On Friday afternoon Carlos and I hopped in the car and headed north to the tiny village of Bedar, where the owner of the house we rented met us in the city. The pueblecito was so small that the man didn't even have to give us a meeting place...and was still able to find us right away. When we stopped to talk to him, a bee flew in the car. We swatted until we didn't see it anymore, and then got back in the car, and followed the man who was leading us through winding and steep unpaved roads. About halfway through the 15 minute drive, the bee reappeared...it had been hiding in Carlos' hair! And then there we were driving up a mountain, battling a bee, and the man who was leading us was going really fast. This time we were able to swat it out of the car for good, and before we knew it, we had arrived at the Casa Rural.

The house was gorgeous, isolated. We had our own pool from which we had a fantastic view of the mountains and the sea. There was also a Wii and a pool table so no danger of getting bored.

Our first move was to go back in to town to get some tapas for lunch and some groceries for the weekend. Bedar is one of those beautiful, quaint towns, of all white buildings embedded in a mountainside with a view of the sea.



But Bedar harbors a dirty secret, and it only took us a few minutes to realize that something was not right. The people were either red as beets or had skin that resembled an old leather purse, and too many people had fair hair. Asking natives for the best tapas bar in town only lead to confused stuttering. Signs, radio stations, and tv programs were in English. That's right--about 9/10ths of Bedar's population is British. Carlos had warned me of British enclaves in the south of Spain, but I had always imagined that his accounts were exaggerated and that it would be mostly retirees. But the place was crawling with Brits of all ages, little blond children getting of the school bus and fair adults running stores. I guess what bothered me the most was that no one seemed to be speaking Spanish...not well enough to be living there. I haven't been studying too long, and I was able to speak circles around all of them. I asked Carlos how the natives reacted to all the foreigners, and he told me that it was a combination of feelings--happiness that they are coming there and spending their money, but annoyance at the British invasion.



The next day we ventured to Mojacar, which is another beautiful white city perched right on top of a mountain next to the sea. Someone told me that the city has been described as a "melting wedding cake."


Mojacar is also infested with Brits, but it is bigger than Bedar so there are more natives too. After a nice lunch there, I dragged Carlos into the little touristy shops, since I can only smugly pretend like I am a native for so long before I am enchanted by hand-painted olive oil pitchers and flamenco dancer magnets.

So that was my lovely weekend. I had a bit of post vacation blues, even though it was a short vacation, and I don't work today (Monday). It is just so nice to get away!

I forgot to go on my usual bureaucracy tirade after my trip to the Foreigner's office a few weeks ago. And what is this blog if not a place for me to complain about bureaucracy? The crazy thing is that I am starting to have a new respect for the French system. The first time you go to the Prefecture in France, you have to wait a couple hours, and then they give you a list of what you need. In Spain, I never did know what I needed to get my papers. At orientation, a man came to talk about what we needed for our papers, but he did speak at the speed of light and managed to leave out a few important details too. So when I had my appointment, I just took all of my documents, and copies of all of my documents, and figured I would be fine. But when they finally called my number, it seemed that every time I got to talk to the man behind the desk, something wasn't right with my application, and I had to go run an errand to fix it.

The first time it was that there was a fee that I needed to pay at a bank in order to pay to get my papers, so I headed off to a bank, and luckily had a bit of cash with me. The second time the problem was that with the passport pictures I had, the background of the picture was grey and not white so I had to go have my pictures re-done. I barely had enough money to get new pictures--had to dump out my wallet and barely had enough thanks to all of those 5 and 2 cent pieces that have been accumulating in my wallet. And worst of all, the picture package I had to get has a large portrait picture of me looking pissed off after getting the run-around by the Oficina de Extranjeros! What am I supposed to do with that?

So I finally got back to the office, and I realized that I had seen everyone in the waiting room leaving and coming back several times, and my roommate who was also there informed me that they call your number 5 to 6 times throughout the day because usually it takes people that many times to run all these errands to get all of their paperwork right! I left my appointment demoralized and withan empty wallet. Why don't you just give everyone a list of what they need, Spain? Now I have to wait 40 days and go back to the office to see if my paperwork is ready. Why can't you just call me when it is ready?

Anyway, work is fine. I am starting to get the hang of things and enjoy it. In the evenings, I watch a lot of silly Spanish television with my roommates, which is a nice way to end the day. Wednesday is Carlos and my real anniversary so we are going to see the play Don Juan Tenorio, which is kind of a special play for us because once on a train to New Orleans, Carlos read and translated it for me.

Now I am planning Halloween lesson plans and a Halloween costume for this weekend (I am going to be a Frenchman, and Carlos is going to be my bottle of wine). Halloween is not really celebrated here, but my anglo friends and I are determined not to miss out on the holiday.

I finally have roommates so the apartment is not so lonely--3 American girls...not so exotic, but this is the luxury that I am granting myself here in this foreign country--being able to communicate freely at home. Everyone is really nice and gets along well, and the atmosphere in the apartment is relaxed.

Work started on October 1st, and this being the second time that I am an English conversation assistant, I was not nervous...the French and Spanish programs are virtually identical...12 hours of work a week, no real grading, mostly just promoting oral communication and comprehension in classes. The only difference this time was that my job at least, did not grant me 2 weeks of observation as is mandatory at least in the French system...perhaps it was just at my job where I didn´t get it--and perhaps that was owing to all of my previous experience teaching English, but I had only one day to chat with the teachers about what I needed to do and observe a few classes before diving in.

I was pretty nervous because I have mostly first and second year students, which is a lot more difficult than the older students who the other American assistant gets to teach (out of seniority...she was here last year). So going into a class full of students who were just beginning English I knew I was going to have to conquer my own fear--I was going to have to speak in Spanish to them. Some people say that the role of an English assistant is only to speak English, but with students who have only had a few hours of English lessons, speaking in English only frustrates them and makes them afraid of you! Luckily when I got to class on Monday ready to teach the first year students, and after having asked Carlos a lot of words that I would need in class in Spanish ( spell, count etc), I was pleased to discover that most of my students are ¨false beginners,¨ which is to say that they have actually had several years of English class. However, there are still plenty of students who are real beginners so it is pretty necessary for me to speak in Spanish....and I think the students are pretty relieved that I was speaking my albeit imperfect Spanish. Speaking so much to them is making me find some holes in my knowledge of Spanish, such as the vosotros form (plural you), which I never paid much attention to and suddenly need, and the subjunctive form which comes up pretty often when you are a teacher i.e. ¨I want you to...¨

The work with the second year students is a lot easier, and I use Spanish a lot less often, more often when they ask me the definition of a word or something. I am really enjoying the work...the students are there voluntarily so it makes such an enormous difference. It's such a departure from my job at the university last year. Here I don't do any grading, and if I wanted to, I could just go into class unprepared and improvise...as long as I got them to talk and/or listen for an hour. Of course, I am too conscientious for this.

I had a bit of a scary thing happen the other day...when I got off work, and I was heading to a friend's house on the other side of town, and managed to get on the right bus in the wrong direction. Normally this wouldn't have been such an enormous problem, since the bus would have to turn around and go back to the center of town eventually, but since it was late--around 10:30pm, I realized that this might be the last bus left, and I could be stranded at the terminus. I explained my problem to the bus driver, and he told me that there was one last bus to the center, and but I would have to buy a new ticket at the end of the line--a hospital outside of town. When we got to the there, the bus driver walked up to me and said, "You're not from here, are you?" (DUH!) and he didn't make me buy another ticket, and I made it to my friends although very late. I shouldn't exaggerate the gravity of this incident--I mean, worse come to worst, I could have called Carlos (I only had a few cents of phone credit, but luckily we have a special phone plan for each other), and he would have picked me up. Still, it was scary, and I will be more careful in the future. But well, if I ever need to get to the hospital in the future, I will know how to get there.

Carlos and my 2 year anniversary is at the end of the month, and we are going to spend the weekend in a mountain home about an hour from here. We will be close to some beautiful villages that I haven't seen yet (and also Vera where we spent a weekend during the summer). I am very excited!