Hot. Uncomfortable in the afternoon. There is no way to survive without lemons and iced tea. Cold showers.
Working on my sandals, plastering walls. Eating Gazpacho from Maripaz, who suddenly appeared at the wall today with a pitcher. Seda is taking a bulerias class in the evenings. Stavros and Geoffrey have cut a bunch of huge beams and planed them, making cross beams. Now they're tiling - the tiles you'll see when you look up at the ceiling, behind the visible beams. Insulation on top of that. And then other stuff.
Translating angry messages from Maria and Maripaz when they saw Geoffrey nearly fall through the ceiling. "He should never have started this crazy project!" Maria looks very upset. They see all. Maripaz just stuck her head over the rooftop a minute earlier and told me to tell Geoffrey he must move his car or it will be towed.
The guys start at random times of the morning. This morning their 7:30 start inspired Maria to send them a thermos of coffee and cookies over the wall. Seda and I went to get some Jerez from the despacho de vinos. It's dark inside and they pour you vino into your own plastic bottle, straight out of the kegs. Then we got sidetracked walking down Calle Sol by a man's collection of Lola Flores photos and records and LPs of tons of flamenco, in his garage. We stopped to talk and he showed us pictures of himself as a young man, dancing. We go shopping in the market, yesterday all four of us. Stavros gets incredible deals and makes us awesome Greek food, and Seda does Turkish of course. Somebody makes lunch around 2:30 or 3:00 and someone else cleans up. Then someone has an idea for dinner and starts it. Everyone likes to cook so there is no need to figure out much.
We might go to Puerto de Santa Maria tonight.
This is the most ideal life. It will end in August cause I'll have to go back to making money. I love having several other people around too. They are easy to live with and we all get along great. It's more interesting than being ever just two people living together.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Thursday, August 9, 2012
I don't remember where I left off...
Well, Geoffrey drove from London a couple weeks ago.
I've been helping him with a thousand projects around his house: he is currently taking the roof off the suite at the front.
The week before last, we went to Montanchez, in Extremadura, where a Londoner friend of his has property in the countryside. We tented there for two nights and went to markets on Saturday morning, bought cheap cheese, sausage and wine, and I bought a jacknife, one of the ones made by hand locally - you can see the pin pounded by a hammer, that holds it together. The thought was that it would cut leather, which I have a stash of, but mostly it was for the artisanship.
There's been a concert in Puerto de Santa Maria, with some famous and excellent flamenco singers, in a football stadium - a weird atmosphere, but very local... very Andaluz - full of hot young gitanos and gitanas decked out, among the families and people of all ages. We had potato chips freshly cut and friend right there at a stand, and a jug of rebujito.
I am making my own rebujito every day. You need lemons in the heat. Two lemons get squished into a tall vase, cane sugar is added, lots of water, and a little bit of jerez (sherry).
Geoffrey goes to the market almost every day to get some type of fish. Sardines, Mackeral, Cazon (dogfish), squid. Last night we made cola de toro. He used to eat it in Ireland but there it was cheap. Here it is a delicacy.
On Sunday we went to los Canos de Meca, a beach beside the Trafalgar lighthouse. It is a gorgeous beach. I tried to snorkel but was not very successful cause I get scared of breathing under water. Geoffrey looked in vain for shrimp, and collected seaweed so we could steam it. He carries a gas burner with him sometimes, in case any wild food might turn up, that he can have for lunch.
My friend Mika, who lived here in 2010, just visited from Turkey, where she now lives (she is Japanese).
I suppose there are other things to tell, but right now, I need to go do stuff. Probably another trip to a different building supply store.
Till next time...
Well, Geoffrey drove from London a couple weeks ago.
I've been helping him with a thousand projects around his house: he is currently taking the roof off the suite at the front.
The week before last, we went to Montanchez, in Extremadura, where a Londoner friend of his has property in the countryside. We tented there for two nights and went to markets on Saturday morning, bought cheap cheese, sausage and wine, and I bought a jacknife, one of the ones made by hand locally - you can see the pin pounded by a hammer, that holds it together. The thought was that it would cut leather, which I have a stash of, but mostly it was for the artisanship.
There's been a concert in Puerto de Santa Maria, with some famous and excellent flamenco singers, in a football stadium - a weird atmosphere, but very local... very Andaluz - full of hot young gitanos and gitanas decked out, among the families and people of all ages. We had potato chips freshly cut and friend right there at a stand, and a jug of rebujito.
I am making my own rebujito every day. You need lemons in the heat. Two lemons get squished into a tall vase, cane sugar is added, lots of water, and a little bit of jerez (sherry).
Geoffrey goes to the market almost every day to get some type of fish. Sardines, Mackeral, Cazon (dogfish), squid. Last night we made cola de toro. He used to eat it in Ireland but there it was cheap. Here it is a delicacy.
On Sunday we went to los Canos de Meca, a beach beside the Trafalgar lighthouse. It is a gorgeous beach. I tried to snorkel but was not very successful cause I get scared of breathing under water. Geoffrey looked in vain for shrimp, and collected seaweed so we could steam it. He carries a gas burner with him sometimes, in case any wild food might turn up, that he can have for lunch.
My friend Mika, who lived here in 2010, just visited from Turkey, where she now lives (she is Japanese).
I suppose there are other things to tell, but right now, I need to go do stuff. Probably another trip to a different building supply store.
Till next time...
Friday, July 13, 2012
Coffee in Plaza San Lorenzo. I didn't bring any stimulants with me to Sachiko's house, so I had to go out, though I am trying not to even spend 1.20€, because I will be getting along on about 300€ this month. Nice salary, eh? And that's if each of the three students I presently have continues with the current number of classes every week. I have had a myriad of responses to my ad in Jerez, but nobody is biting. Perhaps they think 15€ per hour is too high. That is the only reason possible that so many people have not responded back after I told them the price. Pitiful, eh?
Well, I am not dispuesta to lower it. That's because I am sure there are just barely enough out there to pay what I'm asking. I just need to do more advertising if I want them. At present I don't.
Aside from yesterday and today, when I have to come in to Sevilla for classes with Marcelino and Paco, I have been hiding away from the world, happily alone, at Geoffrey's place, where I moved all my things last Tuesday. It has taken several days cleaning to clean out the dust, to try to fight the ants and the mice. Part of the mice fighting operation has been to try to fill holes in the walls and clean up areas they could possibly be nesting in, in the house. I don't know if Geoffrey will like a woman doing stereotypical things and interfering, but I washed his previously cleaned clothes (which sit for weeks or months on end, improperly put away, and gathering dust and mouse droppings) and wrapped them in plastic. Geoffrey is a bachelor working very hard on fixing the major infrastructure of his crazy house, and no one can expect a guy under this circumstance to do more than wash his clothes and throw them in a pile somewhere. Maria watched me one day do 5 loads of laundry. After I woke up from a siesta around 7, she called me to her window by the clothes drying patio and offered me a coffee and some cookies. She is totally wonderful, this lady. She has the hugest sparkle in her eye and appear to have a lot of energy. She is 86. She speaks directly, and says what she means, but politely, and still with tact.
I still have not beat the mice. I have banished them from what I'm using as my bedroom though, after waking up at 3 one night to see a mouse perched on a beautiful old framed print of English countryside, and chasing it into a hole in the wall near the head of the bed.
But I've made bread in the halogen oven, a strange little thing that sits on the floor and has a British plug that has to use an adaptor, and requires the fridge to be unplugged for a while.
I am desperate to start working on my projects - the first real things I have done in my life. All the rest has been some kind of bullshit, I sometimes feel. The first things I intend to actually use to develop my own business, doing something to earn a living that I feel comfortable with and don't hate. With the house partly under control (still glue on cardboard with slowly rotting food in the middle, sitting in various places, still no mice) I finally got the courage up to start. There's no point in drafting more patterns until I can get a sewing maching, and with my money stolen (last week a whole month's salary - 500€ - yes I know, pitiful) it's hard to think about doing that yet.
But I got a box of plaster, and the next day, came across the ingenious idea of buying a cheap pair of shoes from the Chinese store (despite its political incorrect sound, that's what the stores full of everything cheap are called here, "Chinos", because everything is from China and the owners are Chinese). I found a cute pair of totally crappy pumps that fit the width of my foot perfectly but of course scrunched my toes into a crippling position, and bought them. I tried to communicate with the Chinese lady in Spanish, saying I wanted to buy the stained and dirty pair of flat white cloth display shoes for 3€ instead of 5€ marked on them, because I was only going to "dañar" them anyways (pour plaster into them after olive-oiling them). I don't think she understood. She found a good pair, and I told her again that I wanted the dirty ones, but for less money. No dice. So I got myself the 10€ discounted ones. One shoe is still anxiously waiting for me to remove the cast, when I get back to Jerez tomorrow.
How totally happy I am in Jerez right now. I don't really want to meet anyone, do anything, I just want to be alone in a very quiet house, surrounded by mostly abandoned houses and swallows and bats, and make shoe lasts.
Well, I am not dispuesta to lower it. That's because I am sure there are just barely enough out there to pay what I'm asking. I just need to do more advertising if I want them. At present I don't.
Aside from yesterday and today, when I have to come in to Sevilla for classes with Marcelino and Paco, I have been hiding away from the world, happily alone, at Geoffrey's place, where I moved all my things last Tuesday. It has taken several days cleaning to clean out the dust, to try to fight the ants and the mice. Part of the mice fighting operation has been to try to fill holes in the walls and clean up areas they could possibly be nesting in, in the house. I don't know if Geoffrey will like a woman doing stereotypical things and interfering, but I washed his previously cleaned clothes (which sit for weeks or months on end, improperly put away, and gathering dust and mouse droppings) and wrapped them in plastic. Geoffrey is a bachelor working very hard on fixing the major infrastructure of his crazy house, and no one can expect a guy under this circumstance to do more than wash his clothes and throw them in a pile somewhere. Maria watched me one day do 5 loads of laundry. After I woke up from a siesta around 7, she called me to her window by the clothes drying patio and offered me a coffee and some cookies. She is totally wonderful, this lady. She has the hugest sparkle in her eye and appear to have a lot of energy. She is 86. She speaks directly, and says what she means, but politely, and still with tact.
I still have not beat the mice. I have banished them from what I'm using as my bedroom though, after waking up at 3 one night to see a mouse perched on a beautiful old framed print of English countryside, and chasing it into a hole in the wall near the head of the bed.
But I've made bread in the halogen oven, a strange little thing that sits on the floor and has a British plug that has to use an adaptor, and requires the fridge to be unplugged for a while.
I am desperate to start working on my projects - the first real things I have done in my life. All the rest has been some kind of bullshit, I sometimes feel. The first things I intend to actually use to develop my own business, doing something to earn a living that I feel comfortable with and don't hate. With the house partly under control (still glue on cardboard with slowly rotting food in the middle, sitting in various places, still no mice) I finally got the courage up to start. There's no point in drafting more patterns until I can get a sewing maching, and with my money stolen (last week a whole month's salary - 500€ - yes I know, pitiful) it's hard to think about doing that yet.
But I got a box of plaster, and the next day, came across the ingenious idea of buying a cheap pair of shoes from the Chinese store (despite its political incorrect sound, that's what the stores full of everything cheap are called here, "Chinos", because everything is from China and the owners are Chinese). I found a cute pair of totally crappy pumps that fit the width of my foot perfectly but of course scrunched my toes into a crippling position, and bought them. I tried to communicate with the Chinese lady in Spanish, saying I wanted to buy the stained and dirty pair of flat white cloth display shoes for 3€ instead of 5€ marked on them, because I was only going to "dañar" them anyways (pour plaster into them after olive-oiling them). I don't think she understood. She found a good pair, and I told her again that I wanted the dirty ones, but for less money. No dice. So I got myself the 10€ discounted ones. One shoe is still anxiously waiting for me to remove the cast, when I get back to Jerez tomorrow.
How totally happy I am in Jerez right now. I don't really want to meet anyone, do anything, I just want to be alone in a very quiet house, surrounded by mostly abandoned houses and swallows and bats, and make shoe lasts.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
It is cold tonight in Jerez. There was no swarm of swallows and bats around sunset which made me wonder if there is going to be an earthquake or an apocalypse of some kind. Very weird not to have them.
After I slept this afternoon I washed some clothes and as I was hanging them out, Maria came to the window. From the way she talked I wondered if she thought I was someone else. She said the others had left and didn't even say Adios. It must be confusing for her with Geoffrey only coming here once in a while. I tried to explain to her last time that I'd be back and forth between here and Seville but living here in July.
I planted some tomato seeds in one of the many pots this afternoon.
There is going to be a major battle with mice and ants. There are probably nests of both in various places. If they are not gotten rid of the house is just going to fall down. There is a little bit of a fight with dirt from just general decay - the falling off paint on all the outside walls of this and other houses nearby. When the paint falls off it leaves the sandy structure of the walls bare to just crumble away. The sandy stuff and chipped paint accumulate with the wind in corners and then get blown into the house. I tried to sweep and get rid of the stuff outside that could blow in and have bleached everything according to internet instructions to get rid of ants.
If I had the card reader for my camera I would show pictures of here. But I think it is locked inside Sachiko's friend's suitcase, which I inherited. I've opened and closed it many times, but the other day the combination lock finally must have gotten moved the wrong way and I can't open it.
Jerez water is hard, while Seville's is actually quite nice. My hair is all weird and my tea doesn't taste good. The electricity eventually has to be fixed as it is still on 120V or something crazy like that, while the rest of Europe has long ago gone to 220. Actually Geoffrey said back a while ago that he tested it and it was more like 135. The normal switches are not wired right now, I forget why. The electricity is coming in through the front suite and it is just a bunch of extension cords going along the floor and drilled through holes in the walls. You have to unplug the fridge for a while to use the oven (which is a freestanding little groovy thing, very low on energy - there is also a normal oven which is not plugged in to anything and looks like it has travelled from the UK). You also have to unplug the bathroom light to start the washing machine. As you can gather, he has a lot of work to do here.
After I slept this afternoon I washed some clothes and as I was hanging them out, Maria came to the window. From the way she talked I wondered if she thought I was someone else. She said the others had left and didn't even say Adios. It must be confusing for her with Geoffrey only coming here once in a while. I tried to explain to her last time that I'd be back and forth between here and Seville but living here in July.
I planted some tomato seeds in one of the many pots this afternoon.
There is going to be a major battle with mice and ants. There are probably nests of both in various places. If they are not gotten rid of the house is just going to fall down. There is a little bit of a fight with dirt from just general decay - the falling off paint on all the outside walls of this and other houses nearby. When the paint falls off it leaves the sandy structure of the walls bare to just crumble away. The sandy stuff and chipped paint accumulate with the wind in corners and then get blown into the house. I tried to sweep and get rid of the stuff outside that could blow in and have bleached everything according to internet instructions to get rid of ants.
If I had the card reader for my camera I would show pictures of here. But I think it is locked inside Sachiko's friend's suitcase, which I inherited. I've opened and closed it many times, but the other day the combination lock finally must have gotten moved the wrong way and I can't open it.
Jerez water is hard, while Seville's is actually quite nice. My hair is all weird and my tea doesn't taste good. The electricity eventually has to be fixed as it is still on 120V or something crazy like that, while the rest of Europe has long ago gone to 220. Actually Geoffrey said back a while ago that he tested it and it was more like 135. The normal switches are not wired right now, I forget why. The electricity is coming in through the front suite and it is just a bunch of extension cords going along the floor and drilled through holes in the walls. You have to unplug the fridge for a while to use the oven (which is a freestanding little groovy thing, very low on energy - there is also a normal oven which is not plugged in to anything and looks like it has travelled from the UK). You also have to unplug the bathroom light to start the washing machine. As you can gather, he has a lot of work to do here.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
The azotea - rooftop patio - is totally overtaken by lichen. I am wandering around on the grubbiest floors my mother could imagine, barefooted, because my feet have been swollen lately. The internet will only be on for a little while longer. I lay on the cushions on Geoffrey's bench made of pallets. There is bird shit on the cushions but I don't even care. The sun is setting and the crumbling and peeling paint buildings are orange. Swallows dive right near me. Swarms of them are screeching all over the sky. Pretty soon the bats will come out. The bathroom door is always open, it leads up to the patio. I have a dark tan, my hair is all messy and I have hours of sweat dried onto me and am dirty but I don't even care.
Barrio San Miguel my new home. There is electricity (though it is rather unconventional at this point), no restrictions on water, gas for tea and a washing machine washing my clothes. There are no sounds except it and the swallows.
Barrio San Miguel my new home. There is electricity (though it is rather unconventional at this point), no restrictions on water, gas for tea and a washing machine washing my clothes. There are no sounds except it and the swallows.
What a relief it is to be in a house of young women with suitcases here and there. I don't have a lot to do until tomorrow evening when I teach Patricia in Jerez, then back here again Friday morning for Zaizi. I will not be teaching them in the summer either, I just found out. Which means I have a lot to do today, though it is all ambiguous: figure out how to survive.
Make some posters, try to figure out other ways of making a living... (I hate that it is so random for me... that I have to think up something, rather than just have something occur to me that I'd like to do).
Take Faro, who looks dejected after imploring me for some of my tomato and aguacate sandwich, for a walk. Go talk to Maria, maybe try to get Paco to do something about the computer he sold me that has to be turned off and on again or fiddled with every time I want to connect to the internet.
Even Marcelino is away Wednesday to Sunday this week.
As far as my former housing situation, I don't know if a debriefing will help me, but this is essentially it: Take two people who are generally nice and not all that bad of persons, but who have problems trusting others in general: one who is very nervous and has an aggressive sort of energy at times, who figures that she has complete say over all details since it is her home, and the other who is unable to be anything but polite when someone is giving her this kind of energy which sits very poorly with her. They do not mix. Disaster ensues.
One thing my family is incredibly mistaken about me is my so called 'easy going' nature. Polite to a fault, yes, able to suppress large degrees of displeasure, yes; able to hold in a huge amount... yes, until I cannot stand it.
Make some posters, try to figure out other ways of making a living... (I hate that it is so random for me... that I have to think up something, rather than just have something occur to me that I'd like to do).
Take Faro, who looks dejected after imploring me for some of my tomato and aguacate sandwich, for a walk. Go talk to Maria, maybe try to get Paco to do something about the computer he sold me that has to be turned off and on again or fiddled with every time I want to connect to the internet.
Even Marcelino is away Wednesday to Sunday this week.
As far as my former housing situation, I don't know if a debriefing will help me, but this is essentially it: Take two people who are generally nice and not all that bad of persons, but who have problems trusting others in general: one who is very nervous and has an aggressive sort of energy at times, who figures that she has complete say over all details since it is her home, and the other who is unable to be anything but polite when someone is giving her this kind of energy which sits very poorly with her. They do not mix. Disaster ensues.
One thing my family is incredibly mistaken about me is my so called 'easy going' nature. Polite to a fault, yes, able to suppress large degrees of displeasure, yes; able to hold in a huge amount... yes, until I cannot stand it.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
This blog's name will have to change or I will have to start a new one because I now live in Jerez.
This wasn't supposed to happen until the 15th, but it happened today.
Yesterday I came to give a class again to Patricia. Well, I arrived on Sunday night part way through the Eurocup final (futbol). I met Geoffrey at Bar Porron. The next day I helped Geoffrey a little with his rental suite, and went over to Stephen and Patricia's (a different Patricia). Geoffrey's flight back to London left about the same time I had to go teach. I stayed last night here alone.
Well, I would be breathing a big sigh of relief if I wasn't in shock. Sometimes it seems like events really must be due to the stars aligning right or something. A god makes less sense at these sorts of times, because it seems very random. He would have helped you already if he was going to. Then all of a sudden everything just moves at once. On the way down on Sunday night (after have a morning English class with Marcelino and then going at his invitation to the Pena Nino Alfalfa, where he was hanging out with the guys and making paella, which was a whole other interesting story) I text messaged Pepa because I hadn't had a chance to see her that day. I told her that I was in Jerez, that I'd be back the next day or the day after. We had already agreed that I'd leave on July 15th, leaving her with a full month's rent (till the end of July). Well, I didn't really have any choice but to agree because she said that's the way it was, and she's got my damage deposit. She had been really sticky, trying her best to make things difficult for me, when I gave her a month's notice to leave on the 15th. Even though she required a month's notice, she refuses to show the place to anyone new until the former person leaves, and she was going on holiday on the 15th so wouldn't show it till August, but I could not opt to live there part time, between there and Jerez. That was not allowed. So I was going to lose half a month's rent.
So I told her on the way down here that I would have to leave her the damage deposit instead of giving her this month's rent. I have no idea why that was so terrible to her. She wrote back that this was not acceptable, and as of July second, I was no longer living in her house. Come and get your stuff and your deposit, she said.
So I am overjoyed.
I am going to stay at Mara's place and walk Faro a little while she is away, for this week in Seville. Geoffrey had already offered me his place for all of July and so before I left here this morning, I called up a guy with a moving van. I was going to have to rent something anyways, to get my table and heavy 3rd suitcase down here. Rather than moving the stuff in emergency to Mara's house, as I thought last night, I just made the decision as I was about to catch the train back. I have never thrown all my stuff so randomly into bags. Anyways, two Javiers packed my stuff in their van, got us through rush hour out of Seville at 3:00 and past the hills of sunflowers and a Lebrija that is still green, and by 4:30 or so I was back here. Luckily the guy upstairs has his internet turned on and that is why I am able to write this. I will have poor internet access for the next month. I go back again tonight, stay at Mara's with Daniela who is also staying there, so I can teach tomorrow early.
Now I will sweep the dirty terrace by Maria's window (86 year old with a big sparkle in her eye), as she has had to look at a dirty terrace for a long time. Then I will attempt some kind of organisation of my worldly belongings and then get back to Seville, the 3rd trip between there and here today.
This wasn't supposed to happen until the 15th, but it happened today.
Yesterday I came to give a class again to Patricia. Well, I arrived on Sunday night part way through the Eurocup final (futbol). I met Geoffrey at Bar Porron. The next day I helped Geoffrey a little with his rental suite, and went over to Stephen and Patricia's (a different Patricia). Geoffrey's flight back to London left about the same time I had to go teach. I stayed last night here alone.
Well, I would be breathing a big sigh of relief if I wasn't in shock. Sometimes it seems like events really must be due to the stars aligning right or something. A god makes less sense at these sorts of times, because it seems very random. He would have helped you already if he was going to. Then all of a sudden everything just moves at once. On the way down on Sunday night (after have a morning English class with Marcelino and then going at his invitation to the Pena Nino Alfalfa, where he was hanging out with the guys and making paella, which was a whole other interesting story) I text messaged Pepa because I hadn't had a chance to see her that day. I told her that I was in Jerez, that I'd be back the next day or the day after. We had already agreed that I'd leave on July 15th, leaving her with a full month's rent (till the end of July). Well, I didn't really have any choice but to agree because she said that's the way it was, and she's got my damage deposit. She had been really sticky, trying her best to make things difficult for me, when I gave her a month's notice to leave on the 15th. Even though she required a month's notice, she refuses to show the place to anyone new until the former person leaves, and she was going on holiday on the 15th so wouldn't show it till August, but I could not opt to live there part time, between there and Jerez. That was not allowed. So I was going to lose half a month's rent.
So I told her on the way down here that I would have to leave her the damage deposit instead of giving her this month's rent. I have no idea why that was so terrible to her. She wrote back that this was not acceptable, and as of July second, I was no longer living in her house. Come and get your stuff and your deposit, she said.
So I am overjoyed.
I am going to stay at Mara's place and walk Faro a little while she is away, for this week in Seville. Geoffrey had already offered me his place for all of July and so before I left here this morning, I called up a guy with a moving van. I was going to have to rent something anyways, to get my table and heavy 3rd suitcase down here. Rather than moving the stuff in emergency to Mara's house, as I thought last night, I just made the decision as I was about to catch the train back. I have never thrown all my stuff so randomly into bags. Anyways, two Javiers packed my stuff in their van, got us through rush hour out of Seville at 3:00 and past the hills of sunflowers and a Lebrija that is still green, and by 4:30 or so I was back here. Luckily the guy upstairs has his internet turned on and that is why I am able to write this. I will have poor internet access for the next month. I go back again tonight, stay at Mara's with Daniela who is also staying there, so I can teach tomorrow early.
Now I will sweep the dirty terrace by Maria's window (86 year old with a big sparkle in her eye), as she has had to look at a dirty terrace for a long time. Then I will attempt some kind of organisation of my worldly belongings and then get back to Seville, the 3rd trip between there and here today.
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