Hangovers, car seats, and alzheimers

Todays topic is hangovers and some unpleasant places that I have ended up during a bad hungover while living in foreign countries. I first thought about writing this particular blog the other week when I was in such a state. We had gone out until about five in the morning and the next day an obvious hangover followed. That day we were planning on going to a fair in the next city that promised to be a good time but required a bus to get there. My landlady Maria Isabell offered us a free ride, but to get it we would have to go to her Aunt and Uncle´s 50 year anniversary for the day and get a ride from her cousin who lived in the city which is called Jaen. The free ride in a car was tempting but it was not departing till about ten at night and the party started at about 2 that afternoon. I had also woken up at about 1 and it was an easy decision to say no and just take the bus later. On top of that, I knew not to get involved in such a situation because it was not long ago that I found myself in a similar pickle while studying in Ecuador.

It was Super Bowl time and I managed to find a bar that was playing the game, in Spanish, but the game was on none the less. I had a few coctails during the broadcast and the next day I had a pretty solid headache. Shortly after I woke up, my host mom told me that everyone was going to the mall and that I should join. I had nothing better to do and figured that it couldn´t be that bad so I tagged along. Wrong decision. The next thing I know, I´m hungover as hell, in Baby Mundo picking out car seats with my host sister. It was the last place in the world that I wanted to be and I thought that that was easily the worst place you could possibly spend a hangover. I was wrong, very wrong. Last night I experienced something that was easily the worst, most awkward, and uncomfortable situation that I would ever want to be in while hungover.

It started on Saturday night at a birthday party for one of the other teachers. I actually had planned to go golfing the following day with one of my neighbors but that did not stop me from having a good time, and I finally tuning in around 4. Golf, which was really just a few hours at the driving range was pretty fun and when it was done I spent the rest of the day relaxing on the couch until my landlady slid a paper under my door. It was the itinerary for an ¨excursion¨. I knew there was no chance of me going on any excursions with her that day but it was dated for the following day. I skimmed it over and all I really noticed was that it started around 7, something about olive cultivation, free dinner, and a return around 10. There was some other stuff but I would figure that out the next day.

7 o´clock roles around and I get a knock on my door. It´s Marie Isabel wondering why I´m not dressed and explaining that the excursion was today, appartently the date on the paper was wrong. Althought I knew better than to get involved in this type of trip, I figured i would tough it out for three hours since I find olive farming moderately interesting. Wrong again.

We left a little after seven with her mother in the front seat. Then we went and picked up her Aunt and Uncle, this is where the horror story begins. To get to these olive trees we took a very rough road and Maria Isabell is not very smooth with a clutch so it was a bumpy ride. On top of that, three of the people in the car were above the age of 80 and either could not or simply chose not to control their farts and DAMN!!! After a very uncomfortable 20 minute ride, we arrived at her olive farm where she spent about 15 minutes explaining to me how they harvested the olives and howe they were planning on planting new ones. I found this fairly interesting but it was clearly not the main event of this trip. After another unpleasant 20 minutes in the car, we reached our destination, a freakin nursing home. This crazy lady had dragged me along to go visit some old relative who had alzheimers. Not cool at all. It´s great and all that she went to go see him but it is just not fair to bring an unsuspecting foreigner to this kind of family event. I got to spend about 45 minutes waiting for them while they visited with their old Uncle. When it was time to go, we walked the old dude down to the cafeteria where I was about ready to just leave and walk home. If I had to watch a bunch of old people who had no relation to me, spit food on themselves I was gonna hurl. Instead, Maria Isabell handed the guy over to the nurse and when he wasn´t looking she turned to me, said ¨let´s go,¨ and then hustled down the hall, explaining that he´ll get upset if he sees us leaving. I still haven´t decided if this is funny or just messed up.

After that was finally over, we left grandma and her siblings at one of their houses and went to get some food. The food was good and things seemed to be turning up except for the fact that one of her cousins owned the joint so I got to meet about everyone in the place. This was fine except for some reason she also found it necessary for me to exchange information with about 3 people that I knew I would never see again. The evening ended at about 11:30, and hour and a half later than it was supposed to.

In closing, I would like to say that if you are ever in a foreign country try to learn the language well. It really helps. Also if you are ever invited anywhere by a middle aged woman, ask her to repeat herself and make sure she talks very slowly and very clearly because you never know where you could end up.

Also, as a favor to me and to everyone else, please, never ever ever, bring someone who is not closely related or friends of the family to a nursing home when visiting someone. If they don´t know the person you are visiting they simply don´t belong and it´s gonna make them feel very uncomfortable. Thank you.

Ruining Childrens Lives

So the other day was my first day being in the classroom and what an interesting day it was. I didn't actually do any teaching because it was really just meant for me to meet the students and get to know them. It basically involved me telling all the kids what my favorite food and color was. The whole situation is really weird because these teachers are supposed to be teaching the classes in English but only one or two of them seem to know how to actually speak well. One class I'm in is an art class which is a real trip because I don't know anything about art. Also, the teacher knows basically no English and he really doesn't give a crap so the other he taught the class in Spanish and then threw on some video that taught kids how to draw a face but in English.



The craziest thing that happened to me the other day was that I was sitting on one of the computers at school procrastinating when one of the teachers came up to me. He threw three pieces of paper in front of me and the yammered off some really fast Spanish, then walked away. From what I understood he told me to translate the questions on the page and that they were for a test. The funny thing about the whole situation is that I'm not sure who the guy was or if I had even actually met him before. From the papers I understand that he teaches history but I don't think I'm even going to be working with the man. He just said some crap and before I could even translate it in my head and think of a response he was gone and I was left with three tests that I need to translate? I did the best I could to translate the papers but I realize that he is probably going to take my word for the truth. So essentially I am responsible for how these children learn about Prehistoric Art in English so jokes on them haha.

MULLETS BABY!!!

So today I would like touch on some of the cultural differences between the United States and Spain that I have noticed thus far. First and foremost, the mullet. Yes, people in Spain actually rock the mullet. I don't know if people in the U.S. every actually found the mullet attractive, but there was certainly a time when it was fashionably accepted (Uncle Jesse from full house even had trouble making this look good). I haven't researched the history of the mullet in Spain but I would say that it is currently accepted as a common hair style, and no they have not discovered a way to make it look good. I have yet to capture this cultural phenomenon on camera but I assure you that I will do everything in my power to do so.

I also went to my school for the first time today. The school in itself was similar to one in the U.S. It had about 800 kids and all the teachers seemed nice. The bilingual director Miguel showed me around and he was a cool dude. I also found that there is really no dress code for teachers. One of the teachers was actually wearing a Rolling Stones T-Shirt, party on Garth. However, most male teachers wear a regular button down shirt with slacks, which brings me to my next point, chest hair. I have always know that men of Spanish descent love to show off their beautiful chest hair but I thought this was on a more casual basis like at the bar or club. Apparently teachers like to display their flowing locks in school too. One man, who was actually like the dean of students or something important like that, didn't just stop at the chest hair. He also had the bottom of his shirt untucked a little and one of the buttons was undone displaying a beautiful beer belly lol. This was obviously an accident but I couldn't believe it when I saw it and I almost puked a little in my mouth.

In closing, today I discovered that what I thought was a handicapped waterfountain in my bathroom is in fact a bidet, or what our friends in Appalachia might call a butt washer. Enjoy your lunch everybody.

The Adventure Begins

Since I know that there will be a number of people that I will be talking to and that it will get repititious telling the same story over and over again, I decided I will start a blog. I will try to make it as funny and interesting as possible to keep everyone's attention so try not to fall asleep and remember, you can't shake the dog of the hand that bit you.

It all started in Millbrook, New York at eleven AM on Tuesday the 22 of September. From there my parents and I drove to LaGuardia airport where I flew to Philadelphia PA? Then to Madrid Spain, and finally to Sevilla Spain where I landed at about 11:30 Spain time. Minus the time difference I logged about 18 hrs of travel and yes it was horrific. That night despite the jet lag some of us found it necessary to go out which left me awesomely hung over for the first day of orientation. Orientation was meant to help us and give us advice on how to start our lives in Spain. In reality it just told us what we needed to do but not how to do it because apparently everything is different in every different part of Spain. So basically orientation turned into five days of eating, drinking, and sleeping, fine by me. That Friday we went out, had some drinks, then were flagged down by some promoter. Fortunately I was the only guy with five or six girls which meant that we all got in for free and were served a few free shots and somehow I also managed a free beer. It was a great time with some akward dancing and ridiculous picture taking which lasted till five thirty or so. Back at the hotel I called my mom who was so happy to hear from me she didn't realize it was like six where I was. The night ended with a glorious breakfast buffet and a great slumber. Overall orientation was excellent.

The true adventure began when I arrived in Linares, my place of residency for the next ten months. Here I was faced with the challenge of acquiring a cellphone, appartment, bank account, maybe some friends and a life in general. This was all to be done in a city where I knew no one, and hardly spoke the language. The cellphone part was moderately easy but the appartment was much more difficult. I found some flyers and some places online but they were all too expensive or occupied. Then I called Maria Isabela. I called her number and yes she did have an appartment but she wouldn't tell me for how much, all she kept saying was there were lots of things included and it was hard to tell me over the phone. It seemed really sketchy but what the hell, plus I couldn't find anywhere else. We met up and brought my pocketknife just in case someone wanted to dance. She ended up being a very friendly middle aged women who brought her niece which put me at ease. I was expecting just a quick show of the appartment and maybe a business deal. She wanted to give me a tour of the whole city. On the way to the apartment she found it necessary to show me the church, and not just show me the outside but actually bring me in, introduce me to all the nice statues of JC and his Virgin Mother, and we even knelt down for a quick prayer. After that we stopped at her local "social center" I guess you would call it, where everyone gathers, and she showed me all the pictures of the people in her neighborhood. Finally we made it to her appartment which turned out to be real nice. I decided to rent since it was a fair price for a nice place. I'll be sharing with Gerard, a German doing an internship at a local car horn factory. He's seems nice and down to earth so I think it'll be a good time. So while the adventure had a rocky start we seem to have found calm waters. Stay tuned for the next episode. On a final note, the apartment also has two couches as well as cable so if anyone comes across a large sum of money, or find themselves in Spain, you always have a place to crash in my living room.

Captain Red Beard