Home for a Rest

Despite my frequent changes in location and occupation over the past three years, this September marked the most dramatic transition I have experienced in a long time. I don't really possess the words to explain why - I'm not totally sure I even understand how extreme this shift has been yet. With that acknowledgement of emotional turbulence out of the way, here's a few actual events that happened in my first semester as a graduate student. Maybe they'll help illuminate things.

But first - remember how I used to play basketball? I shot around mostly by myself in Arthur's Pass, and played once a week while I was in Spain. I've been dribbling a basketball since I could stand, but I gave plenty of sports a try at one time or another. A few years ago, it occurred to me that basketball is a relatively safe sport that I could expect to play for more years than certain others (rugby, for instance). I'm also more talented at it than any other game, so I decided to make it my sport of choice. Returning to a university setting also meant the possibility of intramurals, pickup games, etc. But guess what happened on September 1 during a casual game of 21?

 

I badly dislocated my right middle finger - my shooting hand, and on a day when I was ON FIRE. I have photos of the x-ray, but they have made people gag, so I won't post them here. After weekly occupational therapy and four months of playing time, I'm clear to play again. My hand was a conversation starter as I met my new classmates and professors, and did not inhibit note-taking as I write with my left hand. It also served as a reminder of the convenience of the Canadian health care system - apart from a lengthy wait in the emergency room. No bills, no forms, just a friendly occupational therapist who met with me weekly for months. She also reminds me that I'll "have a fat finger forever," and that my "hand modeling days are over." I told her I can still model my left hand.

After that little excitement, my term began. As we will spend much of our time studying the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), the first year of the MPlan program starts with an optional field trip to a destination anywhere else in the Maritime Provinces (Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, for the non-Canadians reading this). We spent several nights in Yarmouth, NS, and took day trips to various nearby locations. The whole thing was an excellent way for the new class to get acquainted with each other and the program. Plus, I went on the best whale-watching trip of my life.

Whale-watching off Brier Island.

Peggy's Cove.

Lunenburg.

Sunset in Yarmouth.

Once the actual classes got started, my definition of "busy" had to be rewritten. Planning is a diverse, complex field, and it seems the best way to learn it is by doing. I agree with that philosophy, but when "learning by doing" means having multiple assignments due almost every week, it also means coming up with creative metaphors to explain the situation. Drowning was one that I used frequently in September, or the more colo(u)rful version in which I described my class as a group of preschoolers being taught how to swim by being kicked into the deep end of a pool. 

I emphasize that I used those terms in September, because as the assignments started getting submitted and the grades started coming back, we all began to adjust. By the end of October, I'd gained some degree of comfort - I stopped listening to pump-up music before presentations, for one thing. As the final assignments rolled around in December, the stress had been replaced by the most complete burnout I've ever experienced. I have no creative metaphors for how burnt out I was because...I was burnt out. But I guess this group of preschoolers figured out how to swim. Or at least keep our heads above water.

Being so busy has not completely prevented me from having a social life. My classmates and I dominated a campus trivia night for weeks before our first loss. It's been a while since I lived in a city that has professional sports teams, so I've made it out to a Mooseheads hockey game and a Rainmen basketball game (Canada has its own pro basketball league - who knew?). Most importantly, several friends from the past have become friends in the present, a privilege I never anticipated.

The Rainmen don't draw big crowds, but those of us that go get good seats for cheap.

But the holidays have been a welcome opportunity to exhale, recharge, and get some perspective. This program has been forcing me to ask myself a number of questions, few of which have easy answers. However, I'm only three months into a two-year program. Of more immediate concern is that I'm two weeks into my break, and there remains ample sleeping and chocolate-eating to be done before next semester starts.          

Montreal, part of the scenic route I took home by train.

Standin' On A Corner after being Under the Bridge

Soon after returning to Phoenix with my parents, they headed back east and I hit the road with my new hosts, my brother and new sister-in-law. Debbie had a meeting to attend in Winslow, AZ, and we decided to make a trip of it. As if to remind of the varied and unusual beauty of Arizona's geography, our first stop was the natural bridge in Tonto State Park. Once again, our hike began with a steep descent. After getting an eyeful of the bridge itself, we headed underneath it. As our voices began to echo, a man sitting on one of the smoothly worn rocks beneath the bridge asked us where we were going. His manner suggested knowledge and wisdom, and the echoes added a certain gravity to his voice. It was only after a quick look at the tiny logo on his polo shirt that I realized he was a park employee. I suppose in such a small and popular part of the park, he could let the visitors come to him. He offered some directions and explanations before sending us on our way. As we went, we followed his advice and slid down the rock in front of us. Years of water dripping from the exposed plant roots above had made the surface surprisingly slippery, and those same roots soaked me in the closest thing to rain I had experienced in Arizona.

After camping near Blue Ridge Reservoir, we made the drive in to Winslow for the meeting. Jesse and I dropped Debbie off and then attempted to occupy ourselves for a day in Winslow. It was not easy. Both of us were titillated by being in the same town mentioned by The Eagles in "Take It Easy." Before leaving, we learned that Winslow has a park dedicated to the line "standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona." Once there, we found that park to be the highlight of our visit. It seems that the construction of I-40 bypassed Winslow and made it redundant. While it is still a hub for freight train traffic, its main street is a place where shop doors slam in the wind and logos of previous owners remain emblazoned on empty storefronts.

There is one ray of hope, however: new owners are renovating La Posada, an old hotel from the town's heyday as a passenger rail stop. Not much of an architecture connoisseur, I was expecting to lose interest quickly, but they have done a good job of making it comfortable, even for non-paying guests. Especially intriguing was the common room, an amenity forgotten in modern hotels. Rather than encourage guests to use the hotel only as a place to sleep and eat, La Posada attempts to make its guests feel at home. While this effort is at least partly motivated by the original plans of the hotel, it is clear that there is very little to do in Winslow, and encouraging guests to stay in may be the hotel's only hope of succeeding.

We returned to Phoenix via Flagstaff, where we stopped for a brief hike to get one last feel of the cooler weather before returning to the desert. Before long we were back in the triple digits (Fahrenheit) and heading to bed after a busy couple of days.

Prickly pear cactus.

Jesse staring at the crayfish.

"Rain" from the plant roots.

Standin' on a corner is all well and good...

...but make sure you stand at the right one. This is the next block.

Outside La Posada.

That Wasn't So Bad (Getting to New Zealand, parts 1 and 2)

As I sit at my gate in San Francisco International Airport, looking at a 747 that will soon take me to Auckland, I feel a bit rushed to review the past 9 days of travel before I get caught up in a new city, country, and hemisphere. But let's see how I do.


My previous post may have given you some idea about the train ride that my Dad and I took from Chicago to Richmond, CA. It was unlike any train ride I had ever taken. Although I had been on sleepers before, this was more like making the train my home for almost three days. Dad and I knew we were in for the long haul, so we settled in pretty quickly, beginning a best-of-3 series of rummy 500, making significant advances in our respective books, and learning the ropes of life on the train.


There were numerous delays in the schedule throughout the ride. This being Amtrak, we had expected the ones that affected our arrival time. What we had not expected were the struggles with mealtimes. Our meals were included in the ticket price, and the food was pretty high-quality for the circumstance. But it did get a bit frustrating to wait until 9.30 PM for your 8 PM dinner reservation to start. Fortunately, the food was worth waiting for and mealtime delays merely made the ride go by quicker by giving us something else to think about.


Not that we needed much else to think about once we reached the Rockies. Crossing the Midwest took a little less than 24 hours, and it was exactly as I expected - more corn and soybeans than you can imagine. We reached Denver just before noon on the second day, and from there, I entered a part of the United States that I had previously only seen in movies (Westerns, primarily). The Rockies were incredible, particularly the Colorado River. It seemed to be unable to decide what type of waterway it would be - a wide floodplain or a violent whitewater. About every 20 minutes, the train would enter a new gorge and the river would go the color of paper as it narrowed and the rocky bottom resisted its advance. At times, the waves appeared to move backwards. Soon, though, we would enter a wider valley in which the river became more like a lake with a current. Apparently the river is high this year, which made this whole process even more fun to watch. To top it all off, the train was mooned twice along this part of the route - once by a man balancing on a whitewater raft. A nice addition to the scenery, particularly during dinner time.


Utah passed mostly in the dark, but Nevada's desert was another sight unlike anything I've seen before. Although our route was flat, the scenery was far from boring. The mountains in the distance seemed to randomly change color and shape, and the scrub and sagebrush slowly degraded into salt flats, a phenomenon I would not have identified on my own (thanks, Dad). It was on this part of the ride that I saw a wild rabbit, the only wild mammal I would see in three days (mooners excluded).

Our final climb happened as we entered California near Lake Tahoe, and then we descended on a miniature version of our entire trip - scrubby desert, then farmland, and finally the industrial surroundings of San Francisco. 

Our time in the Bay area was fairly scattered - between the Napa Valley, San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland, I feel like I've gotten a pretty good feel for the entire region. As scenic as it all is, I was overwhelmed by the amount of traffic, in which I was fortunately only a passenger. The sprawl also soured my introduction to California. For those of you already saying "Don't go to LA," don't worry, I'm not planning to. I did enjoy San Francisco, although I hadn't given it too much thought before my arrival. The hills were a bit trying at times, but the public transit is not only good, the operators are entertaining. I heard bus riders asked to "be like Moses and part so these people can get on," and operators yelling, "this is Ghirardelli square - if you want chocolate and ice cream, get off here." It's not worthy of live stand-up, but it was nice to have a little personality behind the wheel. San Francisco also includes historic trolley cars as part of their transit network, which is cool in so many ways. They've even been brought in from other cities that no longer use them, so you could ride a trolley car from Washington, St. Louis, Chicago, or Milan. Yes, that Milan, in Italy.


As usual, I made a point of trying the local culinary specialties. I particularly enjoyed the clam chowder in a bread bowl, which was as good as it is on the East coast. Our tour of Chinatown took us to a market with live seafood on sale (including frogs), but neither of us was brave enough to try any. It was entertaining enough to watch the delivery guy use a net to unload fish into the store's tanks. But the food could not top one of my favorite parts of San Francisco: the pier 39 sea lions.

San Francisco has been fun, but New Zealand has been at the back of my mind the entire time. As much as it's a great monkey to have on my back, I'll be happy when I finally arrive in Auckland.

Woke up at 3 AM to get a photo of the 4th of 6th new states that I visited.

The Pier 39 sea lions.

How do you know you're in the gay district? A Grease sing-along, that's how.

The plane I'll be boarding soon.

That Wasn't So Bad! (Getting to New Zealand, parts 1 and 2, introduction)

The first two parts of my journey to New Zealand are now complete. My Dad and I departed North Bay, ON on Sunday and spent the night in Goderich, ON, with my aunt and uncle. Monday was a long day of driving, all the way from Goderich to Chicago, with a quick stop in Valparaiso, IN for a visit with two other relatives who I was meeting for the first time as an adult. We spent that night in Chicago with my aunt. After a day of sightseeing in Chicago, we left the Windy City at 2 PM on Wednesday afternoon and began a 54.5-hour train journey to the Bay Area, which we completed only 3 hours ago. You can imagine how tiring this whole thing has been, so please forgive me if I save the verbal description for later. Here are some photos to whet your appetites.

The Mt. Pleasant, IA train station. Pretty much as I expected it would be.

The Colorado River, probably my favorite part of the ride.

The sight I woke up to on the last day of the ride. Somewhere in Nevada.

Leaving, Arriving, and Leaving Again

My last week in Logroño passed in an odd haze of goodbyes. It was my first week in Logroño without a schedule, which allowed me to focus my energies on saying the multitude of goodbyes that needed to be said. I think somebody said once that "parting is such sweet sorrow" or something like that...which is absolutely true. On the one hand, saying goodbye forces you to appreciate what you've had with the people you're leaving; on the other, it reminds you of what you're leaving behind. I've discovered that the best way to prevent this draining sensation is to have something exciting planned for the future, such as my upcoming trip to New Zealand.

Regular readers of this blog will remember this post about my plan for reaching New Zealand without flying and spending a year on a working holiday there. Because of difficulties with scheduling and obvious better alternatives, I will not be completing my journey to New Zealand by ship. The plan remains relatively similar to the one I posted previously, however: my dad and I are leaving for Chicago this Sunday, with a one-night stopover in Goderich, ON, before catching the train to San Francisco. After a weekend in the Bay area, I will fly from San Francisco to Auckland, where my year-long visa will begin ticking away. Dad and I will be making a variety of family visits on the way, as well as visiting Nebraska, the only of the fifty American states he has yet to see.

I'm planning to spend the first few months of my time in New Zealand in Wellington (the capital). My preliminary research indicates that Wellington has a pretty lively job and rental market, and I will be arriving in the middle of winter, which is when agricultural jobs are least available. Furthermore, being in Wellington will allow me to soak up the energy of the Rugby World Cup more than being in a smaller town would. After the tournament finishes, I only have ideas, but I know I want to spend a fair amount of time on the South Island, particularly in Otago and Southland.

But what have I been doing since I got back from Logroño? I've been at my parents' house in North Bay, ON. I don't have the best relationship with this place, but this has been a particularly nice visit. With the excitement of preparing for New Zealand, I have been particularly able to appreciate the good things North Bay has to offer. As usual, I have raided the public library's massive collection of music and movies, and fully enjoyed the proximity of Lake Nipissing - at one point I had showered only twice in seven days, bathing in the lake instead. I was also here for shad fly season, one of North Bay's most unique occurrences. It's also pretty gross. I didn't take any pictures, but this guy did a couple years ago.

My preparations are nearly finished, with a new Netbook on my lap right now, a new backpack waiting to be filled up, and a new iPod on its way. I've also been contacting potential flatmates in Wellington and doing some long-distance job-hunting, while reading any historical text I can find about New Zealand, one area in which the public library is sadly deficient. I'll find out how well-prepared I actually am in less than a week, when my eleven-day trip begins.

Journey Through the Past (and France)

It's now been almost two weeks since my last post, but they have been very full. As I wrote about then, I spent my Easter holidays back in the low countries with friends from the year I spent on exchange there (2008-09). The ambitious part of the journey was getting there, as I planned to do it without flying. As it turns out, I'm a pretty good at being my own travel agent. Everything went off without a hitch.

The bus ride to Hendaye (just over the border in France) went smoothly - it was full of people heading to the beach in San Sebastian, including one of my first-grade students and his family. Part of me was grumbling about not being able to leave work behind, but it also made me feel much more like I actually live here, rather than just being a visitor. The majority of the passengers got off in San Sebastian, and from there it was a guessing game as to which of the remaining small stops was Hendaye. It was particularly fun considering I was reading signs in three languages - French, Spanish, and Basque. The train station in Hendaye is the terminus of the Euskotren system (the Basque region's commuter rail) and the terminus (in the other direction) of the French national rail system. At the Euskotren platform, the station is known as Hendaia, while at the SNCF platform, it's called Hendaye. It was an interesting glance into the oddities of regions with linguistic minorities.

I had high expectations for the TGV train that I took to Paris, and it met them. The staff were helpful and friendly (although their quick transitions into English reminded me how poor my French has become), I had two seats to myself the whole way, and we made a total of only 5 or 6 stops, most of them in the first hour. The rest of the trip was simply watching France fly by in comfort. Upon arrival in Paris, I realized I wasn't going to see any of the city if I took the metro to my hostel, so I walked from Gare Montparnasse to my hostel near Gare du Nord, which took about an hour and a half. It was a slight shock to be in such a big city again, but Paris is always fun to look at. Perhaps the most memorable part of my walk was near the Île-de-la-Cité, when a young man decided to throw himself on the ground in front of me in a push-up position and crabwalk to prevent me from passing. Not able to yell at him in French, I let another pedestrian's right foot do the work of clearing the way, and then checked to make sure I hadn't been robbed.

After a fairly uneventful stay at the hostel, I woke up at 6 and walked to Gare du Nord, where I ordered a muffin and thanked the woman in Spanish (a habit that took me a few days to kick). My Thalys train left just after 7, making one stop in Brussels before dropping me at Liège 5 minutes after the hourly train to Maastricht. I wasted time by reading Metro, the free newspaper available in train stations, and made it to Maastricht a little before 11. The whole journey took a little over 24 hours (with a sleep in a bed included), and was generally comfortable.

The rest of my week was like updating an old photo album. I went to Guillaume's house in Louvain-la-Neuve (near Brussels) with Chris, where we played croquet, enjoyed his mom's always amazing cooking (including waffles, which somehow are always on the menu when I'm around), and enjoyed sunny 25°C weather, for which I had to borrow shorts and flip-flops. Once we got back to Maastricht, I whiled away a pleasant 3 days hanging out with old friends and meeting new ones, playing soccer by the medieval city walls, and brushing up on my Dutch. I actually feel like I've improved simply by virtue of being more accustomed to speaking a second language. On Friday, I left Maastricht with Rene, Guillaume and Chris to go to Nijmegen, where Rene's sister lives, to enjoy the Queen's Night celebration. The following morning, we headed to Amsterdam to celebrate Queen's Day (the annual celebration of the Queen's birthday, a public holiday and tax holiday). I spent only a few hours there before heading to the airport for my flight back to Madrid, from whence I caught the bus to Logroño and arrived back, exhausted, at 5 AM.

Altogether, it was an enjoyable trip that reminded me of the little things I forgot about my year in Holland, like the impossible-to-navigate train ticketing system and the fun-sounding language. But mostly, it was nice to see my friends again and enjoy their company with no other responsibilities. I was also happy to find out that Spain got drenched with rain while I was gone, while Holland and Belgium were both almost perfectly sunny and warm.

Near Guillaume's house in Louvain-la-Neuve.

On the east side of the Maas.

Market Square in Maastricht.

Queen's Day in Amsterdam.

A little souvenir of the Dutch language - "I'm the boss."

On the Road Again, After Being Run Off It

The Easter holidays begin tomorrow, the second-longest break I will have during my contract (other than Christmas). Although I have not traveled much since I've been here, I've been reserving this week and a half for a trip back to Holland since I got here in October. Just to make it interesting, I'm planning to go to Maastricht without flying, which means my outward itinerary looks something like this:

April 21, 10.00: Bus from Logroño-Hendaye (just over the border in France)
14.00: Train from Hendaye-Paris (the world-famous TGV high speed train)
Overnight in Paris
April 22, 7.01: Train from Paris-Liège
9.22: Train from Liège-Maastricht.

I'm excited about taking the TGV, as you can probably tell. I'm also excited to see my friends in Holland again, and to be leaving Spain for a bit. I need a change of pace after this happened today:

This week was fairly easy in school, as it was only three days long and there were plenty of special events going on. Today I taught one class and headed home about two hours early. The joy of getting out early quickly disappeared when I stopped by the grocery store. These are some of the only businesses that stay open during the siesta, which also happens to be when I get off work, so I often do my shopping then, when the stores are not busy. Today, following my usual routine two hours earlier, I went shopping at around 12.30, well before siesta. Only three of five cash registers were open, but each one had a line of at least six people, many of whom were loading up before the stores close for the holidays. Needless to say, the wait was significant, especially as I was preceded by a group of around six high-school age boys stocking up for a barbecue (or so it seemed). Quite the contrast to what I remember in Holland, where every cash register stays open, and one store even offers a discount if there are more than two people ahead of you in line.

Another of my regular frustrations is the traffic system here, which primarily relies on pedestrians to stop the traffic by walking into the road. I don't always feel safe doing that, so I often put a foot in the road to indicate my intentions, then wait for cars to stop. But many of them resent having to come to a complete stop, so I've slowly adopted the custom of looking quickly, then charging into traffic. It worked fine until today, when I was cut off by one over-eager right-turner, who passed the car in front of him on the right in a single lane before cruising right past me, inches away. Later on the same walk, I was cut off by another right-turner who, after completing his turn, shifted into the left lane rather than stop for me, nearly shaving a layer off the toes of my shoes in the process.

So as you can see, a little vacation is exactly what I need. I have two more tutoring lessons before I'm completely free, and tonight is the final of the Copa del Rey, Spain's single-elimination soccer tournament (which accompanies its league, but is not dependent upon its results). Real Madrid is playing FC Barcelona in Valencia, the second of four matches in less than two weeks between these two rivals. It should be a nice little send-off, especially if I win the pool I'm hosting.

In unrelated news, I received my absentee ballot in the mail today and will be able to vote in the Canadian election (had it come while I was away, I would not have been able to). That boosted my mood after such a frustrating walk home.

You Can Call Me Crazy, but Here's My Plan for Next Year

Many people reading this will be wondering what I am planning to do with my university-educated, career-free, travel-obsessed self in the coming year. The plan is not set in stone yet, but here it is, with commentary.

My plan is to get a working holiday visa for New Zealand. These are visas which allow you to travel and work as a temporary or part-time employee in New Zealand for a specified amount of time (in this case, a year). I know quite a few people who have done this before, and I have yet to hear anyone say it wasn't worth doing.

Why New Zealand? I've always been curious about it, and since becoming interested in rugby, it has drawn my interest even more (New Zealand is home to the All Blacks, always one of the best rugby teams in the world). It also has a large agricultural sector (more sheep than people), another of my areas of interest. And it is mostly rural, from what I've read, which is yet another of my preferences. I think many of the things I will like about New Zealand are things I like about Ireland and Scotland. Like green hills and entertaining accents. Obviously, that is a huge simplification, but I want to see exactly how much of a simplification it is.

New Zealand will also play host to the next Rugby World Cup in September. My brief pipe dream of seeing the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa didn't last long, but hopefully I'll be able to make this one happen. In fact, Canada is playing the All Blacks on my birthday in Wellington. Canada's going to get crushed, but that's some kind of coincidence. (Side note: I had to be in Cleveland for my 17th birthday, but it so happened that Bruce Springsteen was playing a concert at Gund Arena on that exact day. Another great coincidence. And yeah, I went. I still have the shirt.)

But working in New Zealand is only half the story. Partly because of environmental concerns and pent-up guilt over the amount of flying I've done over the past four years, partly because of curiosity, and partly because of a desire to avoid a hellish 21-hour flight in economy class, I've decided to go to New Zealand without flying. You might ask how that's possible, New Zealand being a series of islands in the South Pacific. The answer is freighters. I had no interest in taking a cruise ship, but freighters regularly cross the Pacific and pass through New Zealand and Australia. They no longer allow you to "work a passage," but they do allow you to pay for a cabin and ride with them. The cost includes three meals a day and access to the crew's leisure facilities (these guys live on the ship, so they need something to do). The whole journey will take around 15 days, and hopefully be an experience I'll remember forever.

Of course, if I'm to go to New Zealand without flying, I'll also need to meet the freighter at a port in North America. The one I'm looking at leaves from Long Beach, CA. And if I don't want to fly at all on my way to New Zealand, I'll need to get from North Bay, ON to Long Beach, CA by land. So this means a cross-country train journey. My dad will be joining me for this stretch of the trip.

So here, tentatively, are the stages of my journey from North Bay, ON, to Tauranga, New Zealand:

1. Two-day drive from North Bay to Chicago, IL with my dad to visit my aunt Judi.

2. 50-hour train ride from Chicago to Sacramento, CA with my dad, passing through Nebraska (the only state he hasn't been to) along the way.

3. 11-hour train ride from Sacramento to Los Angeles, CA, to meet the freighter by July 7th. We're still unsure about where we'll be staying and whether or not we'll rent a car to get around the LA area, but my dad has a cousin in Santa Barbara whose doorstep we may darken.

4. 15-day journey by freighter to Tauranga, NZ.

If all goes according to plan, I should be in New Zealand by late July of this year. If this works, hopefully people will stop calling me crazy.

How I Spent My 23rd Birthday

Saturday, October 2nd was an important day for two reasons: it was my 23rd birthday, and it was the day I left for Spain. After two days of packing and preparations after getting my visa, my parents and I made a long trip to Toronto's Pearson Airport to put me on my flight to Barcelona. It was tough to celebrate my birthday while driving, but it was worth the sacrifice to finally be turning my long-hypothetical occupation into a reality.

As much as I like traveling, I really do not enjoy flying. The planning process is frustrating, the restrictions are limiting, and something about airports and airplanes gives my head a funny feeling. I attribute it to lack of oxygen. In any case, I was not just traveling, but MOVING to another country, which entails various issues with customs as well. I was pretty wound up, to say the least. Having said that, things did go very smoothly.

The flight was unremarkable, but let me remark about it anyway. After a delay at the gate - some minor repairs - we left about an hour late. Somehow we still made it on time, which shows you how much discount airlines pad their schedules. Once in the air, I found myself still too on edge to sleep, so I did my best to enjoy Grown Ups and Iron Man 2. I specifically did not put my headset on for Letters to Juliet, but the screen was so bright I ended up watching most of it anyway. I don't think sound would have added anything to the story that I didn't gather from the images. One positive about the flight that I didn't acknowledge until afterwards was the absence of crying babies.

The final stress test was passport control, where I was entering with the visa for which I had paid $125 and waited one month. I guess being on a plane full of tourists has its advantages - the customs agent simply stamped my passport with a visitor visa and didn't even look at the student visa filling up page 12. It was a bit frustrating to have it be ignored after all that, but in the end the lack of hassle was worth it.

I took a train from the airport to Barcelona-Sants Estacio - one of the city's major train stations - bought my ticket to Logroño and pondered what to do with myself for a few hours. I revisited the sites of my previous arrival in Barcelona. Like last time, I had not slept. Unlike last time, I was not ill or suffering from the theft of my wallet. I strolled past the police station where I had reported the robbery, then took the subway to the Plaça Catalunya and took a look at the Canadian consulate that saved my bacon (pun intended). And then I wandered down La Rambla, passing the first of many Western Union offices that I would use last summer to get money from my parents after losing my wallet. After an hour that reminded me why I was so happy NOT to be staying in Barcelona with its army of tourists, I returned to the train station and boarded my four-hour train to Logroño.

Boarding Spanish trains is like boarding North American planes used to be. There's a long line waiting to get on, attendants check your ticket, and you need to pass your bags through an x-ray. Once on the train, however, Renfe (the Spanish national train company) employees are a rare sight. Although I did not have much space to myself, my sleep deprivation ensured that I couldn't keep my head up for more than a few minutes at a stretch. The countryside looked a bit like the American Southwest looks in pictures - which is probably why the spaghetti Western film genre began. It was a stark reminder of how different this place was to anywhere I had lived before.

Beatriz and Ana, two of my English-teaching coworkers, greeted me at the Logroño train station. I haven't asked how they knew it was me yet, but I imagine a ratty t-shirt, a baseball cap, and tons of luggage were a pretty dead giveaway. They helped me find a place to stay for the night and later I went out for a small dinner with Ana and her boyfriend Anibal, who doesn't speak English (but is quite aware of the comparisons his name raises with Hannibal Lecter).

As it turns out, there are quite a number of other language ambassadors in Haro, the town in which I will be teaching, two of whom are there to teach French and the rest English. It seems most people live in Logroño and commute, which I regard as a bit of a shame, but convenience may demand that I do it as well. In any case, I am off to Haro for the first time tomorrow to see the school and meet the faculty. From what Beatriz and Ana have told me, they have never had someone from my program before, so the standards are as low as can be, which is exactly how I would have preferred it.