabbit (a reminder to us all of dangers of GMO carrots), passing a store called Coral Gables Juice Bar & Muscle Pizza (???), and visiting Books & Books, which, coincidentally, is not a part of Miracle Mile and (not coincidentally) wonderful.
Now I am a lady in waiting. Visa visa come to me!
-MB
The twiddling comes to a close
You guys. YOU GUYS. I’m moving to Spain!
I’ve been dying to be able to talk about my future with any kind of certainty, and now I can. Back in July, I was accepted to the North American Language and Culture Assistant Program (NALCAP – Auxiliares de Conversación), but heard nothing else for NINE WEEKS. Nine weeks! Last week, after placing a few international calls, I finally received my placement at an elementary school in the province of A Coruña, Galicia. It turns out Bellsouth has xenophobia and was blocking – not spamming, simply blocking – all the emails the Ministry of Education tried to send me. Who says technology doesn’t discriminate?
As you can see, Galicia is in a rather remote corner of Spain. Unless you’ve taken Spanish (and even if you have), you probably haven’t heard of it. When tourists hit up Spain, they gravitate towards the sunny beaches of Barcelona and Andalucía in the south. However, I have heard an abundance of wonderful things about Galicia, namely its rugged lushness, friendly inhabitants, and fresh seafood. It’ll be exciting to get off the beaten path!
It would be fair to call this journey “constructive procrastination.” The word “constructive” is important here, because I have three major goals for this experience:
- Get a feel for teaching. I have graduated from college and, to no one’s surprise, have no idea what to do with my future. I may want to teach as a profession at some point, but not immediately. Time to try on the Teacher Hat and see if it’s for me.
- Achieve fluency in Spanish. As a graduated Spanish major, you would expect me to be able to speak the language, right? How very presumptuous of you! No, I speak elevated Stutter Spanish, but nothing respectable.
- Indulge my wanderlust. I am not delusional enough to believe I can satiate it, because ohmygosh there is so much to see in the world, but I am so excited to get out and explore. OHMYGOSH THERE IS SO MUCH TO SEE IN THE WORLD.
And so the scramble begins. This week, I am off to Miami to apply for my visa. It would appear that I have a (temporary) future. 🙂
Thankful.
I am the luckiest girl in the world. A whole lot of crazy is headed my way in the next few months, but Labor Day came at a great time to remind me that I am blessed beyond belief.
Being a lord of leisure
Fran: What are you going to do with all your time off, Manny?
Manny: Oh I don’t know. Long baths. Braid my beard. Unbraid it. Lie around, fondling moonbeams, being a lord of leisure.
Yesterday wrapped up the family’s two-week summer vacation. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed being a lord of leisure, if for no other reason than because I’ve gotten to escape my bedroom. I moved out of Athens a couple of weeks ago, and the King decided the best way to handle my move back home was to put all my college stuff in my home bedroom. All of it. Merciless man. Now my full-sized bed is shared by heaps of clothes and a large black trunk. Don’t worry, the pots, pans, and lightbulbs are on the floor.
On a less tedious note, here are some interesting finds for your leisure time.
- Can you believe these are oil paintings? Like whoa.
- The British TV series Black Books (watch it on Netflix). I cannot say enough good things about this show. I haven’t laughed this much since Parks & Recreation.
- The 40 Days of Dating project that chronicles what happens when two friends (both professionals in the art world) started to date in NYC. It’s an intriguing, bare-all project. Check it out for the graphics, if nothing else.
- The towns of Boring and Dull tackle tourism.
- How does the gendering of a book’s cover make girls versus guys want to read it?
Now, off to find a home for my sombrero.
The Disposable
I’ve been lugging around a disposable camera for the past few months. It is a clunky, sensitive, and altogether inconvenient way to capture life. But there is something I respect about The Disposable in our instant day and age. It delays gratification. You have no idea if a shot is majesty or travesty until weeks after you’ve taken it. In some respects, then, The Disposable paints a more accurate portrait of post-grad life than digital technology. There is a lag between cause and effect. You can’t just snap your fingers and have a job, a graduate school acceptance, a future plan. You snap the shutter 27 times, and hope that after the film is developed, perhaps one of those 27 exposures will result in a proper image.
Besides, it doesn’t break when you drop it on concrete. How very practical.
“Good luck in the real world”
Over three weeks have passed since I graduated from the University of Georgia, and I am completely in denial. I haven’t moved so much as a coffee mug out of my house in Athens. I am riding my lease out through the summer, after which the house I am renting, along with my bubble of denial, will be unceremoniously demolished.
I have graduated and don’t know what to do next.
On May 10, Saxby Chambliss delivered the commencement address at UGA’s graduation. Back when Chambliss ran his Senate campaign in 2002, I was twelve years old. I remember thinking that “Saxby Chambliss” was the coolest name known to politics, and for that reason twelve-year-old-me was a staunch Chambliss supporter. Nevertheless, I have to admit that I became jealous when I found out that Julie Andrews spoke at CU Boulder’s graduation. And while she may not have said anything particularly groundbreaking, leave it to the Queen of Genovia to make hackneyed graduation advice sound mildly refreshing:
“Keep learning as you go. Acknowledge that there will be fear and adversity. Then go out and kick butt.”
Over the past three weeks, I’ve surrounded myself with the comforts of idle life – the beach, chocolate, books, and two seasons of Scandal. In other words, I’ve been neither learning, nor acknowledging, nor kicking butt. After three weeks, I think it’s time for the denial period to come to a close. I may not know what to do with my life, but it is time to learn from and through this identity crisis of mine. Butt-kicking may be far off, but it too shall come.
So here’s to a summer of post-grad learning, of solving problems like Maria and slurping spoonfuls of sugar. Congrats grads!
-MB
(photo thanks to Amanda)
Molly On the Move 