Why we're moving to Spain

Deciding to move to Europe is like being 9 months pregnant: everyone you meet is full of "good luck!"s and good-natured questions and all the questions are generally of the same ilk (I swear that's a word).


Here are the general talking points - take notes, people.

Q: What are you going to do in Spain?
A: My personal goal is to learn to shake my hips like a flamenco dancer. The Mister has loftier goals. He would like to eat an entire pan of paella all by himself. Sexy, no?

In all seriousness, we will be employees of the Spanish Ministry of Education. We will be working as classroom assistants (called "auxiliares") in their bilingual education program. So we might be teaching English, or we might be teaching history, science, math (with a qualified teacher standing by, of course) to kiddos that are learning English.  I am in an elementary school and he is in a neighboring high school.

Q: Do you get paid? (you'd be surprised how often this gets asked) (really really often)
A: Yes. Really. Swear.

Q: Where exactly?
A: In the south of Spain, on the Costa del Sol

Q: Where will you live?
A: We'll stay in a hostel for the first few days as we look around for an apartment or a room in a house. Either one is fine with us. Having Spanish roommates would be sweet. And very good for the Spanish acquisition!

Q: Do you speak Spanish
A: Yes, we do alright for ourselves, or at least we rarely get the word for "bathroom" confused with the word for "beer". One of our goals though is to return basically fluent.  I would like to be able to converse with Antonio Banderas.  Over a glass of sangria.  On a date. Simultaneously, The Mister will be on a date with Catherine Zeta-Jones.  So, see,  it will all work out in the end.

Q: Will you ever come back?
A: Si! Our contract is for the school year, so we will be gone about a year, unless the economy stays in the tanker and we decide to wait it out one more year before entering law school, thereby pushing back graduation/must-get-a-job date. (kidding Mom!) (I think.)

Q: Will you have internet/email/cell phones/Facebook?
A: Actually, I think the internet in Spain can be much faster than the internet in the U.S. (side note: when you end a sentence with U.S., where do you put the period? Because U.S.. would be weird, right?). And we'll have phones and all that jazz. Beware the time change though!  3 a.m. calls = no bueno.


If you think of anything else that you are really, truly, wetting your pants to know (or just sort of want to know), tell me in the comments and I'll throw it up here later! (Throw up as in, "post it on the blog".  Not as in "vomit".  Important distinction.)

Prepare yourself

This blog has a limited life span in its current form. 

In a few weeks it has a makover coming, and then it appears to be turning back into a travel blog.

Okay?

A New Story, Literally and Figuratively

I've officially had to come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to be able to run this 5k.

My foot took forever to heal, and now that it has I'm too far behind to catch up.

I'm really bummed.

In its place I've decided to take on something new. Something of a more sedentary nature.

We're planning a trip to the Middle East for two weeks in March, and I decided that I didn't want to be in a land with so much Biblical history without really remembering said Biblical history.

So I am reading the Bible all the way through, just like I would any other book, and I'm hoping to be done by the time we leave for our trip.

Right now, I am almost done with Numbers. This weekend I plowed through Leviticus. I feel like I could compose a poem about Leviticus. It would go like this:

Leviticus:

An odd bird.

Do you like it?

Another story arc

Yesterday I was telling you about one of the stories I'm choosing to be a part of this year: The Story In Which The Girl Who Hates Running Stops Being Lazy And Runs a 5k Because She Told Her Friends She Would.

Today, another story I'm living this year.

Remember last summer The Mister and I became great friends with a group of Jordanians? Well we still chat with them often, and when the opportunity came up to travel to the Middle East with a group of friends, we said, duh, yes. So this spring we will be heading off for two weeks to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Amman, and other places in between.

And we get to see our friends!

The opportunity to be with them in their country after they came to ours is so incredibly exciting.

So, we're writing a story in which Super White Christian-ish American Homegirl and Homeboy Become Busom Friends With Muslim Arabs From The Middle East. They came to visit us, now we get to go visit them. And here's the part of the story that gets dicey: when our friends were here, they taught us a lot of words in Arabic (which I never knew was such a pretty language, but it is indeed). Their English of course was impeccable. So when one of them dared me to learn the Arabic alphabet by the time we came to visit (which at the time seemed a hazy, distant era), I instantly took the challenge.

And, um, the result is that now I need to learn the Arabic alphabet in about 9 or 10 weeks. Because I promised. I knew I could do it, because *little known fact alert!* I actually can read the Russian alphabet. It wasn't too hard once I got the hang of it.

Anyway.

Wish me luck.

That is all.