Happy Halloween! (Updated)

...and to all a good night? If you can't tell from context (read over-used parenthesis and lame jokes), this is Greg.

Okay, okay. So, I realize that it's been a full-fledged week that we haven't posted anything. Word on the streets is that... well, there is no word. Word does not exist. Actually, Suzy was waiting on me to post something but I didn't have anything worth mentioning so we'll just recap the week.

We have a puente / day off on Thursday and Friday because Spanish tradition is that everyone goes to the gravesites of their dead relatives the day after Halloween to pay their respects, which is tomorrow. Then they are just taking Friday off b/c most people travel to other cities, so we have a four day weekend! Sweet! However, we were hoping to go to Seville and Cordoba during this time off but all the hostals are booked. Then we looked into visiting a bunch of the close villages here (Seville and Cordoba is a good 4 hours' drive) but the hostals in those villages are booked too. Balls. I'm not entirely sure where we are going to now. There was talk about visiting a different little village but I leave the planning up to Marijke and Suzy. All I want to make sure we visit is England, France, northern Spain and the Sierra Nevada mountains near Granada, Germany, and Italy, if possible. "Holy crap, Greg!" you say? "Why don't you just travel all over Europe?" you ask? That sounds like a fantastic idea.

School is good. During our lunch break, both the teachers and the students eat outside together. I suppose it's a way to keep the teachers working and looking after the kids while conniving them into working unpaid for a half hour and the students to burn some energy (which doesn't have any tiring effect anyways). All the little ones swarm around me and last Monday, we played Cops and Londoners (funny how they use Londoners instead of Robbers ::smirk::).

So, you know how in the States we smash jack-o-lanterns and tp people's houses just for mischief and devilry? They don't have pumpkins here so no one can smash them, and the whole tp concept eludes them. What the kids apparently do here on all hallow's eve is egg people's houses, people's cars, ...people. Just like in the States, the kids go out trick-or-treating earlier due to the dark nature of night and return around 9:30, 10-ish. But those that are still out, either still trick-or-treating or bar hopping on the port or what not are not guaranteed a safe passage without yolk on the face. Hrm.. it will make for an interesting night tonight.

Finally, a couple of observations I've noticed is:
-First, 2nd languages can be stressful and it really takes the edge off when the person learning has got (I threw this British terminology in just for Rob :D) a drink in his or her hand.
-Second, cous-cous sounds strange in any language.
-Third, Spaniards have an uncanny ability to attract flies. This doesn't mean they smell bad, because they don't, but the flies come anyways. Which brings us to...
-Fourth, Spaniards also have an uncanny tolerance towards flies (which is possibly why the flies bug them...). In the States, most people will swat at a fly if it is flying anywhere within the vortex of personal space... usually within 3 or 4 feet. Here, I have seen a fly crawl on an individual's face for 3, 4, 5 seconds before leaving on it's own command. I have seen a fly crawl almost into someone's nose before being shooed away. Now, again, I will repeat that this does not mean that Spaniards smell or are disgusting but it's an interesting difference between the two cultures.

We heard that the Halloween parties were over the last weekend. From what we heard, they sounded like they were another fantastic success. Hope everyone has a fantastic Halloween and, when the clock strikes 3 there in Missouri, I hope you all think of Suzy and I and whisper a few Hail Mary's to deter the evil spirits of chicken eggs.