My weekend, dumb things I've done lately, and linguistic musings

Heyyy update time!

Let's dive right in, shall we?

Wednesday: School. Late, missed a class. The lady who was supposed to pick me up just didn't, so then I took a Sevilla (capital) bus up to the bus stop of the Sevilla (provincia) buses. And made it just in time. And then that bus didn't stop. And the next one doesn't leave for 2 more hours. So I called bossman and told him I wasn't gonna make it to my first class, which was, as you might be able to guess by this point, fine. So I sat by the river and watched the sun rise and then went for a leisurely breakfast:

(the thingies sticking up in the silhouette are the two towers of the Plaza de Espana [where I get visa stuff done; its pictures made an appearance or two in the last post] and the one in the middle is the Torre de Oro, which is right on the river, and where I think I'm going on Tuesday because it has a museum with free entrance then.)

Thursday: School. More of the same. I just erased a bunch of rambling about how some of the teachers don't know how to use me (though some do a just fine job.) You're welcome.

Friday: Chani moved! Jorge’s going up to Madrid I think the last weekend of this month to see friends or something, and today she invited me to go up with him (provided that he’s ok with driving me, of course) and stay with her. So that’s something fun to look forward to!

Saturday: Jorge and I went to Ikea and I got sheets and a comforter cuz the ones I had were Chani’s. It was pretty exciting, especially because I’d only been to an Ikea once. The Saga of the Sheets, which is part of the reason for the title of this post, is below...keep reading.

I also did some googling re: volunteer possibilities, so we’ll see if anything happens there. Maybe an after school thing with immigrant kidlets?

Then at night I went to Andy’s for his birthday celebration, where we had a “mustache party” AKA wore fake mustaches they found at the chino (definition below in the random crap section, for now the important thing to know is that you can buy fake mustaches there.) Then we went to a bar on Calle Betis. All of the above was super fun. I don't have any pictures of myself, though I think Andy has some on his camera. So this will have to do:

Today (Sunday): Slept in, was gonna go to the cathedral to be touristy but realized I didn’t have enough time, so I just went to mass there. It was a little one in a side chapel and was sans music and very git r done. I liked it because hearing everything I used to hear every single week in a different language really made it seem fresh. And another cool thing is that they ring the big bells in the Giralda during communion. Like “Oh hey, City, you’re not in church right now but in case you were wondering, it's communion time!!"

Oh and like five feet from where I was sitting was the coffin (or whatever the less creepy name is for the super decorated boxes that contain very important and very dead people) of Alfonso X AKA Alfonso el Sabio AKA Alfonso the Wise AKA a Spanish king of old whose contributions I can't quite recall but who was a big deal.

I stuck around after the fact and took some pictures:

Then when I got back, Maria the mystery roommate was here. Turns out she exists! We’d talked on Facebook so I had already determined that she seems nice. The surprise, which I guess it shouldn't have been, is that she has a really thick accent (because she’s from Aznalcollar [but has lived in Huelva, the province to the west of Sevilla, most of her life]) and is incredibly hard to understand. So this will certainly hone my skills.

Whoooooooo random story/observation time!

So blinds are different here. Really different. (I promise this is a good story. Bear with me.) They’re called “persianas,” and instead of trying to describe it, I'll give you a picture:

You use the little pulley thing to get the shade to go up and down and to close the little slits to block out the light (and cold!) even more. I didn’t realize one could be dumb enough to misuse a pulley but, well, you can probably imagine where this is going. I thought it was stuck so I’ve been sleeping with them open this whole time, and then I told Jorge my blinds were screwed up and asked him to help me pull it down with force. He came and checked it out, and then informed me that you have to pull the cord towards you while pulling up or down, which had not occurred to me. 

So he put the blinds down in approximately one second. I slept like a baby that night. And then the next morning I woke up at 10 and was all confused because it was so dark…like, “Silly Janet! Today is Friday! There is no need to wake up at 6!”


In conclusion, my quality of life has drastically improved.

As you can see, I am glad to have a handyman (i.e. someone who can teach me about the functions of basic Spanish household items) living here. Jorge also happens to be super nice. Can’t remember if I’d come to that conclusion yet when I last updated.

AND I understand almost everything he says, which is always nice. Being the nerd that I am, the following is fascinating to me: he says he has a Galician accent, but not much because he’s been living in Madrid for a couple years. But he also says he’ll say “hola” and people will be like… “You’re gallego, aren’t you?” It’s a whole different dialect (variation? I don’t know!) that I've since looked up, and it looks a lot like Portuguese, but sounds just about like castillian Spanish, which he calls "espanol" (plus a tilde) and not "castellano."

In a similar vein, people here think I talk like on soap operas because that’s pretty much their only contact with Mexicans. But then again, whenever I hear standard Spain Spanish I’m like, “Teehee it’s like the movies!”

Another dumb thing I've done: being the budget-conscious (read: cheap) shopper that I am, and buying a bunch of stuff at the “chino” (Wilson’s/Rose's type store, oh and that's your Spanish word for this post) the other day, I now have three more things to add to my list of things you really should shell out good money for: 

1) Sheets. They were 10 euros and cute, but I think they were actually made of burlap. Thankfully, I was able to return them and go to Ikea and get some actual sheets fit for human use. I thought about toughing it out and calling it Peace Corps practice, but decided against that.

2) Floss. I had issues finding good floss in Mexico, too. I never realized how great the quality, price, variety, and availability of US floss is. Now that’s something I can get patriotic about.

3) Nail polish. It seemed like a good idea at the time (story of my life) and I instantly feel a thousand times cooler with black nails, but I’m gonna regret purchase #3 when I try to take off this heartless finger dye in a couple weeks.

Nowwww, I leave you with this (from my early morning pick-up site the other day):

That is all. Peace out!