Living Small in Jaen

Summer lovin’, had me a blast

I don’t know if those are the correct lyrics to the song, nor do I know why that title came to me but one thing is for sure and that is that Grease is not my favorite movie.

The last day of school came. And it went. The ‘inspector’ came to school today and whenever he comes everyone is in a jumble. He works for the Junta de Andalucia as the guy who ensures the teachers are doing their jobs and the school is running properly. That being said, today was not as slow and emotional as I thought it was going to be, which is neither a good nor a bad thing. Said goodbye to all the teachers, gave them hugs and wished the children the best in the future. As I walked to the door of each class, kids were trying to quickly complete drawings of houses, trees or basketballs to give me as a gift. One kid pulled out of his pocket a striped red/yellow bouncy ball with a black bull on it. Was this gift something he had planned in advanced? I don’t know but it was a great gift.

Being around the goofball children for 10 months is something I will definitely miss. I will miss the kinder-kids using half a bottle of soap to wash their hands and 15 paper towels to dry them, kids pretending to not understand me when I speak spanish (maybe they don’t..), little girls telling me I have many girlfriends, and above all, eating salami and artisan loaves of bread everyday for lunch. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough time to write about all the goofy things they did.

Heading to Granada today to finally see the Alhambra with my French friend Rafael that I met in Cadiz. It is the most visited monument in Spain - and I almost missed it? #cmooonguy

Las ultimas 3 semanas, es decir - Mayo

Que tal va todo, 3 weeks have past at a rate slower than 24 hours per day. May has lasted a long time and it is exactly what I needed. I am more than happy to come home in June, but don’t let that fool you. Wrapping up my time here has not been fun because I  know I will miss walking 10 feet out my apartment door to go watch a La Liga soccer game with 10 other 40-year-old men dressed in Barcelona/Real Madrid sweatsuits accordingly.

3 weeks ago, I played in my second frisbee HAT tournament. A HAT tournament is played with teams that are chosen at random. Two full days of running around on a astro-turf field in upper 80/lower 90 temperatures. Water was consumed and the shade was utilized. I had the privilege of working, yet again, with this dude named Jeff. A native Oregonian living in Sevilla. He played ultimate frisbee for the Ducks. We won the tournament again haha…This guy plaaaaaays. Two tourneys down!

Returned from Granada that week to continue working with the nin~os (see above)

Being an elementary school teacher is like being a boss. The only difference is a boss never has to beg his/her employees to stop repeating him even when the ‘repeat the english word’ game is over. (Yes, that’s the only difference). I’ll miss these goofs - tomorrow is my last day and so far this week I have received 3 presents. A shirt that says — ‘Siempre con el rojo’ - ‘always with the red’ — a Spanish national soccer team shirt, a red/yellow bracelet with a small metal plaque with ‘Cambil’ etched into it and…a bouncy ball. I don’t think the gifts can get any better but we will see.

Ok so after Granada, the power-draining heat continued. 14:00 May 15th, 2012 Jaen reached 37 Celcius. That’s 96.6 F which doesn’t sound too bad, but the sun in Andalucia has an incomparable presence to the sun in Seattle (yes, we each have our own sun). When Maria Eugenia drops me off 300 meters from my apartment after school, I literally run from shady area to shady area hoping to reach my apt without allowing ‘el sol’ to set foot on my skin. It’s like the eye of sarumon in a way - you’re pretty much done if within vision. Waking up at 4am as sweaty as a boxer was standard that week.

That next weekend I found myself in Malaga - the 2nd largest city in terms of size and population in Andalucia. Malaga is known for its luxurious location on the Costa del Sol. Many Germans and English set up shop in Malaga because of its beauty, beach access and weather so as I ventured a bit out of the capital city of Malaga, I heard a bit more english. My first day in the city, came across a free outdoor concert where a 14 year old was beeeeelting, little kids were showing off their flamenco skills and a group of women impressed the crowd with their singing and dancing skills. Stayed at the hostel 2 nights - the guy I shared the bunkbed with was an 18 year old from France who has already been to Wenatchee and Spokane..What was he, a world traveler making his rounds in the USA, doing in these locations?..Even he didn’t really know but he said he had a good time which was all that mattered. Beautiful view from the top of a hill that ran parallel to the Malaga Gibralfaro - an old Phoenician site turned fortress, turned castle, turned residence for Fernando II - some Spanish king of Arago’n. So this view from a path showed me more than I would have imagined —

— I’ll put some more pictures up. As I was climbing this mountain, every 30 meters had a place to stop and check out the view and each time I stopped, the view got that much better. This is a panoramic shot and so although it lacks in detail, I thought the view of 3 pictures worth of the width of the city was pretty coo.

Ok and this last weekend I went to Cadiz, the oldest city in western Europe. Some interesting things that happened/I learned

-Learned that the green on the Andalusian flag is representative of Islam and the dude on the flag is Hercules

-Went to the beach that Halle Berry strutted out of in the James Bond Film ‘Die Another Day.’

-Buried packaged pasta in the sand with a friend from the hostel so that we could go back the next day, dig it up in front of a lot of people and appear amazed.

-Saw a dude playing basketball outside (2nd time in last 10 months), asked if I could join, climbed through a hole in the fence 10 ft up and shot around for a bit until I realized I didn’t put sunscreen on

-Went to visit my friend Auxy who played on my recent ultimate frisbee team in Algeciras (across the bay from Gibraltar).

-Went to Gibraltar, took a few pics outside the border, tried to enter and realized my NIE (Spanish ID) wasn’t enough identification to enter….oy, where was my passport when I needed it..We laughed and zoomed outta there so I could catch my bus.

Now back at school for my last day tomorrow! 

Tyler’s Birthday Present

Tyler sent me a message today for the birfday and I wanted to share it. He gave me permission to share it.

Ryan, happy birthday! This is little bro Tyler, and I hope that you will celebrate your birthday like a king, and will enjoy your presents coming in the mail…  My birthday present to you is my (the) top 23 most favored players in the NBA. From least-to-greatest, they are: 1. Ray Allen, 2. Kevin Durant,           3. Kevin Garnett, 4. Rajon Rondo, 5. Shaqueol O’neol (retired), 6. Russell Westbrook, 7. Nate Robinson, 8. Brian Skalibrini, 9. Brandon Roy (retired?), 10. Isaih Thomas, 11. Dirk Novitzki, 12. Chris Paul, 13. Kendrick Perkins, 14. Derik Fisher, 15. Camello Anthony, 16. Dwight Howard, 17. Pau Gasol; I’m realizing that 23 players is a lot for me, haha, so I am just going to say: 18. Larry Bird, 19. Michael Jordan, 19. Magic Johnson, 20. Tony Wrotten, 21. Steve Nash, 22. Derrick Rose (not true!!!), and the final magic 23: the white cigar (Brendan Sherrer).  I hoped you enjoyed my portion of this letter because I accidentally deleted my first one when I almost finished typing it; so… HAPPY GOLDEN BIRTHDAY RYAN!!!! Can’t wait for you to get home!

¿Plural?

Is yogurt pluralized - yogurts?

Yesterday played soccer at our basketball practice and it was the best practice yet

Frisbee tournament this weekend in Granada

Weather is getting hot fast, looking into importing sunscreen soon

terco-stubborn

manchar-to stain/get dirty

Feria de Sevilla

On Friday, I was sitting at home wondering how I would take advantage of this 4 day weekend. The initial plan was to head to Málaga, but things turned unfortunate when the Saturday, Sunday and Monday weather report predicted rain and cold. My friend Tyson and I thought it better not to embark to the beach-town during bad weather. So on Friday I was talking to a friend that I had met with my parents on the train to Sevilla during mid-April when they were visiting. He invited me over to spend a night at his home and go to the Fería de Abril. (A Fería is like a festival..more or less each city in Andalucia has a week devoted to such an occasion. I think the best tway to describe it would be a suuuuper-spanish version of the Puyallup Fair with a lot less attractions/concerts/animals and more hanging out in tents). Because it would probably be the last time I saw Juanma (the guy who guided my parents and I around Sevilla for 7 hours, taking us to shops and restaurants with great food that were owned by his friends) and also because the Fería de Abril is considered the most famous in Spain, I took the 4.30pm train to Sevilla the next day.

When I arrived, it was raining pretty hard. It was the last full day of the Fería and so normally, Juanma told me, it would be full full full of people but the rain made it not so. We walked 5 minutes from the train station to his house (You’re more or less walking distance from everything in Andalucía). I thought I was dressed well (I certainly was relative to how I normally dress)- nicer jeans, a sweater-type top and all black sambas. It turns out guys wear suit and tie to the Fería de Abril. At first, he lightly suggested I wear a jacket or something over my sweater, then he suggested I wear a pair of some of his nicer shoes..Next thing I know, I was wearing suit and tie with dress socks haha….None of it fit me that well, but once I arrived to the fairgrounds, I was glad I changed. The majority of the girls were wearing Flamenco dresses and all of Juanma’s friends were dressed as if we were at a wedding.

Unlike the Feria de Jaen, the majority of Sevilla’s caseta’s (tents) are private. In Jaen, I entered and left tents as I pleased (there were about 20 total tents during the Jaen feria where as in Sevilla, there were over 1000) but in Sevilla, you pretty much had to know somebody to enter into the tent. The tents were divided into two parts. The first room had tables/chairs off to the sides and space in the middle for people to dance to flamenco music. The second part of the tent was a bar that served food and drinks. Juanma’s friends intermittently started dancing around the bar and often tried to get me involved. Since this is the only dance move I feel comfortable pulling off, I tried the flamenco for a quick second, then kinda got out from the middle of the circle. 

Got home, went to sleep and took the train home the next day!

Notes:

Digiorno  - I think we all classify eating Digiorno pizza (not so much Digiorno pizza and cookies) as satisfactory gastronomical moments. Today my roommate has informed me that Digiorno is an Italian word and it means —- ‘In the morning.’ —- Cool? I also showed her a picture of Olive Garden’s dish; the Sicilian Scampo. Perplexed, she wrote it off. Apparently it’s not so popular of a dish there. I thought it necessary to show her this because she is from Sicily, the island south of mainland Italy.

Milo and Otis , the great journey by cat and dog, was actually a Japanese film.

-Just booked tickets with Bojie to go back up to San Sebastian for a few days in June before I head back home to Seattle on the 11th

-2nd Frisbee Tournament next weekend in Granada

Vaccination Day

Was hanging with some 2nd graders during PE and all of a sudden they were told they had to go get some shots. Tristeza began. Some of the girls started crying while the boys were already pulling the collars of their shirts down past their shoulders albeit not being anywhere near the nurse’s office.

We arrived to the nurse’s office and they started lining up by number. You can tell that this is never fun for teachers because the kids try to sneak their way up to the front because clearly it is the coolest place to be. On top of the screaming and disorganized line, 4th graders were entering/leaving the hallway to go check out the book-fair that was taking place. 4th graders are cooler than 2nd graders via elementary school law and so the 2nd graders pretty much believe anything they say. I think we know what happens next. One of the 4th graders walked by the line and just HAD to share his thoughts on the amount of pain the should would bring to them. Thankfully, the teacher realized what was happening, shoo’d away Julio the 4th grader and assured to all nothing was going to give them pain.

Important things to note:

-All of the boys had ruined the collars of their shirts. Where is MJ when we need him..

-The girl who had the most fear of receiving the shot ended up not taking it because her mom didn’t sign the paper or something

I was planning to go to Málaga this weekend but it has been said that it will rain in all of Andalucia and so I may be in Jaén for the 3rd weekend in a row. Going through beach withdrawals

Don’t even tell me..

Today I really thought about going on a walk to get some exercise…..what is going on

Spinach and milk for breakfast? Time to go to the grocery store.