What Spain’s like

Nothing particularly action-y happens in this post. But I thought I’d better write down what this area of Spain has been like before I leave. Because I know it won’t take me long to forget, and also because everyone keeps asking me what Spain’s like. 🙂

The land:The terrain reminds me of Arizona, but milder, at least in this Northern region. What struck me when I looked out the plane window the first day was all the different colors of the land, and the flat-flat-flat-SURPRISE-it’s-a-mountain contrast. It’s like a lumpy quilt. Dull yellow barley plains fade into red hills spotted with neat rows of olive trees. The hills suddenly jut up into dusty, tree-fringed plateaus. Stitched together it forms a patchwork of pale tans, gray, yellows, and rich Arizona red. Greenery is fascinating, a combination of boring ash trees, cool tropical stuff, some things I’ve never seen before, and even pines.

Rural neighborhoods and towns: There’s not much for green lawns, not in August at least. Yards are red brown dirt, sometimes with scrubby brown grass. Houses look suited for the dry and heat. The roofs are adobe. Walls are either red-brown brick or tan/white stucco, no siding.

Nice to meet you again and again (Also, wind storms)

I’ve been in Spain for a little over a week now. Everything sounds a little less like “holacomotellamasmellamojuanestasbienparecequeoestesmuyconfundidooduermasdepieconlosojosabiertos” and a little more like “¡Hola! ¿Como te llamas? Me llamo Juan. ¿Estás bien? Parece que o estés muy confundido o duermas de pie con los ojos abiertos.” (“Hi! How are you? I’m John. … Are you ok? You look either very extremely confused, or you’ve fallen asleep standing up with your eyes open. It’s kinda creepy.”) Our little convention finished up Tuesday. It was great! I’ve learned a lot and learned I have a lot to learn.

An irrelevant but pretty Spanish sunset over the skyline of Madrid. (Click to embiggen, by the way)

So far I’ve gotten to meet about 100 different people from all kinds of places just here on the grounds! If you’re even anywhere near Madrid (I’m about an hour and a half away) many of the Spaniards you meet aren’t simply Spaniards. They’re Portugueseiards or Ukraineiards who’ve lived in Spain for such and such number of years. (Maybe they don’t call each other Portugueseiards. That actually probably sounds kind of offensive. Don’t call them that.)

On top of that I’ve met a good number of people from… everywhere. A group of us went to play fútbol –the kind you play with your feet—and this little guy named Juan Somethingoranother joined our game toward the end. He asked where we’re all from. “Well,” said one from our group, “He’s from New Zealand, they’re from Portugal, he’s Norwegian, he’s from the Phillipeans, they’re from England, he’s from Ecuador, they’re from Spain, they’re from Australia, he’s from the U.S.… and I’m from Ireland.” Juan Somebody stared: “Oh. …Um, I’m from Spain.”

(There was also a horse just hanging out by the soccer field, listening to this whole conversation. That was cool.)

Rainy with a chance of really weird showers

I slept like a jet-lagged rock last night. And after that spent a good part of the day diligently sitting around like a jet-lagged rock. I’m bunked up in the men’s quarters on the grounds, which is basically a giant tent, like a circus tent, with a few bunkbeds scattered around inside. There are poles in the center of the tent that hold the thing up, and holes in the roof for the poles to go through. At breakfast I asked if it ever rains much in Spain. “No, no llueve mucho.” No? Ok, no problem then!

About 10 minutes later it dumped rain.

Spain:The Adventure Begins!

A view of the planes in Spain. From a plane. In Spain.

Here’s what I did today*:

∙ Got up
∙ Got dressed
∙ Ate breakfast
∙ Went to SPAIN!

*Today being a very loose term encompassing both Tuesday and Wednesday, because my internal clock is so hopelessly screwed up that it’s all been one really long day with a small dark patch in between. For the last two days I’ve had almost absolutely no idea what time it is. This is because my Dad bought me a new watch and set it for Spanish military time. I’m bad at Military time, and I’m bad at Spanish time, and I’m also bad at this watch. Usually it just says I completed Lap 5 in 4:26. Very helpful, that.

I was very proactive about packing for Spain. …Haha, not. 😛 Mom and I agreed we’d be done packing by 2:00 pm on Monday. We missed that deadline and had to set a backup. For 2:00 am. Missed that one too. Last minute realizations included, “Oh! I have 2 sets of clothes!” “Oh, all my dress pants are extraordinarily long!” “The backpack is completely caked with mud!” (That’s what I get for dragging it around an Iowan cornfield. Who knew dirt could be so dirty.)

Late nights are a great cure for perfectionism though. And a good cure for logic in general. At midnight if all your dress pants are too long you decide you’ll just hem them. At 1:00 am you decide you’ll just put them in the washer and hope they shrink a lot. At 3:00 am you just decide you’ll grow taller. And then you go to bed. After a hearty 3 and a half hours of sleep, we zipped off to the Minneapolis airport. I said my goodbyes to Mom and she… didn’t leave. She paced even with me up and down the security line like an anxious dog pacing the shore after a boat pushes off. Except she’s less hairy and was hollering last minute advice over confused stranger’s heads.

Things You Already (Don’t Need To) Know About Me… or, Hi! I’m David Accola!

Hi, I’m David Accola! You should probably know that already, because chances are if you’re bothering to read this we’re friends or relatives or something. Or friends of friends or relatives of relatives of friends. If not, I’m sure you’re a nice person anyway and I’d sure we’d be friends if we ever met. Or maybe even relatives. You never know.

I’ve heard blogs are good excuses talk about yourself to anyone who will listen. So if you’re here for Spain… I guess I’ll get to that eventually. 😛 Right now I’m just sitting in an airport. You really wouldn’t care to hear about it.

Here’s some stuff you might already to know, whether you wanted to or not:

It’s Aliiive! …or, Welcome to My Wog

Testing 123… 4.

Hello, friends! …Um… how are you all doing? I’m good. …Ok, I’m just gonna say this is kind of weird. I have no idea what people are supposed to write about in their first blog post. I mean, you should probably introduce yourself, but that only gets about as far as “Hi, I’m David! …How are you doing?” and then there’s a really long awkward silence.

I don’t really even know what a blog is. Do you know what a blog is? I’m gonna look it up.

…

… So a blog is “a blend of the word web log.” Seems like it should be wlog then, doesn’t it? Or wog. And apparently you’re just supposed to bore people to death with long rambling stories about your kids or your cat or what you had for breakfast, complete with pictures. So pretty much like Twitter or Facebook, but longer and less people bother to read it. I can do long rambling stories, so we should be good!

P.S. I had a burger for breakfast. And a rootbeer float. Just thought you should know.