THREE MEN AND A...

Every day entails more exploration of the city. For some reason, even with my sleep schedule finally adjusting to the time difference, I still seem to be missing the synchronization with 'day in the life' of a Spaniard. For starters, I sleep too late so when it's time for “breakfast” I am too early for their grande meal of the day or lunch. Then when I'm hungry again, this time for a huge meal (around 8pm) I just miss dinner time and am the only one in the restaurant as I'm sure you all probably know, they eat around 10. Luckily, having just moved into my own place and stocked the place with groceries, it's easier to avoid this problem. On Sunday, however, there's a totally different time schedule: no siesta to plan my day around, instead everything is just closed. Every store except the more local, hometown like bars and cafeterías are open and of course the tienda China. A tienda China is a euro version of a dollar store. Both fun cheapie things and necessities can be found here. So with a failed attempt of looking for at least one little convenience store open to buy some crackers, cereal or even just an ice-cream around 2pm I headed to 'the Chino' in Plaza del Fuerte for some good buys for the house; a trash can for my bathroom, a towel perhaps, some cheap house slippers, wine bottle opener, outlet converter, etc. As noted earlier; I'm still out of synch with the Spanish daily and of course, the tienda took a siesta of it's own and I just missed it by a few minutes. As I was waiting around reading Tom Robbins' Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas when an old man in a discount sweater (we are super-homies so I know where he shops) stops to chat, tells me how studious I look. Old Spanish men are difficult to understand. José, like all other residents of Calatayud don't believe that I live here. He does however think it's fabulous that there are 3 American girls in his presence and gives us all a lemon-honey “candy,” aka cough drop. He tells us we should definitely not go to the tienda China to buy things rather the store right around the corner from his living arrangement, I do believe he meant an equivalent of a retirement home. The only other understandable sentences we got out of him were to stay away from where the gypsies mingle, (then pointed at every gypsy that walked by us; there really aren't too many in this small town) and continuous jokes about how he's going to call the police and have us hauled away for not having legit papers to work in Cala, just like the gypsies. We assume he was kidding because he asked us to stop by the Milenium Café to enjoy a coffee together some afternoon. This was right after he asked us to guess how much he bought his discount sweater for.

Our 'L' shaped apartment building is connected to a 4-star hotel with a grand patio 6 floors down where the visitors and even locals take coffee and cocktails. Every night around 8pm, a certain piano man in a fedora sets up his keyboard and speakers on a mini-stage. He then commences the “entertainment” of the evening by lighting a cigarette and pressing the on button. It is one of those keyboards that if you just press one key it plays a whole recorded song. He's got the same play list 4 nights in a row now. Did I mention the balcony connected to my room looks down onto the stage? I know we've heard the cha-cha and the tango. Last night we decided to shake up is world and give him an “encore” shout out, which in Spanish you just “otra!” or “otra, bis!” At this point he had no guests on the patio. Instead he just pressed the off button and continued puffing on his cig. Perhaps one night I'll bajar the 6 stories and dare him to dance his tune, conmigo of course.

Our flat has wood floors, no rugs, nothing on the walls and very modern décor..thus the noise echoes throughout the piso very easily. I didn't realize how thin the walls were however until 2 mornings ago when 7th floor penthouse blasted his or her morning mix. My eyes opened around 9am to Bob Marley's “I want to love you,” and the jams kept coming with: Lou Reed's “Take a walk on the wild side” followed by “Take on me” by A-Ha. As much as I thought small town Spain would be the perfect place to escape English and American culture, besides the fact that 12 hours a week I am teaching both of those things with the possibility of a few additional hours a causa de we truly are the only 3 English speakers here thus everyone and literally their moms are requesting private lessons...what is means is more euros for me, but escaping seems impossible now. Every morning will bring new surprises (I hope) unless penthouse's morning mix is on roto like piano man downstairs. As for my year here, well...I am in need of Spanish friends pronto. The only numbers in my móvil are the profesoras from the English department, my landlord named Jesus and my American flat-mates. Actually I just added two more, the ladies who are requesting private English lessons. Perhaps they'd like to get coffee with me during their off time, ha.

Well, fotos as promised... I have only had 2 days of work so we'll see what the rest of the week brings as well as my 4 day weekend...a puente to celebrate my first week in Spain, can you believe it's only been that long? Besos.


THE MAIN PASEO THAT I WALK EVERYDAY TO SCHOOL. BEST PLACE TO TAKE A CAFÉ, SO FAR...



VIEW OF THE CITY



EL RÍO JALÓN. IS IT SAD OR FUNNY?



VIEW FROM MY BALCONY OF EL CASTILLO MAYOR AND THE ROMAN RUINS