It's pronounced seh-bee-cee

It was like selecting the best cut of meat at the butcher or finding the ripest apple at the supermarket. Each one had to be carefully inspected; every bruise, blemish or unsavory feature putting one after another out of the running. Finally we decided on number 4. I punched it in and went to retrieve my bicycle.

It'd been a while since I'd ridden a bike and as I pressed the pedal down for the first time the front half jerked right almost running Benji over. He'd been nice enough to let me borrow his Sevici card and show me how to use it and here I was trying to run him down. Two more pedals and I had the bike straightened out; heading smoothly down the green bike path toward the metro stop at Parque de los Principes. I arrived quickly and safely and (thanks to the path) the trip was much less stressful then riding a bike through Seattle.

I've been in Sevilla for five months now and this is the first time I've taken advantage of its bike rental service. Sure the bikes are heavy and sometimes the seats are worse for the wear, but with a Sevici stop every few blocks, they're a convenient way to get where you need to go. The cards are 25 euro for the year and as long as you don't use a bike for more than half hour at a time you don't pay anything extra. All I need to do now is get one.

My Weekend

I know it's cliche, but it's true. It's a small world. I've traveled half way around it and keep running into people I know from home. This weekend was no exception. My friend Devin, who I haven't seen in years, is studying in Florence and happened to visit Sevilla. We got together for some tapas and drinks and had a chance to catch up on life. The rest of my weekend included eating sushi, seeing 'The Descendants', watching soccer and making Mexican food. I put together a little photo montage of it all and yes, most of it is pictures of food because lets face it, that's what I do in Spain, eat.

Amsterdam

The day we arrived it was cold and windy and rainy and I loved it. The city that is. The weather I could do without. It reminded me a lot of winter in Seattle, but after growing accustomed to 65 and sunny I wasn't quite ready for it. Luckily the heavy rain lasted just one day and our only battle for the next two was against the cold and the occasional drizzle. I dealt with it by buying a hat and drinking lots and lots of coffee. There's few situations in this world that can't be improved by a warm beverage (or a beer).

The staircases in Amsterdam are equally as skinny as the houses and steep. This makes it hard to move furniture, so the Dutch developed a system to get big items in and out of the house. If you look closely there's a beam at the top of each house. They tie a rope on it and then haul their things up.

Weather aside, I really did fall in love with Amsterdam. With an average height of 6'1" the Dutch are the tallest people on Earth and at 5'9" I fit right in. It might be the only place where I've gone out at night at not felt like I towered over others. In fact, I felt like I could have gotten away with 4 inch stilettos. The Netherlands is also home to the most bikes per capita in the world with 16,652,800 people and 16,500,000 bicycles. We opted to be pedestrians the whole time, but I think it would have been fun to rent a bike for a day and get around the city like a local. Maybe next time.

If you do rent a bike be sure to lock it up. Our tour guide warned us that sometimes drunk locals get their kicks by throwing unlocked bikes into the canals.

As it was we had plenty of fun walking around, going on the Heineken brewery, taking a city tour, eating waffles and strolling through Vondel park. I loved seeing all of the skinny houses and the canals and going to the Anne Frank house. We had to wait in line for forty minutes in the wind and rain, but it was worth it. Being able to see what we've all read in her diary and learning more about it was an incredible experience and I would suggest it to anyone visiting Amsterdam.

Learning never ends

I speak Spanish. How well? It depends on the day, but I'm able to understand most thing and can manage to say what I want in one way or another. The kids at school aren't aware of this though since, per my job description, I speak almost no Spanish with them. They've heard me say words or common phrases and a few of them have figured out I at least understand some Spanish, but the general notion is that I don't know very much at all. Considering this, I wasn't surprised Tuesday when I received big smiles and nods of encouragement every time I wrote a Spanish word correctly on the the black board.

I was in fourth grade science class and they were studying weather. The activity was simple- they were provided the words in English and had to translate them into Spanish. The students yelled out the answers and I wrote them down for everyone to see. The words were basic enough and every time I got a thumbs up for spelling one right I couldn't help by smile a bit since it was apparent they hadn't realized I actually know these words. I had just finished writing the last one and was waiting for everyone to finish copying them down when one student walked to the front of the room. He pointed to the word calido (warm) and said very quietly, "there isn't the accent". Then he picked up a piece of chalk, drew a mark above the 'a' and returned to his seat. It was a humble reminder that the language learning process is a long one and that if you keep you ears, eyes and mind open anyone can be your teacher- even a ten year old.

Pesky accents...

How 'bout them resolutions?

So it seems my New Year's resolution to write more blogs is going well. It's already the 10th and these are my first two sentences. I promise there are more to come. I should have a blog written about Amsterdam in the next day or two and seeing as I fell in love with the city, expect to be reading lot and lots about it.

As for now, today was my first day back to work and after three weeks of vacation I think it's going to take a few days until I'm used to waking up early again. I managed to drag myself out of bed this morning just in time to wolf down two slices of toast and proceed to practically run to the bus stop. I was sweating by the time I got there, but I made it on time and was even able to spare a few seconds and snap this photo.