if it was safe to post my new address here, I would

Unfortunately the inter-webs make postings like that unsafe. But! It is beautiful, and I promise to have a video tour up soon…including shots from the roof, where you can watch a beautiful sunset and, were you a good parkour-ist, you could get across the city faster than it takes to walk the non-gridlined streets.

Cádiz is beautiful. I thought the same thing of San Fernando when the train dropped me and 3 others there last Friday and Lauren and I (ok, so maybe more I) had some slightly panicked moments of “how-will-we-contact-each-other-from-separate-cities-in-Spain-oh-my-gosh-will-this-work?”. But overall, Cádiz is where it’s at. We’re living in the old part of the city, a place with a bit more European charm and less Miami-beach feel than the new part of the city (which claims one of the best beaches in Europe, la Playa Victoria), and we love it.

Also, I get to write posts from a nearby plaza where we can connect to free WiFi (pronounced wee-fee here). This makes Skype calls interesting, as they must always be somewhat public. I try not to talk (or laugh) too loud, but inevitably you get weird stares (especially from the old people who haven’t really gotten into the computer thing…like the old guy who walked up to me and asked if I was talking to myself – “No, sir, I’m talking to my mom. No, I know, the computer is not my mom.”)

School has been going interestingly too. We were warned that while the schools should be expecting us, they may not know exactly what to do with us especially if they were just beginning their bilingual program (which mine is). The first day Abby (my co-CIEE teacher at the elementary school) and I sat in the office for 2 hours while they figured out our schedules and what we still needed to do (residency cards, etc.). The second day I was in class, and asked to help with some lessons by pronouncing things for the kids. They are learning British English, however, so I am also a learner in that things like an oven are now a “cooker”, and the kids do things like tell me “I have a cousin in England!”, thinking I am from the UK. It’s cute. I’m sure they can’t distinguish my accent from one in the UK, just like most of us probably couldn’t distinguish a Spanish accent from a Chilean one if we were first learning Spanish.

Ok, time to sign off for a bit. Congrats if you made it through this entire post.