the clueless american

I'm writing this at 9 am on the 4th of July with e's computer blaring patriotic music out of the speakers. I figured we needed some holiday spirit on this our last (for now) 4th of July outside of the country.

Yesterday was the first of our "last days," that is, the last Saturday that we'll be in Spain. We spent the morning and afternoon getting ready for the movers. e's already got several things sorted out for the 7 different categories we have: normal shipment, express shipment, carry with us on the plane, send back to Rota, give/sell to people here, and then my professional gear for the normal and express moves which is counted separately. I spent several hours vacuum sealing foods so that the movers would take them and there'd be a good chance that they'd be fresh in 3 months when we see them again.

[1-minute pause while I flail my arms like a conductor to the 1812 Overture--you gotta love that song!!!]

Anyhow, by now you're probably wondering about the title. Yesterday evening we finally went to see a bullfight. They set up a portable plaza de toros over in nearby San Pedro, and we went with Jay and Carmen. There were 6 bulls killed by 3 bullfighters. I had seen bullfighting before on TV, but never in person. There's no arguing that it's violent, but it's not overly gory. Even when they pith the bull after it falls or cut off its ear as the matador's prize, you can't see enough from the stands for it to gross you out. All in all there was a lot less blood than your average Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.

Today we're continuing the move preparations during the day, and then tonight we're going to our last church service in Spain. There's another couple that's moving, and the church is having a little going away dinner for the 4 of us. Tomorrow we do the final prep like putting the computers in their original boxes and switching over to living out of our suitcases. We can't believe it's getting so close!

We're in the second day of the move and remarkably almost finished already! The happiness of the moment has been temporarily overshadowed by the fact that someone has apparently stolen our sun. It's a large, ceramic sun that the last Americans left behind and we brought to our house. It made it over 2 years, and then some time in the last few weeks someone took it off the wall. e's very disappointed because she was really looking forward to bringing that particular piece of Spain back with her. It's not a great final impression of the area, especially when our time here started with someone stealing e's new bell from our front door.

Petty theft notwithstanding, the move is going particularly well. The movers started out a little grumbly because apparently the emails, phone calls, and faxes I've sent were not enough to tell them that we had a lot of stuff, some of it oversized. They quickly got past that and started packing like nobody's business. By 7pm when they left, the house was about 90% packed. Although the movers don't believe us, we're moving about the same amount of things back to the States as we brought. It took the packers 2 full days to pack everything and another full day to load last time. This time we're expecting the truck to be loaded before lunchtime on the second day!

Our friend Mike explained that there's a big difference in the quality of work because here being a mover is a regular profession; people start out when they're young and work until they retire. On the other hand, the moving companies in the States usually have a small complement of professionals supported by a large group of part-time, often transient, workers who care a lot less about doing a good job than getting their pay and moving on to the next job. In any case, e and I keep telling them how impressed we are with their work while they seem to think it's no big deal.

Yesterday I left e alone while I went to do my last flight in the Tamiz. Yesterday was the entrega de despachos, which we translate as graduation, and we did our usual flyby for Los Príncipes. The Academy was locked down tighter than usual because a lot of people wanted to come out and see the new Princess of Spain, Doña Letizia. I saw her from the air, and all I can say is she looked like a pretty tiny princess to me.

After the flight I said my last goodbyes and then came back to watch the last few hours of the move. We're staying with our great friends Fran and Teresa until Friday morning, and then we have the long but exciting journey back home.

Well, we're finally back! I'm writing this at 1400 on Saturday afternoon (or is it 2100? My body can't tell!) Overall our trip back to the States went fairly well, with just a few small hitches.

We left San Javier airport at 0800, after saying goodbye to our good friends Fran and Teresa. Ernesto showed up just as we were getting ready to walk through the gate, and then when the plane landed in walked in Chema Nagore, a former E.26 pilot who's now with Air Nostrum (Iberia's commuter). Poor Teresa started crying, and that set e off. As we walked out to the airplane on the ramp, she was crying a little and saying "great, now I'm going to cry all day!" Thankfully, that turned out not to be true.

The wait in Madrid went by pretty fast. e did some last minute shopping, and I had my final bocadillo with Jamón Serrano--the best I've ever had at an airport for sure. We boarded the aircraft and then waited and waited and waited. Then, just to do something different, we waited a little more. All-in-all, we waited about an hour and 10 minutes past our takeoff time before we finally got in the air.

The 9 hour flight wasn't that bad, although I didn't sleep nearly as much as I needed to. We saw Hidalgo, which for some reason didn't really keep my attention and The Prince and Me, which was monumentally stupid but nevertheless helped the time pass by.

As we neared Chicago, the movies were replaced by a display showing our progress. We watched the aircraft approach the area, cross the lake heading due west instead of for the airport, and enter a holding pattern. Apparently the weather was pretty bad in the Chicago area, and I think we may have been struck by lightning as we descended. 45 minutes of holding is not what you want at the end of a 9-hour flight, but we finally got onto the ground.

Once we made it through the customs maze, we found out that the weather had delayed our 3pm departure until 6:30pm. That was good because we landed at about 3:15. We got the bags back to American and then headed to the terminal to wait. That was a long, cranky wait for us, but we finally got on board the plane to New Orleans. When we arrived at 8:30, e's parents were there, but they weren't expecting us because they had just been told we weren't coming in until after 10. Apparently everyone at American was confused, because instead of putting our clearly marked bags on the 3pm flight that was delayed until 6:30pm, they put them on the 6:35pm flight that was delayed until 8. We wound up having to wait at the airport until about 10:15pm when our bags came in.

e and I took turns nodding off during the trip home, but we finally pulled in to the driveway at 2305 central time, which was 0600 the next day back in Spain. That means we had our 3 hours of sleep Thursday night and then went for about 24 hours straight before getting to our final destination. What a long day it was for us!

So, here we are at the end of our 2-year tour in Spain. Neither of us can believe it's really over. I feel like next week will come and I'll ride my bike to work and go flying with students. It's hard to imagine that I'll most likely never see that place again, even if I'm able to see some of my friends from there in the US or other places. Hasta luego, amigos...os echaremos mucho de menos!

I'm sitting here in the parking lot of an office building not too far from our hotel. I've found that Atlanta and Marietta are full of free wireless access points, so until we get a permanent place I have to go cruising to get on the net. It works out well because e still needs her daily nap. With a 1-room hotel, it's a lot better for me to leave altogether than to try to stay and be quiet.

We only have 2 nights left in the hotel before we move along. We found a great new apartment complex last week about 20 minutes away from the base. It will be nice to be the first ones living in the apartment. We've arranged for some rental furniture for the time we're there, and hopefully our express shipment has already arrived from Spain with our household items such as towels and dishes.

Now that the apartment hunting phase is over, it's time to start looking for a house. A prospective realtor just called while I was writing this, and I took a few minutes to check out her site. She's out of town until next weekend, so we're probably going to meet her next Saturday when she gets back.

If I haven't mentioned it yet, we're really glad to be back in the US. There are a lot of things we will miss about Spain, but it's nice to be in our own country again!

Well, I got busted bigger than Dallas last night:

I was sitting in my usual parking lot, using a free wireless connection, when I saw a truck about 10 spots away pull out of the otherwise empty parking lot. I didn't think anyting of it until about 15 minutes later when the same truck came back and parked 2 spots away from me. The guy looked at me and saw I was using the computer, but he didn't say anything. He got some things out of his truck, and then I heard a door open right behind me. I looked at the door and saw that it was SMC--the same name as the router I was using! While trying to look inconspicuous, I quickly turned off the laptop and drove away. In the rear-view mirror I saw the guy checking something--probably his network. Naturally I hadn't done anything at all to their system, but I figured it would be better not to be in the area any more last night.

It's not a factor anymore as we checked out of the hotel this morning to move into the apartment. I don't know where I'll connect to post this entry, but I'll be favoring openly free services such as Panera Bread or atlantafreenet.org. [Update, 2150: I couldn't find anything free, so I'm posting this from outside a Starbuck's. Cost me $10 for 24 hours of access, but maybe that's better than sneaking around parking lots]

I called Comcast today and the first available install date is next Monday. That means we'll have to find some wireless connection, free or otherwise, closer to our apartment. Lord knows I can't be without the internet for 6 days!

Well, after thinking about it several times and not doing it, I've finally pulled out the laptop to write a blog entry while I wait for the furniture to get here. e called them this morning from the apartment, and they said they'd be here between 12 and 2. When 2:30 rolled around, I called and got a long sob story about how they were delayed because they couldn't find a key or something. I said next time I would appreciate a call instead of leaving me hanging like that. An empty apartment can be a lot of fun, but only for so long.

We're very excited to be here, and I'm sure it will be even better with furniture. We had a little snag because Georgia power says the previous tenant didn't pay their bills. When we (and the apt. manager) pointed out that no one had ever lived in the unit before, the lady said "ok, well the previous tenant didn't pay their bils, so...." We wound up switching to an identical apartment on the same floor. It was the first one we saw, but we initially rejected it because the hot water knob on the kitchen sink is completely disconnected and we preferred a unit that didn't immediately need maintenance. You might say that cooler heads prevailed, because we decided that an air-conditioned apartment with no kitchen sink was much better than a kitchen sink with no electricity.

It's now 1510 and no sign of Aaron's Rental. They already waived the delivery fee when e pointed out that a 4-day delivery time was a hair longer than the "guaranteed 24 hours" they advertise all over the store. I wonder if they'll give us anything for having to wait around all day today. Probably not.

Lately I've been bombarded with SPAM comments. The spammer is using an automated system with multiple IP addresses so that I can't just ban one IP to stop them. It's really just a waste of time since unregistered comments don't appear unless I approve them, and I certainly don't approve any spam. I wish there were an easier way to block these people from commenting 40-80 times a day! I'm sure there is something out there in MT land, but I don't have consistent internet access yet and can't afford to spend my time tracking it down. Maybe next week after the cable is installed....

As a government employee, I hate it that everyone thinks we all waste taxpayers' dollars at an alarming rate. I hate it worse when it turns out to be true. I LOATHE it when the waste is either condoned or at least not punished by the powers that be. Check out http://www.aldotwaste.com to see what happened when a network administrator reported on his boss's Solitaire habit.