Day 18 - 10/25/2010 - Maybe we'll meet again

            Senior year of college I took a class about cross-cultural communication, the similarities and differences between the way people of different cultures communicate with people of the same culture and people of other cultures. This class was one of my favorite classes. It opened up my mind. When we travel we are automatically exposed to cultural differences, some of which we find offensive, but in most cases these differences are not meant to be offensive. I remember one difference that the teacher said that stood out to me. For some reason Americans, Hispanics and many others find it normal to begin conversation with a complete stranger who happens to be around on an elevator, a bus, train, airplane, airport, etc. and spill their life story, whereas Asian, French and many others find it strange and tend to keep to themselves. I don’t know about you, but I found this especially interesting because I find myself more willing to tell things to a complete stranger than to someone that I have known my entire life, not intentionally, the conversation just always ends up in revelations that I would never get to with someone I talk to every day. I don’t really know why. Maybe because conversation with a stranger leads to ideas and topics that those closest to us who think similarly to us wouldn’t bring up, or maybe because the judgment of a stranger is less important than someone who we are close to and who we care more about their opinion of us? I think I’m getting a little further into this than I intended.

            Friday afternoon I walked to the bus stop to wait for the bus to Malaga. On the way I passed a tall, skinny man with a hiking back pack, a handbag and a heavy suitcase that he was having trouble carrying. A lone traveler. I was intrigued. Why is he alone? Where is he from? Why did he choose to come here? Where is he going? I debated helping him, but for some reason decided not to. I passed him without saying a word. A few minutes after I arrived at the bus stop, so did the traveler. Blonde hair, blue eyes, decent tan. I figured he was British and had spent his time here at the beach, but then he asked a question. I was so wrong. He knew perfect Spanish, he was Argentine. We started a casual conversation and next thing you know we were telling each other our life stories while sitting next to each other on an hour long bus ride from Velez-Malaga to Malaga.

            His name was Santiago, a very Spanish name, and he had that Argentine accent that sounds so suave no matter what is said (I love it). He was from Argentina but had spent the past 7 years living in Europe. The past 4 years he spent living in London, but I can’t remember where his other 3 years were spent. He spent some time living in the province of Malaga as well, but I’m not sure how much time. While he lived in Malaga he was a pool boy, he went around cleaning pools. That doesn’t seem like something many people would enjoy doing, but the way he described it changed everything.

The province of Malaga goes all along the southern coast of Spain, which includes amazing sunrises, sunsets, views of the sky, ocean, beach, surrounding mountains, wonderful weather, towns full of white houses and colorful flowers, and lots of luxurious homes with pools from which you can experience all of the above. He said that many of the houses that he worked at were up on the mountainsides, away from the towns and cities. The house would be on the slant, which would come to an even area where the pool would be, and the land would drop after the pool. After he would clean the pool he would go for a leisurely swim and then take a few moments to stare out at the view. Can you imagine that view? It would be like being on top of the world! You can see everything, yet you are so far from everything. Breathe the fresh air, take it all in. And there is no one there to bother you. What a peaceful and tranquil feeling. Wooh. That must have been so amazing. And this was part of his job! Well, kind of. It’s more like he made it part of his job. Unfortunately there is a downfall to this amazing experience of his. He did this work for black money, aka illegal money; he was paid under the table. 3 years after he worked for the woman her business went bankrupt. She still owes him 10,000 Euros. This was the whole reason why he had come back to Malaga, he came back before returning to Argentina to attempt to speak to the woman and get his money, but of course he was unable to speak with her. 10,000 Euros!! And all he said was “hey, at least I had a good time.”

We spent the hour long bus ride speaking about this and other travels that we had both been on around different parts of Europe and the world until we arrived at Malaga. There are three stops, mine was the second and his was the third, so I got off first. He was on his way back to Argentina after being away for 7 years and said that he is going to return to Europe, hopefully Spain, but isn’t sure in how many years. …maybe we’ll meet again at some random bus stop in a few years and be able to talk about what we’ve been up to since this bus ride. It would be nice.

Day 14 - 10/21/10 - Las dos Marias

            I crossed paths with these two elderly ladies three times in one day. They are both much, much older, but one is definitely older than the other. They must be related, possibly mother and daughter, but I want to say that the younger one doesn’t seem young enough to be the older lady’s daughter, maybe they’re sisters. What caught my eye about these two women is that one of them has her hair dyed bright red, and the other has a head full of white hair and a slightly hunched back. The white hair is completely understandable, but the bright red? It’s typical to see older women here have tints of red and purple in their hair, but then there are women like this one who dye their entire head red or purple. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, I personally wouldn’t do it, I’m just used to seeing these colors on younger people. It’s funny because dying your hair purple or red is like an older woman fashion style here. They have their short haircuts that they style with curlers and loads of hairspray so that their hair curls into a perfect egg shape around their head that never moves, and then it’s… red or purple. It’s like dying your hair a darker brown, or a lighter blonde. It’s just so opposite from what I’m used to! I’ve seen them every day the past three days and for some reason that red hair catches my eye every time. I’ll have to be sneaky and snap a picture one of these days.

            Every day I am with students for at least the first half of my day. Some of the kids I love, some of the kids I hate, and then there are the others that are just kind of there. In the past two days I have seen four of my students on the streets in town after school. Why?! None of them messed with me or did anything wrong, but I just don’t know what to say. The kids aren’t allowed to know that I speak Spanish because then they will just speak to me in Spanish rather than try to speak to me in English, so it freaks me out that I have already seen four students in two days because that means that I can’t just comfortably go about my business speaking Spanish to get the things that I need, I have to be looking over my shoulder all the time in case one of the kids happens to show up. Two of the four kids that I saw didn’t even see me, so maybe I’m making this into a bigger deal than it is. Who would’ve thought that after graduating from being a student that I’d be intimidated by my students? I don’t know. It’s weird being the teacher and not the student. I like being the student better.

Day ? - 10/??/10 - My apartment

          It feels so great to finally have my own place. About 4 hours ago Ana and I arrived at my apartment with all of my things. I showed Ana the apartment and she liked it just as much as I did. It really is perfect for one person. The only thing that it is missing is a balcony, but you can’t have everything.

          When you walk in the door, which has 5 dead bolts by the way so I feel plenty safe, the first thing you notice is that the ceiling slopes from about halfway down the ceiling to one of the walls where it stands just about 2 feet above the ground. It gives the place some character. On that slanted ceiling are two big windows that open upward rather than from side to side, does that make sense? Well, they’re nice. From those windows I can see the old castle of the town that sits on a small mountainside, the new church, the old church, and a bunch of other apartments and buildings. I just realized too that the Sun shines from behind my building, so I can see the shadow of the clothes that are hanging to dry of whoever has the terrace on top of the building, and these clothes include granny panties! Hahaha. Some immaturity to brighten up your day. Back to the apartment. On the slanted ceiling half of the apartment is my bed, my bedside stands, the TV across the room in the corner, two couches, and some furniture with storage space. Majority of the apartment is one big open room, so my bedroom, the TV room and the kitchen are all in one big area.  The wall behind my bed is painted with big, thick, vertical stripes the colors of brown and cream. It sounds ugly, but actually looks nice. Most of the rest of the walls in the house are cream colored and the ceilings are white. On the regular ceiling side of the apartment are the kitchen, the bathroom, and a room. The room is obviously supposed to be the bedroom, but instead it has been made into one big walk-in closet, basically. There are three closets that go from floor to ceiling and a piece of furniture with drawers. I have plenty of space to put my clothes, and I could have my own little fashion show if I really wanted to because the mirror is right smack in the middle and is almost from floor to ceiling as well. I don’t know about you, but that’s the biggest “closet” I’ve ever been in, and the only one I’ve ever been in that has a window. The bathroom is kind of small, well at least for American standards, but it’s plenty of room for one person. The bottom half of the wall tiles are blue, and so is the floor, and the top half of the wall tiles are white, and so is the ceiling. It’s cute.

            I’ve already begun the process of adding my own touch to a few things, and by a few, I really do mean not many. I have to go buy sheets, a comforter, bathroom and kitchen basics, and over the next few weeks I’ll buy neat little accessories for the furniture and one bare wall that looks way too boring.

            Like I said, it’s great to have my own place, but I am going to miss Ana’s house. That house was seriously amazing. You can kind of tell by the pictures from one of my earlier blogs, but the pictures don’t really do it justice. I hadn’t taken a picture of the room I was staying in out of respect, because a bedroom can be very private, but as I was leaving I couldn’t help taking a picture of the room I stayed in for the two weeks of my welcoming and introduction to what is going to be my new life for the next several months. I will see Ana and Nora at school, but I didn’t get to say goodbye to Pablo. Hopefully he will invite me to his birthday party Halloween weekend (which happens to be the same day as my dad’s)  J

Day 6 - 10/12/10 - Lesson 1: Public transportation.

Today was my first day going out on my own and using public transportation. Here are a few things that I learned: never expect the bus driver to stop at a clearly signaled bus stop, make sure you tell him because he may not stop until the next stop in an entirely different town; never expect the closest bus stop to where you are to be the right bus stop, you will end up waiting for no reason when you were supposed to be waiting at another bus stop half a mile down the road; always expect to wait at least 20-30 minutes or more, buses are rarely ever on time or sometimes even run early; always, always, always ask the bus driver where the bus is going, if not you will end up 3 towns away from where you need to be; never expect the bus to pick you up at the bus stop across from the one that it dropped you off at, chances are that the right bus stop (like I said before) is half a mile up the road; always expect to have to walk a lot, no matter that you are riding the bus, they never drop you off or pick you up exactly where they should or where you want them to. I’m pretty sure that sums up my first day of public transportation.

Okay, maybe I made it sound a little worse than it really was, but seriously, I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it home! The reason I went on this little adventure was to get to the mall. This isn’t really important, but all of the shoes I have are either every day, bum shoes or nightlife, extreme heels. Neither of those really works when it comes to being a teacher, or lots of other things I suppose. Anyway, so I got some flats and some boots. I also finally got me a cell phone for here. I can have friends now! Haha. Going to the mall was a horrible idea though, besides getting the things that I needed, I wanted to buy every single thing that I saw. Let’s just say that I won’t be going there for a very long time.

Yesterdaayyyy. What did I do yesterday? Oh! Right. Well, I didn’t have work yesterday, but I went in to talk to some teachers so I could start planning the English portion of their classes. I ended up only talking to one of the five teachers I had to talk to. Oh well. BUT, I did get to talk to the PE teacher, Alejandro. “Oh, like the Lady Gaga song! Haha.” “Yea…” “Hm. You probably get that a lot don’t you?” “Haha. Yea.”  Woooowww… Way to SCREW UP, Angie! Hahaha. Meh, whatever. It couldn’t have been too bad because we ended up talking for about an hour until school was out and made some plans.

I almost forgot to include a somewhat important experience. Ana, the teacher I’m living with, has 3 kids. Maria, the oldest daughter that is away studying in London, Nora, the 16 year old daughter that goes to the school that her mom and I teach at, and then there’s Pablo, her 6 year old son who I actually learned a little bit from. He was away at his father’s house the first couple of days I was here, so I didn’t get to meet him until Sunday night. I’m not much of a kid person, but for some reason kids usually like to stick around me. I was expecting this whole meeting session to be a piece of cake, but I was definitely wrong.

I was watching a movie on my lap top when he got home, so I didn’t hear him come in. By the time I realized he was home, his mom had stepped out for a little. Pablo, Nora and I were sitting in the TV room. The kid wouldn’t even LOOK at me. He acted like I wasn’t even there. He would talk to Nora, who wasn’t even paying attention because she was online, and not even glance at me. Nora even asked him if he had said hi to me and he was just like “No, so what?” I was kind of taken back by it because that’s definitely rude and in the US any parent/sibling would have introduced us, but no, we continued without being introduced or anything. I mean, he’s just a kid, so I just brushed it off. At one point Nora went upstairs. He was reading a book so I asked him if he was reading the book for school. All he did was shake his head yes, didn’t even lift his eyes up. In my head I’m thinking what a freakin’ a-hole! But, I thought to myself that maybe he just needed some time, so I left him alone. I didn’t try to talk to him anymore.

The next day, Monday, started out the same; I didn’t try talking to him at all. I would just laugh at things that his mom and sister said. At lunch, which is around 2/3, they were all telling stories and explaining things to me, Pablo would chip in every now and then. He actually looked at me, omg! Well that was a first step. I started going back and forth with his mom and sister, I forget what we were talking about, and we were just telling each other things. Then Pablo started telling us things too, and he would actually look at me and say things to me. Oh man, this was step 2! We’re on a roll. I still didn’t pay too much attention to him. At this point I started thinking, maybe he just needed to see me interact more with his mom and sister to feel comfortable enough to start talking to me himself. Anyway, we ate fish that day, so when we were cleaning  up the topic of fishing came up. Pablo has 2 fishing poles that he doesn’t even know how to use. I told him and his mom that I go fishing with my dad and that I could help teach him. This was the ultimate bonding moment between me and Pablo. He instantly took my hand and led me straight to the fishing poles. From then on it was game over. He talked to me all about his fishing poles, later on he was playing with his friend outside and wanted me to play but I just helped him out a little instead, scared him a couple of times even though he refuses to admit to it, and then him, his mom and I went for a walk by the beach until we got to the port and fed some bread to the fish. I think that day was an all-time record for me for the longest amount of time spent with a kid other than a cousin of mine. Not gonna lie, it was more fun than I thought it’d be  J



Pablo and his mom kicking bread
into the water for the fish

 

The port



           


Well, I’m sure that was boring for many of you, but for some reason it was kind of a big deal to me. I’m not really used to dealing with kids, so it was a process. Tomorrow is my first day of co-teaching and I’m going to look at this apartment that I will hopefully be moving into this weekend. Everything’s coming together, slowly but surely J   Goodnight.





Day 3 - 10/9/10 - "No matter what the sun is doing today, I'm gonna shine!"



"No matter what the sun is doing today, I'm gonna shine."



On the southern coast rain is very rare. I guess today was one of those rare days. It’s Saturday, and it is pouring outside. Not only does the morning start out cloudy and rainy, but the entiiiiiiire day proceeds to be cloudy and rainy. Ana brings her father home for the day from the old people home. He has Alzheimer’s disease. She said that sometimes it’s so bad that he doesn’t even realize that she’s his daughter, but luckily today he was doing great. Nora and her mom made lunch. We had “pescaditos,” which are little fish that are so small that you can eat the entire thing, except for the head. We also had “puntillas,” which are really small calamari (squid). They taste a little different from calamari, but are still good. The dad/grandfather was funny. He told me to grab myself some bread at least 3 or 4 times. I don’t really eat that much bread so I would say no every time and every time he would say “but this girl doesn’t like bread?” Everyone in Spain eats bread, so he probably thinks I’m super weird. At one point he was really quiet so they asked him why he was so quiet. He said “el que come no habla,” “he who eats doesn’t speak.” Nora told me that he says this eeeeevery single time that he eats with them. It’s sad what diseases such as Alzheimer’s can do to a person and their family, but I have to go ahead and believe that days like these where they are their old selves, or at least close to it, are what give the rest of their family hope.

            Ana had made plans to meet up with some of her friends and Nora had also made plans to meet up with her friends that night. Ana (before I forget, she is in her 40s and her friends in their 50s) invited me to go into the city with her and her friends. I decided to tag along. Here I am getting used to the idea that I’m going out with people my parents’ age and then Ana comes in to tell me she has good news for me. One of her friends has a daughter who is 20 years old and the girl’s mom told her about me she said for me to go out with her and her friends instead because I would get bored with the older crowd. I, of course, accepted the offer very gratefully. J

            We all go out to eat- Ana, her friends, and the 20 year old, Paula. We went to this new restaurant in Malaga called diecinueve (19). It had a very modern look, was surprisingly good, and not too expensive. After that we went to another place, but Paula and I at this point decided to go meet up with her friends. We start out with a group of about 8 people. I knew I wouldn’t remember the names at first, but figured I’d have them by the end of the night. We get to the first bar called Edupa (which I’d never been to) and sit. Paula and I decided to go to the bar to get a drink. When we get back to the table there are about 5 more people. Oh jeez. More names to remember. Next thing I know, within the next 15 minutes the entire bar is full of people, all of which happen to be a part of this group of friends. Hooooly crap. There is no way I’m going to remember even a third of these peoples’ names. We ended the night in a discoteca called Anden. I’m pretty sure that I gave up at this point, but somehow still managed to remember a few peoples’ names. Of course Paula, the girl I was tagging along with; Jo Juan, who was the clown and most fun of the group; Ana, who was nice, but I didn’t trust her for some reason; Berta and Agatha, both of which were really nice, kind of quiet girls; Marina, who seemed cool, but we just didn’t cross paths enough to get to know each other; Alberto, Marina’s bf and the birthday boy of the night; Edu, who I don’t know anything about and don’t even know why I remember his name; and Lourdes, who was the last person I met, but probably one of the people I talked to the most the entire night. Overall it had been a pretty decent night, it wasn’t anything too special, but definitely a nice group of people that I wouldn’t mind going out with every once in awhile. It was nice just to be out in Malaga, since I studied there for 3 months I have a lot of good memories around the areas we went to. I just wish that the girls I studied abroad with in Malaga could have been there with me.

Day 2 - 10/8/10 - First day!

While still half asleep, but somewhat awake, the door to the room I was sleeping in opened just a little bit and some light shone through the doorway. I looked up to see who it was; all I could see was the silhouette of this tiiiiiiiny, little body. Out of this little body came a little voice “hola.” I realize that it is the 2 year old daughter that was asleep when I arrived at night. I turn on the light. Cutest little thing ever. She asked me all sorts of questions and told me about her life story (which I mean, isn’t much for a 2 year old), and she followed me around everywhere. She was adorable. Her name is Carmen. I realize that Jose Luis and his family are exactly like my family. My parents were young parents who had 2 boys about a year apart and a girl that was a few years younger. Little Jose’s birthday is even a day after my oldest brother Joey’s birthday, which is a day before mine! I told all of this to the kids and of course they loved it, instant bond. We left the house at 8:35am to take the kids to school; let the kids play in the playground for a little; walked them to the door. During all of this I got to see a little bit of the town and the school. Let me tell you, this town is beautiful. Never heard of it, but the houses are all white with their touches of shades of yellow and orange, and plants flowing past the rails of their terraces and balconies, it was beautiful. Oh, and the school buses? Psh. Top of the line. They didn’t have the yellow buses that “the wheels go ‘round and ‘round, ‘round and ‘round” on. They had excursion buses, the ones that you take long trips on with the nice seats and huge bull-horn looking side mirrors. How could I almost forget? 5^th graders even get their own lap-tops from the school. What?! I couldn’t believe it. Best elementary school I’ve ever seen, and it’s a public school.

Anyway, now it was my turn to go to my school, which is in another town even further in the outskirts of Malaga called Velez-Malaga. We started the day off in the school café. One of the teachers, coincidentally named Virginia, paid for my breakfast and I met a few of the other teachers as well. Of course none of them understood how my Spanish is so good, so I had to tell them my life story, aka my family’s Spanish history. The same story was told about 10 more times that day. After going back and forth between offices and the teachers’ lounge and meeting tons of teachers, I finally got a tour of the 4 story school, with no elevator. As we go from floor to floor the bell rings and kids switch classes. Wow. Half of the students are taller than me, half of the other half are my size, and the other half of that half are like 10 years younger than me. Ha! This is going to be great. The last hour of the school day was spent in a classroom of 11 and 12 year olds. When the teacher introduced me, a bunch of the kids pulled out big poster boards that they had all decorated and signed to welcome me to the school. It was cute how excited they were. Maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad J



Gate to the house.



Since I have to find an apartment to rent, one of the teachers took me to look at the first of many apartments, which was about 5 minutes from the school. It was nice, kind of big, but filled with old people furniture. It was plenty, actually more than I could ever need, but wasn’t exactly something that stood out. Afterwards, I went home with Ana, the teacher that I’m going to be working with and living with until I find my own apartment. I thought that the previous house and town were beautiful; Ana’s house is Uh-may-zing! It’s like a dream! It’s like a house from a movie. It is enclosed with white, brick walls. There is a gate that opens to a front yard that looks like the Secret Garden. The house has a front porch terrace, another side terrace, plants everywhere, a terrace on the second floor, 4 bedrooms, 2 of which have a door that lead to the 2^nd floor terrace, white walls, yellow walls, clay colored tile floors, wooden floors… if you have any idea of what Spanish style homes are supposed to look like, this house is it. It is the most perfect Spanish style home ever. I would be content living the rest of my life in this house. Anyway, she cooked lunch and we ate out on the front terrace. We sat out there for at least 2 hours. The weather is perfect right now. The cat was hanging out there with us in the grass, just rolling around and enjoying the sun. It was good bonding time.



Front terrace.



Part of lunch.

           

            At this point I realize that I have been to 1 big city (Malaga), 3 towns (Cala del Moral, Almayate, and Velez-Malaga), have been let into the lives of 2 families (Jose Luis’ and Ana’s), and a 3^rd family at work. All of this in less than 24 hours; this is what I live for.



Boardwalk view of the beach.



That evening we had to go pick up Ana’s 16 year old daughter, Nora (who I hadn’t really gotten to know yet). From there we went to the beach town Torre del Mar to walk around, look at the outside of an apartment, and to pick up the teacher’s bike from the shop. The boardwalks here aren’t like the typical boardwalks in the US. In the US, boardwalks are full of little stores, restaurants, and bars. Here, the boardwalk is literally just a walkway by the beach. This beach is about 7 km long and said to be one of the best on the Southern coast of Spain. To get to the apartment that we were going to look at we had to walk quite a ways and eventually head over to the streets. I got to talk to Nora a lot during the walk. We talked about everything- our lives, the towns, sports, her friends, we even passed by a music school that her and her sister have been taking classes at for years. Oh yea, minor detail, Nora has an 18 year old older sister that is studying in London right now named Maria. She has the best room in the house, which happens to be the room I get to stay inJ. Right next to the music school building there was a tree that got hit by lightning, some artists carved a violin and some designs into the remains of the tree to make a tribute to the man who started the school. It was somewhat random, but that was part of what made it so neat. We also stopped by an ice cream shop to each get an ice cream that lasted us until we got to the apartment. The apartment building looked pretty nice and wasn’t very far from the center of the town. From there we could see Nora’s dad’s house.

Her parents got divorced about a year and a half ago. It’s kind of an odd story. They were happily married for about 20 years. Ana, for some reason, decided she didn’t want to be with him anymore. She spent the next 5 years trying to get a divorce. She told me that she was very happy for 20 years, but that it just didn’t work anymore. Of course I didn’t ask for any details, but from what she told me, the husband certainly did not feel the same way. When she brought up the subject of getting a divorce to him, he thought she was completely joking. He didn’t want to get divorced. Poor guy. Not that it really matters, but I don’t know how I feel about the whole thing. On one end you have the whole idea of marriage, committed “’til death do us part,” but who is anyone to be obligated to be stuck in a marriage in which they are no longer happy? Hm. Such is life.

Moving on. After that we went to the bike shop to get Ana’s bike. While we were there we almost got hit by a car, almost got a ticket, and almost weren’t able to fit the bike in the car. It was an interesting end to the day. From here we went home and called it a night. It had been a long day.

Day 1 - 10/7/10 - Arrival in Malaga

      It’s my first Friday night in Malaga and I am already in bed at 10:40 pm. As much as I’d like to say that I’ve already found where to live, am already completely settled in, made a bunch of friends, and have already gone out for a night in the town… I haven’t done any of these things. So far I am extremely thankful at how good the past day and a half has gone, but I thought I was in for it when I first landed in the Malaga airport.

(flight from London to Malaga)

     As I’m sitting at the gate where my flight is leaving from Dulles airport, I decide to pull out some magazines that Marie was so awesome to give me right before I left for my trip. I go through what she called the “trashy” one first, which had your typical celeb drama spilled out in less than 50 pgs. I get in a few smiles and a few laughs at how ridiculous people are and decide to look at another of the 3 magazines. So I pull out a magazine that I, myself, never would have thought to buy, but looked really interesting. It’s put away in my bag so I can’t think of the name of the magazine, but it’s a science magazine. I read through a few interesting articles about what’s killing America’s bats, how far we’ve come, April fool’s day science articles, and *ding*, the sound goes off letting us all know that it is time to board the plane. Right before I get up to join the huge line forming at the entrance to the plane, I flip through a few more pages and end on an article called 30 Ways the World Could End. Oh sweet, exactly what I needed to read before boarding a 7 ½ hour flight.

     Just touched down in London-town. 7 ½ hours flew by. I somehow managed to sleep almost the entire flight, which never happens. I like the London-Heathrow airport, probably because it and Dulles airport are the airports I have been to the most throughout my life. 6 hours. I had to spend 6 hours in this airport. What the hell am I going to do to keep busy during 6 hours in an airport? For some reason the 6 hours flew by also. I barely listened to music, barely read anything, barely walked around, grabbed a sandwich 4 hours into the 6 hours. I didn’t realize it ‘til later that the reason the time had flown by was because I was perfectly content just sitting there people-watching. I do have to say one thing (apart from the million I’ve already said and have yet to say), although there are more attractive American girls than there are European girls, the European girls that are attractive completely blow the American girls out of the water. There is no comparison. Moving on. Came across some young Mormon boys with their top hats and full-length pea-coats, a Muslim woman covered from head to toe apart from her eyes, a tiny little nun with tiny glasses, a girl who had bright pink dyed hair styled into a Jersey-Shore bump that somehow pulled it off and looked amazing with her perfect skin and model features, west Europeans, east Europeans, skinny Africans, little tiny Asians, kids with their little people voices and handheld games, many accents, languages, clothing styles, physical features, etc. I even saw an old man with the biggest nose I have ever seen in my entire life! It was one of those things that you don’t want to look at, but just can’t keep your eyes off of… intense.

     The gate number my flight was departing from wasn’t put on screen until 5 minutes before boarding time. This is where things started going wrong. I go down the hallway the gate is supposed to be down, somehow manage to pass my gate, so I go back to where I started, missing my gate again, so I go back down the hallway AGAIN, and this time I was smart enough to ask a man who worked at the airport where my gate was and oh, how convenient, it was maybe 20 feet in front of me on my right. I’m so smart sometimes. To top it off the plane ends up departing late.

      One of the teachers that I’m working with is waiting for me at the airport to pick me up and take me to spend the night at her house until I find my own place. Since the flight departed late, we arrived at the Malaga airport late. At this time I’m just hoping that my suitcases come out fast so that the teacher doesn’t leave thinking that I missed my flight or something. Oh hey, how awesome that they wait a little over 10 minutes to even start the conveyer belt that our suitcases will be thrown onto. Peoples’ suitcases start showing up slowly but surely and people begin to leave… and more people leave. One of my suitcases shows up. Woohoo! One more to go. More people leave... and more people leave. 30-45 minutes later I look around and realize that there is a mother and her child, two girls, and I waiting for our suitcases and no more suitcases are coming out. How awesome. Not only am I already about an hour behind in my arrival time, now I have to reclaim a suitcase. At this point I’m sure that the teacher is going to leave if she hasn’t already. I go to the desk of British Airways. While waiting in line behind one of the girls, a lady from British Airways approaches me, takes a look at my suitcase and says “Are you missing another suitcase just like that one?” I was. “Yes” I responded. “It’s sitting at one of the conveyer belts down there.” Yeeeeeeessssss. I run, not walk, I run with my suitcase and handbag on my little cart down to the conveyer belt that the suitcases from my flight were supposed to come out of. The suitcase isn’t there. Are you serious? I ruuunnnn back to the lady that told me about my suitcase and ask which conveyer belt she saw it on. Of course, it was on a conveyer belt that it shouldn’t have been, no wonder I didn’t see it.

     
     Finally I’m done with my suitcases. At this point I’m all hot and bothered, and panicking that the teacher has already left. I rush out to a crowd full of people and signs with peoples’ names on them. I take my time and look at every single one to make sure that I don’t miss my name. There is not one with my name on it. … Craaaaaapppp. I just stood there in the middle of everyone. What am I supposed to do now? It was one of those moments where it seems like your world is at a stand still, but everyone else is whizzing by. Fortunately, my mom called right at that moment. She can hear the panic in my voice. She says “Don’t worry. I’m going to call the school and get the teacher’s number, so wait until I call you back. If no one is there to give me the number, don’t worry. Just get a taxi to the hotel I gave you the address to and we’ll figure it out in the morning.” It was just what I needed to hear. You know, that motherly comfort that you need every now and then even though you think you are so grown up and independent and can do everything on your own? … Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Anyway, so before I knew it my mom called me back, said she talked to the teacher and that I had taken so long that the teacher thought that we hadn’t crossed paths or I had missed the flight, but is coming back to pick me up. That was the best thing I had heard all day. 20 minutes later we’re in the car on the way to the house. To my surprise, the teacher that was originally supposed to pick me up had to stay home with her son for some reason, so the Vice President of the school picked me up instead. By looking at him, you would never, ever guess that he is the Vice President of a school. His name is Jose Luis, very young at heart, a musician, married his high school sweetheart (Susana), has 3 charming kids, and a townhouse-sized, Spanish style home.

     I studied abroad in Malaga in fall of 2008 so I knew the city pretty well and have a lot of great memories there. Jose Luis was nice enough to drive through the center of the city just so I could see everything. After a 15 minute reminiscent drive we get to the house that is in a little town on the outskirts of Malaga called Cala del Moral. Susana answered the door and was very welcoming. She told me to feel at home and that once I was off and settled on my own I could count on them if I ever needed anything. So nice! I decided to have a cup of hot chocolate and we sat down to relax. The kids were asleep. The Barcelona basketball team was playing the LA Lakers. Barcelona ended up winning! What are the chances of that? Weird. All of a sudden two little people appear on the stairs. I guess 2 of the 3 kids weren’t really asleep. They got up just to meet me J. The oldest one is named Jose (like my oldest brother) and is 9 years old. The middle one is named David (like my middle brother) and is 8 years old. They’re probably 2 of the best-behaved kids I’ve ever met. They were cute. At this point we were all tired. Everyone went to sleep. I took a hot shower and hit the bed myself; Friday was going to be a long day...

(sunset at Torre del Mar)