I got another invitation to a Spanish person´s house, yippeeee. Maria, the teacher at the colégio, invited me over on Sunday. I am going to have a busy fun spanish weekend. I hope I stay healthy... feeling like I´m getting a cold. Feeling actually cold too. I can´t believe that weather.com says it is 70 degrees here, because I¨m in a sweatshirt and shirt and sweatpants that are usually all very warm and I am chilly. The sun is not out, it´s got to be that and the humidity and the wind... but it really does feel chilly. I really hope I do not experience some kind of enormous temperature shock when I return to Wisconsin. But I bet I will. Well I finally got pictures taken of my apartment, and developed them and got them in the mail to my family. As we speak they may be in the air, traveling over the ocean! Unfortunately by the time they arrive, I might be moving. Paz wants to move, and right now is a really good time to get loans from the bank in Spain. She is already planning on taking one out for a car, since the one she has now is dying, and it will be easier to get a bigger loan now and work on paying for both things over time than to do one now and try to do the other later. The guy at the bank told her that if she doesn´t sell her place and move now, she probably won´t be able to do so in the future. She wants to move because this is the house she bought with her husband and while she has made it her own, she doesn´t really want to stay here, although she has for many years. Also, and more importantly, her parents, her two closest friends, Paloma´s school, Paz´s work and the University are all in the same neighborhood that she does not live in, which is very inconvenient and she feels detached from them at home. She drives the same route every day many times to go to the same neighborhood... It just makes sense. However, it kind of sucks for me. She told me that it would be better for me too, closer to the University and to downtown and lots of things and a nicer apartment, which is true, but what a hassle it will be to move during these final six weeks! She also really wants my opinion about the new place and stuff because "it is my house too" and she´ll have other students in the future. She told me she will need my help, morally more than physically, which I will give, but which I wish I didn´t have to deal with. Maybe that is selfish of me, and I know that this is the time when she has to do this, but I am kind of bothered by the whole idea. Amy thinks it is no big deal but it seems like it will be a real pain to me. This accompanied by some statements like "I am NOT going to live in a neighborhood with gypsies" and laughing about the hilarity of the cuban-voiced "negrita" in Gone With the Wind and how "the only latin americans that I don´t like are Argentinians, Uruguayans, and Colombians" with stories about their badness made me kind of pissed off and uncomfortable about Paz last night. So much for her wanting one of the anti-Raider ERASE RACISM shirts.

One other interesting fact; I know everyone in the US is engaged in either attending/performing plays or commentating on the recent election. In Spain, nearly everyone votes. There are 13 main political parties, and casting your vote makes a difference and everyone believes it. In the big 2000 parliamentary election, 73.79% of the population voted. Spaniards think the US voting system is a joke. Maybe because it is. Hey, I have an idea. How about all of the important people in my life come on over to Europe so we won´t have to live in the crappy conservative US anymore? Eh? Eh?

What a good mood I am in. I have realized that for the most part, whenever I do things with Spanish people, in Spanish, I have a good time. And lately I feel like I am making some good Spanish friends. I just got back from the colégio where I work with the kids, and was reminded of how much I like Maria. She was telling me a story about a little autistic five year old at the school. Apparently last week he grabbed a bag of candy from his teacher´s desk, and she asked him, "What are you doing?!" and his response was, "Happy Halloween!" I told Maria that candy has the power to solve all of life´s problems. Class with the kids was really fun today-- I taught them the song about Joe and the button factory. They are working on the words, going to study them at home so hopefully next week they´ll be able to follow along with the song a little bit more as they are jumping around and laughing and pushing all of the buttons. Another kind of funny story-- The kids want to learn the words to the song "So Complicated" which is on the radio here all the time. Maria had gotten the lyrics and wanted to ask me about a word she didn´t understand, the word "cha." We finally figured out that she was talking about the line, "Chill out, whatcha yelling for?" Why would she ever guess that in that sentence "cha" means "are you"? Crazy English. She also thought "chill out" meant to scream. I really like her. When I was leaving today she invited me to come over to her house sometime. It´s the second invitation to someone´s home I´ve gotten in two days! Yesterday my friend Silvia from choir invited me over to her house for the saturday meal to try her paella (mmmm) after our little concert. We are singing one song, the school song I think, for some little event. It should be fun but I was really shocked by the director´s behavior last night... The choir is not a very serious one, it is open to everyone and in the beginning he insisted that everyone should come and it doesn´t matter if you can sight read or are trained or anything, just as long as you like to sing. So we have a number of pretty tone deaf people, and we mostly just read through things and work on getting the notes but hardly any time is spent on interpretation or dynamics or vocal technique. So we have been practicing this little school song for a while, always with the electric piano that is hooked up to the laptop and music software to just play the accompaniment. We don´t have a living accompanist. So just before the end of the rehearsal last night the director turned off the piano and had us sing it acapella. Then he got furious because not everyone could hold the notes, and said, "This is not a rehearsal anymore. This is a performance. Those of you who can´t sing well, don´t sing. When you are in a rehearsal, fine, you can practice and try to sing along but when it is time to perform, if you can´t sing it, it is better not to sing at all." He also got mad because nobody caught the ritard he tried to conduct, because the electric piano stops for no man and we were all used to steadily plowing along. He seemed very stressed out. I think it was partly because another director from Alicante was sitting in on the rehearsal and he must have been nervous. Still, it was rude and everyone was kind of put off. Oh well, we´ll see what happens on Saturday, and afterwards I can go to Silvia´s house and have a good time and good food. Friend #3: Today I met my new intercambio for the first time. We had lunch together at the cafe at school. Her name is Velia and she and I seem to have a lot in common. She is tall and Spanish looking except she was wearing a t-shirt and jeans and no makeup. She´s very nice and talkative, likes traveling movies a lot, is going to see the plays her friends are in this weekend (so many people going to shows without me!). She is a languages major and knows German and English, lived in England for three months on an exchange program. She also studied for a little while in Capetown, which is where she got the T-shirt she was wearing. It was cute and looked like it had a giraffe´s neck coming out of the neckhole and simply said, "Hello!" Her boyfriend is Mexican and is across the ocean, like mine. We are going to see a free movie tomorrow night that the University sponsors-- The cinema shows foriegn and independent films I think. This one, called "Gato Negro Gato Blanco" (black cat white cat) is French/German/Serbian and won lots of awards when it came out. I reeeally hope I can understand it. I like Velia a lot. My other recent fun time with Spanish people was last night at the Oliver Gallery. After choir I went over to Amy´s house for dinner, which was fun, got to meet her mom and stuff, and then we went to Oliver Gallery. Tons of Council people were there and the guys sounded pretty good. Lauren sang with them on a couple of songs-- she has a great voice. But as the night waned on I got kind of sick of being there with all the smoke and tiredness, and I was getting tired of some of the obnoxious drunk Americans, but I had to wait for my friends who live near me to be ready so I had people to go home with. So I ended up talking more with Sergio and his brother. Sergio is the intercambio/kind of boyfriend of my friend Khloe. I went to a party at his house one time and I also hung out with him and his brother on Halloween-- they were big fans of my little girl costume. On Halloween whenever I made the comment that I was a very "inocente" (innocent) little girl, his brother, whose name I disgracefully cannot remember, would correct me by saying, "indecente." It was not true but it was funny. So now whenever they see me they ask me where my huge lollipop and pigtails are. But they are cool guys and it was nice talking to them for a while last night. I got home really late and slept almost till noon today. The weather is changing. I was supposed to meet Velia outside of the library but she told me to call when I got there because it was too cold outside. Kids at the school were wearing WINTER coats, such as one uses to protect oneself from Minnesota winters. Definately necessary-- Gets down into the 50s at ngiht, and right now it is 72 degrees according to weather.com. However, the wind today is making it much colder. Also, at night, it is always colder inside the houses than outside. The floors are all cold tiles and there is no insulation and it seems like the cold just builds up somehow. The mornings are usually pretty chilly. It is CRAZY windy today. I walked from here to the school, which involves cutting across this open dirt area and walking along a street that has just a field (AKA hard dry dusty dirt, think dustbowl with mountains in the distance and tumbleweeds) on one side-- when the wind would blow sometimes the huge clouds of dust completely blocked your vision. I was literally hiding behind a parked truck at one point to avoid the dusty wind. I am an Okie. A Spanish Okie.

Uf, ¡estoy cansada! (Ughh, I am tired!) This Wednesday has been a long one. But we don´t have any classes tomorrow because our teacher is going out of town, and the guys are playing again tonight at the Oliver Gallery, and Amy is trying to convince me to go. Chilling out there sounds much more fun than sitting akwardly at home, so I think I might just go! It should be a good time, lots of people are going, and I´ve never been to the Oliver Gallery before. I wanted to clear up a little misconception that at least one regular reader of this weblog had gotten from my entries; this extra pudge I have grown is not due to alcohol calories. I am not a crazy party animal, and probably drink less than 90% of people on my program. I don´t want to give that impression in this log... when I do go out, we go to bars, because that´s what there is to do in Alicante, and I don´t drink much, because I can´t afford it and because I don´t want to. When I do go out, I have a good time though, so I write about it in this journal. But I don´t want any of my loving family members to worry about me, so have no fear, I am taking care of myself. :) There is a very very very very good chance that the empty space that opened up in our house next semester will be filled by none other than the fabulous Andy Swanson. I am so excited that I am going to explode. How fun will that be?? In other news, on Uno Paso Adelante last night, Sophia lost her baby because she danced too much and didn´t take care of herself, and she broke up with Roberto; Pedro got locked in the janitor´s closet overnight and freaked out and punched Cristobal in the face because he thought it was his fault after Cristobal made everyone try to conquer their phobias, Pedro´s being small places, for acting class, although later he gave up after his deathly fear of heights was exposed and he couldn´t conquer it; Ingrid was selected by a famous Flamenco dancer to be his partner in a dance he was choreographing, but he put the moves on her and her boyfriend´s ex saw and now he is worried because she is accepting the job that the guy offered her; Cristobal and the short haired teacher went on a date after she thought he sent her a rose, but it was really from her little sister, and when they got back to his apartment, it had been broken into and all the stuff was gone; and everyone but Lola ditched out on the music guy´s dance for the song they had recorded. I think that´s all. I know you don´t have El Paso Adelante in the states and I don´t want any of you to fall behind. It is like Fame in that it is about a dance academy, only a weekly series, and is muy importante.

Browsing Macalester´s website. Our president, Micheal McPherson, just announced that he´s leaving Macalester after this year. That sucks, he is a good guy. On the bright side, it turns out that the WGS department recieved a $45,000 grant, which is good for me and my major. Also read a bit about Mac alum Walter Mondale who is running for Senator in place of Paul Welstone. Looks like the Dramatic Arts and Dance Department has a show up this weekend too. So many people in so many plays that I can´t see! Que triste. And what´s this-- apparently the musical this spring is not going to be Studs Terkel´s "Working," but instead "Guys and Dolls"? How very un-Macalester. Either Dale talked them out of Working, which I doubt since he doesn´t have many allies in the department, or some other director had some reason that they hated Working and didn´t want us to do it. Somebody always hates every show that each director proposes. Maybe they won out this time... Bob, the music guy, must have talked them into Guys and Dolls. He is a big fan of the old classics. Hey, remember my freshman year of college when we were supposed to do Godspell until it went on tour and we lost the rights? Isn´t that ironic. My mind is mixed up with combinations of Spanish and English. Lately I have been coming out with bizarre phrases that are made up of both languages, such as "Tengo que go..." and "veintiseven" and "We don´t have homework in none of our classes." And most of the time I don´t notice until someone points it out to me. Weird.

Interesting weekend stories: Halloween: Kids at the elementary school looked gory and great, we played outside in the grass. Pumpkin, pumpkin, ghost = duck duck goose (or duck duck gray duck for you Minnesotans). Also What Time Is It, Devil?, during which I was trying to run after and tag ten year old kids but instead I ran into a tree and smashed my ear pretty good. Thank god they were running away and didn´t see me. Still hurts. I am a graceful goddess. Went out to the Barrio at night dressed in an awesome little girl costume, enjoyed the free shots that it brought me, had a grand old time and even got up to dance on the bar at Austin´s at one point with some other American chicas!! And only partially re-sprained my ankle in the process. A really great night, really fun, good times all around. Friday: Paz´s dad was over installing a new outlet. Hadn´t seen him since the first week. When Paz took him home he told her my spanish was much better, and patted his cheek as he said that I was "muy guapa, mas gordita." Translation: "Very attractive, a little more fat." Thanks, grandpa. Saturday: New outlet was explained when fancy new computer which was delivered. Apparently Paz is just borrowing it from a friend at work to use for work, but it is brand new and flat screen and everything, and now I can watch DVDs and turn the setting to English! It´s awwwwesome. I bought an ice cream bar which was Nata (basically vanilla) flavored ice cream dipped in chocolate with almonds. Sounds delicious, right? And harmless. Not so delicious when the ice cream is mixed with blood that is gushing from one´s mouth after a particularly pointy almond piece cuts the roof of one´s mouth, right behind one´s front teeth, when one is taking one´s first bite of the hard as a rock frozen treat. Went to the city of Elche, only half an hour away, with Lauren, Rachel, Khloe and Beth. A nice city, well known for its palm trees. There was a medieval festival going on and we heard cool music and saw lots of costumes and animals and visited the outdoor craft market, which was really neat. Had a fun time.... Daytrips are good. Sunday: Took a long exercise walk and found this park in the center of Alicante. Please note that park does not in any way signify grass, shade or vegetation. Still, a park. It has another castle on top, but it´s really just an overlook and not a castle. You hike up to it on a stony little path. The park has mini golf and enourmous chess boards and a roller rink and bocce ball and rock climbing and basketball and a mountain bike course and many other fun things. A pretty good discovery, I thought, and a good place to hike right in Alicante. Went to the polleria = chicken store with Paloma to pick up chicken and fried potatoes for cena. Awesome. Very tasty. Played a game with Paloma all afternoon called "The Goose Game" which is your basic board game. Pretty fun, even though Paloma never gets tired of just rolling and moving that number of squares. Went to church with Lauren at night, possibly the only protestant chruch in Alicante. It is very close to our houses, right in our neighborhood. A protestant church only exists because the pastor is American. The congregation, which last night had oh, 15 people in it, three of which were little girls under the age of 5, is very international and includes a few Africans, Americans, Argentinians and Alemánes. (I said Alemánes just to keep the line of ´A´s going, but it means German in spanish.) The church is just a room with a platform, piano and electric organ. It was nice, I understood everything! Very informal. The pastor would kind of stop in the middle of everything to talk directly to people in teh congregation. He introduced me to everyone during the service. There weren´t any bullitens. Sang a lot of hymns, some with familiar tunes, but obviously all in spanish. Nice people. One lady had had a foriegn exchange student from Brookfield years ago. Small world, eh?