update

Here's the news in brief:

Am temping at a law firm downtown, where I basically bet paid to write and read all day. Excellent.

Current writing projects include: (1) a non-fiction book about my experiences teaching in Madrid, (2) a series of feature articles about being a late 20's single female in the contemporary dating market, (3) a series of feature articles about people in professions that are largely dominated by the opposite gender (e.g. female auto mechanics, male nurses, etc.), (4) The Lilly Frank trilogy.

Most recent book(s) I've read: all four Stephanie Meyer vampire novels from the Twilight series.

Plan to go to Italy in January or March for one month to take an Italian class and work on the novel.

Plan to go to Germany next October for one month to take a German class and work on the novel.

Plan to go to China in 2010 to teach for a semester at a Chinese university, to learn some Chinese, and to work on the novel.

Have just started a new blog to act as a central hub for my creative pursuits. If interested, you can find it at http://sioneaeschliman.blogspot.com

inner demons

I had less than 24 hours to make a decision about whether to get on the plane to Germany or not, and in the end I decided not. For now.

People have been asking me how I feel about the decision. Part of me is relieved that I get to be in Oregon and not separate from my friends and family again so soon. But part of me is also grieving the loss of another adventure.

I was really looking forward to some quiet time and to writing and to taking German classes, but in the end I decided it would be better to wait until I could be sure of having a place to stay that is stable and quiet and affords me some private space in which to write.

But now that I no longer have this trip planned, now that I need to get down to the business of finding a place to live and a job like everyone else, I am also wrestling a little with the inner demons that say I am not as interesting a person if I don't plan to jaunt off to other parts of the world with some regularity.

I just might have become as addicted as my Grandma to having a trip planned. If Grandma doesn't have a big trip planned for at least once a year, she is noticeably less enthusiastic about life in general. I think I can understand that traveling regularly is a way to inject some adventure and variety into one's life, as well as give one something interesting to talk about that makes other people a little jealous.

Anyway, I just gave myself a whole lot to do in the next couple of months: find a place to live, find a job (will be temping for at least a little while obviously), figure out what to use my airline credit on (have to fly before April 13, one year from the original reservation date), and most importantly create time and space for myself to write.

soul is recharged

After several weeks of soaking up the love of family and friends, as well as spending some time in the beautiful Oregon wilderness, my soul feels recharged.

Good thing too, because I just found out at 11pm tonight that the family I was going to stay with in Munich is no longer able to offer me a room due to a family emergency.

Of course this is not convenient, but so far am doing a good job of not freaking out. Have already sent out word to my Munich contacts that I need a place to stay, and I think it likely that the language school I've signed up to take an intensive German course from will be able to help me out.

Experience has taught me that something will work out. I trust in that.

In light of this new information, it's probably a good thing I have a teaching interview lined up for the first week I'm in Munich. I might end up needing the extra money.

And while all that is working itself out, I thought I'd share with you my photos from this summer. Copy and paste the links below:

Album 1
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=53611&l=85e99&id=595126014

Album 2
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=55845&l=60200&id=595126014

Munich plans

So I've worked out a tentative plan for Munich based on my goals for the experience, the most important of which will be to write the first Lilly Frank novel.

I have decided not to look for teaching work right away. I have enough money saved from Madrid to live for two months without working, so for the first month I am going to take an intensive German course (Mon.-Thur. 9am-12pm) and spend the afternoons writing.

If after one month I decide that I want to stay in Germany longer than two months total, I will need to find paid work, most likely TEFL again but I am also open to the idea of working at a doggie day care or an English language publication or something similarly fun and in alignment with my interests.

I plan to stay in Germany long enough to write at least the first three chapters and a synopsis of the rest of the book so I can start sending it out to agents.

Some of you already know that I have also started a second writing project: I'm collecting all of my blog entries as well as my journal entries and random bits I wrote down in various notebooks while I was in Madrid and putting them all in chronological order. When I've finished with that I'll decide if it's something I want to edit and send out as a book for publication.

It would be a sort of travel confessional. I'm not sure I've seen anything else like that so far, but there's got to be a first time for everything.

The main thing for me right now is that I'm excited I'm finally going to focus on my writing and really try to be a writer as a career instead of just having it be something I do while I'm working other jobs. It's a big, scary step for me. Until now I was content to believe that my failure was due to insufficient effort. I will no longer have that excuse.

more cultural differences

I'm still sort of "unpacking" my time in Madrid, still figuring out how it has changed me.

I worked a temp job downtown Portland for a week and a half, and one of the things I noticed was how rude people seemed to me when they'd get on the elevator without saying hello.

Of course I remember that this is normal here, but after experiencing how the Spanish create a sense of community in their apartment buildings and work places, not verbally acknowledging other people's presence seems so cold and unnecessarily distant.

I've also noticed a cultural difference between Portland and Central Oregon.

In Portland when one interacts with strangers (e.g. ordering a coffee, speaking with a bank teller, etc.), there is a willingness on both ends to connect, to see the other person as a person, to be open to each other and quickly establish a friendly acquaintanceship.

But so far in Bend and Sisters, although people smile and ask you how you're doing, there is a coldness behind it, an insincerity, an emotional wall. They ask because it is expected of them, but I don't get the impression that these people actually see me as a person, that they want anything other than to get the business transaction over with.

I clearly prefer the Portland culture in this respect. I like to be treated as a respected friend by the random people I do business with or stand in line with. It makes me feel like a person.

I have no idea what could cause such differences in cities only a couple hundred miles from each other. Maybe it's the high desert and Bend's lack of greenery. Maybe it's the political climate. Or the types of people that are attracted to each place. Maybe people who live in the desert would prefer to be left alone. I dunno.

But it might account for a large part of why I had such a hard time connecting with people and making friends when I lived in Bend. And why I feel so much more comfortable and accepted in Portland.

Still Two Selves

I've sat down several times and tried to blog about my trip with Mom, but for whatever reason my heart's not in it. Maybe because it was a relatively long trip and I'm tempted to go day-by-day (which would probably be boring to you anyway). Or maybe because I've entered my other life now.

I noticed when I visited home for Christmas that it felt like I'd never left and that was disappointing to me. I decided I needed to integrate my Madrid experience into my other experiences so that it didn't feel like a thing apart.

The same feeling greeted me when I came home a week and a half ago. It felt like I'd never left. Somehow I have failed to integrate my experiences. Somehow my life in Europe is completely separate from my life in the U.S. and vice versa.

I can feel the two selves struggling within me. The Home Self is slowly rising to the surface, called out of a long slumber by the proximity of loved ones and the blue mountains in the distance. The Traveling Self is slowly fading into the background, for the moment lurking sulkily behind my eyes, drawing my attention to the strangeness of these people I have known all my life.

The Home Self struggles to wake; the Traveling Self tries to resist drowsiness.

Photos from trip

At the moment am too tired to start recounting my travels with Mom, but at the very least I can post the link to the photos.

So here's the link to the photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=47986&l=bd175&id=595126014

Will start telling tales when I'm feeling better and have a bit more time.

safe arrival

Have made it back to Portland safe and sound. I have a bad cold but other than that am fine. Details will follow at a later date. I have a lot to catch up on!

Besos.

In Sevilla!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that Mom and I are still alive and enjoying our time in beautiful Sevilla...despite the fact that it's 104 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT!!!

We may or may not go to Granada tomorrow (have decided against Córdoba), but we'll have to see. We have not gone into a single tourist attraction, though we have taken some great pictures and I've bought some stuff, some for other people and some for myself.

I will mention before I go that our trip to Sevilla started off interestingly. I misjudged what time we needed to be at the airport, and since I'd told mom to trust me she didn't double-check, so we missed our original flight. Luckily the next flight was practically empty and only and hour and a half later, so we hopped on that one instead.

I was really proud of mom for not losing her cool, and proud of myself for keeping my head (though I was super embarrassed!) and dealing with the situation calmly.

One more day in Andalucía and then we fly back up to Madrid, spend Monday afternoon there and then fly to Paris Monday night. The temperature will be much cooler, and I can't wait for the butter-laden food! Yum yum!

Besos! =*)

Notes

1. Saying goodbye to all my students is sad. I've had such a good time with them over the last ten months, and they're all so friendly, affectionate, inclusive, funny, fun-loving and wonderful people. I know I'll probably come to love my German students too, but Spanish people are special. They freakin' rock.

2. Last week I learned the difference between un coñazo, una mierda and una putada. Un coñazo is a boring situation; una mierda is something bad that happens but is really no one's fault; and una putada is something bad that someone does to you. Hm. Still need to find out how una porquería is different from all of the above. Anybody out there happen to know?

3. The amusement park on Saturday, for example, could be considered both un coñazo and una mierda. We waited in line for an hour just to get into the park, and then every ride we went on (I only went on 4 or 5) had a wait of at least an hour. The park was chock-full of teenagers scoping each other out, making out, horsing around, smoking in line. So in addition to it being hot and us spending a lot of time standing around sweating, I felt like the oldest woman alive. Note to self: amusement parks not so much fun after high school.

4. Part of the atmosphere of a Spanish bar or cafetería is all the noise. In fact, the people who work in these places seem to go out of their way to make as much noise as possible: really loud milk steamers, loudly banging freshly washed dishes around, calling out orders to each other from opposite ends of the bar. And then there are the customers, who are quiet when by themselves but if you get a group of 3 or more become rambunctious. I have to say that it all seems rather jovial and fun when you're in the mood, but when it's my first coffee of the day it's a bit of much.

5. Speaking of morning coffee, while I was getting one this morning at about 9am a guy came in and sat beside me and ordered a bottle of beer. At 9am. Which only further proves my point that the Spanish don't consider beer to be an alcoholic beverage; they see as a cool refreshing drink when you need a cool refreshing drink. Period.

6. The five basic Spanish food groups: pork products, fish & seafood, potatoes & bread, beer, eggs.

Last classes, etc.

Mom comes tomorrow! Woohoo!

And I actually might be ready on time! =*)

Copy and paste this link to see some photos from my last week in Madrid: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=45437&l=f9d8e&id=595126014

everybody wants a piece of me

Had a really fun day today.

After sleeping in and a slow wake-up, I headed off to TtMadrid around noon to print some stuff and say goodbye to the teachers there. Had a nice chat with Tem, gifted her some peanut butter and was on my way.

Next I met some of my students and their co-workers downtown for lunch, which turned out to be a bunch of tapas at an Asturian bar, then some coffee (for me) and cocktails (for them) at another bar, then more tapas and beer and sangria at a bar in Huertas (I finally learned how to peel shrimp!), then another beer in an Irish pub in Sol. Whew! Six and a half hours of eating and drinking. My kind of vacation! I will def miss those guys.

From the Irish pub went directly to meet up with a Spanish friend (Carlos of the hiking trip whom I briefly dated) at Tribunal for Mexican food. Closed that place down, wandered around for a while looking for his car, got a little lost on the way home, and finally arrived, safe and sound, a little before 3am.

Tomorrow am going to the amusement park with my former private student, Alba, and perhaps her sister. They have water rides, which I am very much looking forward to since it has been hot here these past few days. (Though not as hot as it will be when my mom and I travel to Sevilla!!)

Sunday I have a lot of administrative wrapping up to do on my classes, not to mention hanging out for a bit with Leslie of Philadelphia and for another bit with Craig of New Zealand.

Busy, busy! But I'm happy to be able to say proper goodbyes to the people I've come to know here in Madrid.

And what's even nicer for me is finding out that I've had a positive effect on people's lives. One of my classes bought an enormous (Texas-sized) greeting card for me and they all signed it AND they gave me some cute gifts. How thoughtful! And tonight Carlos confessed that our brief acquaintance has had an effect on how he thinks about life and the direction he wants to take his career. Major! And here all this time I thought my presence here wasn't making a damn bit of difference to anyone. It's so flattering and gratifying to know that I matter to people and that they consider their lives richer for having met me. Too cool!

ACK! ACK! ACK!

One week left until Mom comes and I leave Madrid! Ack ack! My head is overflowing with logistical details...all the little tasks I have to complete before Mom gets here, all the gaps in my schedule that will fill far too fast as I try to cram everything in.

It's a little overwhelming at the moment, so I am resorting to my age-old friend The List. Whenever I have a lot of things to remember it helps me to write things down in the form of lists and then to prioritize tasks based on importance, deadline, and most efficient use of time.

Two of my classes have canceled again today, so I get to spend the next four and a half hours cleaning out my room, dividing things into piles: trash, recycling (did you know you can recycle your clothes and shoes here?? too cool!), for Leslie, for TtMadrid, for the big suitcase, for the trip with Mom. I expect I'll also do a little preliminary packing.

Only one week left!!!

sudden doubts: the influence of literature

Last night I finished reading the short story "Horseman" by Richard Russo. In the past I haven't enjoyed his writing but I really liked this story, probably in part because it was about an academic and it reminded me how much I liked being one and made me miss it. But the story itself was a little depressing; it tried to have an optimistic ending, I think, but didn't quite succeed. Or perhaps the unconvincing, optimistic ending in itself was the point.

As soon as I finished the story, I began to reflect on the course of my own life and was filled with sudden doubts: I've told myself that I'm on a personal journey. That living abroad is a meaningful and valuable experience, that it's preparing me for some as-yet-unknown destiny. But what if it's not? What if I'm just filling time with "busy nothings"? What if I'm just as lost at the end of this experience as I was at the beginning? Will it still have been worth it in the end?

On a different note, I had a revealing dream the night before last (no pun intended). I dreamed that I was at some kind of deserty, mountainy retreat with a bunch of my students and there were outdoor showers so I decided to get naked and take a shower in front of my students. I was fine with it at first until I realized that my nakedness was making some of my students uncomfortable, and then I got really self-conscious and regretted my action.

The meaning of the dream is clear to me. I'm feeling insecure because I've given some of my students my blog addresses and I'm afraid they will be made uncomfortable by my openness and honesty. In class I've managed to keep some distance between my students and myself. I've tried to maintain a certain degree of professionalism, which to me means keeping large portions of my personality out of it...it definitely means keeping my own insecurities and personal feelings out of it. But most of what I've kept hidden from my students is here in my blog and I'm afraid some of them won't be able to handle my "nakedness."

I suppose it comes down to the age-old question of acceptability. Am I acceptable? Am I too strange? Too honest? Too different from other people? I suppose I'll continue to struggle with this my whole life. Recognizing the problem, though, is half the battle.

Happy Father's Day!

To all the dads out there: Happy Father's Day!

And to my own father in particular: I'm so grateful for your presence in my life. I love you very much.

13 days 'til Mom arrives!

Am just counting the days until Mom comes and I leave Spain. On the one hand I will miss my students and the friends I've made here, but on the other I'm so so SO excited to see my friends and family at home.

This weekend is a busy but pleasant one. On Thursday I went to my students' informal futbol match and then to a nearby bar for tapas and drinks afterwards. Those boys are always so nice to me, true gentlemen, and it's a good opportunity to practice my Spanish.

Yesterday afternoon my friends Marta, Emma and Laurel came over and I made lunch of macaroni and cheese, buffalo wings and salad. Yum yum yum! Used the entire bottle of Frank's hot sauce in one go, but it was so worth it. They turned out great! Then last night was the farewell party of Mary, who has been doing TtMadrid administrative stuff for the last couple of years and is now going to San Diego to start law school. We went to a bar near the Plaza de España that also has a dance floor in the basement. I danced for hours and had an awesome time.

Today I get to lie around all day but tonight I'm going to a friend's birthday party. I think the friend might even be DJing the party.

Then tomorrow (Father's Day!) I think I'm having lunch again with Emma, Marta and Laurel, and in the evening I think Meaghan and I are having a movie night.

So clearly I am staying busy. My social calendar is filling quickly since time is running short and everyone wants to have a last hang-out before Mom comes and I'm effectively gone for good.

I'm so excited to be coming home! I can feel Oregon calling to me, can feel its air in my lungs, can see the mountains and beaches and rivers and lakes and the high desert, can feel my friends' embraces, hear their voices and laughter...mentally I am there already; I'm just waiting for my body to catch up.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!

birthday all over again

This morning I was feeling a little down because I've had to say goodbye forever to several of my students in the past couple of days. But then the doorbell rang...

...and a package arrived!!!

Kelsey, Steve and Robert sent me goodies! In addition to the boxes of macaroni and cheese (hooray! how did you know I'd run out??) there were not one or two but THREE organic chocolate bars with almonds (chocolate with nuts! chocolate with nuts!), a bottle of Frank's hot sauce (chicken wings, look out!), a box of organic earl grey tea (am on my second cup of the day), a Starburst blueberry sucker (slurp!), a package of scone mix (woohoo!), two good-sized rabbit pelt scraps (perhaps will make bikini top?), a CD (have not yet listened but is on tomorrow's agenda), and a cute birthday card.

My friends are so awesome and thoughtful! Thanks, guys!

o, happy day!!!

Barak Obama is the Democratic presidential candidate!!! Jumping for joy!

Now we just need to get Hilary Clinton on the ticket as his running mate.

Oh, happy day! Hope lives!

little wonder

A couple days ago I stumbled across a huge, beautiful park just a ten minute walk from my house. I've been living here for eight months, dissatisfied with the location, depressed about the lack of things to do in this hood and with the lack of beauty around here, and all this time I lived within ten minutes of my salvation. I feel like an idiot.

On a related note, my angst seems to have inspired me to become some kind of health nut all of a sudden. My restlessness has prompted me to take walks for the hour before sunset for the last three nights, and I'm actually considering taking up jogging.

I was going to try jogging tonight, but I was starving after work and had to eat a big meal, and I didn't think it best to jog right after that unless bulemia was the plan. Which it definitely is not. I prefer the taste of my food going down, thank you. So I opted for a fast walk instead. Very satisfying.

Am feeling better, not quite so sad or lonely.

Had a nice email and phone chat with Mom yesterday. Talking with her makes me feel good about myself. It reminds me that I can be sweet and lovable and thoughtful and that I'm not always offensive and bitter.

Lately I've been feeling pretty sad and lonely. And, paradoxically, my instinct is to withdraw rather than reach out.

For example, my roommies invited me to go out for a beer with them tonight in the 'hood, but I said no. I just don't feel like it. They're all happy and giggly, and I just don't have the energy to be like that. I feel like I'd only bring them down.

Plus, I've decided to swear off alcohol completely until Mom gets here.

Anyway that's why I haven't been writing. Because I'm in withdrawal mode and because I don't have anything to say. But thought I'd at least say that so that people don't think I'm dead or something.

P.S. Thanks to all the people who offered to let me stay with them, my dream of couch hopping this summer will become a reality. =*) Am very much looking forward to seeing you all. Hugs.

entertaining a thought

I'm entertaining the idea of couch hopping for the couple of months that I'm home. Obviously the main advantage would be not having to pay rent. A result of that would be that I wouldn't have to work as much while I'm home and I could spend more time with friends and family.

But right now I don't know if it's feasible. If you're a friend or family member who wouldn't mind my freeloading for a brief stint this summer, please let me know. And also let me know how long I'd be welcome (1 night? 3 nights? a week?).

experiences

Highly recommended food experience: a whole grain roll, cut in half, each half topped with herbed cream cheese, swiss cheese and a slice of fresh tomato. Eaten as an open-faced sandwich for breakfast, lunch or snack. Craig introduced me to this food combo when I stayed with him in Munich, and I just had it again for lunch and it was WONDERFUL.

There's another experience I wanted to share with you, a moment in Oporto when life itself seemed a metaphor.

It happened on Saturday when Leslie and I were roaming around the south bank of the river and trying to find a way up the cliff to the top part of the Eiffel bridge. We were walking west on a road that curved up the mountain; to the left was uphill and to the right downhill.

I heard a noise like metal clanking on metal and looked down over the guardrail. I saw a seagull trapped in a narrow space between the back of a little building and the retaining wall that the road was built on. The gap was just wide enough to admit the bird, but not wide enough to let it spread its wings.

The bird was pacing back and forth along the gap, tripping over cans and bottles and whatever else had found its way down into the gap. The walls on either side were too high for the bird to jump up on, and since it couldn't spread its wings it couldn't fly out either. The seagull was trapped.

Our hearts went out to it, but after some examination of the situation we discovered that there was no way we could help it. The gap was closed off by a shed on one end and by a metal wall on the other. There was no one around to talk to, no gate we could open, nothing we could lower to the bird, not even any food to throw to it. There was nothing we could do ourselves and no one whose aid we could enlist.

Whether through stupidity or bad luck, the bird had fallen into a trap, and it was doomed to pace back and forth in its grave until it died of thirst, hunger, cold or exhaustion.

It's a hard thing to accept...to see a creature in a pitiful situation and want to help but be powerless. It reminded me of someone I knew years ago who was not emotionally healthy. I wanted to help her, but the more I tried to help the worse it got. Rather than helping her, I was just entangling myself in a sick power game.

Eventually what I realized was that there was nothing I could do that would truly help the person. She had to decide to help herself. In the meantime, the most I could do was to distance myself from the situation and stop being her friend. She was really angry with me for making that decision, which I understood, but I believe it was the right decision.

The seagull is a little different in that it was clearly trying to help itself: it was looking for a way out and every so often it tried to jump up and find purchase on the pipes running along the wall. But the fact remains that it was stuck and we couldn't help. It seemed a commentary on fate itself: fate is unavoidable, sometimes cruel and seemingly senseless.

oporto

Impressions of Oporto:

Cute boy at the airport tourist information booth with short brown hair, green eyes, blue wide-striped sweater. I asked for a map and bought 2 metro tickets, thanked him for the change and began to walk away. He had to call me back because I'd forgotten to wait for the tickets. I was embarrassed, but glad to extend my interaction with him for a few more minutes.

On the metro (clean, new, small) into the city, we passed by greenery--little gardens, grape and morning glory vines, trees and shrubs of all kinds--and brightly painted and tiled houses.

The people looked just like Spaniards, but in my estimation they were much more willing to speak English (or French or Spanish) and to offer a smile as a sign of friendliness. Leslie disagreed with me about the smiling because she doesn't think that madrileños don't smile at strangers. The people of Oporto also took their time to explain things to us, e.g. the menus.

The buildings were mostly 3- and 4-storey affairs made of stone and plaster, some faced with colored tiles, topped with red tile roofs. No brick buildings, which was a very welcome change from Madrid. Wrought iron gates and handrails painted in bright colors. Some rusty corrugated metal siding on the buildings. Building colors tend toward green, red, light blue, yellow and natural grey.

Sometimes the breeze next to the river smelled slightly salty, and once it smelled like rotting seafood.

In general I thought Oporto very pretty. Even the run-down and dilapidated parts. It was a wonderful place to vacation, but I wouldn't live there. I'd have the same problem knowing what to do with myself as I have in Madrid. The city was too relaxed, too happy to do nothing all day. There was no forward-moving energy, just a contented stagnancy.

The Oporto airport rocked. On top of being new and pleasant to look at, they had foozball(sp?) over by the vending machines and free Internet access all around the airport. Also, there was a kick-ass sign in the bathroom that told you not to throw, among other things, needles, t-shirts, underwear or shoes in the toilet. Fantastic.

To see the rest of my photos from Oporto, click on the title of this blog entry or copy and paste this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40408&l=e0593&id=595126014

off to Portugal

Just a quick note to let you all know that I'm staying at Leslie's tonight and we catch a flight to Portugal tomorrow morning, so I won't be emailing or blogging until I get back on Sunday afternoon.

Realization of the day: when I feel confident about myself I tend to feel better about other people too. Amazing!

Have an amazing weekend, everyone! Besos.

Would you think it strange if I told you that one of my advanced students calls me "darling" and sometimes blows kisses to me as he's leaving work?

And that today in my Elementary class we almost fell off our chairs laughing because one of the students pretended that his hands were two mouths kissing and another pretended to brush his armpit hair?

Or if I told you I'd been invited by one of my fellow teachers to watch him and a bunch of other men participate in half-naked, sweaty grappling?

Or that another of my students and I have bonded over our love of science fiction and specifically of Battlestar Galactica? Every Monday we geek our during the break about what happened in the latest BSG episode.

How about the fact that I took my private student, a 17 year old high school student, clothes shopping at the mall on Saturday and that I've taken to calling her mother my tía (aunt), my student and her sister my primas (cousins), and their grandmothers my abuelas. Does that seem strange to you?

Perhaps these things are a bit unusual, but they are the proofs of connection that I value most.

Happy Mother's Day

To all the moms out there: Happy Mother's Day!

And to my mom especially: You rock! I'm so looking forward to traveling with you next month!

And to my grandmother: Thanks for raising four awesome children, including my amazing mother!

Realization of the day: I'm a much happier person when I get to sleep in and don't have to be anywhere until 3:30 in the afternoon. Also more productive.

Ah! It's going to be so hard to go back to a Monday through Friday 8-5pm schedule this summer!

Yet another good reason to sell my novel and become a professional writer.

Munich room secured

Found a room in Munich. Hooray! Glad to not have to worry about that for the rest of the summer.

The room is not in the best of locations--it's about 20 min. south of city center--but the price is right (€350 all utilities included with the option of paying an extra €50/mo. for groceries. SWEET!) and the woman who owns the house seems sane and friendly in her emails.

The woman's name is Mbula. She's Kenyan, her husband is German, and they have two kids, both of whom were born in China. They speak English, German and Chinese.

The room I'm taking is in the basement, and it's big enough to fit a bed, a wardrobe and a couch. I'll have a bathroom all to myself (though it's also the laundry room).

Most exciting part: THEY HAVE A CLOTHES DRYER! YES YES YES YESSSS!!!

She says they don't have Internet right now but they plan to get wireless. I'm not holding my breath that it'll happen, but if it does it would be nice.

She also said that the area they live in is great if you like nature, which I do. There are trees and trails, a big public park within walking distance and a lake within biking distance.

The plan is to live with this family for September and October and then once I have my work situation nailed down I can look for shared housing, probably with students, in the city center.

Hooray! I have a place to live in Munich!

today's accomplishments

Sent lots of emails & Facebook messages
Listened to music
Chatted for several hours with friends on Skype and Facebook
Washed some dishes
Watched most of an episode of The Twilight Zone
Watched three episodes of La Femme Nikita (and many more to come)
Posted on personal blog (as of now)

Ate: 2 pieces pan duro with cream cheese
Peanut butter & jelly on whole wheat toast
3/4 box macaroni & cheese
three chocolate covered donuts
1/2 canister of original Pringles

Drank: two mugs of tea
one bottle orange juice
one can Fanta orange
glass of water (in near future)

Foot actually does feel a little better after not using it all day, though it's still a little touchy. Plan to work on the novel a bit before I go to sleep tonight. La Femme Nikita is research...

My foot is, like, broken or something.

Okay, not really broken, I mean I can move all the parts, but it really f'ing hurts! I woke up this morning and my foot hurt, and I tried walking it off because I had some errands I needed to run anyway, but it got worse and worse and by the time I got home I was crying. Before today I can't remember the last time I cried from physical pain.

I must've done something to it in my sleep, but I have no idea what that could have been.

Just my luck. I finally decide to be a little productive and what happens? Mobility impaired. Damn.

revelations

I think I need to finally face the fact that I've gotten extremely lazy. I don't actually work that hard, I have 3-day weekends, yet I seem to be exhausted a lot and I never seem to have enough time to sit around and do nothing.

Perhaps the problem is that I've gotten used to being inefficient and unproductive and therefore never get much done and have no way to account for all the time I'm wasting. I don't really even write anymore--not emails, not blog posts, and certainly not the novel.

So WTF am I doing with my time??? Reading, sleeping, watching TV, eating. Damn. Sounds like a vacation. How do I feel about that? Dissatisfied, I think. I think I need to be more productive.

Also had another revelation yesterday: a big part of why I want to be a professional writer is because I think it's a job where I can be my whole, unedited self rather than feeling the need to dress a certain way or employ a personality filter or put on a mask of professionalism.

Perhaps not my whole self in every piece of writing--that would be impossible--but at least to have an outlet for all the facets of my personality.

I think as a writer I could begin to more fully explore and accept myself, my humanity, my fallibility. Fallibility is charming in a narrator...to an extent.

Speaking of adorable, fallible narrators. I spent most of last week reading from the Janet Evanovich series that inspired me to begin writing my trashy novel. I'm completely addicted.

The one thing I don't like is that there is an illusion of progress (regarding personal growth of the protagonist and her romantic relationships) during the course of a novel and then the next one in the series starts out pretty much back at ground zero. As a reader I find that frustrating. I want the next novel to begin where the last one left off, not back at the beginning again.

And a quick note on yesterday's post: gazpacho is indeed made mainly from tomatoes, but they also add cucumber, which for me ruins it.

mental note: gazpacho is not tomato soup

The other day I was SO EXCITED because I found real English cheddar cheese at the supermarket. Yay, cheddar! I've been missing grilled cheese with tomato soup, so I bought the cheddar and a container of gazpacho in lieu of a can of Cambell's tomato soup, patted myself on the back for my ingenuity and trotted happily home.

Today I heated up the gazpacho with a little milk added and made myself a delicious grilled cheese sandwich, but the soup...ah, the soup. I had completely forgotten that gazpacho is made with cucumbers. Yucky cucumbers!!! ;*P So the "tomato soup" part was a disaster, but at least I got to have the grilled cheese.

bright lights & wild nights

Every so often I like to go out and have a wild night in order to remind myself how little I like having wild nights.

Last night was such an occasion for me. I went to the monthly graduation party, forgot to eat dinner, had too much to drink, began to feel sick and came home, praying the whole time I wouldn't spew on the metro. Ugh.

I can guarantee I won't be drinking again for the rest of the weekend and that it'll be a good while before I drink to excess again.

This is one of the major reasons I'm not cut out for Madrid. I'm in an environment that encourages drinking to excess often, but it's not my idea of a good time. I need to get out of here.

On the train ride home from work tonight, the conversation went like this:

Sione: Oh my god it's so hot on this train! All these people!

Megs: Yeah, but at least we got seats. It could be worse.

Sione: [Pause.] You're right. Thank you for reminding me that my life is not as bad as a Jew's during the holocaust.

Megs: Yeah, man. Think about how bad it must've been to be on the train to Auschwitz. That would've sucked.

Sione: [glances around the train at the bored faces of fellow passengers and then laughs hysterically for five minutes]

Megs: I was serious man!

Sione: [still laughing] I know! That's what makes it so funny!

Megs: You're a sick bastard. You and Josef Goebbels should be friends.

Sione: Who's Josef Goebbels?

Megs: He was the Nazi propaganda guy, aka Hitler's best friend.

Sione: Oh, well he's probably dead then, isn't he?

Megs: [Pause.] Yeah.

hermitish

I've been feeling like a bit of a hermit lately...not really wanting to go out, see people, do much of anything. And as much as I enjoy receiving emails and I read every one, I have been extremely bad about getting back to people.

So a quick hi to Dad, Mom, Joe, Robert and Craig W. I appreciate hearing from you all and I owe you all emails, but I seem to lack the energy and/or brain power necessary to compose a thoughtful one these days.

Probably because my brain has turned to slush from watching so much TV online over the past couple of weeks. I really need to break that habit.

recent excitement

On Thursday after my last class I hopped in a car with one of my students and went to a friendly futbol match between some employees at one of the places I work. Despite the rain and relative cold, it was fun. Two Spanish women from the same company as the futbol players joined me on the bench as cheerleaders, and they involved me effortlessly in their conversation. After the game we all went to a bar near the company and had a couple beers, and I actually felt like part of a community. Very cool.

At the end of the night, however, I managed to forget my backpack in the trunk of someone's car and my house keys were in it, so when I got home around 2am I had to ring the doorbell and call my roommates on their cell phones for about 20 minutes before Megs finally woke up and let me in. Hooray for Megs! Yesterday morning my first errand was to go to the company to get my backpack back.

I also learned on Thursday night that one of my students (we'll call him Juan) has a serious crush on me. One of his fellow students spent a good five minutes trying to convince me to go on a date with Juan, and I finally had to admit that even if Juan weren't my student I still wouldn't be interested in dating him. How did I suddenly get involved in a high school drama???

In other news, I'm feeling more and more excited about going to Munich in the fall. I've already begun to try setting up accomodation and work before I leave, though I don't know how much I'll actually be able to accomplish until I get there. So far all the schools and agencies I've emailed have said that they can't offer me any work until I arrive in Munich and they meet me in person. And unless I want to pay a €100 finding fee to an agency to find a room for me, I might have to just make a hostel reservation and find a room when I get to Munich too. Ah well. I did say I wanted an adventure...

life's too short to waste time

One thing I've realized in the past week or so is that life is short and the world is full of people, so I don't want to waste my time trying to force relationships/friendships with people I don't particularly like or click with.

I'd gotten into the habit here of hanging out with whomever because, I suppose, for a while I was desperate for companionship. But in the end it only makes me feel worse to hang out with people whose personalities are not compatible with mine...I end up feeling either judgmental and catty or inferior and unloveable. Not worth it!

This is one of the main reasons I spent most of last weekend in bed. I didn't see the point of going out and trying to dance around people's quirks when I have much better things to do. Like watch two seasons of Canada's Next Top Model, for example. Or write a trashy bestseller that will allow me to travel around the world and write whatever I want and save up money for a downpayment on my inn in the woods.

Being forced to listen to someone else's horrible music on the train first thing Monday morning is a special brand of torture reserved only for the Madrid metro and the deepest levels of hell.

ticket purchased

Thanks to thoughtful questions posed by my dad and mom, a New York Times article sent to me by my mom, encouragement from Parisian friend G, and a well-timed phone call from friend Craig in Munich, I have attained a satisfactory degree of clarity and purchased my plane ticket to Munich.

I leave Portland on August 31 and will return for Christmas on December 19.

The New York Times article is about how cool and "in" Munich is right now. I don't care so much about it being "in," but I do care that it is a center of creative, intellectual and artistic energy. If you're interested, you can read the article at http://travel.nytimes.com/

the three f's

The question has been put to me: what do I value more, being near friends and family or spending time abroad?

In lieu of a direct answer to that question, let me tell a story about one of my classes this week.

On Wednesday I was in a one-to-one, practicing the conditional tenses by playing a hypothetical question game, when the question came up: If you knew there would be a nuclear war in one week, what would you do?

My student answered that she would take her husband and children to the beach. She would want to spend her last week of life enjoying her family's company in the sun.

I asked roommate Megs the same question later, and she said she would go to someplace really wild, like the jungle, and live her last week in untamed nature.

And what would I do? I would take the next flight home, see all my friends and family and stuff my face with food for a week straight. Between meals, I would take nature walks and grieve for all that was about to be lost. When the week was up, depending on how I felt I would either hide in my friend Robert's bomb shelter (for if anyone I know had one, he would) or I would lie in a grassy meadow and accept my fate. With my luck, I'd probably spend my last few minutes of life being bitten by fire ants or being stung by bees.

But what my answer, which came so easily, revealed to me is that there are three things that are most important to me in this life. The three F's: Family, Friends and Food. These are my comfort and my joy, the things I value most about life and the things worth living for...when I live only for the moment and not for the future.

I heard, of all places on Canada's Next Top Model, a quote I really like:
The past is history,
The future's a mystery,
But now is a gift;
That's why they call it the present.

I like that quote a lot. It reminds me that the only thing I can count on for certain is what's happening here and now. But at the same time I have to wonder: if we live only for the moment, are we acting wisely for the future? Everything my parents and my schooling has taught me says no.

The reason I don't fly home this moment to my friends and family and to stuff my face with every good thing is because I expect there to be a future. What I do now I do in the interest of that future. Here I'm learning about myself, trying to become a better person, trying to grow in ways that will make me a better friend and family member.

And if I choose to head to Munich this fall or next winter, it will be in the interest of the future. It will be because I think I can make better headway on my writing career there than in Portland. It will be because I'm willing to sacrifice immediate comfort and pleasure for long-term gain. Haven't I been taught that sacrificing immediate pleasure is noble, sensible and at times necessary?

If I choose to spend another year abroad, does that mean I value my friends and family less? If I choose to stay in Portland for six months or a year, will I ever find the money, freedom and motivation to live abroad again?

There is this balance to be found between living the moment and trying to shape a positive future. I still doubt my ability to choose well.

Munich update

Still have not bought my ticket to Munich. Am not entirely sure what I'm waiting for.

For a few days I've been considering postponing my trip to Germany until January 2009. I miss my friends and family and there are a couple people who are having a hard time at the moment and for whom I'd really like to be there.

This is where I get stuck in a moral dilemma: what's the right thing to do? If only I knew that then my course of action would be so clear.

the pop culture death trap

Those of you who know me well already know that I have a secret, shameful obsession with reality & makeover shows such as What Not to Wear and America's Next Top Model. Well now the rest of you know too.

I spent pretty much all of yesterday watching TV online. The shows that managed to capture my attention for hours and hours on end? I would like to say I was watching The Colbert Report or Discovery Channel documentaries, but the sad truth is I watched the entire first season of Canada's Next Top Model and the entire season of America's Most Smartest Model. Of course the worst part is that I get sucked into these shows and choose favorites and become outraged and even cry at times. Oh dear.

Yes, it's true, I'm a huge geek who should know better but who still gets caught up in the drama of evil money-making industries such as the beauty and fashion industry. What can I say? We none of us are perfect.

Also very very excited because I found a place online to watch the new season of Battlestar Galactica. YYEEESSSSS!!!! During the day the site doesn't work as well, so I have to wait until tonight to watch the second episode, and I'm practically holding my breath until then. LOVE LOVE LOVE BSG!!!

Speaking of things I like, there's this blog that one of my Facebook friends introduced me to that I've been tracking. It's called Stuff White People Like. Although I don't relate to each and every post, I do think the writing is good and exposes, in a tongue-in-cheek manner, some of the quirks of mainstream white American culture. Unfortunately Target just bought the site and will begin to use it as another avenue for advertising, so I doubt the site will continue to be as interesting. I highly recommend the older posts though.

I have been exhausted exhausted EXHAUSTED lately, so I gave myself the afternoon off today, slept until 6pm (evidently needed to catch up a little), went grocery shopping, cleaned the kitchen, made a proper dinner (porkchops and pisto with rice), straightened my room, finally wrote my end-of-month report for one of my agencies. Am feeling rested, relaxed and productive. I think I'm going to spend a lot of time doing nothing this weekend in the name of continuous recouperation. Also because I'm sick of going out.

Yesterday on the train I had the sudden realization that there was nothing stopping anyone from lighting my hair on fire. If someone decided to take out a lighter and light my hair on fire, I probably wouldn't notice until it was too late and I doubt anyone else would notice until I started freaking out.

There's also nothing stopping someone from sticking a knife in my gut or slashing my face with a razor or wiping their snot on my arm or spitting on me or doing any number of things.

Morbid? Yes, perhaps I am. But the point is not that I'm living in perpetual fear that these things might happen. The point is that I live in perpetual wonder that these things DON'T happen. That I'm surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of people every day, many of whom look at me because I stick out like a sore thumb in this crowd, but none of them are the right kind of crazy to do random bad shit to strangers. It seems proof to me of humanity's essential goodness.

Or maybe it's just proof that I'm crazier than most because these thoughts even occur to me.

updates

My morning class was cancelled today so I got to sleep in until 11am, but I'm still exhausted. Had a really busy weekend with many social engagements: drinks Thursday night with Megs and Andrew, lunch Friday with Martín, dinner and drinks Friday night with the Spanish ex-roommates, hiking Saturday day, drinks Saturday night with Marta and Emma, TtMadrid picnic Sunday afternoon. Am looking forward to being a recluse this week, just sticking to work and home and going to bed early whenever possible. And nursing the sunburn I got while hiking on Saturday.

I went out on three dates with that guy Carlos I'd met hiking over a month ago, but there are no sparks so I won't be seeing him again unless just as friends.

Mom and I are planning a trip together & I'm really excited about it. She's coming in late June and we'll go to Sevilla, Córdoba, Paris and the Loire Valley. Her best friend from high school, Pam, might come do the France part with us too. Hooray! Then I'll head home on July 9th. Double hooray!

Very excited about going home for the summer. If anyone knows someone who has a room to rent for July and August, please let me know. I'd like to be within Portland city limits and I'm looking to pay around $350/mo. all-inclusive.

decision

Have figured it out. I'll have enough money to move to Munich. Will buy my plane ticket in the next few days. Am thinking of it like this: if I don't like it or I don't find a job within a month, I can go home to Portland. Worst case scenario, I'll have had a 2-month vacation in Germany.

reasons to not move to Munich

-Another year away from my family and friends, whom I love dearly and miss terribly
-Starting over and being lonely again (although it's this very lonliness that I'd count on to help me write my novel)
-I'd have to miss Nik and Jessica's wedding in October
-It would be harder to stay in shape with all that delicious German food around (though I suppose same is true if I move home)
-Another year of my car sitting useless in the garage while I pay insurance on it
-Another year of keeping my stuff in storage
-Moving is expensive

I have to say that so far I've been consistently enthusiastic about moving to Munich in the fall. As much as I miss my friends and family (which is lots and lots!), my thirst for adventure, for experiencing new cultures and languages, has not yet been quenched. I'm lucky in that the friends and family to whom I've mentioned this idea to so far have been very supportive: they say of course they will miss me but they want me to follow my heart. And it makes sense to me to live abroad while I'm still in a position to do so. In the end, I think the deciding factor will be money.

why i'm thinking of moving to Munich

-I understand that it's fairly easy for an American to get legal teaching work there
-I'd get to experience another new culture and begin to learn a new language
-The city is beautiful, peaceful, quiet and much less crowded and noisy than Madrid
-Southern Germany is my idea of paradise, maybe with exception of slightly too long winters
-The initial period of adjustment would most likely inspire writing, especially on the novel
-I'd get to do a little more travelling around Europe
-Crime is virtually non-existent there (no more having to be ultra-alert for pickpocketing!)
-Amazing food and drink
-I'm not allergic to Munich
-I'd get to postpone the decision of what to do with my life for another year

Salzburg

Salzburg was interesting. Here is this absolutely gorgeous town with views of the alps and other impressive mountains, with a wide, glacier-fed river flowing through it, with a quaint old town filled with baroque architecture, with an interesting history (was actually an independent state run by cardinals or bishops or some such until the late 1800's) and an impressive fortress...in other words, with a lot going for it as a tourist attraction just based on location, architecture and history...but the tourism industry seems to be based on Mozart (who was born in Salzburg but who spent very little of his life there) and The Sound of Music movie (which Germans and Austrians tend to despise*) rather than any of those other things.

Salzburg has TV stations in German (of course), French, Italian, Spanish and English. In addition, there are three TV stations that cater solely to tourists. Channel 30 plays The Sound of Music movie in English on a continuous loop with no commercials. A channel or two above that, you have a classical music concert that was held and filmed in Salzburg God knows how many years ago. And a channel or two above that you have a documentary on Mozart (in English) which has interesting & well-written narration and some very scary modern dance interpretations of a few of his key works.

Unfortunately I can't comment on Salzburg's restaurants or its cuisine because I was feeling very broke and opted to eat at the restaurant attached to my hotel and the cheapest thing on their menu was pasta, so that's what I ate. However, I have heard from a few other people (Kiwi Craig and a couple of my students) that the food in Salzburg is fabulous. Will have to make that a priority if I ever go back.

*Note: it was explained to us on the Sound of Music Tour that the reason Germans and Austrians hate the movie is because there was another movie made first, in German, called The von Trapp Family Singers (or similar), that was actually an accurate history of the family. When Hollywood moved in with The Sound of Music they traded accuracy for the Hollywood aesthetic (surprise!) and the Germans and Austrians were offended. Maria von Trapp, then living in Stowe Vermont, was also offended until they paid her $90,000 in exchange for a few endorsements of the movie and the tours, and then she was much more content. (Did you know that Maria von Trapp died at the age of 82 from kidney failure because she pretty much only ate cheese and never ate fruit or vegetables? When I got back to Madrid I bought two apples and a bag of carrots.)

To see the rest of my Salzburg photos, click on the title of this post or copy and paste this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=33730&l=651c2&id=595126014

"The hills are alive with the sound of music..."

The tour guide sounded exactly like Jon Lovitz, but he was from Salzburg. Evidently he'd been told before that he sounds like Jon Lovitz because when I mentioned it he patted me on the back and said, "Yeah, yeah. I know. Thanks. I can't help the way I sound."

The family from Valencia whom I'd met earlier in the day at a café in Salzburg happened to be on my tour, and when we had free time in Monsee to wander around, they let me tag along with them. Both the daughters were gorgeous, in university, and nice enough to bring me into the fold for forty-five minutes while we toured the chapel, strolled the little streets and met their parents at a café to warm up before getting back on the bus.

The scenery was gorgous and the music enchanting, but I wished my mom had been with me. She would've appreciated the views and sung along with me on the bus. I think she really would've liked the tour and my enjoyment would have been increased as a result of hers.

To see the rest of my photos from the Sound of Music tour, click on the title of this blog entry or copy and paste this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=33735&l=c838c&id=595126014

Fussen, Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau

Bavaria in a nutshell: mountains, rivers, lakes, woods, rolling hills, green fields, rapidly changing weather. Would be absolutely perfect if the winters were just a little shorter!

On Saturday the 15th Craig and I went on a day trip to Fussen and from there to the bus to Hohenschwangau, where two of King Ludwig's castles are. The countryside and the castles were amazing...though I have to admit I was too cheap to pay the entrance fee for the castles so we didn't actually go inside either of them. Nevertheless, the trip was worth it. They're spectactular from the outside AND we got to take a hike in the Bavarian hills because that's the only way to get up to Neuschwanstein.

The town of Fussen isn't much in itself, though it did have a very cute little shopping street, a nice view of the mountains and some decent food. If I were going to stay in that area, though, I would probably opt to stay in Hohenschwangau, which (if I'm not mistaken) is the name of the village nestled between the two castles. It's tiny but gorgeous, and one could do a lot of hiking from there.

To see the rest of my pictures from Fussen et al, click on the title of this post or copy and paste this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=33727&l=fd282&id=595126014

Munich

I've come back from my travels with the Sound of Music soundtrack stuck in my head and a renewed appreciation for the Madrid metro system.

Observations of Munich: spacious, clean, quiet (compared to Madrid), with beautiful restaurants, lots of bike riding, good beer, delicious food, and some very handsome people. I felt very comfortable there.

For once I didn't have to worry about pickpocketing, which was a huge relief. I could really enjoy myself in public instead of having to be alert and vigilant all the time.

It seemed that everyone spoke English, which was lucky for me because I don't speak German. I'd like to speak German, though. I thought it a beautiful language...almost as beautiful as French.

The public transportation system in Munich is decent, but on the old side and very expensive. Just to get into town from the airport on the S-Bahn costs almost €9! Ouch!

Unfortunately I didn't actually get to meet any German people, aside from the shop clerks and food servers that is, but they seemed orderly and subdued but content. I got the impression that a German person's idea of a good time is taking a long walk along a river, as opposed to the Madrileño tradition of gossiping with neighbors or staying out all night drinking and dancing. The Germans seemed just as family-oriented as Madrileños, and they love their dogs too. The preponderance of tall, pale-faced people wearing dark colors was a stark contrast to the olive complexions and vibrant colors of Madrid.

On the day I returned to Munich from Salzburg I took a walk in the Englischgarten. It was very cold and snowing hard (though not sticking), but the weather didn't deter the joggers, dog walkers or baby strollers a jot. And as I meandered through the streets I caught several handsome young men smiling quietly at the snow as if surprised and delighted by it.

To see the rest of my Munich pictures, click on the title of this post or copy and paste this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=33724&l=b8a37&id=595126014

i'm back!

Just wanted to let you know I've arrived back in Madrid safe and sound. Am too tired to write a proper blog entry tonight, but promise to write several before the weekend is up. Besitos!

Salzburg

This entry is being written from an Internet cafe attached to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) in Salzburg.

Salzburg in a nutshell: beautiful, and COLD!!! It snowed last night! Luckily it didn´t snow on us during the Sound of Music tour. I have lots of pictures that I´m excited to share with you once I get back to Madrid.

I have to say that I think I am not the world´s best independent traveller. I prefer to have company, otherwise I don´t get out much and I become a little bored. Ah well. A lesson learned. Am still very glad for the experience.

Am taking the train in about half an hour back to Münich, where I´ll spend one more night before heading back to Madrid on Friday. Until then!

Germany Day 4

Today is COLD and RAINY. Originally thought I might take the train out of Munich again, see a lake or something, but in the end I just wasn't up for it. Instead I slept in, took my time waking up and getting ready, met Craig at his academy to go out to lunch, followed his co-worker to a different part of town where they had an Asian foods store (am going to make peanut curry for dinner), walked around, stopped at Starbucks for a mocha and was verbally accosted by a crazy German lady, walked around a little more, bought my train ticket to Salzburg and then came back to Craig's apartment where I'm drinking a beer, watching TV in German and snacking on cheese and meat.

It's strange, but I feel rather at home here. Meaning I'm comfortable and already mildly bored with the city (though I know I haven't even seen half of it yet), mainly because the architecture is not as varied and splendid as in Paris and because cold and rainy is not ideal weather for walking around in all day.

Tomorrow afternoon I head to Salzburg and I don't remember whether I'll have access to the Internet there so you might not hear from me again until Thursday or Friday. But will be sure to take pictures and notes so I can show and tell when I get back.

Germany Day 3

Stayed in Munich today. Slept in a bit, took our time drinking coffee and getting ready to go out, then took the U-Bahn to Marienplatz and walked around for several hours. Got tired around 4pm and came back to Craig's and watched the movie Wall Street, which I had never seen before and thought was okay, and then watched Beyond the Poseidon Adventure dubbed in German so I understood nothing except Sally Field's screams and it was highly entertaining.

Highlights of the day: breakfast for me was an absolutely amazing pastry that was basically a croissant-type base with some kind of lovely, heavy cream (somewhere between custard and whipped cream) with fresh strawberries piled on top. Yum! Walked through the Englischgarten, which didn't look anything like an English garden to me but was fantastic anyway as it was huge and quiet and ran next to the river. Very peaceful and reminded me of Portland because you can find big natural parks there too and you almost forget you're in a big city. Caught the end of the St. Paddy's Day festivities at Marienplatz when we returned around 3:30pm and there was music and lots of people in funny hats and a general air of community and festivity.

Good second day. Did lots of walking--perhaps even more than yesterday--so am feeling tired. Also have eaten a lot here because I like the food. Think I've probably eaten more here in three days than I eat in Madrid in a week. Maybe is not such a good idea to move to Germany after all. Would become fat in no time!

Germany Day 2

Had a lovely day. Began with breakfast at Craig's: herbed cream cheese type spread, slices of swiss cheese, fresh tomato on fresh whole-grain rolls. Yum!

Then took the U-Bahn (subway) downtown, got a weekly metro pass and two tickets to Fussen, jumped on train to Fussen, spent day wandering around town, eating lots of good food, hiking in the hills, seeing the outsides of impressive castles, then came back and watched the extended version of Something About Mary.

On the way back into Munich I began thinking that I like it in Germany much better than Madrid, and that I like Europe in general and that I'd like to learn German. Perhaps will look into teaching TEFL in Germany (or France?) next year. I know that is sad news at home, but also maybe it's just Madrid I'm done with and not Europe as a whole. Also Craig said it's not at all difficult to get teaching work in Munich and that they're so desperate for teachers they're even hiring Americans with no TEFL qualifications, and the thing about Germany is that they like everything to be above board so they give you a work permit. Anyway is just a thought at this point. Need to do some research.

Tomorrow we get to sleep in (yay!) and then will head downtown for the St. Paddy's Day parade and lots of beer drinking. Will go to the Hofbrau Haus (sp?), which is the most famous beer hall in Munich. Craig has said I must drink a whole huge beer, so we'll be there for at least 3 hours I'm sure. =*)

GERMANY

Safe arrival in Germany. Craig has Internet at his home so hopefully I can give you updates while I'm here, but for now just wanted to let you know I'm still alive. Also that I had a wonderful, wonderful dinner at a charming German restaurant. Yum! So far a good start to the trip.

Tomorrow headed to Fussen with Craig. Plan to see Ludwig castles from the outside at least. Perhaps take a little walk in the forest. Will keep you abreast of further developments.

travelling tomorrow

Well tomorrow's the day I fly out to Munich. I'll be staying with former TEFL classmate Craig, who is teaching English there and has an apartment in Munich proper. He has the weekend free, so he's agreed to show me around the town and maybe even take a day trip with me to Fussen or similar. When he goes back to work on Monday I'll probably do a couple of day trips on my own and explore Munich in the evening. On the 18th I'll head to Salzburg for two nights. Will book the Sound of Music Tour as soon as I arrive at my hotel. Then back to Munich on the 20th and fly back to Madrid on the afternoon of the 21st.

Am not feeling particularly enthusiastic at the moment, perhaps because I still have to get through three more classes today and I have not had a nap (so spoiled!) and I have to wake up early-ish tomorrow to get to the airport on time. Also the weather in Madrid is beautiful today and might even get up to 70 degrees, but in Munich it's only 45 degrees and raining. Sigh. Am sure my perspective will change when I get there. Anyway it usually feels good to go see someplace new, rain or no rain. Will just have to pack many layers.

I've been ordered by multiple students to take lots of pictures. Some want to see what the men look like, others want to see pictures of the towns and landscape so they can travel vicariously through me or better remember their own travels.

I'm not taking my computer with me and I don't know if I'll have access to the Internet while I'm away, so I might not post again until the 21st or 22nd. Until then!

the spanish plague

Now that I am emotionally and psychologically sound (well, as sound as I ever get) post Christmas visit home, my physical health has gone downhill. For the past two months I have had one symptom of illness after another appear and disappear, seemingly without cause. It's what Shannon has dubbed "the Spanish plague" and is something that many anglos seem to experience here: long periods of successive illnesses, one on the heels of another.

For the three weeks, for example, I've had itchy eyes and have been sneezing, which sounds like straight-forward allergies except that my throat has also been swollen and irritated during the week and then it mysteriously heals itself on the weekend only to inflame once again on Monday. What gives?? I suppose it could be coincidence, pollution levels, a new allergy symptom or just the remains of the last cold I had that maybe keeps trying to come back. Whatever it is, I'm certainly not comfortable.

Perhaps that is why I'm uncharacteristically unenthusiastic about leaving Spain's sun, blue skies and temperatures in the high 60's/low 70's for Germany's rain, clouds, and temperatures in the low 40's.

here comes the fly-by

I've chosen to stay home tonight while the roommates are out having tapas and drinks because, frankly, I'm burnt out on going out. But I feel restless. And I have the munchies. I feel like I should write something for someone, but I have no idea what I would write or to whom I would write it.

Last night I saw No Country for Old Men. Yes, it was a good movie, but I didn't like it. I wasn't in the proper mental space to see anything so disturbing, so lacking in hope or justice or redemption. You might say that it is like real life, and I can't argue with that, but I prefer movies that are a little more optimistic and a little less unsentimental. The movie left me in despair and fear, and the solitary walk to the metro from my friend's house had never seemed so sinister. Luckily there were a bunch of loud, drunk teenagers on the metro that annoyed the shit out of me so the shadow of fear had departed by the time I got home.

On a more positive note, I've been emailing with Carlos the Amateur Cyclist and he's asked me out on a date. Woohoo! In all honesty I don't expect it to go anywhere--I've despaired of finding true romance in Madrid--but at the very least the excitement and anticipation will keep me entertained for a couple weeks. And I suppose it's even possible that the date might be fun and lead to a second date.

a real-life prose poem

On Sunday afternoon I had coffee with a new friend, Leslie the poet from Philadelphia who is working on her Ph.D. in English Literature. She told me an intriguing story about a guy she knew in high school.

This guy (we'll call him Brian) was your stereotypical jock--not too smart, drank lots, dated lots--but Brian had a secret. One day an acquaintance of Leslie's came up to her and asked her an unusual question: has Brian ever stolen any of your underwear? Not knowing whether the information was to be used against her, Leslie refused to answer the question, but the truth was that yes, Brian had stolen a pair of her underwear.

Months later, Brian was caught stealing his friend's mom's underwear. Suddenly everyone was talking about how he'd stolen a pair of their underwear as well.

Time passed, the gossip died down, and then word spread that Brian had been arrested. An ex-girlfriend called the cops when she noticed his car parked across the street from her house. When the police arrived, they found Brian wearing a pair of the ex-girlfriend's underwear and masturbating.

This last image blew my mind when Leslie told me. The psychology involved in that...in actually wearing the ex's underwear WHILE parked across from her house. As though he were trying to somehow get closer to her than a conversation would allow, as though being in her underwear might help him get into her head, might provide a new level of intimacy. To me there's something beautiful in that image. Creepy, but also beautiful: a young man searching desperately for connection and closeness with women, restricted by cultural norms from developing the same kind of close relationships that women form with each other, finally resorting to desperate and pathetic strategies for achieving intimacy and being further ostracized for it.

And one final touch of drama: the reason Brian was on Leslie's mind was because she'd gotten news on her birthday, February 14th, that Brian had been found dead in his car that morning. He'd crashed his car into a tree and died on the day of love.

YES YES YES YES YES!!!

Hottie cylcing Spaniard from Saturday found my other blog and left me a comment! =*) I have emailed him and will keep you posted.

Yes We Can music video

You've probably already seen the Barak Obama "Yes We Can" music video, but I just heard about it this morning from my student and came home and watched it. I find it extremely powerful.

You can access the video by clicking on the title of this post or by copying and pasting the URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY

2nd paid article

Just a quick FYI, they've posted my second article on the TtMadrid website. It's called "Teaching English in Madrid: Some Pros & Cons." Of course now that it's posted I notice a few typos and proofreading errors, but ah well. Hopefully the article is strong enough to withstand a few little errors.

The title of this blog entry is a link to it, or you can copy and paste this URL: http://www.ttmadrid.com/teaching-english-in-madrid-pros-cons.php

la cabra montesa

Went for a hike on Saturday with English friend Dave (a TtMadrid alum) and his Spanish friend Ricardo.

We met at Plaza de Castilla a little after 11am and took Ricardo's car to the countryside. We were supposed to be going somewhere called Revenga but the GPS system took us on a scenic route (avoiding freeways) to some little back street in Segovia, about 20km off track, and we had to keep stopping to ask for directions and it took us about 2.5 hours to get there when it should've taken us only an hour.

The good thing about male Spanish drivers: they are not shy about asking for directions. When they realize they are lost, they will stop anywhere and ask anyone for directions.

The bad thing about some Spanish drivers: road rage. Seriously, I thought we were going to rear-end the poor guy in front of us we were following so close. And Ricardo kept screaming, "Why are you braking, you useless piece of shit?!" (or something similar to that) as we came up on hair-pin curves and the guy in front of us slowed down to avoid driving right off the road. I really wanted to say something, but the thing about people with road rage in my experience is that telling them to calm down only seems to make them angrier, so I stayed silent.

When we finally got to the hiking spot, I just about jumped for joy. Not only was I super relieved to be released from the death-trap, but it was an absolutely gorgeous day and we were going to hike through a real forest with real trees and undergrowth and animals and everything. Hooray for nature walks!

The hike itself lasted about three hours, with breaks. It was very pretty and relatively uneventful. Three highlights, though.

Highlight one: We met some amateur cyclists about halfway through the trek and stopped to chat for a bit and compare maps. There were three of them, and two of them were quite cute. The one with the map who was doing most of the talking had a very nice, clear voice and I was stoked I could understand the majority of what he was saying. The second hottie and I started talking when his friends took off on their bikes to scout out the trail just up ahead. His name was Carlos and we shared a love of writing. I told him about my TtMadrid blog and he asked for the web address. Am hoping he leaves his email or something so I can ask him out on a date, though I'm not holding my breath.

Highlight two: Ricardo kept flirting with me the entire hike. While I appreciated the attention to an extent, after a while I got tired of it. He is not a bad looking man, he is single and in my age range, but the road rage and his occasional tendency to become mister-know-it-all and try to boss me around were major turn-offs. (Not that I am perfect either, but seeing my own faults in others is particularly annoying and repellant.)

Highlight three: Toward the end of the trek we ran into some bulls. Unfenced, and on our side of the river. They were large animals with very strong, pointy horns, and they looked particularly menacing because they would pause in chewing their cud to stare us down, as if trying to decide whether we were a threat that needed to be dealt with. We did our best to avoid them and in the end (when none of them charged us) we decided that they would probably not let aggressive toros graze on public hiking grounds, but it certainly was exciting there for a bit.

One other thing that was cool was that it was a good day for practicing Spanish. I basically spoke Spanish all day long because Ricardo didn't speak much English so Dave and I spoke with each other and with him in Spanish so he wouldn't feel left out, and I spoke Spanish with the cyclists too. Felt very accomplished.

The ride home was luckily a lot less nerve-wracking because we just took the freeway and there were no hair-pin curves or "slow" drivers to worry about. Ricardo left Dave and I at a northern metro stop, saying something about he and I getting together sometime. I made a non-commital response and said good-bye as fast as politeness would allow, glad to be out of the car and escaping unwanted attentions. The end.

Dave has promised to send me the photos that he took, and when that happens I will post one here.

On turning 29

Something in me says that I *should* feel freaked out about entering the last year of my 20's, but I'm not. I'm actually more freaked out about the fact that I don't feel freaked out than I am about turning 29. I wonder if maybe I just take everything for granted and whether I'm really understanding and appreciating this whole ageing thing or whether I believe I'll stay young and indestructible forver. (Well, my search for a vampire lover hasn't ended, so I suppose it's possible.)

I suppose it also helps that I look several years younger than I actually am...the true crime in American society for a woman is not in getting older but in looking older.

Also, for me birthdays aren't so much about getting older as they are about celebrating the fact that I'm alive. My birthday is a time to count my blessings, as they say, and I have to admit that my life is pretty darn good.

Starting simple: I have a warm apartment in which all the appliances function. I'm in reasonably good physical condition. I have a job I enjoy and money enough to afford the basics and then some. I have wonderful, supportive parents. My families are fun and funny and loving. My friends are intelligent, compassionate, interesting and caring people.

Taking it up a notch: I've been to good colleges and have had the opportunity to live in four states on two coasts, not to mention in Spain twice. I've explored a variety of jobs and have found a field that I'm passionate about (i.e. teaching). I've traveled a bit in Europe and around the States. Most importantly, I'm blessed with a good head of hair. =*)

There's also a lot that I'm still looking forward to in life, including more travel, learning to sew and cook better, finishing my trashy novel and a multitude of other writings, owning dogs and maybe even a house, eventually setting up my dream inn/retreat in the woods...etc.

Long story short: I feel very lucky to have such a good life and I am optimistic and excited about the future's possibilities. I'm glad to be alive (thanks Mom and Dad!!) and am grateful to all the people who make my life fun and worthwhile. (Is that cheesy enough for you?!)

today, being the day before tomorrow

I had fun at my birthday celebration last night. Shannon and Meags went out and bought self-adhesive mustaches as party favors (fantastic), and the bartenders at the Mexican bar let us play with the Mexican wrestling masks again. I enjoyed the company of the people who came, I ate a ton of food, I got to dance with several people, and I didn't get too drunk or stay out too late. (For more photos from the birthday celebration, copy and paste this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30935&l=27896&id=595126014)

But this morning I woke up feeling like my whole life here is a sham. Sure, I have a job and I fill my days with one thing or another and I hang out with people on the weekends, but this is not my real life. Most of the people I call friends here are nothing more than people to help fill the time. I teach EFL, but I am not an EFL teacher. I live in Madrid, but I am not a madrileña. I don't belong here and this isn't the life I want to lead.

That said, I don't want to reject all my experiences here out of hand. I am learning and growing, and my time here is helping to shape me into the person I want to be. Even in realizing that I am leading a false life here, I gain a clearer picture of what is important to me and what I actually want for myself.

I want less drinking and more dancing. I want to live close to my family and my true friends. I want to live in the city but have a small yard with a garden. I want good restaurants and Sunday brunch and coffee house culture. I want game nights, movie nights, dinner parties, road trips, family gatherings and house parties. I want to stop being allergic to my environment. I want access to organic and free-range foods, Nyquil when I'm sick, swing dancing and martial arts classes. Trips to Movie Madness on the weekends. Occasional late-night Taco Bell runs.

Shannon and kiwi Craig and New Friend Andrew are real friends here, but I don't get to spend much time with them. And they are no substitute for the friends I have in Portland and Eugene. They are no substitute for getting to see my mom and dad regularly.

Today four more months in Madrid seems a long time. But I know I'll get through it and be better for the experience. It's just that on my birthday I would rather be where I belong with the people whom I love and who love me. I guess my point is this: I am homesick, missing Portland and my family and friends, and I'm impatient to be there with them again.

Sweeney Todd (*warning! may contain spoilers!)

In the end it was just Meags and me at the movie. My first movie in Madrid! At this movie theatre all the seats were assigned. I have to say that I might prefer assigned seating in the theatre, as it saves the hassle and anxiety of trying to find two good seats together. The seats were monstrous, plush red things...almost armchair-like. No stadium seating, just a slight slope, but luckily Spanish people are not very tall so they don't have to worry about each other's heads getting in the way.

I also noticed that the floors were not sticky and littered with popcorn and wrappers, despite the fact that there was only 15 minutes in between showings. Guess Spanish people are better behaved than my countrypeople in this respect.

And the movie itself? It was entertaining, but not the best musical I have seen. Is always a pleasure to watch Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, and the kid did a great job as well, but the music was overly dramatic and not particularly memorable.

Also am not sure that it wasn’t too gory. Yes, the blood looked fake, but why did we have to see throat after throat ripped open, shocked face after shocked face, body after body drop down the chute and fall to the basement floor head-first with a meaty thud? (Incidentally, I have heard a body drop head-first from a height, and it does not sound like that at all. It sounds more like a heavy cardboard box, perhaps filled with hardbacks, crashing to the asphalt and breaking apart.)

Was Burton trying to desensitize us to the violence of the act or to draw extra attention to the inhumanity of the barber? If for either of these motives, it failed in my opinion.

And I didn’t particularly need to see anyone burn to death either, their flesh and muscles melting off the still-screaming frame. I would've been fine with knowing that the person was pushed into the fire and hearing the screams, no visuals necessary.

Finally, the characters didn’t feel real to me. They were too simplistic, their motivations too one-dimensional. The feel of the movie in general was too costumey, too melodramatic, too cartoonish to strike any chords. It felt like the kind of serial-murder movie Disney would make if they made movies about serial murderers.