Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The rain in spain does NOT fall mainly on the plains

It's a madhouse of rain in Barcelona- started Sunday night and is supposed to continue into Wednesday evening. This confirms what I already knew: I could never live in Seattle! I feel like everywhere all over the world is having freak weather lately, I heard Boston was 91 the other day? yikes!

Things are slowly getting better, as my sickness is pretty much gone and I successfully completed another Monday class with the 5 year old which miraculously, 3 didn't show up due to the rain so it was especially good and went by fast, thank goodness. I also had a lovely pedicure as a treat from Sherry, who is a fabulous woman from our TEFL program. My feet were pretty gross and it felt so great to be pampered for a bit. Sherry and her partner Mircad had Sari and I over on Sunday night for dinner, too- she made chicken tacos which blew my mind, and we even had chips and salsa (unheard of)! I love this pair- they're a middle aged couple who have lived all over the world and are now in Barcelona for a few months then planning on moving to Mexico to open a business together. Mircad is Macedonian and he is hysterical, I felt so welcomed into their home and NOTHING beats a homecooked meal.

Today I'm going to go check out a hatha yoga class and then teach my group of 9 year olds who I really like. My private student that I met over the weekend wants to meet on Thursday, so that's promising. A little bit each day, a little bit at a time, and I think I'll be alright.

Fun observation: I'm not joking when I say that if you ever ride the ridiculous amazing Barcelona metro (more on that later) you might be reading a book, or newspaper, and look up to find about 7 people starting at you very openly. Now, it doesn't mean you have something on your face or even that you look particularly attractive that day, they just STARE. I've been unable to get used to this as I typically choose to read something on the metro, having been taught that blatantly staring is rude.I know this is a cultural thing but I really can't get used to it, I try to stare back but get uncomfortable. I've felt tempted to use a Polaroid camera to take a picture of myself and hand it to people but I doubt they'd get the message, and film is expensive.

Barcelona metro= the best in the entire world, I'm convinced. Not only are there signs counting down the minutes AND seconds til it shows up, its usually clean, there's one every 3 minutes, and on each of the train cars, there's a lit up sign that shows which stop is next, AND a voice announcer telling you which is next. It's incredible and so fast, I love it!! Compared to the Madrid metro which lacks that and also chooses to list all the individual lines on every car so if you're not sure which line you're on, good luck to you!

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