One day Emily had time to update at work...

Hello All!

I've finally got some time in these crazy days to update this bloguita. So, i've got less than a week left at work...i'm pretty much tweeking out about leaving spain and not knowing when i'll be back. um yeah, lets not go there.

on a very positive note, i had an interview with the Director General of immigration in madrid. i was pretty much freaking out before hand, interviewing this big wig in the gov't en espanol y todo. but after an hour and a half, i've ultimately come to the conclusion that it went really well, for a first interview. i found out a lot of good "party line" information for my thesis and will prolly use some of his quotes in it...he was a really good politician, very good at selling his party politics and answering my questions. We'll see how madrid does in the next few years, if anything acually happens.

it was interesting thou, he wouldn't use the word "integration" or "immigration" instead he kept referring to "convivencia" or "intercultural cointeraction/coexistence" in the city, breaking collective barriers and tal (sorry and such -- spanglish). hooray for euphamisms. whatever

also, we started talking about my experience working for the city of madrid, i basically kissed a lot of ass, saying how faaaaaaaabulous my experience has been, and that i've been a publications translator, etc. etc. he's putting me in contact with the dept. of translation and interpretation and said he'd "love to have me working at the ayuntamiento (for the city) of Madrid". so potential job in spain?? maybe?? let's keep our fingers crossed.

on another "very cool summer" highlight, i went on my first rediculous euro roadtrip. Alex and I, in a "long weekend" went thru andorra (the little country b/w spain and france), southern france, monaco (another little country between france and italy) and finally, crossed the border into italy for ha ha's.

It was a crazy weekend al final, but completely worth it, i saw the alpes and pyrenees mountains, went throu cannes, nice, and various small towns in france that i would never have been able to manage without speaking french. overall the trip was exhausting and alex is crazy to have driven all that time, i think it was a rediculous total of like...3000+ kilometers. i don't know how many miles that is...a lot?

tonight's a big party in my dorm because so many people are leaving in the next few days. it's been a really good experience, lots of ppl from different places, right now i live with 1 other american, 1 italian, 2 frenchies, 1 mexican, 1 brazilian and 4 spaniards. Woohoo, sounds like lots of international lovin' and intoxication. (maybe not in that order)

anyway, another week of work; and then i'm off to Malaga, Galicia (northern spain) and Portugal. huzzah for travelling. oh and then my parents show up the 8th, we'll be in Barcelona, Madrid and travelling around northern spain with my host family. Very exciting to have the two family's together, my two worlds/families colliding, could be fabulous or could be disasterous...hmmm

algo mas...anything else, i think that brings things up to date. when is everybody going back? i'm hoping to get back a day early to move all my crap up to KB, my dad was quite unhappy when i told him there was no elevator in KB, then got a lecture on why i should be in the plex. whatever, love my parents

wish you all were here, and see you back very soon at conncoll...
emilia