Finally, I Have Some Internet!

Greetings from Martos!

As mentioned in the previous post, we’ve got an apartment! It’s a beautiful 3-bedroom, 2-bath apartment with a balcony, roof access, a back terrace, and a random extra room which we use to store chairs and a sewing machine. The whole thing costs €350 a month, split between the four of us. Fantastic! And I finally have a door that I can close.

We have an address too, if you want to send me things they don’t have here… Brooklyn Lager, peanut butter, something that isn’t ham, you name it…

I’m writing from the comfort of the Martos Public Library – they have free internet for library card holders, of which I am one. We’re working on getting internet at the apartment, but first we need a bank account, and in order to get that we need to get our residency card (NIE), which we can’t do until someone tells us something. I suspect I will also need a bank account to join the gym. They actually have to install a phone line to the apartment – no there isn’t one – and then we’ll have both a land-line and ADSL. (What the A is for, I have no idea.) Until then, we’re doing a lot of reading and Spider Solitaire. Also, playing some guitar and watching “Chuck”.

Of course, with the library card we can also rent movies. ¡Qué genial!

So, three days of work are (just) now under the belt. I’m loving working with the kids (1st through 6th graders), but my job isn’t really clear yet. So far it’s been a lot of reading things out of workbooks, but today we finally got around to playing some games – hangman, mostly, because they know it already and it’s good to practice vocabulary with. I’m going to have to come up with “American” things to do… Any ideas?

Hopefully, I’ll be more in communication now that I have a library card. Just no Skype yet.

Ah, yes. The photo comes to you courtesy of Sam, who took it in the Parque Retiro in Madrid. Here you see me, Poonam, Dietrich, and Dan in front of the statue of El angel caído – in other words, Lucifer. It’s apparently the only statue of Satan commissioned by a municipality in the western world… Or something like that. Anyway, perfect opportunity for a cheesy photo.

More to come later. ¡Hasta Luego!