A note to write.

(This is my home)

After another absolutely gorgeous weekend, today is rainy rainy rainy. I could hear the rain on the roof all night long and it continues today. I wore myself out over the weekend taking advantage of the final days before it turns cold. Cold being in the neighborhood of 40-50 degrees farenheit.

Friday I finally made it to the museum of Sorolla. It is the first class fieldtrip that I have gone on since I have been here. It was pretty fun. Notice in the painting below- he is most known for his use of light. AMAZING. I do love his paintings, but actually the highlight of the trip was the asian girls reading my palm. One girl took my hand and shouted "oh my God" Then they were all freaking out in their native tongue. Some highlights of the reading: I will have a very grave accident in my life when I am about 45 years old. They were disputing- I am either going to have normal money or very little. I have no intelligence, but my husband will be REALLY intelligent.

On friday night Javi and I went to a new place that has the best CHOCOLATE of my life. Basically a nice cup of chocolate is like drinking a mug of chocolate syrup. I know it sounds gross, but they do it, and it is really good and warm. I have a mad sweet tooth for chocolate. It has only gotten worse since I have lived in spain. And i am not talking any of that milk chocolate stuff. I gotta have deep rich dark chocolate. Anyways, my chocolate from friday had chunks of fruit in it and Javi had one that had little pieces of orange in it. So good and sooooo good. It was funny because his sister was with us and I was telling them stories about my life and childhood in the states. It was really funny for them because to them 'my life is like a movie.' She was asking me about the little girls that go door to door selling cookies, the thing that we say when we are trick-or-treating, and teenagers egging houses. They only see those things in movies. Yeah, we live it. I felt really cool.

This week my focus, and very unsuccessful thus far, is to force myself to make some decisions about the future. The future being the next year. I printed out my resume and hate it. Have no clue what I want to do and my previous hopes of spending the summer in the states are diminishing. Struggling.........

The Rain in Spain falls mostly in the Plains

Normally when it rains I am one to skip class, but not today. I have attended three days now without skipping. I walked to class with my new umbrella from the United States. Being on time made all the difference because I actually really enjoyed the walk. I listened to Blink 182, a soundtrack inspired by my recent trip to Kentucky and sang out loud because there were few others walking today. I wore a skirt and chuck taylors so I did not have to worry about my sox or pants slurping up the puddles. But geeez its cold! like 50 degrees!

Now I am off to the post office to mail my absentee ballot, I hope that it reaches the city of Brookfield by the time everyone is voting, whenever that is.

Here is the joy of my evenings......

They have a perfect hallway for playing cars. Santi and I could play this for hours. We just pass little matchbox cars back and forth. If one gets stuck in the middle we have to rescue it by hitting it out of the middle with another car. When they are all stuck, we lose.

This is a classic "Daniela" expression:

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Its mushroom season in Spain!

So everyone is going around collecting baskets and baskets full of mushrooms wherever they see em. Then we cook em up and eat them. Soo good. This weekend the family went to pick mushrooms out in the country. And when they werent traipsing around the countryside they went back to the house to jam on the guitars. Tio filipe has an acoustic with 12 strings.

Anyways i passed all that up to go out to Alquezar again in hopes of getting in some canyoneering and world-class climbing. Well it rained saturday so that took canyoneering out of my plans. We hung out mostly inside all day. Some, of course went out in search of mushrooms. We went out to eat and to a bar in the evening. I finally got some rest that I have been missing for a while.

Sunday I headed out to Rodellar to get in some climbing. We were limited to overhung climbing as things were still drying from the rain. Dani Andrada, one of the world's bests, was there. Not much else. Headed back home on Sunday night.

Today I finally started school again. I have not missed out on anything in class. But i have come to the realization of what i was missing. I now have a great sense of accomplishment. I am a funtioning member of society and I actually do something. When the kids go to school and the parents to work.... I have something to do as well. It feels good. There are a lot of new kids. Some have only been in Spain for a couple of weeks now. Stress and homesickness. I dont think i was that bad, or was I?

Anyways. I am in a different place now and I like it. Love it. I still haven't taken any pictures.

I'm by no means political, but I'm gonna slip this in.

So this is what i read and bought into--------------------

TAX CUTS EXPLAINED
Because it's the election season, let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement until one day the owner threw them a curved ball (or is that a curved beer!). 'Because you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.'

Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant the men began to compare their savings.

'I only got a dollar out of the $20,' declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, 'but he got $10!'

'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!'

'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!'

'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth man and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our Tax System works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

----------------------------I have to back this up by saying that it is definately friendly drinking overseas.

And back, one more time.

Me and broski number 4:

Flippity Flop, now I'm back in Spain and actually have time to write again. I will be here until June, only 8 short months.

It is great to be back, but it seems that things are already back into the normal hum-drum of children crying and pulling on my strings like puppeteers. I truely did miss them and truely do love and care for them.

School started at the beginning of October, which means I should've been in the classroom today. However, as would be expected, I am already playing hookey and probably will do that a lot this semester. Unless of course something besides the renewal of my visa lures me in, like a good-looking young and wealthy man with a great sense of humor, a passion for climbing and an aptitude for buying me diamonds. So I'm getting sidetracked. The bottom line is that class is boring and I dread getting myself out the door for the 30 minute walk. I'm sure soon I will make that resolution I do every semester: a sharp pencil, perfect attendence without tardiness, completed homework, and 100% participation.

Today my worthy excuse for skipping was to unpack my suitcases and deal with banks. While in the United States I decided to generously give away ALL of my personal information. I am now a suffering victim of FRAUD. I can't really say that I have considered myself to be a "victim" before. It's an interesting feeling. It's not what I expected, especially since I am the one who GAVE away all my information to the wrong people. How the Heck am I a victim? See.... there I go, textbook response, blaming myself. Well, the good that comes out of this story is that I can use my words, from experience, as an inspiration to help others.... "Be careful out there. Ya know, I once was like everyone else, thought I was immune to fraud. But the truth is we are not. If someone asks for all your information over the internet, do not give it to them. Even if it is someone you think you can trust like John Paul Washington from Cambodia who will pay you $25,000 to help him get a kidney transplant for his sick two-year old child in the United States."

Now i am in milwaukee.

So i am doing a crappy job with this whole blog thing. I have been in Milwaukee/Chicago for a while now. These are pictures from my first days back. My dad put a huge banner and balloons up on the house.

I will put up more pictures etc later. and maybe even write...

FOr now i am going to KY to climb climb climb. nothing new.