The Beginning of the End

Today was my last day at one of my schools. It was different than I thought it was going to be. I've been waiting for this day for awhile, counting the days, waiting for summer. Now it's here and I don't know what to think.

Today went away without a hitch. I went to school like normal. I had a normal day. My students gave me a couple cards and saludos when I left. Isa offered me a ride back to Malaga because she had a dentist appointement. We talked the whole way back, in English and Spanish, about everything. I would have liked to get to know her better. Today, everyone at school was inviting me to do things and wanting to have coffee and meet their family. Why didn't they want to do this 8 months ago. Suddenly I'm leaving and everyone is so interested in me and wants to be my friend. I don't understand.

I had my last lesson for Monday as well. One of the girls brought a cake a I took some candy. We played 'Go Fish' and colored a summer picture. I'm not sure how I feel. It's the closing of a chapter. I am extremely happy to go home and see Corey, my family and my friends. But what have I done these last 8 months? It feels like so little.

I have a lot of things waiting for me when I get back. My life will change dramatically. I know that I'm ready to get a 'real' job, and apartment, and join the rat race, so to speak. But I'm ending an era, and that always brings bittersweet feelings. I am happy to be done with the job, but it makes me sad to be leaving this side of the world. Europe holds so much history and culture compared with America, but it's not home. I miss Corey and the feeling of being around people who you've known for a long time and understand you. I miss everyday stuff like driving a car and being able to communicate freely in my everyday life. I have become accustomed to certain things here, but I still wouldn't call it home. Home just hold so many things that are different in my mind.

I know I will be leaving Malaga soon and going back. I will cry when I get on the plane, but I won't know why. I like it here, but I'm ready to be home. Wednesday my mom and my brother get here. I have already started packing because I want to enjoy time with them while they are here. We are going to travel a bit through Andalucia and I will teach them this home away from home, and then we will go back together. The End is starting. One more day of work, one more lesson....home.

Malaga hoy

The weather in Malaga is finally warming up! We've been having consistantly nice days. We were all sooo sick of winter and coldness and rain, and I myself was looking forward to a nice Spring. Malaga had something different in mind. Spring barely exists here. We went from wearing coats and every layer we could find to a sweater and a jacket for a week, now it's tank top weather in the afternoon!

For the last 2 weeks of March I've wanted to wear shorts. But, being a foreigner I already get starred at a lot, so I look at what other people are wearing to know. They were still wearing pants, boots, coats and scarves. Are they crazy!!! It's was so nice out, but in order to not be stared at, I kept my jeans and closed toed shoes. But April, April is bring out the spring and summer clothes. People are wearing shorts and open toed shoes. I leave in the morning without a jacket because I know I'll be carrying it and my outside layer by the end of the day.

We have gone to the beach a few times. The sun and the ocean makes me happy. I've already had my first burn of the season ( i know, i know...suncreen) and I'm working on my wedding tan! You won't recognize this girl when I get back. I'll look like an Indian.

The streets are filling up with tourists. Well, they always have starting on Wednesdays. You can always tell a tourist by the way they stop in the middle of the street when you're walking behind them, to look at the buildings. They wear silly hats, weird sandals and socks, carry cameras around their necks, and usually have maps in their hands. We start seeing this curious breed on Wednesdays increasing more on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Sundays they're all gone. Now that it's starting to wam up though, they're here all the time. It's only Tuesday and already my steady gaunt back from the bus station is being interrupted.

School is getting closer to an end. The teachers are putting grades in the gradebooks, getting ready for final exams, planning excursions. At the end of the month is my birthday, as well as several other kids from both schools. At the end of the month we're having a birthday party at school in English class! It's going to be so fun! Someone is bringing a birthday cake and I'm bringing some drinks and sweets! It will be a nice change to the day and a nice celebration of the beginning of May as well.

Rain, rain, go away...

When I got back from Italy, the weather wasn't exactly as I had hoped. I was expecting to return to a semi-spring version of the weather. Instead it was misty and the sky was grey. And it was the next day too. When I looked at the weather forecast, it was anticipating rain for the next 7 days. Really?
Last time it rained for a long time, I was miserable. My feet were always wet, which always made me cold. I remembered being miserable at school, never being warm, and feeling sick all the time. So, I decided that even though I'm broke, this is a good time to buy rain boots. I went the day before it was supposed to rain and bought some boots. They are shiny and black.
I've never had rain boots before, at least ones I can remember, but I thought it would be a good investment since I walk everywhere. The only rain boots I can remember were the ones I borrowed from my brother. I remember wading the the creeks and thinking how cool it was that my feet weren't wet. I could feel the water, but I was dry.
I went to school yesterday with my boots on. My teacher, Isa, noticed my boots and told me they were a good idea.
One day I wore non-waterproof shoes when it was pouring down rain and spent the day in misery with completely wet shoes and socks. It was horrible. She told me yesterday that she smiled when she saw people stepping around puddles and worrying about the water, as she walked comfortably in here boots to where ever she was going. I love this. That is what I do. I walk down the middle of the street where the water runs...just because I can. These things are wonderful.

Italiaaaa

During the end of February and the beginning of March, Andalusia has a week off. Why you ask? Well, the rest of Spain celebrates carnival in which they get a week off before, during, or after the time of Semana Blanca. Since this holiday is not in Malaga, Malaga decides to take a week off too. (Because, why should they work harder than anyone else in the country? That's not fair!)


Jen and Allison planned a trip to Italia for a week, and they asked me if I wanted tag along. We started off the journey with a 6 1/2 hour bus ride from Malaga to Madrid. We crashed at Jen's friend's apartment in Madrid and took a taxi to catch our 6 am flight to Venice. During this week it is carnivale so it was impossible for us to stay in Venice. We hung out and had a delicious breakfast of cappuchinos and calzones. We watched the people go by in costumes, saw the water taxis go by, and took in the view of the start of carivale.

We caught a train to Florence for the weekend and started looking for our hostel. We were told we were staying at one, then it changed to another, then when we got there they had switched us back to the first. We ended up having, not only a whole room to ourselves, but basically the whole hostel. It was warm, there was a hairdryer and decent internet. The man that ran it was so helpful and accomodating.


The first day in Florence we walked around and took pictures like a tourist. Yes, we were those people in the middle of the plaza taking pictures of birds and every statue that we saw (there were tons!). We also took the opportunity to get out of the rainy, very cold weather to go the Uffizi museum. There we saw The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli and some famous and some not-so-famous works of art by Leonard di Vinci and a few others. We interspersed our days with slices of pizza, authentic italian gelato and cappuchinos and tried to try as many italian pastries as we could. Tip: If pastries are what you're in search of in Europe, go to Italy. They're better than Spain. I suspect that France may have better ones than Italy. Just a guess.



Our next day, I convinced the girls to go see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was a short train ride away. How could we miss this!? We saw the Tower, took some touristy pictures, and sat down and ate our lunch and watched other people try to get the perfect picture of the leaning towner. You'd be surprised. It was a little harder than I thought to take the 'I'm holding up the tower/ I'm pushing the tower over' picture. That night we went up to the top of the city to watch the sunset over Florence. It was a long way up, but it was worth the walk. They city was gorgeous. As the sun set, all the lights of the city came on. We sat on the steps, talking of our study abroad experiences, drinking cheap wine.


The next day was not so rainy, so we walked around and took our final pictures of Florence and some re-do's of ones from the rainy days. Then we boarded our train to Venice. We left from a different train station than we arrived in so we wanted to make sure we got there in time. We waited for a very long, long time in the cold. The wind was blowing and whipping around, straight through our jackets because there was a storm rolling in. We were glad to be on the train. As the train entered Venice it was storming. We were over a canal and the wind was blowing so much that the train was rocking back and forth. Apparently no one else seemed worried, but to me it looked like the beginning of a scary movie. We followed our very complex directions to our hostel and made it in due time. (If you don't know, Venice is a city of winding streets. They say the best way to see Venice is to get lost and find your way back, basically because it'll happen anyway.)

We were pleasantly surprised when we reached our hostel. (We were nervous about this one, because there wasn't a lot of information provided online.) The room we booked for three could sleep 8 people. We suspected this place was rented out for the week of carnavale because it was complete with a kitchen, coffee, a washing machine, and a living room. It was a little house and we loved it. We talked with the innkeeper a bit. It was a dream for him to have a hostel. He and is wife both work outside the house during different shifts, and the shifts they're home, the watch the hostel and do work for it. He says it's worth it and we should try it in the states. He was very nice and gave us directions to the nearest plaza. We went and found an Italian place to eat (go figure) and had pizza and wine. It was delicious and definitely appreciated after a cold, long day of siteseeing and travelling. The next day we explored Venice. Of course we had our usual pastry, pizza and cappuchino for the day. We did some shopping and took lots of pictures.

Jen's dad owns a liquor store back in the States. When she told him we were going to Italy, he suggested that we contact a vender to see if we could get a tour. We did. So we loaded up in a rented car and went to Verona. If you ever have a chance, drive through Italy. It is just like the movies with vineyards on both sides of the street. Acres and acres of grape vines. We were in wine country, and it was cool. After driving around lost we asked for directions from a couple people: a man with a wheel-barrel who drew us a map in the dirt on the ground and a lady with a dog who let us through a gate that led us right there.


The lady from Cesari gave us a tour. The place we saw was the smaller bottling plant. There was a bigger one where the most popular wines were bottled. She showed us the new barrels they had just ordered from France, and tried to explain to us novices all the details that went into making wine. There were two other Italian guys touring the facility with us. We all stood around while they talked Italian. Italian is easy enough to understand with a few words translated. She gave us each a bottle of wine, one of which was the new wine that was just presented to the market. YUM!


We continued into town to eat lunch. I had parmesan risotto which I have vowed to learn to make upon my return to the states because it was sooooooo good. I had to stop myself from inhaling it. That night was my last night in Venice. We went looking around for food to eat. We found some pasta and sauce in the grocery story, along with cannolis that went perfect with the wine we had acquired that day.



After dinner we could hear music, so we went in search of it. We found it at the same plaza we were at the day before. There was a stand selling beverages, so we bought some vin brulé (which I have also vowed to learn how to make) and watched the concert and the gypsies dancing. We went wondering through the streets while we listened to the music. We croseed many bridges and turned many corners, all of which looked the same. We did the usual Venice thing and got lost. It was enjoyable, but eventually it got too cold so we retired to our warm little house.

The next day I left to go back to Spain. When I left the hostel, it was snowing and I was a little glad I was going back. Spain is cold, but not as cold as Italy and I was tired of wearing every piece of clothing I brought all at once.

Just kidding...

It has been so cold here. I know, I know it’s not a foot of snow or single digit degrees outside (actually it is because we use celcius). Malaga’s version of winter is rain. It has been rainy, cloudy and foggy almost every day for three weeks.

My school doesn’t have heating. They have small space heaters in the rooms that barely take off the chill. The entire building is made of stone and brick, which does not lend itself well to heating. This doesn’t seem to be the main problem, though. For some reason the doors and windows are always open. Everyone talks about how cold it is, and then I see them open the windows. No one seems concerned that the front doors are completely open and the chilling wind is whipping through the school’s wind tunnels. I wonder how cold it has to be to keep the windows and doors shut. Whatever it is, we haven’t reached that low yet.

Valentine's Day!!

Today my wonderful fiance sent me flowers....from across the ocean!!! Well, not exactly. He called my friend and asked her to pick up something and told her what to write on the card. He also sent me a card that just happened to arrive on Valentine's day and was waiting for me when I got home from school. I was very surprised. I couldn't stop smiling.

El Restaurante Chipriota

One of my roommates, Maria, is Greek. She has another Greek friend named Elena (although she'll scoff at you if you call her Greek.) She is actually from an island off of Greece called Cyprus (Chipre, in Spanish). She found a Chipriota restaurant in Fuengirola and wanted to get everyone together to go eat.

On Sunday we loaded up on the Metro to go to Fuengirola. The restaurant didn't open until 8:30 so we thought we'd have some drinks. We hung out in a cafe by the sea and waited for the sun to set and the restaurant to open.

The restaurant had sampler menus set up by the number of people. We were 9 people so we ordered 7 menus and a bottle of white wine. The first few dishes were plates that I have seen before. Salads, hummus, cucumber and tomatoe salad. I was in heaven. I like Greek food. I said this also and was scolded. Then came more food. Greek food that I have never seen before. There were a lot of dishes with different kinds of beans: garbonzos, kidney beans, some with corn. A lot were covered in a delicious tomatoe sauce. These were followed by 3 or 4 more meat dishes. I don't know the names of any of the dishes I ate or what they had in them, but I'll give a piece of advice: don't EVER turn down Greek/Chipriota food. It could change your life. This was a taste of home for Maria and Elena. They kept saying "Oh this is just like my mom's!" or "My mom makes this, except she...." It was cool for them, I think.

This particular restaurant had Turkish coffee! Yeah, yeah, I know there's coffee everywhere in this country, but this coffee is special. It tells your fortune. I'm not a big believer in astrology and don't put much weight on these types of things, but I was a little curious to see what my coffee had in store for me.
Step 1: Drink coffee as normal, except for leaving a little bit of liquid in the bottom.
Step 2: Put saucer on top of coffee cup and flip over.
Step 3: Place both hands on top of coffee cup, left under right, for 5 minutes.
Step 4: Call over the fortune reader to see hear your destiny
Once we had followed our steps, the grandpa came over to tell us what they said. (This was a family restaurant with 4 generations working and the grandpa was the one who started it and reads the fortunes.) Some of the fortunes were somewhat true, and some were a little off (we hope!), but mine.....


My coffee was in the shape of a big heart! He told me my heart was full of love and that's the only thing that I have in my life right now. I was so happy. They were all ooohhing and aaahhing over it. I was a little pleased, I must say. Everyone here reacts a little negatively towards the getting married part because they think I'm soooo young. It was nice to hear a little affirmation from a random cup of coffee.

Oh, did I mention it was the day before Valentine's Day! :)