There's Always A Story- Spring Break 2014

Spring break is here... 3 major Spanish cities and a mini tour around Northern Morocco, pinch me it's perfect... except when I remember I am me and nothing is ever perfect. So here is the story of this vacation and the string of bad luck events that seem to follow me every once in while. (This be may a bit long but hopefully entertaining... lol)

Spring Break kicked off with a bang, a long nap and no urge to pack left me thinking I was going waste Saturday away, but in the end I made it on time and was off to Madrid. My lovely friend who I was staying with had made some plans with a potential boo so I was left to make some quick impromptu plans, but luckily that worked out for the best, and I got to hang out with 8 awesome Madrid Players who happened to be free. Random nights of laughs started everything right...

Sunday was also awesome because I got to go have Indian food with my friend, take a walk around Madrid, FINALLY after being in Spain almost 3 years I went inside the Prado Museum, and got to enjoy a great Diego concert with my friend Parisa who has converted me into a total groupie, but that's okay because we had lots of fun watching the concert and I left some girls with their jaws dropped when I could sing along to pretty much EVERY song :P

Monday came and I got up early to catch my 11am bus to Córdoba, waiting at the metro station it said 2 minutes til the next train when I arrived (perfect!). After 2 minutes had passed the screen went blank, and no train had come (Insert Panic). After a bit the next train shows up and I´m off, after making a transfer and arriving at the bus station I ran up the stairs and made it by just a hair. 

On the bus ride over in between listening to music and playing Candy Crush I got an email from a company I was hoping to hear from about a job, and it wasn't a congratulatory email, it was a we may have space later so hopefully we can send you a happier email soon (Gee, thanks!)

Bummed out about trying to reorganize some of my future plans we stopped at the rest stop between Madrid and Córdoba I ate my cookies and got on the bus when it was time to go. We were on our way for about 10 minutes before I realized I had forgotten my jacket at the bus station. I was super bummed out because

I use this to try to feel better when I do something dumb

my mom had given me that jacket because it looked like one my sister had, and I tend to get overly sad when I do stupid things like that because as a kid I was always kinda careless about things, so now as an adult when it happens I just feel like my life is so not together. I texted my mom and she told me not to worry she got it for $8 and she'd find me a new one. Now I just had to go on the rest of the trip with no jacket....

Córdoba was nice, I had booked a massage and session at the Arabic Baths (awesome!) On the way back it took me 20 minutes to get to my hostel because of the Holy Week processions. I get to my room get all freshened up and I notice there aren't any sheet on my bed... actually there none of the beds have sheets. I figure this is what I get for paying into a cheap hostel and kind of just call asleep on top of the comforter. Later around one in the morning a group of girls came into the room and were laughing about having to go in and ask for sheets. Only this hostel would put a sign in the corner of the reception where no one would see it saying "Please ask for sheets"... later I got my sheets too.

Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos

The next day I wanted to go to the Mosque/Cathedral but the opening ours for visitors due to Holy Week activities was from 8-9am so I missed it and the next day it opened at 11 and my bus was leaving at 12 and it was too close to try to risk it. So I went to Córdoba and didn´t get to see one of the most important sites... no big deal -_- I just headed on over to the main castle and spent the afternoon in the gardens. It was very beautiful but it also made me realize that traveling alone isn´t something I really like. It's great to see things but then you´re left with this urge to comment on it and when you turn to say it to someone no one is there, it was a bit sad, and of course Selfies just aren't the same in beautiful places, and since I'm such a shy person I couldn't muster up the courage to ask a stranger to take a picture of me to get the right one.... oh well!

I left Córdoba and made my way to Sevilla. It was a major coincidence that I found one of my coworkers who was going from Jaén to Sevilla on the SAME bus. It was a nice ride, despite some people arguing over seats because their's was stolen. Once in Sevilla I parted ways with my coworker and I set off to my hostel where my friend was waiting for me. Granted I pretty much NEVER really look up where my hotel (my bad) unless I know I have to take a bus or something but when I know I'm going to take a taxi, my urge is not to bother. Well when I got to Sevilla I gave the driver the address got in the taxi and we were on our way. Being Semana Santa there were a billion and one processions going on, and so many streets were cut off, and there tons of people. After driving around for a while, the driver stopped and told me it was impossible for him to make it up to the front door due to the processions so he'd stop me there and all I had to do was walk down to the end of the street. I paid him the 15 euro fair that was there I got my suit case from the trunk and I pulled out my phone to see down the end of which street he was talking about in the busy intersection he left me at. I plug in the address into Google Maps... loading walking directions... 32 MINUTE WALK!

Pretty much me this whole trip....
Source: Google

After I already paid this fool 15 euros, with my suitcase I had to go though all of the processions with people dressed in black KKK robes, parents pround of their kid walking barefoot through the street holding a candle, people as desperate as me to get through the crowds, finding other routes, getting re routed on my GPS trying to understand it was sending me because I haven't really used it before, getting weird looks because I had a large bright pink suitcase in the middle of this religious tradition, get stressed because it was hot and I was getting tired of draggin my my heavy suitcase, and trying to get over my anger over the whole situation. Close to an hour later I made it to my hostel, made my bed with the sheets they gave me (yay I got sheets this time), and went to have lunch with my friend since really all I'd eaten was a few cookies on the bus. We took the after noon easy and had dinner that pretty much gave me a flat fanta from a two liter bottle, tomorrow surely had to be a better day. 

Thursday came and we got up and were ready to take over the city, but unfortunately Holy Week already did that for us so when we went to the famous Catedral and Giralda of Sevilla, visitors allowed due to Semana Santa activities, so that's great after almost 3 years in Spain and not visiting two important cities, when I finally do make it over to see them, I can´t see what everyone says you HAVE to see there... just my luck. So instead of going into the Cathedral we went to 100Montaditos and had a tinto de verano and planned out the rest of the time we had in Sevilla. It was super hot so we went for a bit of a rest back at the hostel, and set out for Plaza de España that evening. It was beautiful! On the way back we got caught in yet another procession for a good half an hour of weaving through people, waiting, taking pictures, and all that jazz. At least it lead us to a pretty good chinese place, who forgot to bring us drinks but no big deal.

The next day was the day we were off to Morocco! I was really excited for this trip because it meant checking off another continent from my travel list, and it was a planned excursion so the pressure of what are we doing, how are we getting there and everything was taken care of. It was nice to just show up and enjoy. Our first hotel was on the beach so after dinner my friend and

some other girls we met at our table decided to go down to see the water. We were collecting shells when a pair of what seemed like teenagers tried cat calling us shouting out "Sevilla sevilla Sevilla" and "omg... hello USA".

Day 2 in Morocco was nice we went to the Blue city of Chefchaouene walked through the mountain town got a talk about how they made the fabrics and saw the actual loom. Our moroccan old man tour guide said i didn't look American I looked like him (ok?) We bartered for some things, I got some scarves and we were back to our hotel in Tangier. We were going to go out dancing, but dinner didn't sit well with me so it was just a quiet evening in the hotel for me, oh well... Our last day came and we got to ride camels (one of the scariest moments of my life!), walk around Tetouan and do a bit more haggling, and end the trip having lunch in an Arabic Palace. Now it was time for the long trek back home!

The two girls we had met on the trip didn't have a place to stay for the night, so I gave them the name of our hostel and she called to see if there was availability. A while later she came back and said they had availability the problem was that they didn't check people in after 11, and since our ferry was later we weren't going to get back to Sevilla until almost 1am. So in a panic i called the hostel and tried to reason with them that we'd be quiet entering our shared dorm, that we needed a place to stay and that I had already

made the reservation, and it's not my fault our ferry was late. The man wouldn't budge and only offered me a much higher price private room, which wasn't worth it because my friend was leaving at 6am. So in the end we cancelled the reservation (thankfully he didn't charge me for it since it was a short notice cancellation) and we slept (or didn't sleep) in the bus station, in the cold (with no jacket remember), just laughing with my friend because our Winter Break vacation ended the exact same way in the Barcelona bus station.

I waited for my bus which I thought was at 9am but it was at 9:45, got the the bus and started on my journey to Caceres then finally back to Navalmoral. When I got to the bus station around 3:30pm it started pouring rain, and since I had no jacket or umbrella I waited another half hour til I was able to get home. Finally arrived to my humble abode where I tossed my purse onto my bed and my Aquafina water bottle exploded soaking the bed and reaching my precious laptop! (Oh no!!) I rushed to save it dried it wit a towel and tried to see what happened. No response. My world was coming to an end, so I just left my laptop on my desk to dry and went into an exhausted emotional coma for the next few hours. Around 11pm I woke up and gave it another go and MIRACLE it turned on and it's been pretty okay ever since *fingers crossed*

Well it's not the first time I say my bad luck is impressive, but this really is up there on the list. It was a good vacation overall and I'm ready to keep movin' on up! 

Thanks for reading !! 

~Cathy

Extraordinary Extrajeria Extravaganza

For those of you who have not been graced with the opportunity to have to deal with foreigners' offices around the globe, you are really missing out {/end sarcasm}

The ever dreadful mustard yellow building from your nightmares
(Source)

Jumping through hoops, getting papers stamped, paying fees, waiting in line, filling out more forms, signature here, date there, copy of this, staple that... it's endless. Coming into any country for a prolonged period of time comes at the cost of this bureaucratic madness. And of course, I've had my fair share since the beginning.

This year things were particularly messed up. In order to renew your student card you had to turn in the application, papers proving your finished the program this year and got renewed, accompanying fees, a document called empadronamiento (for census purposes and keeping track of where people live).

Well the empadron was the first hurdle in this heap of....manure. I went to the local office with everything signed and ready to go. The contract my roommate had for our apartment, copy of his ID and signature on the application, SHOULD be easy as pie. Unfortunately for me, my previous roommate who had left on not such a good note with the boys was previously registered with this contract. So.... it was HER signature and ID that I needed. And of course, to my incredible bad luck she was in California (of all places) at the time. I told them all this and they said there was nothing they could do. I went again, and explained the situation to another person. He told me to fill out a new application and check some different boxes and it should work. So I went home got the signature that I needed and went back for a third time. The girl was not really having it since of course I didn't have the signature fromk the person they say they need (even though she doesn't live in the country let alone our apartment anymore). After some begging and pleading and stating that this was my third time there they finally gave me the stamp that I needed.

(Source)

So all I needed to do was turn in my papers, wait for the letter of appointment for fingerprints, get fingerprinted and wait 40 days for my ID card in order to travel freely in the EU. No Problem! Turn in papers (check!) Wait, wait, wait for my letter (...in December Check!) Wait... my appointment to be fingerprinted is... May 9th! Add the 40 days to pick up the card and that puts me at June  18th for a card that is only going to be valid until the end of my contract which is June 30th. So... I have to live most of my second year in Madrid undocumented because there was a huge backup and apparently common sense isn't so common anymore.

Months passed and I accepted my fate for having to get an Authorización de Regreso (authorization to return) whenever I needed to travel this term.

As my appointment drew near I soon realized that my appointment May 9th from 4-6pm was not going to cut it because that was the opening night of the spring show I was in Steel Magnolias. I had made a plan to go the day before (as other auxiliares had mentioned they went in even without a letter and had been helped) and get it out of the way and everyone's happy (or so I thought).

I arrive bright and early Wednesday morning, and there is a line around the corner just to go through the metal detector. 20 minutes in I look for the line where they do the fingerprints when I overhear a police officer saying "let's cut off the fingerprint line" I quickly go up to him and with big eyes ask which line is for finger prints, and luckily he takes me in and makes me the cut off.

¿La fila para huellas?

In the twisting, turning, baby crying, sun scorching line, I waited for 5 HOURS. There is a person at the front of the building doing crowd control, taking as many people fit inside, and when there is room calling more in. I was finally about to get inside, when the crowd control person (a big angry man with a hat) asks to see the back of my appointment paper (with the date on it.... what the heck at least 50 people passed ahead of me and he didn't ask them to show!) So I showed him my paper, and he turned me away. Even after begging and pleading trying to state my case and being cut off. He insisted if my paper didn't have that date on it I wasn't getting inside. So I went to work, late and for nothing, and decided if I made an early enough attempt the next day I would still make it in time to save the show, and get what I need done.

Thursday rolls around I'm there at the beloved Aluche this time even earlier, that there isn't a line for the metal detector but there is still a curve to the line of people a million times worse than the DMV inside. I wait in that line again, for 5 HOURS and this time I make it into the building (GLORY!) I make it to the desk, the young man flips over my paper and says, you're scheduled to come in at 4, and it's only 1 o'clock I can't help you. I again I plead, and say there is no way I can get through that line in time, and with an apathetic face he just shrugs and calls the next person in line. 

My last option is to go upstairs and see if I could get my appointment changed. According to the other people in line, my chances of that happening were grim since they knew people were getting appointments for September... which would have done me no good. I trekked upstairs anyway in hope that I could not go home again empty handed. 

I arrive upstairs to wait in the information line, and see the two people helping are a woman and the older man with a hat that threw me out the day before--cue feeling in the pit of my stomach. Waiting in line in front of me is an older woman who asked my situation and when I told her I'd waited 5 hours 2 days in a row she asks me if I'm pregnant -_- And when I reply no, she told me to tell them I was pregnant so that I could be helped. She gets up to the front of the line and she has to go with hat man, but she steps aside, and says I want to wait for the woman. I politely decline and no you go ahead. She still insists with her pushy older woman ways and I head over to hat man. So when he asks me how can I help you, in as sweet of a voice as I can muster I start to ramble on about how he may have recognized me from the day before and I needed to change my appointment, because I really couldn't be there that after noon. And he says.... "Can you come in tomorrow?" *sigh of relief* I say I can but if there is a way for him to make it on Monday it would be best. He looks at me confused and tells me Monday is the day with the most people, but then I told him it was my day off so he took his pen wrote the new date, stamped it, and I came in on Monday to wait another 5 HOURS (which really you can't avoid unless you get there at the break of dawn and I like sleep too much).

So I've survived!! For now... We'll see  how the Cáceres version of Aluche treats me come September.

Much Love!

@CathyArely

7 Things I've Missed While Abroad

So our new Reader Spotlight Miriam wrote this blog entry based off of a Huffington Post article, and I decided to jump on the bandwagon. So here are my 7 (in no particular order).

1. Not having to think too hard about what time it is when I want to call someone. 

The difference between Madrid and home is a whopping 9 hour time difference. So it can get a bit annoying when I want to call my mom when I get home from work, but it's 5am. Or I get a phone call from my best friend but it's 3am so I missed it. Also dealing with "business" things like calling about student loans and the like around 11pm in a noisy apartment doesn't make for the best either.

2. Being able to take out the trash whenever I'd like/need to

Spain as far as I've seen has got a bit more of a handle on the whole waste scene, with recycling bins everywhere to separate cardboard/glass/plastic/waste. The thing is you can only throw away your trash at a certain time. For my building they don't take out the trash bins until around 8pm til about 12am. Monday-Friday. So if I get a burst of energy to clean and get the dirt out around 3pm, I'm out of luck. The trash stays in the house. Or if I get home late from a long day, once I get in and get comfy, I have to go out again just for the trash. Boo.

3.  Ross

This wonderful store that has been the leader in my retail therapy meanderings for a while now. Lots of cute things for decent prices, and in sizes that fit more than just my 2 year old niece. And to add to it, I miss shopping the way I used to, I'm kind of scared to do too much shopping here because of the suitcases I'm going to have to pack when I'm finally going home.

4. Being able to do laundry in a Day

If you're like me, and procrastinate immensely on getting your laundry done, that huge pile of clothes can be intimidating. Set aside one day to do a handful of rounds of washing, 45 minutes in the washer, 20 in the dryer, fold put away, and you're set for the next month!! (lol) Here in Spain with no dryers...great for less energy consumption...for my clothes, not so much. Hanging clothes to dry on a line takes significantly longer, making time in between loads greater, and living in a house with 4 other people, that time can be precious.

5. Home Cooked Meals

Nothing beats having a warm plate of delicious food prepared by a dear family member. Carne asada, arroz, pupusas, tamales, pasteles, caldo de pollo, carne guisado, or a turkey sandwich. It's all good in the neighborhood. <3

6. More Crosswalks with Traffic Signals

I've been a bit of a scaredy cat my whole life, so having to cross a big street with lots of cars on a crosswalk with no traffic signal is a bit problematic for me. Trusting that the car coming at you is going to stop just because you have the right of way is never easy. Sometimes you gotta do it though because you'll either get looked at like an idiot for waiting for cars to cross, or wait forever. I usually wait until someone else shows up so in case someone is going to get hit, I'm not leading the charge jaja!

7. Family and Friends

This really goes without saying... but with so much going on back home the people are what I really miss the most. My niece is talking up a storm, nephews and cousins playing baseball and soccer, friends getting married, graduating, getting together and having a good time, all while I'm 6,000 miles away.

Perhaps this wasn't the best idea now that the fact that I'll probably be separated from my loved ones for at least 2 years, but I have a lot going on here for me too. It's great to have good things all around the world. 

Fellow expats- What are your 7? Feel free to link up or share in the comment section!

Much love,

Cathy

Extran Hero Abono Adventures

Hey Hey all!

  So a fellow expat and blogger has started an awesome blog called Extran Hero! I immediately got hooked because it was definitely something I could relate too, and there are a lot of parallels in my blog posts/thought process and this blog/comic.

  I was so excited when it was announced to the public that there was going to be a Create-Your-Own Extran Hero day! For one, meeting new people is always fun, and two getting to be a part of something cool!

So here's my Extran Hero. True to my essence, it's probably too wordy, but that's how it goes.

This made it into a special section of the blog. It was really nice to get to be creative(ish), collaborating with great people, and  just be out doing something different. Until Next time!!

~Cathy

Random thought...

In light of all of the craziness that has been going on... I just have one random thought to share with you all, and I´m sure other auxiliares can attest to this...

Spanish keyboards get on my nerves!! 

lol It took me like 10 minutes to find the @ sign when I needed it -_-

That is all...

Much love & thanks for the love,

Cat