Another ethnic day at the gym....

The last time I blogged about a trip to the gym, I talked about my first-ever viewing of the craziness that is Walter Mercado on Telemundo. Today, at the humble 24 hour fitness I go to in the ghetto of Altadena/Pasadena (Whenever I mention the ghetto of either 'dena, Ro laughs at this notion. But yes, there are undoubtedly ghetto parts of my town), I ran into a celebrity...of sorts. I think 'celebrity' is a bit generous, so we'll call him a 'recognizable face'. Nevertheless, it's the only 'recognizable face' at the gym I've ever seen. This afternoon, striding across the cardio floor in his basketball shorts and t-shirt, was none other than this guy:


That's right ladies, eat your hearts out. Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite goes to my gym. Don't be jealous. There is a total lack of hot guys that work out at my gym, so it's about par for the course that our only celeb would be this unimpressive. But if I see him there again, maybe I'll ask him if he's taken his elliptical machine off any sweet jumps.

"Listen Pedro, I don't know how they do things down in Juarez, but here at the Magic Johnson 24 hour fitness, we have a little thing called pride."

Oh come on, people!

Tonight I went to the Dodger game, and discovered proof-positive why people should need a permit to procreate. Give these idiots a lengthy application process, and a little red tape to wade through, and we might all be spared this horror:


Remember: Friends don't let friends give their 2-year-olds a mohawk. This should also apply to kiddie mullets. Because let's face it, these hairstyles aren't attractive on anyone at ANY age. But at least spare the children, for God sakes.

I've found the new Atkins diet.

A couple weeks ago, my roommate went to the shooting range with her boyfriend for some target practice. She was so proud of the fact that her cute little pink bullets shot the scary man picture on the hay bale, that she brought it home as a sort of trophy to show off her shooting prowess. Since then, it's been on our refrigerator as her proud accomplishment, much as a third grader slaps up a stellar spelling test with a check-plus-plus score on it. "Look Mom! Aren't you proud?! Me is smart!"

Never mind that it's blocking my magnetic '08 Dodger schedule. Let's find the good in the situation. When I come to the refrigerator in boredom for food that I don't really want or need, this is the picture that greets me:
I have to say, seeing this is much more effective than what other women do to stop themselves from raiding the fridge and going on a binge...pictures of ridiculously fat women that insult them or swimsuit models to inspire them. This just scares the hell out of me and makes me run the other way.

Thankfully, the visibility of my bitchin' Dwight K. Schrute magnet had not been compromised. Otherwise it would have been an all-out war.

*Please notice the proportion of big buff perp in comparison to his gun. The gun looks to be about the size of those cheap waterguns you win as a consolation prize at a church carnival at the 'go fish' booth. If only the gun was clear plastic and hot pink, then the lameness would have been complete.

The flight home...and PICTURES!

I returned home from Spain on Saturday night...and this time my luggage was waiting for me on the other end. BONUS! Our flights were on time, and we made our connection in Chicago with plenty of time. The only negative was having to navigate the ridiculous rat maze of the Madrid airport again, which I mentioned in a previous post that it reminded me of an Ikea. Once we checked our bags and went through security, we were sent up and down several escalators, a train, countless turns, and numerous passport checks before we reached our terminal, and of course, our flight was at the very end of the terminal. The security there was noticeably higher than anywhere I'd flown out of before (this includes Washington DC, which is TIGHT), but maybe that's just how it is in Europe. Some of those pesky Basque Separatists had been setting off car bombs in the northern part of the country the day before, so maybe that had something to do with it. I started reading up on them a little more tonight...I'm really glad that I read this article from 2006 AFTER I got home. Explains why they're a tad uptight with airport security in Madrid. Yikes.

Many of you know that I'm not a very good flier. In fact, I have to take meds to have a non-anxiety riddled experience. I know all that extra security should make me feel better, but it just makes me wonder what security knows that they're not telling the rest of us. While I was going through my 389th checkpoint, having my passport scrutinized for the umpteenth time, I started to feel really uneasy. And of course, I'd taken my anti-freak out pill much later than I normally like to, and it hadn't started to kick in yet. By the time I got in line to board at the gate, I was doing everything I could to keep it together. I sang show tunes in my head, thought about the people I was excited to see at home, chatted up my co-workers I was traveling with, whatever I could to distract myself and keep calm. But it wasn't going away, and of course, we were seated in the back of the massive A340 jet. Being stuck in the back of a plane does wonders for someone with some claustrophobia/flying issues. And when I say we were in the back, I mean THE EFFING BACK. I'm 99% sure we passed by Rosa Parks sitting in a seat closer to the front than we were. After an eternity, and another 1/2 of a pill to keep me from literally running off the plane, the doors finally closed, and we left. Shortly after takeoff, I thankfully knocked out for much of the beginning of the flight, waking up only when I smelled the food cart come by. I may have been a basket case earlier, but there's always room for free food. :)

We finished our teacher interviews on Wednesday afternoon (the day after my drunken flamenco post), which then gave us until we left (Saturday AM) to explore Madrid. Here's a few pictures from the fun we had in the city....

Enjoying my suckling pig meal on Monday night at Botin, the oldest restaurant in the world (according to the Guinness Book of Records). And while it was an amazing meal, this was the last meal of pork I had in Spain. When you're offered dried, cured ham 3 meals a day, and it's hanging in every restaurant window you pass by, you tend to develop an aversion to it. I've been home two days, and I'm still on a total pig embargo. I can't stand to look at it, taste it, smell it, or think about it.


Plaza Mayor

Plaza Del Sol...the city center.
The Royal Palace...over 2,000 rooms inside. What a total hole, right?


The Sunday Flea Market...a weekend tradition in Madrid. Notice the outfit I'm wearing...if you can see the stench waves coming off me, it's because it's the same outfit I've been wearing since Friday...our luggage didn't arrive until later that night.
On the bus tour of Madrid...I just thought this was pretty.


The Madrid Botanical Gardens

I know these are just dying tulips, but they looked like they were on fire....

The trumpet man outside the Prado.

The crazy drunk hobo from Plaza Mayor that tried to steal my waffle. What fool thinks it's a good idea to steal food from Jen? THIS dude...who before he came after my waffle, attempted to steal a guy's bottle of champagne (pictured below). And yes, those ARE shoe boxes on his back, held in place by packing tape. And to complete this sexy look, his fly was down too, but I wasn't lucky enough to get it in the shot.

A nun outside KFC. Because you just don't see that every day.

Our Friday trip to Toledo, the medieval walled city....

The streets are so tiny here, I could touch the wall on both sides.

And although ham and I are currently not on speaking terms, my love affair with cheese continues. I had to get a picture of this cheese-filled store window in Toledo.

And finally, the main staple of my trip to Spain...chocolate con churros. The hot chocolate is amazing...it's the consistency of cake batter. Then you dip the fried churros in the chocolate...unreal. I had it as often as I could, at every cafe possible, so that I could become an expert on where the best one was served.
Time for bed, and having sweet dreams of swimming in vats of chocolate con churros. Or nightmares of being chased by pigs. I hope it's not the latter.

Wine.

Went to the flamenco show. Slept through the second half of it, thanks to jet lag. After, we went to the bar across the street, and powered down several bottles of red wine. We met a gypsy. He was nice. He did not pickpocket us. Then I got drunk with my co-workers, and here we are now! My first drunk post.

Somehow, through the events of the evening, I now have the nickname "Corn Nuts". I'm not certain how this came to be.

More to come...good night. I have to look impossibly fresh in about 5 hours for teacher candidates.

Day 3 in Spain...or rather...Dia Tres en Espana (I'm sure that's not how you say it)

A couple notes from our interviews with teachers...

Several English words, when spoken by Spainards, end up sounding a tiny bit different.

Examples:

FOCUS...ends up sounding like 'Fuck us'. Um, no thank you. This is an interview room, not a sex den.

SUCCESS...sounds like 'Sex Ass'. These people are just very subliminally sexual. Or maybe my mind is just in the gutter. Maybe both.

Things are going well...we've gotten some good teachers so far. One bummer was that our two best teachers-a married couple- we hired yesterday (which also teach math...VERY tough to find GOOD math teachers) just faxed us to say they decided to back out of the program. Eff. Better to know it now than later when we return to the U.S., but it's a disappointment nonetheless. It's ok...we still have two more days of interviews, and hopefully they are fruitful.

Last night's dinner at Botin was awesome. Turns out it's not just the oldest restaurant in Spain, but in the WORLD (in fact, it's in the guinness book of records). I did end up having the suckling pig....but I'm officially porked out. If it wasn't their specialty, I probably wouldn't have ordered it. But it was REALLY good...I guess after being in business almost 300 years, you've perfected your recipes. And the bottle of wine Jesus picked out for us was fantastic....when translated into English, it's called "The Blood of the Bull", or something to that affect. Please note that it did not actually taste like blood. Much. I just re-read this last paragraph about Jesus picking us out wine for dinner that has the word 'blood' in the title. Oooo, biblical....

LUGGAGE!

Since Thursday night, I've been sporting the same stupid outfit because Iberia airlines can't get their baggage handling together. Do yourself a favor if you ever fly into Madrid airport...pack a change of clothes in your carry on. Apparently lost luggage is a very regular occurance in this airport. When we met for our teacher meeting on Sunday night at our hotel, there were four of us from the western states reps (which was out of 15 total reps) that didn't get our luggage. Luckily it showed up last night, and I've never been happier. Of course, we'd already gone out and spent money on new stuff to wear for the interviews...but I think I'm going to keep what I bought. I worked too hard trying on so many ill fitting outfits in the last 48 hours, that those clothes I bought are my trophy. I'd mentioned in my previous post, but the clothes in Spain are not very big. It's really hard to find anything over a size 6 or 8. And if you do, it's cut really funky and doesn't hang right anyway. I was dreading going in another dressing room just to stand in front of the mirror in something that I feel like a stuffed sausage in. And I'm fully aware that I'm not fat...but I'm a normal sized American gal. Our co-worker's wife was telling us that there is a real problem with women and eating disorders in Spain. I believe it. You have no choice but to starve yourself if you want to wear anything besides a burlap sack. What a horrible message they're sending out to these women.

So when my luggage arrived, you can imagine my elation. The luxury of actually getting to change my clothes was like being an Ethiopian kid invited to Souplantation. Oh, the choices I had! It was glorious. And I realize I might be a little dramatic (shocking), since it was only 2 days, but the last thing you want to wear after being in airports and on planes for 15 hours is the outfit you had on. Plus, there was something very unnerving about being in a foreign country and not having your personal items. And as anyone knows that's met me for more than a couple hours, there's nothing I hate more than not being in control of something.

And the language barrier makes it hard to understand what's going on. I will forever kick myself for not taking Spanish in high school. Both the co-workers I'm with are fluent Spanish speakers, and it's so nice to have them around to translate, but it's frustrating, and I feel like a total idiot. I hate having to ask for help, and being the only one that doesn't know what's going on. I wish I'd at least gone and bought a Spanish dictionary/phrase book, so I could at least TRY to communicate, but time did not allow it before I left. I feel like such a stupid American when I have to talk to someone and ask if they habla English before giving them the courtesy of trying to speak in their native tongue. It's mildly humiliating.

I hope these posts of mine don't reek of negativity, because all in all, this has been a great trip so far. But the quirky experiences must be shared. I've eaten amazing food, the weather's been fantastic, and we hired 3 AWESOME teachers today (for those of you who don't know, that's why I'm here...to interview/hire Spanish teachers for my company). Tomorrow night, we're going to a dinner/flamenco show, which I'm really excited about. Tonight we're going to a restaurant called Botin. It's evidently the oldest restaurant in Spain, and Ernest Hemmingway used to hang out there when he used to live here. AND their specialty is serving a whole roasted suckling pig on a tile, so of course that's what we're going to order. If we have leftovers, I plan on dropping them by the Jewish retirement home after dinner. I'm so kind to the elderly.

I'm going to end this post here, and go change my clothes. Maybe twice. Just because I can.