Last thoughts before Spring Break

I am currently waiting out my last few mintutes of "work" before my Semana Santa offically begins (I lucked out and managed to not have any classes on Thursday this week). The only teacher I had today didn't come in, which isn't the least bit surprising. The teachers and students checked out last Wednesday as soon as my coordinator wasn't around to police.

The weekend brought a little rain and cloudy weather, but it stayed warm enough to keep the doors of the apartment open most of the day. Yesterday I was optomistic and went in the little park behind my building to try and catch some rays (I have NEVER been so pale in my life. Even my toes lack the sun they're used to getting from wearing flip flops year-round.) It turned out to be more of a misadventure as it took me forever to find a patch of grass wide enough that didn't have dog piles (or the scent of them). When I finally set up camp with my towel, the sun managed to slip behind the clouds. I managed an hour before I finally called it a bust and went back in to just bask in the warmth of my own room with the door open. At least it didn't smell in there! Regardless, it got me very excited for more sunning possibilities after coming back from break. But overall, the weather has finally gotten pleasant, and I couldn't be happier. As I've never been used to a cold and rainy winter, I'm also not used to the extreme elation that comes from it all being over - and extreme it is. Myself aside, the Cordobeses are the same way. The restaurant terraces have all be pulled back out and the curtains removed. Nights are warm enough to comfortably eat outside. The caracoles tents have been up for a couple of weeks with people enjoying the [strange] fare (it's snail season in Cordoba! Bring your napkins!). The seniors have taken up their places on the benches again in the early evenings. And the flip flops, shorts, and tank tops have made their seasonal debuts in my wardrobe, even if it's only during peak daytime hours.

Isa has been gone the last week on a beach vacation to Cuba which has rendered me Carlos's surrogate mother at times. The habits of my roommates really deserve a blog of their own, but to say it simply, I don't know how Spanish women have time in their schedules do to anything else but satisfy and clean up after their men. Don't get me wrong - I love my male roommates. But they don't come without their personality traits that drive me up-the-wall crazy either. With Isa gone, Carlos has spent nights on the couch after he comes home late from class (don't know where or when he eats dinner) and has asked me what he should eat for lunch because he just didn't know. Today I witnessed him making pasta, never before realizing that anyone could actually mess up pasta (besides over cooking it). I will recant the story, because it's just too good to not.

He tried to fit half a box of spaghetti into the smallest pot we have (more than half of it sticking out of the water and over the edge of the pan). I told him to break it all in half (which really would have only marginally made it better) and he politely refused saying he doesn't like it short. Reasonably enough, he told me that as the bottom pasta cooked the rest would slide into the water. As I giggled, and told him that wouldn't work (not really knowing the vocabulary to tell him why) but he assured me it would because he "has cooked a lot of pasta" I equally assured him that I had too. He stood there and fiddled with the pasta, trying to negotiate it into the pot without breaking it (the chef even taking time to add a dash of dried oregano to the water). I asked him why he didn't choose to put it in the [clean] larger pot, and he said he didn't want to use such a big pot because it was just for him (mind you, he was still cooking more than HALF A BOX OF PASTA). As I continued to giggle at his feeble attempts at cooking the pasta AND explaining himself, he finally gave in and transfered it all into a larger pot. But of course, in the larger pot, there wasn't enough water, so he adds cold water to the pasta cooking. Then, putting it back on the burner, he turns down the heat and resumes playing video-game football and requesting me to stir it from the other room. 20 minutes later, he remembers the pasta drains it from the water. Any Italian would cry. This one was nearly crying from laughter. Moral of the story: Spanish men would be eating soggy pasta every meal for the rest of their lives if it wasn't for their Spanish women.

Tomorrow, me and my friend Jenna board a plane for Italy. I've always wanted to go to Italy and couldn't be more excited for the next 10 days. I have a new memory card for the camera (Thanks folks!) that can hold more pictures than I can fathom taking (but might not seem like enough once I get there!), the bags are nearly packed, we're all checked into our flights. The only thing left now seems like just a long wait (ok, not that long, but 24hrs seems longer than the whole period leading up to it so far).

Briefly the itinerary:

Fly into Pisa, Italy. One night in Pisa. Train to Florence. Three nights in Florence (one day going out to Chianti!). Train to Rome. Three nights in Rome (already have our tickets to the Vatican museum for Tuesday morning). Train to Venice. Two nights in Venice. Train to Bergamo. "Spend night" in Bergamo airport (hardly, since our flight leaves at 615am). Fly home through Malaga.

We'll be back Easter Sunday afternoon, depending on connecting buses or trains in Malaga. Expect many many pictures and stories of food and fun. Love to you all during your Easter holiday!

An Arizonian in the rain

So this is what they call seasonal depression? Living in Arizona most my life, I am not accustomed to anything less than 325 days of sunshine every year and more than 8 inches of rain. Andalucia Spain really isn't supposed to be much different, at least in terms of sunny days with an average of 300 every year.

This year seems to be on the far end of the bell-curve. So far, since September we have have 150% (over 60cm and counting) of normal rainfall and what seems like more cloudy and rainy days that those with sun. In January we experienced a freak snow flurry that left the city looking like a powdered donut for a few fleeting hours. There have been floods and killer-waves, and the river that normally meanders through town now moves through with rage and intent.

Never have I been more fixated on the weather report, having enough optimism to return so often in the hopes of sun in the future. But, it seems like every time I look at the forecast, it's only a reason for pity in the next 10 days. As for any sun that is predicted, it disappears within hours only to be replaced other predictions of more clouds and more rain.

Every local I have spoken to continually professes that they never remember a year such as this one and does their best to try and convince me that this is anything but normal for sunny Cordoba. As kind as they are, their memories don't make me feel any better and only serve to torture me and my sun-worshiping personality more.

I have found humor in the discarded umbrellas that are strewn about the sidewalks and streets, stuffed into trash cans with their skeletons poking in every direction. I have been most proud of mine. It is barely big enough to keep me dry, but it's just small enough to carry around in my purse constantly, which has become necessary. It is starting to rust and stick and will probably need a proper burial when it's all over (if it indeed ever ends). I think it deserves a place in the sun, for we have both seen more days of gloom than we ever expected.

When there is the occasional parting of the clouds, it's as if the whole city wakes up from a deep slumber (as most of us probably feel that way too). Everyone comes out for their paseos, restaurants set up the terraces, and they bathe in the warmth of something that has become a precious commodity. I am looking forward to more and more of these moments, and am confirmed that everyone else is too.

My optimism has peaked. The forecast predicts "partly cloudy" for the next 3 three days after a brief morning shower tomorrow. Whatever partly cloudy means, I don't exactly know. But the little sun-icon beckons to me and hopefully of better days ahead.