My blog

2010-03-10T19:16:00.000-08:00

2010-03-03T11:09:00.000-08:00

From a Cane Toads song

2010-02-18T21:01:00.000-08:00

2009-12-10T20:11:00.000-08:00

Rod, Lev, eh?

2009-11-10T20:17:00.000-08:00

Champagne Pools

2009-11-03T14:28:00.000-08:00

Going political for a day

2009-03-03T20:05:00.000-08:00

Why is Michael Steele backing off his statement about Rush Limbaugh? He couldn't have been more right. If Democrats used that exchange to play politics, shame on them, but it's worth repeating, Mr. Steele, you're right!

Hugo Chávez appears once again to be a playground bully in control of a country. He isn't an executive who reflects the will of the people in his actions. He wants them to reflect his will.

Herb Churchman

2009-02-08T19:23:00.000-08:00

I dedicate this post to my next-door neighbor, Herb, who's the perfect model of how neighbors should be toward each other. Thanks, Herb.

Phillies fans given what they want

2008-11-03T16:59:00.001-08:00

I'm back in the States and the Phillies won the World Series and so did their fans. Go PHILS!

As it turns out, the city in Spain where I spent time - Jerez de la Frontera - its soccer team is doing well this year after a couple rotten seasons. Go Xerez!

www.xerezcd.com

Spaniard in US

2008-08-14T21:36:00.000-07:00

My Spanish roommates from Spain came to visit for 2 weeks. I took them to Philadelphia, DC and New York. For those of you that don't know these cities let me sum them up. New York is an expensive place to be a tourist. DC is full of Segway (http://www.segwayguidedtours.com/) tourists - watch out. Philadelphia is fantastic and captivates Rocky-wannabes from all the over the world.

In the news

2008-05-26T06:47:00.000-07:00

In the paper here, subprime mortgages are called trash mortgages and our presence in Iraq is called our invasion of Iraq.

Se mueve un diente

2008-05-22T06:33:00.003-07:00

In class today one of the five-year-olds, Manolito, whispered across the room to me, Sean, que se mueve un diente. That´s Spanish for Sean, my tooth is loose. That´s a big deal. Manolito went on to remind Alberto, his tablemate, that Ratoncito Perez - a little rat that corresponds to the Tooth Fairy in Spanish folklore - would be visiting him to give him a little present. Ratoncito Perez is gray and wears a red shirt, blue pants and gold-rimmed glasses, and carries a little bag - there you go in case you see him. I found out how he looks from an official description of him online. I don´t know if he travels outside of Spain though so you might not see him in the States.

Flex

2008-05-18T12:41:00.000-07:00

The 5th and 6th grade boys in the school are interested in muscles. This is what the conversations go like with them. Every one without exception. They go in Spanish of course because we can´t talk freely about much in English. I´m going to translate them.

-Hey, Juan, what´s going on?
-Seeeaaaaannnn!!! Did you watch Smackdown? (Smackdown is a weekly WWF wrestling show. All the boys watch it and then try to beat the crap out of eachother on the playground. I now understand the effect of TV on young people.)
-No. I missed it again. Sorry dude.
-(With a look of disappointment)Oh, man.....(Recovering with a look of excitement)Flex your biceps!
-(Quite sure I shouldn´t do that in school)Sure. (Flex)
-Woah, man! José, check out Sean´s arms. How strong!

Another conversation:

-Mohamed, what´s up?
-Sean, what´s up? Flex your biceps.
-Uh, ok. (Flex)

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice, banaaaaaanas, miiiiiiiiiilk

2008-05-14T10:15:00.000-07:00

In class with the first graders, in an effort to get them to pronounce words in English how a native says them I pronounce them slowy - as anyone would, right? Nothing special there. With the first graders though I don´t think that they get it that I´m saying these words EXTRA slowly. I think they think that you´re supposed to hang on the long I in the word rice for 3 seconds like I´ve been doing. The point of me being here is to help create a student body that speaks English but that speaks English naturally. I hope somewhere along the way these poor students learn that Sean the American was just trying to make the pronunciation clear. You don´t actually speak like that. If you come to Spain in a couple years and find an eager young person, say, working in a restaurant, who speaks English and says words like rice and milk by hanging on the vowel for a really long time, it might be my fault. Oh whatever that´s not going to happen.

Have a nice day.

Liam's Visit

2008-05-10T05:14:00.000-07:00

My American buddy Liam, who lives and works in Sevilla, came to check out Jerez this weekend. He arrived Thursday and spent until Saturday afternoon IN Jerez. This entry is about all that happened during those 48 hours or so....sure to be boring all this.

I met Liam at the train station Thursday night and we went to meet up with some friends at the bar Cuatro Gatos, which means Four Cats. A good time which was made funner when Liam suggested that we ask to ride the tricycle-size bike sitting next to the stage area. The bike belonged to the bar and turned out to be part of a bike-themed photo exhibit promoting bikes against motor vehicles as a means of transportation around Jerez. There were photos of folks on bikes all around the bar. So I asked if we could take the bike outside for a ride. The bar tender smiled and gave permission. The bike turned out to be too small and the chain too tending-to-fall-off to be able to ride the bike far. After we put the chain back on its track we returned it and continued with our friends inside. The bar tender walked up to me after a bit and asked if I wanted to take the bike home......PSHAW!!!! WELP! YEA! What do you think? So she gave it to us. She went on to explain all about the photos and the theme of the exhibit. I didn't think at the time of accepting the bike that we would have to walk it home. It's tiny and walking it home was a pain - the walk is like 45 minutes. But I did it and now it's sitting in the laundry room of our apartment. It's all busted - the tires are flat and a brake doesn't work - but I'm telling myself that I'm going fix it. Why? No reason. Anyway, it's sitting next to right now another larger bike which I borrowed from a friend to take a bike ride around Jerez yesterday to show how is the city to Liam. During this bike ride, the bike I was on, which was also borrowed, broke. The spokes of the rear wheel caught the gear changer and twisted it all out of shape. I have no idea how to say that - twisted it all out of shape - in Spanish so when I called my buddy who'd lent me the bike to tell him that I'd broke the bike, I told him that the spokes had EATEN the gear changer. I think he understood and told me it was no big deal. Phew. What a nice guy.

Thanks for reading. Happy Mother's Day, Mothers.

Ordering American in Spanish

2008-04-28T15:13:00.000-07:00

I had trouble ordering a McFlurry today at McDonald´s. It went like this:

-McFlurry, por favor.
-¿Perdón?
-McFlurry, por favor.
-¿Perdón?
-OK...Meek Flewd-ee, por favor.
-Ah, vale. Meek Flewd-ee. €2.10, por favor

Thanks for reading.

Happy News

2008-04-28T11:36:00.001-07:00

http://www.happynews.com

This is legitimate - I found an article from the Associated Press. It´s a happiness-oriented news filter website.

Have a nice day.

Laying low for the fair/Mumps

2008-04-27T03:37:00.000-07:00

This week is the Jerez Horse Fair - in Spanish la Feria del Caballo de Jerez. People talk about it all year!!! It´s a week long. What I know - There are tents that serve food and drinks inside a fair ground. What I think - As the name suggests, the fair has a horse theme. Don´t know exactly what happens with the horses. Jerez has the Royal Andalusian Equestrian Art Academy....Royal Andalusian Equestrian Art Academy for short. Hehe. So there´s an old tradition of horse-training here, and since I got here there´s a new tradition of horsing around. I´ve seen pictures of the fair - there´re horse parades. People also dance traditional southern Spanish dances. Everyone dresses nicely. More to come about this later.

My roomies and I are laying low this weekend so that we have the money and energy to go day after day, late into the night, at the fair. Laying low means going to the beaches which are 20 minutes away. I don´t deserve to have this much fun. You can drink and take your clothes off at the beach here - it´s great.

There was a mumps outbreak at a elementary school here recently. The city´s making sure that all kids at all schools are vaccinated and so there was a nurse at my school Friday giving out vaccinations.

I inhabit my body but don´t know basic stuff about it like, Am I vaccinated against mumps. I didn´t ask for a shot. Mom? Dad? Have I been vaccinated?

On the road with Zelazowa

2008-04-21T04:11:00.000-07:00

I went this past week to Madrid and Barcelona to meet up with friends from the States who are doing a European tour - their band is called Zelazowa. I went to their shows in Madrid and Barcelona and had a chance to hang out with them, which was great. I both by accident and by planning met up, both in Madrid and Barcelona, also with some Spanish friends and even a Scottish girl, all folks that I´ve met here. I spent Tuesday night on a bus, Wednesday night in Madrid and Thursday through Saturday nights in Barcelona. The principal players in Madrid were Bryan, Terry, Ian, Kyle and Dave(the band and videographer), Pelu and Luis, Javi, Penelope Cruz and the Spanish President. In Barcelona they were Bryan, Terry, Ian, Kyle and Dave, Javi, Hernán, Esteban, Manolito, Suzy, Marta, Oriol, the 12€ megabeer, Joaquim, Cristina, Luis, some high school friends, and me - he-ey!!! So that´s the crux of the long blog entry that I´m about to begin to finish.

After an overnight bus ride from Jerez I arrived Wednesday morning in Madrid. I spent the day walking and riding the metro around the city - great time. That night I just happened to run into one of my buddies from Jerez - Pelu - while I was waiting to get into the rock show. He and his cousin were working that day in Madrid and to cap off the day decided to go with me inside to the show. My other friend - Javi - showed up a little later. I´d made plans to meet up with him in the first place. We thought we were screwed when he showed up because I´d given his invitation to Pelu to get in. The folks at the door let us in without an invitation. How nice. Anyway, I introduced Javi, Pelu and Pelu´s cousin to my American buddies after they finished their show. So my Spanish friends spoke their Spanish and my American friends their English, and they somehow understood eachother. I was only needed to translate important things like, Hey Sean, tell this guy that I´ll go get a marker so I can sign a copy of the CD for him. My buddies had some good stories to tell from their tour so far.

I got to go backstage after the show and catch up a little with them. They were nice to answer all my questions about how exactly you go into such undefined territory as making a European tour without a manager or booking agent - oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. In addition to playing his or her instrument, each band member, and even the videographer and tour chronicler who´s travelling with them, each has his or her parallel duties like booking shows, writing blogs, arranging transportation and stuff. Pretty neat. The do-it-yourself work ethic. You do it all yourself. The band is called Zelazowa and if they keep at it you´ll be hearing about them one day...not from me I mean. www.myspace.com/zelazowa

We had kebaps for dinner after midnight that night. The funny thing for me was that it was after midnight on a Wednesday night and the folks at the kebap joint didn´t even seem to be considering closing any time soon. Anyway, on my walk home from the show I received too many sexual solicitations to count - as it turned out I was staying in a hostel in a hooker hotspot.

Thursday morning I caught a bus to Barcelona and had the pleasure of seeing some of the Spanish countryside on the way. I arrived in the autonomous community of Cataluña - where Barcelona is - to find that in addition to Spanish they speak Catalán. I should say in addition to Catalán they speak Spanish because Catalán is the official language there - the official language is something other than Spanish in a place INSIDE of Spain. And now you can begin to understand the strong secondary identities within the country of Spain. You´re Spanish but in several parts of the country you´re more defined by the part of the country you´re from than by the country as a whole. I guess it´s like that in the States but we don´t have a variety of languages to further define these mini identities, do we? Uh, I don´t know what I´m talking about.

I arrived in Barcelona Thursday night and had a nice walk to my hostel. Barcelona´s beautiful. I met up with my friends from Jerez to check out the night life in the Gothic neighborhood of the city. We met in the Plaza de Cataluña, or Catalunya as it´s written in Catalán. There are lots of people out and about in Barcelona at night but I would guess that number is doubled once the beer peddlers come out to sell you cans of beer on the street. There are probably 3 trillion of them out every night. Are these extreme exagerations as funny to you as they are to me? I´m surrounded by kids at school who tend to exagerate like that (3 trillion beer peddlers) and it rubs off on me. Sorry, continuing...

Friday morning after the biggest breakfast a hostel had ever let me have I checked out and walked out into the morning´s rain. This didn´t stop me from walking along the beach or checking out some other sites in the city. At the Sagrada Familia cathedral, which is very unique, I met up with a friend who I´d met online - Suzy. Suzy lives in Barcelona and I would be spending the next two nights in her apartment. She showed me more of the city that afternoon. We headed to Friday night´s Zelazowa show in Barcelona - part 2 of my reason for going on this trip in the first place. We, like the band I later found out, had some trouble finding the place, but we got there finally. The show that night was EXCELLENT! The music is very moving and the guys´ dedication shows when they play. Phew! I had to serve as translator that night which allowed me to SAVE the show but at the same time put me in an awkward position, having to be informed of the band´s financial arrangement with the venue. Anyway, after the show I got to go backstage again and chat with the guys. Some Spaniard made fun of my glasses in such a cutting way that I will be replacing them first thing when I return to the States. Anyway, after the show Terry, the drummer, decided to go out with Suzy and I. We met up with my friends from Jerez - I forgot to say before they were there for the weekend too. Good night.

Saturday - Suzy showed me some more magnificent parts of Barcelona. We went to the castle fort at Montjuic. We rode the cable car up to it, getting a nice view of the city only to be bettered by the view atop the castle fort - magnificent. You could see the port of Barcelona from the castle. I played on the canons at the corners of the castle fort. We then went to meet up again with the friends from Jerez for some more talking, tapas and other stuff. Suzy and I watched a seagull devour a pigeon in the middle of the street for about 3 mintues on the way to the friends. That made us stop and think about nature and stuff. We decided we would order seagull burgers that night to get back at the seagull population for eating that pigeon/we would perpetuate the cycle of rapacity.

After the talking, tapas and other stuff, I crashed for a few hours at Suzy´s place before having to head out at 4 AM to the airport to catch a 7 AM flight to Sevilla and then a train to Jerez. In Sevilla I had a nice walk, watched a protest, had a nap by the river, watched a bike race time trial, had the house chocolate ice cream in an ice cream joint, and, when it started to rain, headed to the train station.

I´m going to try changing the word order in this next sentence. I hope you like it. I back in arrived Jerez broke and tired, had two big bowls chocolate of muesli and the hay hit.

Thanks for reading. Happy Earth Day.

Madrid or Barcelona

2008-04-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

There´s a major soccer rivalry here between Madrid Royal Footbal Club and Barcelona Football Club. Well, the rivalry exists mainly between the fans it seems. But as the names suggest, Madrid in the minds of the people is grander than Barcelona - it´s royal. I by accident bought a soccer ball in Madrid of the colors of Barcelona. I didn´t know that at the time. My Spanish friend told me to watch my back walking around flaunting such Barcelona-erism or whatever in Madrid public.

You get asked the question a lot here - Are you for Madrid or Barcelona? You can easily say one or the other, but it takes time to really come up with your own answer. To base your answer in performance alone is tough because in the end, althoug my Madrid roommate strongly disagrees, it´s tough to say who´s better. In some ways Madrid´s better - and, you guessed it, in some ways Barcelona´s better. Madrid has the best goal keeper around but Barcelona has the best passer and (a separate player) the player with the best footwork in the league. Madrid has one real bad sport which for me reflects poorly on the whole team. Sorry, I can´t help that. The people here say that the rivalry is based somewhat in politics too, which I shouldn´t comment on more than to say that Madrid represents for some one thing - maybe like ESTABLISHMENT - and Barcelona the opposite - INDEPENDENCE and CHANGE.

My feelings in the end - and my answer to the question - is based on the fact that I find myself looking forward to the few Barcelona games that I catch with the feeling that the players are my brothers and that, when they´re playing Madrid, they´re soldiers of light against a big, scary, dark monster. Therefore I say I´m for Barcelona.

This week I´m going to both Madrid and Barcelona to meet up with friends from the States. I don´t deserve to have this much fun.

Thanks for reading.

Rain and library cards

2008-04-10T07:01:00.000-07:00

It´s been raining for 4 days. It hadn´t rained in like 6 months though so it´s for the better. We´ve had something like 100 liters per square meter which I have no idea how compares to inches which isn´t that how we measure in the States rainfall? Confused by that last sentence?

I have three library cards. Two in the States (Maryland - Worcester County and Pennsylvania - Chester County) and one here, one library card here in Spain. My penalties-for-late-materials-return history is pretty clean...my libary rap sheet is nearly blank...or at least it was until I got here to Spain. I´ve returned materials late here a couple times but the worst part is that they´ve been REALLY late. The first time I returned mats late I thought that the library was just really forgiving because there was no fee and SEEMED to be NO penalty whatsoever for the late return. No one said anything to me. I told the man that my mats were really late. He smiled and said, Thank you. Hohohold on. Wait a minute. If only I knew what was hiding behind that smile. I returned a few days later to find that I´d lost my borrowing privileges for number-of-items X number-of-days-late. In the end I couldn´t borrow for three weeks. Whammy! I couldn´t use the computers either. Double whammy!

It´s 4:15 PM and Jerez is starting to wake up from the siesta. Gotta go to town and do all the things I couldn´t do for the last 2 hours.

Burker King

2008-04-07T05:25:00.000-07:00

Former Beach Patrol crew chief, current Air Force officer, life enthusiast and newly crowned Burger King - my friend Geoff Dobson...

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/article/13406

An Irish Exit and a Spanish Exit

2008-04-06T09:07:00.000-07:00

Last weekend (3/29-30) 50,000 motorcyclists descended upon the city of Jerez for the annual Gran Premio de España of MotoGP - an motorcyle race at the city´s racetrack which is one of the contests in the international MotoGP circuit. Motorcycles everywhere - all there to watch the race. There were only 30 racers actually in it. The only tickets left when I went looking to buy some were 60€ and 900€ - I decided not to buy the 60€ tickets because I couldn´t afford them and I decided not to buy the 900€ tickets because I couldn´t afford them.

I spent this past weekend (4/4-6) with friends in Sevilla. We all went to the beach yesterday, which was great. Usually when I go to the beach I´m working as a lifeguard. It was nice to relax. My friends told me, while we were sitting and taking in sun, that I had done an Irish exit the night before - we were all out and I went home without telling anyone. It was like this - the friends I was out with got into a conversation with someone I didn´t know. I didn´t want to disturb them. There were friends of friends next to us and the question was - Do I be sociable and introduce myself to the friends of my friends or do I just call it a night? It was 4 AM. I chose to call it a night and I thought that if I told my friends I might face some resistance. I freely admit that I was out until 4 AM. That´s how late people stay out here...and later - 6,7,8 AM. Whatever. Walking around at 4 AM is like walking around at 10 PM - there are still people everywhere. Anyway, the exact opposite happened the following night. I was out with friends again. We decided to go home but it turned out be complicated to do so. We left the club but were invited by a new friend for a drink in another club. We went, had the drink, said we were ready to go and were invited for another drink. By the end, the act of going home, or saying goodbye, or EXITING, took about an hour and a half - a Spanish Exit I suppose.

Today

2008-04-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

My day had a relatively positive note today - the running water at the school being restored. There was a leak in the plumbing at the school and we lost the water for two and a half hours. When we got it back everyone had the same needs to take care of. Without water, in addition to the toilets not working, there´s no washing of hands and no lunch in the cafeteria so it´s good that it came back. People started brainstorming what to do for lunch for the kids at school supposing that water wasn´t restored. Someone suggested fried eggs as a recipe not requiring water. I suggested beer. They reminded me that the kids can´t drink beer. I´m 27 and I can´t remember anymore life back when I couldn´t legally have a beer with a meal. I have a friend who works for an international relief agency called Intermón Oxfam. They are providing clean water right now for folks in Ecuador who were evacuted from their homes after flooding last month. Intermón Oxfam is concerned with getting the folks clean water for drinking and bathing. It´s a really good thing what they´re doing down there, and today I was reminded how necessary clean running water is. I´m stupid and I need to be reminded of stuff like that.

I don´t notice teachers in my school telling the kids to walk in the hallways; that seems to be a principal preoccupation in the US. Here in the hallways it´s like an all day field day - kids SPRINTING back and forth from classrooms to bathrooms. It´s hilarious and I think it´s good. I don´t mean to say that teachers NEVER put their class in order to walk down the hall - it´s au contraire. When the whole class goes somewhere together, the teacher puts them in order just like in the US.

Back to today - poor Abraham, the new kid in first grade. Today was his FIRST DAY and he was made to take an English test. I think that´s pretty rough. It wasn´t like a placement test for English class; it was a chapter test.

I chose not to share the April Fools´ Day pranks that I found on Wikipedia with any of the teachers because everyone was preoccupied with the running water (bathroom) problem. Bummer.

A teacher here was asking me today about smoking regulations in the US. She said we introduced smoking tobacco and we were now leading the fight to unintroduce it? As with most attempts to answer questions about my own country I realized that I didn´t know. I went to Wikipedia and believed what I read that official smoking bans date as far back as the 16th century - a ban on smoking by Pope Urban VII. (Weehee! Are you enjoying this journey through history. It´s brought to you by Wikipedia.) I read too that there was a string of smoking regulations during the 18th century in what is now Germany, that the Nazis imposed smoking regulations during their reign and that - what was the only thing I thought I knew about the US´s regs - the smoking regs are up to the states there.

Bla bla. Done.

Holy Week in Caceres

2008-03-24T17:32:00.000-07:00

Hello and thanks for reading.

I spent this last weekend in a village called Navaconcejo, in the province of Caceres, in Extremadura, which is an autonomous community of Spain. Navaconcejo sits along the Jerte River in the Jerte River Valley where there are tons of cherry trees. This past week the trees were blooming and gave the valley an expansive, soft white covering. The river and contributing mountain streams and water falls give nice views to folks who take the many hiking trails along them. I was with a group of 12 or so and we took two such routes. We were all about hiking as long as the weather held and in two days wedid as many routes - the first along some water falls above Navaconcejo and the second in the Hell´s Throat Nature Reserve. The reserve´s cut by the Jerte River as well, which is fed by melted snow from surrounding mountains. Exactly like much of our own (USA) landscape. The river water was too cold to swim in for long. We found this out by going swimming. We found a beach along the river and spent most of the afternoon sleeping and eating along the water´s edge.

So for four nights we stayed with a friend named Hernan in a house that his family maintains that used to belong to his grandmother. We ate just about every meal at the restaurant cafe down the road. Oh yea, the principal players this weekend were Hernan, Tanna, Jerome, Sabrina, Javier, Annemarie, Alberto, Roberto, Elena, Raquel, Ignacio, Rafael, Ana, Moises, Eva, Inmaculada, Juani, Cesar, Marta and the police. We got stopped at a toll booth on the way to Navaconcejo as part of a random carsearch point. Dogs sniffed the car for stuff. Nothing was found.

We spent an afternoon in the city of Caceres, capital of the province of the same name. The impressive parts of the city for me were the Storks - there were trillions of them floating around - and the cars parked in lots that seemed to have no possible access for the cars. One little old Fiat sat in such a tight corner with such treacherous roads leading to the corner that I joked that maybe it had been placed there by an aircraft. Anyway, just as I joked I heard a noise above me and looked up to see an aircraft lowering a Volkswagen Bug into the space next to the Fiat. Weird. We spent another afternoon in Plasencia, another old city in Caceres. I had a sweets attack there which ended in buying more overpriced Spanish ice cream. It rained that afternoon so we spent most of it inside eating tapas. That night the rain let up and the cold took its place. Oh yea , a few nights before we went to see Navaconcejo´s Holy Week processions. They´re a big deal here, and the night we went, Holy Thursday into Good Friday, is a pretty important night of the week. We enjoyed them and appreciated what solemn displays they were. The next night we were blocked from entering Navaconcejo by another set of processions which were occupying the main road. That night we appreciated what inconvenient displays they were.

I feel like I told all the wrong stuff. Thanks for reading.

Love,
Sean

Sunbathing in Sevilla

2008-03-18T04:29:00.001-07:00

Welcome reader. Thanks for coming. I should first of all say that the weekend in Sevilla that I´m writing about here was this past weekend - duringHoly Week - which is a huge deal here. Maybe I should have named this entry Holy Week in Sevilla. Sevilla is such another one of Earth´s beautiful cities - even if it were empty and without celebrations it would still be worth checking out. But it´s full of people and has this week the Holy Week stuff.

I arrived on Saturday night and got lost on the way to a lively promenade called the Alameda. The weather was PERFECT and I finally arrived at the promenade. I met up with my friends. My American friend in Sevilla had some friends visiting from the States. The principal players Saturday, both his friends and other Sevillans, were Liam, Dan, Izzy, John, Ana, Veronica, Regis, Iñigo and the story-telling bartender at the Bar Erasmus. Great night.

Sunday we walked around the old walled part of Sevilla and eventually got the Guadalquivir Riverfront. With another day of nice weather, there were people everywhere sitting around and taking in sun. The principal players Sunday were the same group less Veronica, Regis, Iñigo and the story-telling bartender. We rented bikes and rode along the length of the riverfront. Then we plugged them back into one of the parking stations and took off on foot to find food. Hunting in Sevilla for food is difficult. Good thing we´re normal and went to a restuarant. After food we went around checking out the Holy Week procession groups. During Holy Week in Sevilla groups of sometimes as many as 10,000 people pace slowly around around the city carrying all kinds of things, dressed up in different ways, with everything centered around each groups paso, or life-size representations of the life of Jesus. These pasos require a team of people to carry around. Ahead and behind the pasos walk folks dressed up to conceal their identities and carrying candles and crosses and other things. This all attracts just about everyone in the city so it´s a cool experience - to be there with all the people out in the street, late into the night.

We found an ice cream joint and stopped for some. I had a sccop of coffee and scoop of mint chocolate chunk.

The processions this Thursday will go all night and into Friday I think. If you are reading this in the States and would like to come to check it all out, with what little time we have left to plan, I should be able to scramble to put together a weekend travel package for you - States-Sevilla-States - for probably around $5000 dollars. Let me know.

Thanks for reading. I probably love you.

Austria

2008-03-02T10:17:00.000-08:00

I've spent the last 4 days in and around Vienna. I'm visiting an Austrian fellow whom I met last November in Sevilla. Together we invited me to visit him this weekend - me playing a greater part in that invitation than him. He starts his university classes tomorrow and so he gave up his last four days of freedom to show me around Vienna. His name is Phil and he's tall with blonde hair. If you see him please tell him what a nice guy he is for having me. I was able to make the trip without taking too many days from work off because I had Thursday and Friday off already - Spanish holiday.

My flight here was perfect. The only thing I'll tell about the transit is that I had a Big Mac, fries and a beer in the Madrid airport. McDs serves beer. I was looking for something more healthy to eat, but the offerings at all the places I found were too smart and fashionable so I went for the simple McDs. It was perfect.

Arriving in Vienna I felt WAY out of my element - I don't speak German and until I found Phil I was helpless. Phil was waiting for me outside the gate, though, so things became fine. He drove me back to his city, Wiener Neuerstadt, and introduced me to wienerschnitzel.

Thursday was our day for walking all around Vienna, but on the way I went with Phil and his mother to the airport to pick up his sister who was returning from the States. Continuing on into Vienna, we eventually arrived at our first stop - the Wiener Riesenrad (Vienna Ferris Wheel). I met an American in my ferris wheel cabin. The idea is to ride around and admire the city of Vienna. I instead talked to him and missed the view. There are pics of me in a ferris wheel cabin on sale online for 9 euros if you want one. (www.wienerriesenrad.com foto number 1825431519). Anyway, I had more Austrian food for lunch - a kaseleberkase sandwich - and drank a beer, all outside in a plaza because drinking outside is legal in Austria. For dinner we ate in a country-style restaurant. I had fried chicken, sauerkraut-stuffed peppers and good bread. Phil and I met Phil's friend Cornelius for a beer that night. We would be staying at Cornelius's apartment the next two nights. Regressing a bit, the sites I saw that day were the Hundertwasserhaus, the Danube Riverfront, Phil's university campus, the city hall(Rathaus), the
parliament building, the art and science museums plaza(Museums Quartier), the Heroes Plaza(Heldenplatze) and Royal Palace(Hofburg), the Schonbrunn and
I can't remember what else. Vienna's a beautiful city! Phil's university campus has a courtyard with the busts of all the geniuses who've studied there. I would be scared into studying my brain out if I were surrouned by their likenesses at my university.

Friday it rained, but Phil took me to a couple of inner districts of Vienna - Vienna's divided into 23 districts. We first dumped our stuff in Phil's friends Cornelius and Lisi's (Cornelius's girlfriend) apartment before heading out for some sight seeing. We were around the 3rd and 4th districts and saw lots of embassies and a monument for the Russian soldiers who died fighting against the Nazis in WWII.

That night we went out for a suprise party for Lisi's sister Julia who just returned from a year working in Oakland as an au pair. This was awkward at first because I didn't know many people and I did't speak their language...luckily they speak mine. Thank you, Austrians. I had more than enough people to talk to for the night. The group was very pleasant. Phil, Cornelius and I slipped out for kasekrainer (sausage) toward the end of the night.

Saturday it rained again, but we went to Stephensplatz (Stephen's Plaza) to see the Stephansdom (St. Stephen's Cathedral), which was IMMENSE, reaching, I'd say...500 miles high. It's Gothic and Romanesque and looks unreal, sitting surrounded by buildings of more or less modern design that look NOTHING like it. Stephansdom dates back to between 500 and 850 years. We walked around this innercity area, hitting some book, souvenir and chocolate shops. I met some folks from New York. Saturday night we went out for Lisi's birthday party at a brewery/restaurant called Medl Brau. I was told the owner won the lottery and put the money into founding the brewery. You could order beer in a 1-liter mug, which of course all the men did. I had more conversations with pleasant, willing-to-speak-English Austrians. They again were very welcoming toward me. We, the birthday party, threw birthday candles and ate cupcakes and got kicked out when the place closed down. I met a young lady
that night who'd spent a year abroad. She told me that you lose your sense of home when you spend so much time abroad. I don't know what to make of that, but if when I return I can't quite find my home and I end up on someone who's reading this's doorstep, I live at 209 Llandovery Drive in Exton, PA 19341 - USA. Please either call my parents at 610 363 8469 and tell them you've found me or write my address on the back of my hand and kick me out your door in the direction of my house, if you will. Remind me to walk straight, please. Thank you.

Today, Phil took me to his folks' house in Gloggnitz. The town looks like a town in upstate PA. The house was new and beautiful. The family served me an excellent dinner, gave me house tour, gave me Austrian wafers and a bottle of the family's own wine. Can you believe how nice these people are? I'm now back at Phil's apartment and tomorrow I fly back to Jerez at 12:30 PM. Thank you for reading, if you still are. Please leave me a comment, if you will, so I know if anyone actually reads this far.

Here is the cast of characters who made my weekend here in Austria:

Phil, Andrea and Herbert, Melanie, Cornelius, Lisi, Lucas and Simon, Bernie, Sly, Christian, Wolfgang (Bruner), Martina, Kity and everyone else I forgot.

I recommend going to Austria. I was drawn here because it's from where came Arnold Schwarzenegger and I really like him. I tried to promote him to his people, who have mixed feelings about him. I was drawn there because of him, but I look back now on almost 5 fantastic days and I'm sure that's a common experience.

Pro soccer

2008-02-24T11:42:00.000-08:00

I went to my first pro soccer game today. Our city´s team, Xerez Campo Deportivo, lost 2-0 to a team from the north of Spain called Racing Club Ferrol. My friend got my roommate and I tickets for free. We drank coke and ate sunflower seeds. There were chants and cheers of all types, but no wave. I heard a lot bad language.

I was sympathizing with my friend because Xerez and its fans sound a lot like Philly teams and their fans - they occasionally have strong seasons, but they seem to let down their fans more often than not....the fans remaining fiercely loyal through it all.

Learning new words in Spanish

2008-02-22T10:49:00.000-08:00

I learned how to say ¨busted faucet¨ in Spanish after the man at the cyber cafe pointed to the sign with the words ¨busted faucet¨... after I´d turned on the busted bathroom faucet and shot water everywhere.

I learned how to say crutches when I had to ask for a pair after falling off my buddy´s roof and hurting my foot in an intense midnight game of hide and seek.

I learned how to say umbrella when I needed to buy one, the day after I´d soaked up a gallon of water walking four blocks to school in the sideways torrential Jerez rain.

Spanish elections: A possibly unwanted social studies lesson

2008-02-18T06:07:00.001-08:00

There are elections here on March 9th. You cast one vote. This one vote is for the PARTY that you want to rule. You don´t vote for a candidate for this office or that; you vote for his or her party. The votes are added up and government offices are divided up between the parties to represent the popular vote. The winning party´s president remains president of his or her party and becomes the president of the national government as well.

The contending parties for more or less the last 30 years have been the Popular Party and the Socialist Workers Party. The Popular Party is more conservative than the Socialist Party. The Socialist Party has been in power since 2004.

The Clock Museum and a trip to the soccer stadium

2008-02-15T06:54:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday I went to the uh.....Clock Museum. I was thinking I was going to be bored but I wasn´t. There are 300 clocks from about 1650 AD on. I learned some history and was reminded how creative man is. There was a sundial - a few of the clocks in the collection weren´t mechanical, but most were - this sundial had a glass lense and a functioning canon, about a foot long. If you line up the clock correctly and throw a little gunpowder in the canon, it fires at 12 PM. I left with a general appreciation of the convenience of our system for dividing time, whatever that means to you. Imagine trying to make plans to meet someone during the day 2 weeks from now, say at 3:45 PM, without being able to say 2 weeks from now at 3:45 PM. (This might be too primitive an imagination.) Here goes:

Hey, neighbor, meet me during the day, 14 risings of the sun from now, when she´s halfway between her high point in the sky and the horizon. Don´t you be a few degrees of declination late!!! I have to meet my mother-in-law 465 winks later.

I went with the 5th and 6th graders on another field trip today - this time to the municipal sport complex. That was great.

TGIF. Have a nice weekend if you´re reading this today.

I told you my blog would be boring.

A trip to City Hall

2008-02-12T06:27:00.001-08:00

I went today with the 3rd and 4th graders to City Hall. We saw the old city council chamber, the new chamber, the citizens complaint center and the mayors´ hall, where all the former mayors´ portraits are hung. The chambers interested the kids, but the mayors´ hall didn´t really. In fact, once Francisco realized he could skate down the marble handicap access ramp, everyone followed and we had to herd them all into the next room to end that.

Back at school for lunch - I eat lunch at the school everyday and then help the lunch ladies serve the kids - I was served a beer by the school principal. I don´t think that would happen in the States. I love Spain.

Carnaval madness

2008-02-08T04:01:00.000-08:00

Today we are celebrating Carnaval, for which folks dress up. In the school each grade has dressed up differently. The sixth graders are Freds and Wilmas Picapiedras (Picapiedras is Spanish for Flintstones); the fifth graders are dressed in what is supposed to look like traditional Chinese garb; the fourth graders are Counts Dracula; the third graders are Jokers to the second graders, who are Batmen; the first graders are frogs; and the three to five-year-olds are a mix of things. The Chinese-looking outfits of the fifth graders are in this year. I know because I went to the city of Cádiz on Saturday for the biggest Carnaval celebration around and saw a ton of people dressed thusly. The fifth grade teacher made me one such costume today....which is made up of a yellow trashbag with blue plastic lining, and a black paper hat. So I´m dressed like that right now, with a little painted on moustache to go along with it all. At 1 PM we went outside for the Carnaval Dance Party in the playground to wrap things up.

I´m more like a really big student here than a teacher. When the kids dress up, so do I. They all call me by my first name. On field trips, the other teachers always encourage me to jump in and play with the kids, which I totally want to do anyway - maybe they sense that. My favorite place and time each day is recess in the preschool playground, rolling tires, chasing Fernanda who´s stolen my sunglasses again....and being in the middle of 5-10 two-foot-tall people who are all giving me hugs and calling me Jone (which is how most of the kids say Sean).

Kickoff

2008-02-05T07:08:00.000-08:00

Dear all,

Thanks for coming to my blog. Over.