Why yes, Virginia, yes it is. You may have thought that I was being lazy in my blog writing, and that I had simply forgotten to update you all on life's adventures in Espana. You thought wrong, yo. Our internet and phone has been out at our house for the past two weeks, and it has been the biggest shitstorm of a headache trying to get it fixed. In fact, it's not even fixed yet. I am on the wireless internet at the library on base writing this blog. I figured I at least owed you all an explanation for why I've been MIA for the past two weeks. I have so much to report too, which is what has made this sitch even more frustrating than usual.
Ok, so our problem started when Elliot realized that we had the most basic, and slowest, internet speed. So he had one of his co-workers who speaks Spanish call Telefonica (the landline company) and upgrade our internet contract. When that happened, we were told that it would get shut down for a spell while it upgraded. After it had been down for almost two days, Elliot's co-worker called again and was told that it was a "widespread problem and they didn't know when it would be fixed." Grrrr. So we waited a few more days. Elliot then has Marilo and Alicia (two Spanish workers on base) call Telefonica, and this was the series of explanations we received:
-you never paid your bill (keep in mind that we never received one)
-Ok, it looks like the bank sent in your payment, but it was the wrong one. So instead of notifying you, we are just going to shut off your service and send the money back to the bank
-You're giving us the wrong phone number; your number ends in 306 (we knew for a fact it ended in 307)
-Ok, you're right, it's 307
-Ok, we need to have someone come fix it, as it's a problem with your house. The guy came to "fix" the internet. It still didn't work. He shrugged his shoulders and said to call Telefonica
-Ok, you need to go to the post office and pay your bill. We will refund the money to your account.
Despite four different attempts on four separate days (and four subsequent phone calls in which they SWORE everything was fixed and would work now), every time I attempted to pay at the post office, an error message would come up. I was starting to get so embarrassed that I drove 20 minutes out of the way to go to another post office. Only to have it once again not work for me. Finally, after the last attempt, Elliot went into the bank and set up a new payment to go directly to them. We attempted to pay online a few times, but didn't have the password and username to do so (they never sent it to us), so we had to request that. Once that was requested, we found out that the account had never gotten transferred in our name. In fact, it was the guy BEFORE the guy who lived in the house before us who still had his name on the account. Elliot changed all of the information online, but the account number is still in Jeffrey Nash's SSN. Even after paying our bill (twice, actually), our internet is still not working. Elliot had Alicia call today, and Telefonica claimed that they have "72 hours to turn our internet back on". If the internet is not working by tomorrow (hour 72), I am going to need to go southside on some Espanol asses.... Elliot's also freaking out b/c he started his primer classes for grad school, and they are all online. No internet = no opportunity to do classwork = falling behind in the classes. Completely frustrating, as you can imagine. Let's cross our fingers that we have internet soon, and that it was in fact upgraded like it was supposed to be....
Ok, on to the stuff you actually log on to read: my fascinating life. J/K But seriously, there has been quite a number of things going on since I last graced everyone with a post. We'll start with St. Patrick's Day.
St. Patty's Day was on a Thursday this year, and fortunately for the guys on base, they were given Friday off b/c there haven't been any drunk driving arrests in the past month (drunk driving here means having one drink). That, and the fact the Commander, the Colonel, was leaving opened up an excuse to party and go wild on St. Patty's Day. Elliot and Carlos managed to convince the Colonel that this would be a perfect opportunity for a going away party in Sevilla. Pretty much everyone on base was invited, and the plan was to get to P. Flaherty's Irish pub (across from the Cathedral and essentially the only Irish pub in town) early, have a few drinks there, meet for a later dinner, then finish the night at Flaherty's. True to form, mi madre sent all sorts of Irish bling to deck us out for the night: tall, beer mug hats, flashing beads, socks, buttons, and even a pair of drinking dice. We were ready.
Elliot and I went to Carlos's place around 5 and decided to get some drinks while Bozhena, his wife, was getting ready. They have the sickest apartment that is just in the best location of Sevilla, so it was the logical meeting spot. Carlos is like the King of Sevilla, as he speaks Spanish and knows everyone everywhere. We went to three local bars by his apartment and had a few beers and these salty little things that resembled corn kernels. Saltaditos is the name, I believe. Whatever they were, they were gooooood. After chatting it up with the locals (well, at least Carlos could), we picked up Bozhena and headed to Flaherty's. The bar was already packed by this time, but we somehow managed to squeeze in at a pub table in the back part of the bar. If you ordered a Guinness, you got a tall Guinness hat for free. They were also selling t-shirts that resembled Zack G in the Hangover (with the baby in front; I'm sure you've seen these shirts). Instead of a baby in front, there was a leprechaun. Those t-shirts were only $10, so Bozhena and I got one. We mowed down on some wings and fries (you can break your fast on St. Patty's Day; ask the Bishop of Erie), and enjoyed the Irish jams playing. I went nuts and started singing and jigging around when "Sally McLennane" by The Pogues started playing. For all you Hawkeyes who are fortunate enough to remember Malone's, that was the song they played at closing. I will forever think of jigging out of the bar with Maggie (I made sure to text her that it was playing :)Ahhhh memories of home and good friends; can't beat it!
We all met over at the restaurant for dinner, which was coincidentally enough the same place we had Jose Canseco swindle us Americanos. Fortunately, he wasn't there and Carlos knew the other owner, so we got a huge spread for only 20 euro a piece (including drinks). Everyone else from base arrived at this point, and the party certainly began. The drinking dice began flying, and soon people were doing shots on one foot, chugging two beers in a row, basically doing whatever the magic Irish die told them to. By the end of the meal, Carlos was behind the bar and the guys were doing shots every 5 minutes or so. Naturally, each one included a toast to the Colonel or the base, so clearly they HAD to take the shots. Man, for being the commander, the Colonel can DRINK. He was the NICEST guy to me, so I am definitely sad to see him leave. His replacement, while not a drinker at all since he runs marathons, is equally nice and awesome; we got it good over here.
Bozhena and I were the only girls out of about 20 dudes, which was fine by us. We both have the type of personality that gets along great with guys, so we had no qualms about being the only females on this drunken binge. She and Carlos are moving to CA at the end of April, and Elliot and I are definitely sad to see them go; they are a ton of fun and will be missed.
After engaging in behavior that would certainly lead to a hangover, the group made moves back to Flaherty's and the silliness continued even more so. There were not only more people in the bar by then, but more people from base were there, including a group of people who were TDY at Moron. I was talking to one TDY girl for awhile, and she was AWESOME. I decided this was my new temporary best buddy, as she did Americorps and was a firm believer in the impact of TFA. Leave it to TFA fans to have a discussion about educational inequity in a bar. On St. Patrick's Day. LOVE IT. Anyways, I chatted with her awhile before moving on and chatting with other people from base. I decided to become the Irish social butterfly and was introducing myself to all sorts of people I didn't know from base, inviting them over to bbq's at our place, and overall deciding I was best friends with the world. I used the holiday, like most, as an excuse to have "just one more beer". Luckily for me, I am (normally) a happy drinker and proclaim my "best friendness" with anyone who talks education with me. Woooo St. Patty's Day!
I must say that my Spanish is coming along nicely (despite not being able to do Rosetta Stone for the past few weeks), as two guys started hitting on me and Bozhena while I was outside with her while she smoked. I was so excited that I actually understood what they were saying to us, that it took me a minute to register that they were hitting on us (definitely more her, as Bozhena is gorgeous. I was just the tagalong gremlin). In my state of excitement, I assumed that they were fine chaps who wanted to help me with my Spanish. Bozhena knew otherwise, and we were quickly back inside with the crowd. We were under an awning that was technically inside the bar but some jerk neighbor threw water all over everyone from above. Fortunately, no one got too soaked but that was enough to propel us to leave Flaherty's. On the way out, Elliot ordered a tray of shots for everyone and instantly became the most popular guy in the bar with random strangers. He somehow managed to fight through the crowd outside without spilling a drop. After people did their shots, I realized that not everyone had come out of the bar yet. I became obsessed with this notion of not losing anyone, announced that I was "Going back in!", and disappeared back into Flaherty's. Each time I spotted someone from our group, all I said was "We need to go, now!" I thought one guy's name was Eduardo (it's Ernesto), and kept yelling "Eduuuuuuuardo! We need to go! Now!" I managed to corral the group outside, but it was like rounding up a group of runaway babies. Everyone seemed to somehow managed to get lost again. Including the Colonel. I found him in the bar, but he managed to get lost again in the time it took me to get to the door. I'm not even sure how that was possible. After making another attempt to rescue everyone, Bozhena and I found Carlos and Elliot asleep on Carlos's doorstep outside. One three stairs. It was impressive, I'm not gonna lie. We all decided to go to a Cuban bar, where Carlos was pissed b/c some woman accused him of not being Cuban, Elliot fell asleep, and Alex and I went to go find the runaways yet again. We somehow managed to find the Colonel, Chicago pal Jerry, and Eduardo and dragged them back to the Cuban bar. Jerry and I became Midwest partners and skipped all the way back to the bar, all the while saying "Perdon!" with a French accent and laugh. Once I saw that El had started snoozing, we took a cab back to Utrera and fell into a not so peaceful slumber.
As I was getting up to go to work (it was only a half day, not bad), the doorbell rang. It was the movers with our household goods! As excited as we were to get our stuff, Elliot was NOT excited at the prospect of waking up at 8am after a night of drinking. I chuckled to myself as I left for work, as he had been slightly rubbing it in that he didn't have to work on Friday.
While I was subbing a class that morning, I got a call from Elliot saying that "shit was going down" and he needed to go in to work ASAP. His car was at the train station, so I had to come home, drive him to the station, then stay at home with the movers while he had to go in to work. Leave it to the United States to wait until THE DAY AFTER ST. PATRICK'S DAY to decide to do something about Libya. Things on base were in absolute chaos over the weekend, and I got to put together the house while Elliot worked a 70 hour weekend. He came home at midnight and went back to work at 6am. Thankfully, things aren't as crazy now and he has more normal hours, but there are still a ton more people on base. Moron is a place where a lot of refueling happens, so we have a lot more TDY and deployed people on base than normal. The NEX and dining halls were running out of food, there was a water conservation, and the gym became a lot more crowded. I kept joking that this was just an elaborate plot on Elliot's part to get out of unpacking the house, but it really was a pain in the ass time and I felt awful for Elliot. Thankfully, there are still a ton of people on base but things have significantly calmed down in the past few weeks. Our spring break trip next week was actually in jeopardy, but he was able to get leave. We're going to Dusseldorf, Germany; Bruges, Belgium, and Amsterdam in the Netherlands. We are super excited about it and will be sure to have stories to share (not to mention pictures).
I will close on this happy note: This post was finished at home BECAUSE OUR INTERNET CAME BACK ON!!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment