Day 46 - 11/22/2010 - Monday funday

            Today was probably one of the best Mondays I have had so far. Mondays for me are usually pretty boring and consist of me doing laundry, grocery shopping, and not much more. This Monday was a bit more productive in more than just getting laundry and grocery shopping done, but doing things on a social level.

            Yesterday, Sunday, I was hoping to be able to ride my bike to Torre and bike ride on the boardwalk, but the day ended up being cloudy and chilly. My solution to this was to stay in and do absolutely nothing besides watch TV. I was hoping that the weather today, Monday, would be good enough for me to be able to do what I wasn’t able to do on Sunday. Luckily, I woke up to partly cloudy skies that opened up and turned out to be a great day.

            The bike that I bought was a steal, hands down; I still don’t know how they let me buy it for 35 Euros. The problem with most steals is that usually there is something wrong with them. In my case, the brakes on my bike were really stiff and if I were to ever have to make a quick stop, in order to avoid getting hit by a car for instance (not saying that this almost happened or anything), then I wouldn’t be able to. The place where I bought my bike said that I had a 1 month guarantee and could bring the bike by to have any minor work done to it, so I took them up on this.

            First, I did my laundry. I showered, ate, took the clothes out of the wash and hung them outside to dry (yes, this is not America; we hang our clothes to dry). The clothes are usually dry by the end of the day as long as it doesn’t rain or isn’t too cold. Once I finished I put on my back pack and was off on my mini adventure.

            There is a big difference between the temperature in the sun and in the shade. Whenever I hit a patch of sun I would break a sweat, but whenever I would hit a patch of shade I would get cold. The ride from Velez to Torre is slightly downhill, so I let gravity do the work for me. Along the way I passed the school where I work at. I thought of all of my co-workers and smiled as I thought “Man, it must suck to be stuck inside four walls on such a nice day. …suckerrrrrrs.” Very mature of me, I know, but I couldn’t help but revel in my freedom to enjoy the day ahead.

            Once I got to the center of Torre I went straight to the store where I bought my bike. When I looked in through the window I was taken back by the amount of bikes that they now had. “Hooooly crap! I wonder if there’s an even better bike for somewhere around the same price that I got mine!” I went in and checked out the newer bikes as one of the men from the store worked on the brakes. These bikes were almost brand new, but the prices showed it. The next best deal to the bike that I got was a bike that was a lot newer, a little bit bigger, had a more comfortable seat, and perfect brakes for 100 Euros. Now that I think about it, this was probably a better deal than my bike considering how new it was, but I really don’t need all of that. The bike that I have is big enough, it may be a lot older but it works fine, maybe the brakes are a little stiff but since I got a little help from the guys that work there the brakes are fine, and yea the seat on my bike is rock solid but luckily Jose Luis has told me that he has an extra bike seat that has a lot more cushion than mine and is going to give it to me for free. Like I said, I’m not sure how I got away with such a good deal.

            On a side note, it was somewhat of a relief to talk to the guys at the store. Let me remind you that these guys are all from London, but moved to Torre about 10 years ago. It was nice to be able to speak with them in English. They all have the typical English accent with their slightly different vocabulary that includes words such as “bloody” and “bullocks”. There was one guy that I hadn’t seen the first time I came to the store. He had a bit of a different accent, I’m pretty sure he’s Scottish. Anyway, he and one of the English guys started talking about going to have a drink in the afternoon at this one bar that was full of… I don’t remember. I know there’s always been somewhat of a rivalry between two English speaking countries but can’t think of which two they are. He’s from one of these countries and the bar is of the people of the other country, so they hate him. Basically, he and the English guy were talking about how they don’t give a “bloody hell” and that they were going to have a “blasted” drink at that bar either way. Just listening to them put a smile on my face for some reason. They’re a fun bunch.

            Once my brakes were softened up and the chit chat was over I headed to the boardwalk for a bike ride before I rode my bike back home to Velez. It really was a nice day. By this point the sky was completely clear, the sun was reflecting off of the water and the palm trees were swaying in the breeze… okay, maybe that’s somewhat of a picture perfect movie description, but that’s really what it was like! I could feel the warmth of the sun on my back and the breeze of the wind in my hair… haha okay, okay, I’ll stop now. Well anyway, it was one of those kinds of bike rides where you just sit back and enjoy your surroundings. It’s something that I wish I did on a more regular basis, but I was happy to have made it out on this Monday. Once I made it all the way to the end of the boardwalk and back to where I started, I decided to head back to Velez. It was almost time to eat.

            I’m not going to lie; I haven’t really done much to try to get to know people in my town. Thursday nights I go out for drinks and tapas with some of the other young teachers at my school, and every now and then I go hiking on the weekend, but I haven’t met people my age that I can really consider my friends or hang out with every day in Velez. I decided it was about time that I try to find something to help me do so. I asked around at work for a place where I could find sports teams or exercise or anything sports related and people recommended this place that is like a recreation center about 5 minutes from where I live. This afternoon I went to the rec. center to get information about the different activities held at the facility.

            I wasn’t sure exactly where the building was at, but according to some of the teachers I work with, once I took a left at this one road I would eventually just run into it. It was dark out and there was no one on this street. I started getting a little bit freaked out and thought to myself that if I didn’t see the facility in the next two minutes I was going to turn around and go home. Sure enough, as soon as I thought that I saw two lit up tennis courts and people entering a fenced in area. This had to be it.

            It was! Wooh, what a relief. I went straight to the front desk and waited behind a woman that was speaking with the personnel. As I was waiting I looked around a bit. There was an indoor pool that was surprisingly impressive, but on the other hand there was a gym area that was extremely small and somewhat disappointing. I turned to look behind me a little bit and was surprised to see one of the teachers from my school named Alejandro right behind me in line. “Hola!” I said. “Ooh, hola Angela! Que tal? Que haces aqui?” Oh wait, sorry I forgot we were speaking in Spanish. Basically, we greeted each other and he asked me what I was doing there, so I told him that I wanted to get into some sort of aerobics classes or sports. He asked me if I was interested in the pool, which was the main reason why he came to the rec. center, but to be completely honest I am not the best swimmer, or anywhere near being a decent one. At this point the woman that was in front of me left and I went up to the counter. Alejandro knew the guy at the desk and they started talking. Alejandro told the guy what I was looking for and that I’m new to the area, and then he was off to start his swimming session.

            The guy was really helpful, but unfortunately there are waiting lists for the aerobics, Pilates and yoga classes. The only things left were sports that I am not interested in and tennis. Once he mentioned tennis I got excited. Yes! I can play tennis, I mean I’m not amazing, but I can hit the ball hard enough and keep it in the court. For some reason the guy got excited too, it turns out that he’s in charge of some of the tennis classes and he signed me up for his class this Thursday at 5. Sweet. The bad thing is that I don’t have a tennis racket, but that was the least of my worries. At least now I had my foot in the door. The guy told me to let him know which other classes I want to sign up for when I see him at tennis on Thursday. I thanked him for his help and went on my way.

            On the way home I realized that there is another gym across the street from this one. It was late and I didn’t really feel like taking the time to check it out at that time, so I’m planning on checking it out after tennis on Thursday. I’m also going to ask the tennis guy about soccer because I know that there are small indoor soccer tournaments and maybe he could help me find a team or at least send me in the right direction. That would be amazing, way better than any type of aerobics class or tennis. I miss playing soccer.

            As I continued my walk home I called one of my co-workers, Javier, because I had a missed call from him. He was wondering if I wanted to go out for a drink or two and for tapas. He is one of the co-workers that I go out for drinks and tapas with on Thursdays. An hour later we met up in the center of Velez. The first place that we went to, which is one that we had gone to last Thursday, was closed. It was Monday, it wasn’t too surprising. I told him about this other bar that I had been to with my friend Jakob and we went there. We had pulpo a la gallega (yes, my favorite dish!) and bacalao, which is a salty, white fish. Both dishes were really good. It was nice to have a friend to randomly hang out with during the week. We talked about all kinds of things. He studied in Salamanca, which is where my cousin (basically my sister), Jessica, studied abroad, so it was nice to hear some stories about the area. Supposedly it’s really pretty and since it’s a college town it’s really fun. I’ll have to check it out sometime. We also talked about different places in Galicia, Carnavales, which is like Halloween times 10, semana Blanca, which is a random week off from school and work during the winter, etc.

            When we were finished eating we decided to go to Torre to have a last drink. We had both heard that Torre is where there are more bars and more nightlife than Velez. There is a strip of bars in Torre where most young people go, so we decided to go check it out. The set up and the whole look of this one strip remind me a lot of Richmond. There were lots of different colors, but it was sort of dark at the same time, the buildings were made of brick and were painted with artsy things. I liked it. Of course we didn’t really think of the fact that it was a Monday so when we got there everything was closed. Javier knew of a different pretty decent bar so we decided to go there. It turned out to be a bar that I had gone to once with Juan Carlos, a guy that works at our school that showed me his apartment in Torre when I was looking at renting an apartment. Here we had a long talk about people of different cultures, how he didn’t figure out he wanted to get into music until pretty late, how I’m now sure what I want to do, etc.

            An interesting discussion and a nice cold drink… it was definitely the ideal way to end a Monday.