Adalucian style

Suddenly our classes were over.  It was strange not to have to get up and go to class and we wondered a little bit about what we were going to do with ourselves.  Turns out this wasn’t going to be a problem.

We were frustrated with our language skills at this point so we hired one of our favorite teachers, Felipe, to work with us one day per week and he took us right back to the basics and we were shocked to find that we really needed the review.  In hindsight we think it would have been better for us to take 4 to 6 weeks of intensive courses and then spend a few weeks putting what we learned into practice before taking additional lessons.  Trying to learn the entire grammar structure of a language in 12 weeks had left us with just too much information to process during normal conversation.

During August many of our friends began to finish their classes and we went to going away parties every week.  We also had some decisions to make.  We had phone interviews with the Peace Corp both in June and in August and had been asked if we would be willing to postpone our service yet again, to the beginning of next year.  We agreed but were beginning to wonder if our Peace Corps service was going to happen for us at all.

We thought we had time to brush up on our Spanish and take the ACTFEL test which would open up the possibility of serving in Central or South America; thereby increasing our flexibility and making it easier to place us as a couple.  The logistical gymnastics required turned out to make this impossible.  We also needed to continue to think about our stated agenda of living in the world and exploring new places, cultures and making new friends.

After long and careful thought we decided that we needed to explore Uruguay, for several reasons.  Although we hated the idea of leaving our new found Spanish friends, South America was a place we intended to explore.  Among the places we had quite a bit of interest in was Uruguay so we decided to start at the bottom of the continent and work our way up, perhaps even “woofing” a bit until the Peace Corps called us to serve.

Lo and behold we found a 3 week cruise from Venice, Italy to Buenos Aires leaving in November that cost just more than half the price of an airline economy class ticket.  Considering that the cruise price included living expenses for nearly a month and we loved the idea of spending a few days prior to the cruise exploring Venice we booked the cruise with final payment due in early September.  Marilyn found a centrally located and decently priced bed and breakfast in Venice and made a reservation.  At this point the trip seemed a long way off.  Then the cruise document requirements arrived by email.

We needed to obtain a Brazilian visa for the two stops the cruise line would make in Brazil; San Salvador Bahia and Rio de Janiero.  The visa service used by the cruise line stated that it would cost $400 each and that we would have to be without our passports for up to 8 weeks.  Considering that we were already abroad, we weren’t about to be without our passports for any length of time.  Plus the price seemed a little ridiculous, nearly doubling for expedited service which would still have taken 4 to 6 weeks.  Damn!

Searching for solutions we decided to try the Brazilian consulate in Madrid.  We had been meaning to spend a little more time exploring Madrid anyway and from the consulate’s website it appeared that we could make this happen.  After making the appointments online (we had to make two; one for each of us – back to back) we received a list of documents and information we would need to bring with us.  This we could do after all of our careful preparation.  We needed passport sized photos (easily and cheaply obtained), bank statements, cruise documents, etc.  Our appointment was scheduled for early September and we were assured that if our documents were complete, and in order, we could obtain our visas on the same day.  At no point did we discuss the cost of these visas with anybody (potentially a really bad mistake).

We said goodbye to Ricardo, Klara, Tuva and Greg.  Diana left at the end of the month for a long driving tour around Spain with an old friend.  Andrew and Allison had not yet returned from the states and Kellie traveled to England and Brit was running around Spain with Anabel so we settled in to work on our Spanish, explore Granada and practice our tapas with the professors (Miguel, Rafa, Carlos and Antonio especially) and students from Castile.  During this time we met Mike and Pam, a lovely English couple who were living in the Costa Blanca region of Spain and we spent quite a bit of time listening, after hours, to our friend and wonderful guitarist, Wahdi play the guitar.

We also continued to learn about the history of this wonderful city from our good friend Fernando at Puertas de las Pesas.  Thanks Nando for being so patient with our language skills and for continuing to speak to us until we started to learn to understand the language and the dialect of Granada!

We settled into the late summer Andalucian lifestyle being active in the mornings and evenings, eating the large meal of the day in the afternoon followed by a siesta and then showering and putting on new clothes in the early evening.  The days passed by in an enjoyable blur even though early one morning, in the dark Mike tripped and fell face first into a piece of furniture and broke his nose.  An encouraging sign during this small trauma was: wondering where Marilyn had disappeared to while trying to stem the flow of blood with a very small cloth Mike called out “Que haces?”  Apparently we were beginning to “think” in Spanish a little bit.  After a bit of straightening and many, many jokes from our Spanish friends who found Mike’s two slightly black eyes hilarious, everything turned out okay although the nose does have a bit of a curve to it now.

We didn’t go to the doctor or a hospital for Mike’s nose but at one point Marilyn lost a crown and had to visit a local dentist.  We also made an appointment for Mike to see a dermatologist about removing a mole we were concerned about.  Our first experience with the Spanish healthcare system!