Christmas Eve or Nochebuena

This year we were once again at Jose's for Christmas. It's a fairly typical Christmas Eve dinner, but it kills me!

Here's how it goes...
9 o'clock and we're watching the King's speech. Actually, the men were in the bar downstairs drinking and the women were in the kitchen cooking. Jose turned on the speech because we only saw 5 minutes last year and it seems to me that one should watch the king's address to the nation. This year we barely made it to 5 minutes. The king seems semi-literate, it's obvious he's reading the script and he just has no feeling in his voice.

About 10 o'clock people start coming in and about 10.30 we sit down to eat. Lots of shrimp with heads and other various sea animals, complete with heads. Fish or chicken to choose.

Finished at about 11.30, after two courses, fruit, cake and coffe and champagne for 19 people. Argument breaks out over whether to watch the Raphael Christmas special (that we watched the whole way through last year) or a Lost marathon (particularly bloody show, but I've never seen it, so I don't know if it's always like that or not). Certain family members break out in Christmas carols, beating on plates, clanking bottles and even going crazy with castanets. I really wanted to call the police myself!!!

I get in a bad mood at 1 o'clock in the morning because I'm very sleepy (normally in bed by 11!) and all we're doing is sitting there breathing second hand smoke, watching bits and pieces of Raphael (still) and listing to the men argue about cards.

1.30, Jose agrees to take me home. We're the first to leave. We're in bed by 2, but I don't know what time we went to sleep because everyone else was playing cards and singing Christmas carols in the building, too. Didn't hear Jose's parents come in, but they said it was at about 4.30.

Christmas Baskets

A small post before we leave to go to the in-laws for Christmas!

A wonderful Spanish tradition: Christmas baskets from the bosses! When I was in Madrid, I had horrible, cheap bosses who took advantage of my naivety of the Christmas basket tradtition and gave us a plant, a candle and a cheap bottle of wine.

However, after I moved to Toledo I hit the boss-Christmas-basket jackpot! Here is what Jose and I received in our baskets:

Jose: an assortment of products from Castilla-La Mancha. A bottle of wine, chunks of cheese in olive oil (which looks very, very disgusting), a chorizo, salami and cured pork loin. All in all, very yummy!

ME: A bottle of Duero wine, a bottle of champagne, a bottle of Baileys, a HUGE box of marzipan, various boxes of chocolates, Pringles (don't ask me why), and a 3 kilo cheese (that's over 6 pounds, people!). I think it's sheep cheese, however, so that's a pity, because I can barely stand the stuff.

Great Christmas baskets! I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

A Taste of Home

Christmas just isn't Christmas without cookies! Keeping up this tradition, so not Spanish, has meant shipping lots of things from the US. Namely, cookie cut-outs, which many find very amusing, and molasses, to make gingerbread. The strange thing about the molasses is that I've had a lot of people tell me that they recognize it, but none seem to know where in the world I could buy it!

So, here I've been, over the last week and a half, with cookie dough in the oven. The sugar cookies aren't so bad, but the gingerbread is enough to make one lose their religion! First, the sticky mess of measuring it all out (I use a recipe with honey and molasses, to stretch my supply of the imported goods), then the mixing by hand, which Jose helps me with, then the rolling and the cutting and the scraping it up off the counter and the tons and tons of flour I have everywhere! So, I mix it and then freeze it. When the mixing experience is far enough away and I'm feeling especially stable, I roll it out and cut it, one cookie at a time. I only have one proper cookie sheet, so we alter with a pizza pan. It takes a long time.

AND, to top it all off, last year when we took the cookies to Jose's parents...the looked at them like I'd brought fried caterpillars, shrugged and said, "I guess they'd be all right to eat for breakfast."

Going to the Doctor in Spain

In the US you hear a lot of negative things about socialized health care, portraying it as the worst possible thing you could do for sick people! I'm not saying it's perfect, but here is a truthful account of my latest visit to the doctor.

After some weeks of leg pain, Jose convinced me to go to the doctor. So, I went online on Tuesday night (about 10.30 pm) and signed into the website of the health system of Castilla la Mancha. I scrolled down and selected the day and time that I wanted (there weren't any appointments left for Wednesday, but I got one for Thursday at 10.45).

Yesterday I went. I arrived at about 10.40. Arriving is my least favorite part because you have to have a conference with all the old women waiting for the same doctor. The doctor's office is one of many along a wing of the building. Outside your doctor's door there is a list with all the people who have appointments with that doctor that day. For each 15 minute block, 5 people are scheduled. So, the arrival conference goes something like this. First, you look at the list and ask the old women which appointment time is in with the doctor now. Normally it's the previous time (in this case, 10.30). Then, you ask if the person who is before you is there waiting. If so, you claim the spot after this person. Then, you have to be on the look out for the person after you so that you can help them claim their spot.

I waited about twenty minutes for my turn to come. A twenty minute wait isn't bad for any doctor anywhere in the world, I'm sure. I went in and told the doctor about my weird leg pain. Now, my doctor is really nice, but he talks to me like I'm deaf or really stupid. Kind of like..."And...it...hurts...here...?" Either he's had bad experiences with immigrants before or I'm the first one he's met. It's annoying and endearing at the same time.

But back to the visit. The doctor asks lots of questions about the pain, then says he'd like to send me for an x-ray. But, because you can't leave the doctor's empty handed he prints me out a prescription for Ibuprofen. Yep. I was confused at first, because you can buy it over the counter here at the pharmacy, but I remembered just in time I was in Spain and kept my mouth shut.

Because of the prescription (which is subsidized by the government), I got a box of 800 mg Ibuprofen for 80 cents! Plus, three other prescription medications for less than 2 euros each! It's so cheap!

Plus, even though I was warned that it might take a month to get my x-ray appointment, in the end I went this morning. Another twenty minute wait, and I was done.

And it was all for free. Except the 80 cent Ibuprofen.

The Caja Rural Nativity Scene is Now Open

Last year, on the last day of class before the Christmas holidays, I went out for a drink with my adult FCE class. I had to do something the next day, so I only had a glass of wine and left to go to the corner to meet Jose, who was coming from his own holiday Christmas party. As I was walking down the street, I looked to my left and saw a llama. And some sheep. And some swans, ducks, and exotic birds. Camels, donkeys and cows. And I thought to myself...did someone put something in my drink???


But no, it was only the Caja Rural Nativity Scene which includes many animals who get to live in the front yard of the bank for a month and have all of Toledo gawk at them.

Last weekend it opened this year, so of course, Jose and I went.

The Christmas Lottery

It's December and that means: The Christmas Lottery!

The lottery tickets are on sale from July up until the day of the lottery, December 22. The tickets are 20 euros each and each number is printed ten times. On the morning of the lottery, the children from St. Ildefonso's school, in their uniforms, come and sing both the ticket numbers and the prizes in euros. (I came to Spain after the change to the euro, but I have heard from many sources that it sounded much better in pesetas.) I don't know the actual numbers, but from the national frenzy surrounding the lottery, I'm guessing the government makes a tidy sum.


The pictures are from last year. Jose's parents asked us to buy them a ticket when we were in Madrid for the weekend. And, of course, you can't buy just anywhere. The pictures are outside the famous Dona Manolita's lottery shop, on Gran Via, where many a winning lottery tickets have been sold. Can you find Jose in the line? AND, may I add, that this was a weekend in November!



This is one of the strongest traditions for Christmas. But I hate it! Generally, Christmas traditions don't invoke strong negative feelings, but this one has just gotten out of hand!

It all started well enough, with a holiday sense of generosity. Everyone would buy a ticket and then "give" part of their number to members of their family or their friends, thus increasing everyone's numbers and adding to the excitement on the day of the lottery because of your increased chance of winning. Jose told me that each family used to share 100 pesetas (about 60 cents) with each couple in the family. 6o cents would go far! Then, Spain changed to the euro. 100 pesetas changed to one euro (not only for the Christmas Lottery, but that's a different post), but still, even exchanging one euro pieces of your lottery tickets left you with plenty. Then, someone somewhere, had the great idea to be super generous and give 5 euros. And, of course, if someone gives you 5 euros of their ticket, you have to give them 5 euros of your ticket. You can see how quickly you start buying 5 or 6 or 10 tickets, and remember, they're 20 euros each!

The last I heard, Jose's family is now giving 10 euros, half the ticket!, to other family members. An easy estimate of lottery spendings is 200 or 3oo euros per family. Only on lottery tickets. That is insane!

As we've been getting older, and especially after we moved in together, we've experienced a bit of pressure to start participating in the Christmas lottery. Some people offer to share their tickets with us or ask if we've got a number. Each time we explain that we don't play the lottery, as a rule, and that includes the Christmas lottery. And each time we get very strange looks and explanations about how the Christmas lottery isn't about gambling, it's about the tradition and holiday spirit. But that's some expensive holiday spirit that is way too easy to get out of control!

This call will be 6c a minute. Please Hold.

Background note: Although Telefonica technically doesn't have a monopoly on the telephone service, the competitive company (one), has such limited service that it is almost as if they do own the market.

My Spanish education will never be over. I realized this yesterday as my boss called Telefonica's Customer Service number. Although it was actually the second Customer Service number. The story goes something like this:

Wednesday afternoon he discovered that sometime during 5 and 6 pm the telephone line and internet service went down. So, he called Telefonica number one. After some minutes of arguing with the woman on the phone that the cause was not in the school, she agreed to send a repair man, although warning him that if the repair man found the problem in the school it would cost 50 euros per hour. Agreed.

In Spanish time, the repair man arrived early. Thursday, mid morning. And he discovered that the problem was in the Central Switchboard. So he returned to Telefonica and reconnected the telephone line. The end.

However, we then noticed that the internet wasn't working. Actually, after a lot of head scratching and unplugging and plugging in again, the router was declared broken. The router, which was working fine before the mess up with the telephone line. So again, on the phone with Telefonica.

Now, I'm not sure how they do this, but it appeared as though they have some kind of radar for potentially long conversations. So, the woman at the first Customer Service number gives my boss another number to call. He calls number two, where the famous sentence is repeated in an automated voice, "Thank you for calling Telefonica. This call will be 6 cents a minute. Please hold. A representative will be with you shortly." And then the music began.

My boss sighed audibly and said some rude things about Telefonica. He promised that he had timed this before, and he was always left on hold for at least one minute. I was thinking about when we had our telephone line installed in our new apartment and my husband told me, "You can let the Telefonica man inside the house, but DO NOT accept anything from him, and DO NOT let him install anything." Apparently, they have a trick of plugging in a Telefonica telephone whenever they install a line and then charging the ignorant client rent on the telephone every month! Jose's grandmother had been paying 6 euros a month for 25 years!

Suddenly, there was a woman on the phone. My boss explained the situation and his part of the conversation went a little like this:
"Ok, yesterday our line was cut and the problem was found to be from there. But now, our internet is down and the router is broken. ...... No, the router is broken, there aren't any lights on the outside of the box. ..... No, it isn't a Telefonica router. .... But, that's not the point. The point is that before you cut my telephone line, everything was working, and now it doesn't work. .... Oh, a Telefonica router? And how much will that be? .... 59.90? .... No, no, do not order me a router! If I decide I want a Telefonica router, I will order one myself! .... No, the purpose of this call was NOT to order a Telefonica router, it was to complain that Telefonica broke the router I had. .... No, I have not ordered a Telefonica router. .... Ok, I'm hanging up now. .... NO, I will not hold to answer any questions about the performance of the Customer Service Representative, you are charging me six cents a minute!"

How, in the world, do people stand for companies charging them to call and complain about their service?!

Go out and write your will!

When my husband came home earlier this week and said that we really need to start thinking about writing our will, I was a little surprised. At first, I agreed with him based on the fact that there are certain wishes I would like to have written in case of my early demise. And it's always good to have things settled, right? But after listening to his reasons for writing the will, I was more than surprised; I was shocked, angry, frustrated and hated Spain a little bit. It turns out he had been researching the laws of inheritance in Spain and brought home some information I did not expect.

If you are married and living in Spain, and if you have significant possessions, go out and write your will!!!

Here are the basics of inheritance, according to Spanish Law:

Everyone's estate is divided into three parts. First is the "Legitima" which is the part that must go to the party determined by law. For the sake of this post, I'll call it the Legitimate third. I'll talk a little bit later about how the law determines who this third goes to. The second third is the "Mejora", which can be used to improve the inheritance of the inheritors from the Legitimate third. I'll call it the Improving third. The last part is "Libre Disposicion", or the Free Third. This part can be destined to anyone the owner wants.

At this point, notice that the owner of property, whether they have a will or not, has absolutely no control over one third of their property, limited control of one third, and complete control over the last third.

So what does that really mean? And who gets the Legitimate third?
First scenario: One spouse dies, leaving the other spouse and some children.
If the couple didn't have a will, everything is divided equally between the children. Although the spouse is left with no part of the inheritance of his or her spouse, they do have complete use over one third of the inheritance (but do not own it).
If the couple did have a will, it looks like this: One third of the estate goes by law in equal parts to the children, according to the Legitimate third. The dead person could have chosen to use the Improvement third to either give one child more of the inheritance or divide it equally between the children. And the Free third could be given to the spouse. In any case, the spouse has the use of the Improvement third, but does not own it.

Second scenario: One spouse dies, leaving the other spouse, no children and parents.
If the couple didn't have a will, everything goes to the parents. The spouse has the use of half of the inheritance, but again, does not own it.
If the couple had a will, the Legitimate third goes to the parents! The other two thirds can be destined to anyone, but if left to parties other than the spouse, the surviving spouse has the use of half of the inheritance.

There are other scenarios with different regulations, but they are a little more what you would expect, so I won't post them. To say the least, I was shocked by what I learned. Call me very American, but this seems to be beyond belief. Imagine, you work all your life to buy a house, save your money, plan for retirement. And suddenly, if one spouse dies, their half no longer belongs to the couple, but the children, or parents, instead. It's actually impossible, and illegal, for a widow to sell a big, old house to move into a smaller place (or take a world cruise, who cares, it's her money!), without the agreement of her children, since they are now part owners of her house.

Incredible.

So, as soon as Jose and I buy a house we're going to the notary and writing out our will, in order to protect ourselves the most we can from our unborn children!

Missing the baby!

As I've said before, I've now been living in Spain for more than three years. Before coming here, I was in Hungary for a year. So that makes more than four years living outside the US.

I moved to Europe because I wanted to live here. I knew, when I left, that it would mean missing out on a lot of things. Some things are easy to say goodbye to. I don't miss the "convenience", the over-consumption, the compulsive spending or any of the negative parts of the society. I do miss the food, the weather, the beauty of where I'm from, and the more diverse culture. And of course I miss my family. I miss them a lot, especially when I'm not there for a birthday party, holiday or simple family meal. And it's hard to miss these things. But whatever I'm missing, I find consolation in the fact that I'm doing what I really want to do and I'm with the person I love. And missing them is bearable.

Until, that is, the baby. My sister had a baby this past summer. The first picture is of Julianna when she was about a month old, the last time I saw her. My sister and I are not particularly close, but that is only because we have almost nothing in common. But then she had the baby. And now I'm in Spain and I haven't seen the baby in two months! Here's what she looks like now:


My mom says she is getting two teeth already, smiles a lot and is drooling everywhere. And I miss the baby! I want to be there, playing with the baby and seeing her grow up and enjoying every bit of it. And it makes me very sad to know that the next time I see her, she will be walking!
It's the first time I have seriously wanted to be there more than here, and all for a baby! Who would have thought it would turn out like that?

Crisis!!

All across Spain images like these are common place. Buildings, half way done, empty of workers and movement.
This shell of a building is across the street from my apartment and it's been like this for months. I don't remember the last time I saw something being done, but I think it was in July.
The scary part, though, is that perhaps someone has already paid for one of these apartments and is waiting to move in. It's a story that is often on the news these days. One person sells his apartment in order to buy another. Because of the high demand, he must put a down payment on the apartment a year before they even start constructing it, and then pay the constructors every month until it's finished (usually about four years). For years, this high risk situation has been happening so frequently that it seems normal. Until now, when the money's gone and the work stopped.
That the real estate market would bust in Spain was absolutely obvious, even to me! I only had to take a look around at the absurd prices for apartments and houses. There's an excellent article about Spain's economy in The Economist this month. Forecasts and analysts everywhere are painting a very gloomy picture for the next couple of years as the world digs itself out of the mess it's created. I, for one, haven't noted "the crisis" yet, and am hoping that it helps me buy a house (for a somewhat fairer price!). It's anyone's guess where it will take the average Spanish person or immigrant.

Stuck in the Middle

Much more often than you would think necessary, I am asked to explain The U.S. or Spain. By explain I mean, to the Spaniards I tell them that we don't have Nationalized Health Care or Retirement because Americans are very independent people, not trusting the government to use their money wisely or efficiently, and want to be in control of what they've worked for and saved. To the Americans, I have to explain the Spaniards see Health Care as a basic human right and the government as an institution whose sole purpose is to provide them their basic needs.

Living between Spain and the US, it is easy to observe both systems (usually through the complaints of my father and father-in-law). And I must say that there are great parts in each system. A free doctor. Lower taxes. Incredibly cheap universities. But there are also terrible parts to each. Completely normal, that a system is not perfect. But what drives me crazy, every single time, is that I have yet to meet a person who, upon asking for and hearing the explanation, has not looked at me with a complicit gleam in their eye and expected me to fully support the system that they are used to. It doesn't matter if we're in Spain or the US, people seem unable to contemplate the merits of a different society. And that makes me want to stop explaining.

All Saints Day, no matter what your politics are

It's All Saints Day in Toledo, Spain. My husband and I took a walk to the cemetery, as that's where all the people are and we like it even on its unpopular days. Our first wanderings took us to Patio 42, which is now nearly the middle of the cemetery but used to be the very end. It's an eerie place with no visitors, even when the rest of the place was crawling with old people, young people, real and plastic flowers. And even though it looks very different from the rest of the cemetery of Toledo, its function is quite the same. The only difference is the principle. Patio 42 is a mass grave for the Republicans, or left-wing Spaniards, who died during the Civil War. The only identification of its existence and its dead is this single, simple cross in the bottom corner. The location and what it holds is common knowledge, but nonetheless, spread by word of mouth. Of all the grandeur and piety of Toledo and her cemetery, none is considered for this invisble space.

A hot spot for Spain, and certainly something not discussed away from home and perhaps not within it either, is the recent actions of Judge Garzon, a highly respected legal figures from the more disruptive times of ETA. Earlier this year he announced his intentions of investigating the "disappearances" after the beginning of the Civil War, in 1936. He began his work in October.

What is controversial about his new task is that since 1936 Franco has been almost untouchable. Even after the death of the dictator in 1975 and the extreme transition Spain went through (from communism to conservative governing, from making divorce legal in 1981 to legalizing gay marriages in 2004), the terrors of the Franco regime and the leaders who are still alive have remained untouched. Suprisingly, there is still much support for Franco and hushed voices when critisizing. His name is still proudly displayed on squares and statues across the country. There are still people emotionally broken from people they lost more than 70 years ago, without knowing how or where, but always knowing why and who (generally speaking).
And into this atmosphere Garzon begins his investigation. There are many people who don't want to continue down this road, which began with the first bodies discovered in mass graves along country roads in the 90s. And it's true that both sides, during the civil war, committed inhuman acts against their fellow man. But as Giles Tremlett says in his excellent book, _The Ghosts of Spain_, "What they demand is the truth, and the right to bury the dead with decency -- two rights that were accorded to te victims of the winning side long ago."

Too illustrate that a bit further, here are two final pictures, taken today. The left one, from that small cross in Patio 42. The right one, from a mausoleum at the front of the cemetery.















On the left "Fallen in the War". On the right, "Fallen in the Crusade."

There's still some left in there!!

During my trip to the States this past summer, I spent a weekend with my college friends in a cabin in North Georgia. It started slowly. My friends started arriving and unpacking. First out were the ipods and laptops with their respective accessories and cords. A little while later it was the occasional iphones and pdas and super slim digital cameras. And finally, it was me, thinking, "Wow. That is cool. And that. And wouldn't it be nice to have that." And suddenly I was in my American frame of mind, wondering what all I could stuff in my bag to take back to Spain.

Woah! Where did that come from? In Spain I don't think that way!

During previous trips I rationalized my (almost) crazy shopping trips with reasoning like:
- technically I'm on vacation (true)
- I never find clothes I like in Spain (very true)
- with the exchange rate and sales, I'm getting great deals (also true)
But during this trip I realized that it isn't confined to shopping and spending. It's lots of things.

In the US I am shocked when: people (especially Spanish or Mexican people) are very casual about being late, things close at 6 or 7pm, there are more than one type of soft drink in anyone's house (or there are soft drinks at all), everyone respects that some people have pets and love them.

In Spain, I'm amazed when: I go to the doctor for free, shop workers are rude, old women cut in line at the supermarket, children use appalingly bad language.

Of course, it is normal to have things in each country that you don't like. But I have discovered that it isn't merely that I don't like them. I find that the same thing that bothers me in the US doesn't bother me in Spain, like people being late for everything. My way of thinking shifts to the norms of the country and culture I'm in at the moment, although it does it subconsciously. At times I catch myself thinking something completely contrary to what I would have thought only weeks before. It's almost like having two different personalities. I wonder, will one fade as I spend more years in Spain?

PS. The photo is of a jar of peanut butter I bought in July of 2007. I figure it's got a couple more crackers worth left.

What is a Marriage?

As you can see in my profile, I am recently married to an amazing Spanish man. I went into the marriage a little unprepared, I will admit, for being married. Maybe that seems really very obvious, but it wasn't to me at the time.

I've been living in Spain for more than three years now, the last of which my now husband and I were living together. I had the idea that Spain and life with my partner couldn't hold that many more surprises for me. I thought that the time of feeling completely out of place with Spanish ideas was long past, yet now I'm finding that it's not. While of course I'm experiencing changes in many different areas, I'm going to talk about the one that I'm having the hardest time with.
Being married in Spain.

My husband and I agreed to get married in the US and then return to Spain to live. Before the wedding I had flirted with the idea of combining American and Spanish customs, specifically with hyphenating my last name (giving me "2" last names, which every Spaniard has and since I don't have a second, gives me endless minor problems). However, after finding out the paperwork involved, I decided to wait a year or five and proceed with the name change if it was something I really wanted to do. And although my last name might be the most insignificant part of the entire marriage, it has come to be a symbol for me for ways I perceive each culture looks at the institution.

What's in a name? For me, changing a name is a symbol of creating a new family, in which one day you might share that name with your children. When flying into the US, once you're married, you get to fill out only one customs declaration per household and my husband even gets to come with me in the immigration line (the ultimate authority on all things legal and binding). Now that's what I call joining together. Creating something new and completely yours.
The feeling I get in Spain, however, is that marriage is a social contract of two individuals who have decided to combine resources to the furthering of their common good. No changing of names. No changing of immigration lines in Madrid. No joint tax declarations (you can if you want to, but most people find it's better to file separately). In fact, every legal thing you are able to do once you are married, you are able to do when you are still single. It makes me feel lonely, even when I'm in exactly the same relationship I would be in if we were in the US.

So, what is marriage to Spaniards? From what I gather so far, in my 2 months of being a wife and after countless baby/pregnancy comments, it is merely the institution into which one has children. On one hand, I applaud the Spanish for being independent beings and independent thinkers. I am still the same person with my own opinions, history and family. Yet, on the other, I am eager to start creating (not only children) with my husband, and finding my footing is a little more difficult than I had imagined.

Bathroom break?

This is one of my favorite pictures of Spain. I found it posted in an open area under a block of apartments in Valladolid. The reason I like it so much is because it is so hilariously true. Who hasn't been walking down a street in any large city in Spain and suddenly been assaulted with a strong smell of urine?

When I started thinking about today's post I went through, in my mind, all the possible directions a post like this could take. It is definitely true that learning how to gauge when and where you are going to find a public bathroom, and what and how much you should drink in relation to your previous bathroom calculation is a vital skill every American has to master if they are going to comfortably live in Europe for any amount of time. But why do we Americans have such a hard time on the bathroom front? Is it that, as with many other things, we drink liquids in excess, thus needing to use public bathrooms in excess? Is it that we depend on our cars, making our destinations farther and farther from our houses, thus causing public facilities to be a necessity in every single possible location? I don't know how it came to be, but it is definitely true that everyone I know takes for granted that wherever they are, there will be a bathroom available to them.

So here we have the Spanish paradox. You cannot pee in supermarkets (except the very large ones in shopping centers), you cannot pee in any shops. You probably will be able to pee in stations and in restaurants or bars, but that's only if the toilets are working and even then toilet paper is a definite privilege. And, all in all, Spanish people seem to be completely fine with that. Yet, why do you find that certain streets or corners always smell like urine and it is not uncommon to come across a grown man or teenager aiming at a tree in a park or on the side of the road?

Now, I'm not claiming that all Spanish people regularly pee outside whenever they please. And I will not claim that I, personally, have never peed outside in Spain or the US. All I can say is that I was, a few months ago, at a Spanish gathering of a family where there was a 3 or 4 year old boy present. We were all sitting outside, enjoying some olives and the weather, when the child suddenly ran over to a tree, pulled down his pants and peed on it. Not only was the boy not discouraged from peeing in the backyard when there was a (functioning) toilet less than 10 feet away, the family seemed to be delighted. That, I fear, is the beginning of another street pee-er.

Here

"Here" is Spain. More specifically, Toledo, in Castilla la Mancha. When I first moved to Spain I was living in El Puerto de Santa Maria a few months. At the first opportunity I moved to Madrid, and after two years, to Toledo. My husband and I have been here a little over a year now.

Spain is now the country that I call home. I moved here in complete ignorance. The fact that I knew that I didn't know anything about the country only made the move more exciting for me. I couldn't wait to learn to speak Spanish, learn how to cook new food, learn my way around new cities and a new culture. Now, when I look back over all that I had to do those first few years, I'm almost overwhelmed. But I learned like babies learn, with my eyes and ears open all the time, taking in a new life without realizing all the new things I was going to sleep with.
I don't know if I could do it again.
But it still isn't over. It seems like almost everyday I come home with a new story or a new word to think about and add to my growing database! Lots of times it's funny, and I can't wait to post about some of them.

There

"There" is Georgia, USA, where I was born and grew up.
Here's a picture of my house in November, with the trees full of fall colors.

This is the place where I return. This is where I feel most relaxed
and comfortable, where the food is completely normal and I've heard all the jokes a hundred times before. This is where I know how to act in (almost) every situation and I never struggle to communicate with the people around me, be they family or strangers. This is, now, my place of vacations, of visiting my family and of shopping. This is where, at the exact same time, I'm not surprised by anything and yet constantly overwhelmed at the amount of everything. This is where I'm home, yet no longer feel at home. This is what I miss.

The Beginning

Here's a start to a new blog.
I've been doing a lot of research online recently about freelance writing, and I realized (quite dramatically) that I need to be in the habit of writing more frequently. Sometimes I really miss the days of Hungary (2004-2005), when I was lonely and it was cold, when I had all the time in the world to think, daydream, and write letters to Emily and Jose.

And even though I'm nowhere near that anymore, here's my beginning to getting back in the habit. And since I heard from someone, sometime that every blog should have a theme, not just be random insights of the author, in order to be followed well, here's mine, as indicated by the title.

This blog will follow me through living in Spain (and all the craziness of the Spaniards), traveling back to the US (and all the visits with my family), being newly married (gosh) to a Spaniard (wow) and everything in between that happens to everyone.