ijustwantastinkinPhone

After 4 visits to the local Movistar shop in Utrera, we finally walked away with one phone that is on a contract. The whole process of getting a contract plan is ridiculously complicated, so I will attempt to break it down for you all:

Visit 1: Went with Elliot's co-worker Danny who speaks Spanish. Spoke with woman who went over the different plans available. Left with phone catalog

Visit 2: Went (just me and Elliot) to buy 2 iPhones (we figured why the hell not; we're in Spain and they're cheap!) on a contract plan. The woman speaks no English, so I am doing my best to translate (Thank you PCHS Spanish teachers). We find out you need a residential number to get a contract plan. We leave with no contract. We buy a pay as you go to tide us over.

Visit 3: Our Spanish drivers' licenses have a number on them. We go to the store hoping that it will work. It doesn't. We leave empty-handed again.

I go through all the steps of getting a resident number, which I will need if I eventually end up working in the Spanish economy. The steps involve copying every page of your passport, your Spanish id card, paying 10 euro, getting each page stamped at Moron (the city), and finally getting a certificate from Sevilla. Fortunately, the Host Nation Liaison, Alicia, is wonderful and helped me out with this.

We get the number.

Visit 4 (last night): Victorious and being happily greeted by the poor woman who has been helping us out each time, we triumphantly produce the NIE number and get a contract going with my name on it! Works like a charm! Number is assigned, iPhone gets the sim card, the Red Sea is parting, and we get a contract! We got a little too confident too fast, because when we attempted to get Elliot a phone, the process came to a screeching halt. Through Google Translate, and eventually by calling Alicia to help translate (my Spanish only goes so far), we find out that since iPhones are uber popular in Europe, Apple only allows one per person. Since we only had one NIE number, we could only get one iPhone. Furthermore, we were unable to get Elliot on the contract, leaving us with only one phone. I'm sure there was a lot more information passed on to me that I didn't understand, but we caught the gist of it. Since I was able to caveman communicate with the phone worker, she assumed I was fluent and kept talking to me like I spoke Spanish very well. I did my best to keep up, so hopefully I didn't sign my soul over to Lucifer or agree to donate a kidney. We decide that we'll have to make a 5th trip next week to get Elliot on the contract with a phone of his own; tomorrow we'll get the process going for him to get an NIE number. After all this is cleared up, we had to wait for our Apple agreement to download and for everything to load onto the phone. In my best Spanish, i told the woman that she was very very nice. She gave me an address book as a present. When everything was all set, she raised her hands to the sky and shouted "Gracias a Dios!" Total time in the shop: 2 hours.

Random Spanish observations:

-There are two buttons on our toilets. We understand that one is for urine and the other for poop; we just can't figure out which is which. That is going to be an uncomfortable convo with Pepe (our landlord who I want to put in my pocket, he's so cute): Which is numero uno? Numero dos?

-Speaking of the toilets, there is only a little tiny bit of water, and there are toilet brushes in every stall you visit. It is proper etiquette to "brush as you flush" as skid marks are a lot more prominent when there isn't a water buffer. The water also helps eliminate smells, so toilets are a little stinkier than back in the States. It's the little things that you take for granted; be grateful for your toilet water, folks!

-French fries are served with everything

-When you go into a grocery store, you have to put on plastic gloves before you handle any produce. You also weigh the produce before you go to the cashier

-In every butcher shop or market, there are legs of ham hanging that are for sale. The Spanish love their ham, and the darker the meat, the pricier it gets. I saw ham legs range from 20 euro to 90. When I say ham legs, I mean the actual leg of the pig: hooves and all. When you get slices of ham as an appetizer at a restaurant, they will just shave off slices from the leg. If you buy it for your house, it usually lasts up until a month. I know it's very common here, but it just grosses me out. I can't get over the hooves.

-Fish and shrimps (eyes and antennae) are also presented whole at supermarkets. When you select your pescado, the worker then chops off the head, cuts off the fins with scissors, and shaves the scales off with a peeler. I witnessed the process, and I felt like Sebastian in the Little Mermaid: turning green as I watch the fish get gutted. I prefer my fish gutting to be behind the scenes

-The bread here is amazing. Fresh. Delicious. Yum.

-Across the street, next to the Paseo, there is a park that has peacocks, storks, and roosters. There are also outdoor exercise machines. I think I'm going to do the elliptical today!