(Pssst! You´re welcome to start here, but I don´t think things get interesting until Chapter 3. You are, of course, free to do as you please. Enjoy- Yours truly, Huckleberry Grimm)
First, dear readers, I´ll have to apologize to all of you fantastic people who I have yet to contact even to say, ¨I´ve made it safe and sound.¨Let me briefly offer the sorry excuse of not having any liesure access to internet and a keyboard until this very moment in my journey.
And he catches them up by revealing the where´s and who´s and how´s of the life rhythm obliterating transition derooting and replanting entails.
I´ve had the luck of finding a roomate who knows the city fairly well, and she had the luck of finding a fantastic apartment in perhaps the most interesting part of Caceres, The Old Part. Yes, I know, not too original, but perhaps la parte antigua still has a touch more romanticism than it´s literal transatlantic translation. Regardless, the old part is profoundly charming. Every day I pass through mobs and hounds and processions and ¨inquisitive masses¨ constructed out of stones and echoes each according to their own composition, and constitution. But, imagination aside, the striking beauty of the old part retains dignity and a sense of living creative force as people quite literally still live there. The tourism is no where near as invasive as I´ve seen in Granada and once night falls one can walk aimlessly up and down streets whose stone appear to be rock rivers coated so thick with the glaze of time, they seem motionless and out of time. Living just a stone´s throw from this World UNESCO site is a luxury.
Once I got to Caceres from the United States, I was immediately greeted by Isabel, my roomate, who took me to our future flat. The landlord informed us that we couldn´t move in until a few days later so I took a detour and visited Montijo where Isabel´s family lives. Montijo feels like a small town in the United States, and its corn protected circumference seemed like a natural transition from my home departure 40 hours earlier that day in Mukwonago, WI. The chance to relax in any ´home´ after traveling was welcome and I severely appreciated being hosted by such welcoming people.
Now, Montijo was all fun and games, but I had shit to do: namely apply for legal residency, set up a bank account, get a phone, assess my finances, go to the school where I´m teaching, and last but certainly not least – enjoy some freedom, alone, going nowhere in particular, exploring nuances of little nothings in peace and quiet and enjoying the universe at large in the small. No matter how much I love spaniards, this simply wasn´t something I could do cooped up like a babysat baffoon.
Once I was able to move in to the house, I received a visit from one of my best friends, known to many of you as Ike. In some sense we explored my new home of a city, Caceres, and went to Merida for a day trip but in reality tourism in Spain wasn´t really the focus; I hadn´t had a chance to catch up with him since he left for Norway+ultra in the spring.
Once Ike´s time in Spain was spent, I started ye old nesting and also giving my spanish a little review. You see, between being Huckleberry I don´t have much time for anything else in the states, so formal or academic review of spanish simply wasn´t possible before I came here. A simple paratrooper experience would have to suffice. After having not spoken much for the past 4 years there are some good some bad and some very spanish repurcusions to arriving as I have done.
The good: I can understand the majority of what I hear with the exeption of colloquialisms, local accents, and of course culturally relevant jokes.
The bad: I´m still in translation mode when attempting to express responses dealing in the abstract. Not that that´s bad, but where as taking time to say something is generally accepted in English, it has absolutely no value in spain. Which leads me to the ugly.
The spain: MELODRAMA EVERYWHERE
Ok, moving on: part two will arrive as soon as I return this computer back to the nice librarian, and get another one. +1, spain.
