The waiting is over! After 5 calls to the consulate (at least) and one blog post about how long I had to wait, my visa arrived in today's mail. My month of laziness has come to a close.

Now it's time to book the flight (already done), contact my school in La Rioja (already done), and pack (not even started). Even before leaving, I know of one hiccup that could be disastrous - the general strike in Spain. Apparently transit of almost all kinds is very hard to come by at the moment, so I'll just have to hope the strikers have made their point by the time I arrive.

My thrilled expression upon receiving my visa. I look slightly devious.

There will be more news to report before long. Thanks for reading.

Bureaucracy Inaction

You may be wondering why it's taken me so long to write a second post. The short answer is that I don't have my visa yet and am thus still writing this from North America. But you didn't go to all the trouble of checking my blog just to get the short answer.

My acceptance into this program happened somewhat strangely. After applying in the spring, I was put on the waiting list. By August, I had basically given up hope when I received an urgent email saying that there were still spots to be filled and to reply immediately if I wanted one. I had thought that sending an application was enough to send that message, but I replied instantly. (As it turns out, the email was due to them having empty spots in regions that no one had listed in their preferences - I guess no one wanted to go to or had heard of La Rioja).

Soon after, I got the acceptance message and began to prepare my visa application. I submitted it at the beginning of September, where I was told to call back in two weeks. It being September, they said, meant that student visas like mine might begin to get rushed through.

Since then, everything seems to have stalled. Firstly, I sent in the wrong application form and had to send in the correct one - the program manual had given a link to an out-of-date form. Secondly, at the two-week mark, the person at the consulate wondered why they had told me to call after two weeks - student visas usually take up to five weeks.

Every call since then has met with the same result. As it turns out, the application needs to be sent to Madrid to be approved. This, of course, begs the question: Why couldn't I just send the application to Madrid and eliminate the "middle man?" I think the answer comes down to sheer bureaucracy. One arm of the Spanish government has selected me for the position, while another won't let me arrive on time because of its own modus operandi.

In any case, I refuse to feel guilty for arriving late (which looks like a certainty now). The waiting, however, is frustrating. Not knowing when my visa will arrive means I can't make plans for more than a few days ahead, which effectively pins me down at my parents' house until it arrives. So if you're wondering why I haven't been posting anything, that's why - there's very little to report.

On a less interesting note, I am getting better at making (and eating) homemade pizza, as well as watching DVDs until my eyes fall out. Part of me feels like I deserve this period of utter laziness, as I never really had the chance to do so after finishing classes in April, but most of me really wants to hop on a flight to Spain as soon as possible.

Welcome!

And thank you for reading my blog. This is intended to be a record of my doings for the benefit of those who are interested. I have previously sent mass emails, but the stress of writing a long message, attaching photos, and waiting for it to send now seem too much of a hassle.

But enough of the reasons, what about the doings?

In a matter of weeks, I will be departing North America for the third time in four years to take up a position as an English teaching assistant in the town of Haro, La Rioja, Spain. I still have many questions to ask (most importantly - when will my visa arrive?), and I assume you probably have even more. Here are a few answers that I already know:

Where exactly will you be working?
Instead of states or provinces, as in the USA and Canada, Spain has autonomous communities. I'm not sure of the details, but each one has a fair amount of decision-making power, as the name hints. Some autonomous communities contain multiple provinces, but the one in which I will be working, La Rioja, does not. It is one of the smallest autonomous communities in the country. Its capital is Logroño, which is only a little bit larger than Kingston, ON, where I went to university (about 150,000 people). However, I will be working (and hopefully living) in the town of Haro, which is 40 km northwest of the capital and contains about 12,000 inhabitants.

What is it near that the average North American might have heard of?
Don't lie, this was the next question on your mind. La Rioja, being so tiny, is near plenty of places that are on the "tourist circuit," as travel books like to call it. To the north is País Vasco, which is Spanish for Basque Country. I'm already planning a blog post called "Noisy Neighbors," since the Basques are well-known for their unique identity and separatist movement. If you've never heard of them, the Basques are a group of people that has been living in northeastern Spain and southwestern France for longer than human records can tell. They have their own language, cuisine, laws, sports (you might have heard of jai alai), and now, autonomous community.
      To the west and south of La Rioja is Castilla y Léon, which I believe was one of the two kingdoms that were joined when Isabella and Ferdinand tied the knot in the 15th century. It is one of the larger autonomous communities.
      To the east is the autonomous community of Navarra, which is home to the city of Pamplona, famous for its festival of San Fermín. That's where they block off the streets to create a channel and run bulls through it for eight days in July. Sometimes people run in front of the bulls. I'm not planning to be one of them.

What is La Rioja known for?
One word: wine. La Rioja is home to red wines that are famous enough that I recognize the name from a few casual walks through the Spanish wine section at the LCBO (before rushing off to the cold beer section). Haro is the center of Riojan wine country, and every July sees the annual Batalla del Vino - the wine battle. There are pictures. Look it up. Not being a wine connoisseur, I plan to enjoy some of the area's less famous specialties, such as its natural surroundings - seven rivers run through La Rioja, all tributaries of the Ebro, which runs down to the Mediterranean. This seems to have created some fantastic hiking trails and decent fishing, both of which I plan to check out.

How did you get this position, Jody?
Every year, the Spanish government hires 1500-2000 native English speakers from North America to be English TAs in their public schools for 12-15 hours per week. They receive a stipend and the program is actually a continuing education grant rather than a job. Placement is based on preference by autonomous community, although I was put in La Rioja because I declared my willingness to work anywhere in Spain after my preferred regions filled their spots.

What exactly will you be doing?
I'm still asking myself this question. I do know that the school at which I will be teaching is a primary school, and I have a history of disliking young kids. The plus side is that if I can make this year a success, it sets a good precedent for a teaching career (gasp! don't say that word!).

That's what I know so far. For now, I'm waiting on my visa and making tentative plans to stop off at Oktoberfest in Munich before starting training in Madrid at the end of the month. Because, you know, Europe is basically one big country.

Now I'm off to hide, because every European I know is going to chase me down with pitchforks for that last remark.