Living with a new language often means your first time translation of names, places and things is the most fun. You also realize how much you've become accustomed to names back home and forget the actual meanings behind the words. For instance the name of my home town - Chapel Hill - doesn't make me think of a little church on a hill. But for someone first hearing that name, well it must be the first thing to enter their minds. So this phenomenon, if you could call it that, often occurs while I am wandering around the city. Some of the names for streets have their history to which I am often ignorant. Perhaps if I knew of the historic individual I would make the association with them before my mind processes the literal meaning. Others come from common sayings which when literally translated sound a bit funny. Others sound like another word in Spanish. Ok, so time for some fun with translating these names:

• Calle Juan de Mesa = John of Table Street
• Calle Blanco White = White White Street
• Calle Alhondiga = sounds like Calle Albondiga = Meatball Street
• Calle Hombre de Piedra = Man of Stone Street
• Calle Blanca Paloma = White Pigeon Street
• Avda. Dr. Leal Castaño = Dr. Loyal Chestnut Avenue
• Calle Amador de los Rios = Loving of the River Street
• Calle Amor de Dios = Love of God Street
• Calle Pedro Caravaca = Peter Cowface Street
• Calle Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca = Alvar Nuñez Head of Cow Street
• Calle Pedro del Toro = Peter of the Bull Street
• Calle Cabezas de San Juan = Heads of Saint John Street
• Calle Cabeza del Rey Don Pedro = Head of King Pedro Street
• Calle Torrecabra = Goat Tower Street
• Calle Parque de Despeñaperros = Park of Hurling Dogs off a Cliff
• Calle Venta de los Gatos = Sale of Cats Street
• Calle Jesus del Gran Poder = Jesus of Great Power Street

Two more favorites (non-street related) are "Hay cuatro gatos" = "There are four cats", which means there is nobody around. This you may use when you walk into a bar and you're the only one there. I guess the thinking is there are so few people that the only things around are some cats. And of course there is "tocino del cielo" = "fat from heaven". This is like flan but made with twice the egg yolks. The end result is a thicker pastry which has an appearance similar to a slice of fat.

Tomorrow evening we take on Barcelona in a match that should be quite good. After being robbed with a terribly called penalty against Deportivo we move on and hope for better officiating.

Posted by Jeff at 2:28 PM MEST

Updated: Sunday, 29 November 2009 12:36 PM CET

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A great turnout and lots of emotion were not enough to lead Betis to a win over Liverpool! After a nightmare in the first 13 minutes, with Betis falling behind 0-2, the rest of the match was very competitive. Betis especially dominated in the second half and should have come away with a tie. We battled several 8 foot tall players (well, just one really tall fellow who should be playing professional basketball). First match jitters now over, we should be ready for the away match and much more in Champions. Sevilla F.C., in keeping with their sub par performances after selling off every good player they could, tied with Mainz at home. True, they have a lot of money in the bank now, but if I were a fan I'd rather watch a good match than my team's bank account balance go up. Today it's just a regular league match for Betis that I am looking forward to. You can see a few photos and a report from the match on this page at sevilla5.com.

As we get closer to purchasing a house, or rather apartment, we have been picking everyone's brain on the do's and don't's of the entire process. When I say getting "closer" this doesn't mean we are searching yet. Nor have we talked to any banks or have any idea of where, how, how much or when. I guess mentally we are closer to purchasing and this means we are in the information gathering stage from all of our friends and contacts. We've learned of banks to avoid, accounts not to use for saving for the deposit, agents of questionable trust and the pitfalls of hiring someone unqualified to handle renovations. In all honesty I don't see much difference from the U.S. or perhaps other countries in terms of these risks. There is often a little blind faith involved as well, like paying a deposit without any real contract, where one must simply hope that the money will be returned should something go wrong. Mental preparation seems to be very important to me for things like this. I don't like handing over 10 - 20,000€ to just anyone.

Yesterday we spent twelve hours catching up with friends just outside of the city center. After a few beers and lunch we retired to their newly renovated apartment for a few drinks. As often is the case, we spent ten more hours discussing anything and everything over a few copas. Starting at 2pm and ending at 2:30am, well, I'm getting used to it. And we've been away for too long so there was a lot to talk about. In between there were two meals, with dinner from one of the best places for pescaito frito in all of Sevilla.

While my true passion for sports lies with college basketball and of course, Real Betis, I am also one who enjoys a game of football. Or American football, I should clarify. NFL games can be watched every weekend and during the week (tape delayed), but if you want to see a little college football you are out of luck in Spain. So this year I took advantage of the early price break to order ESPN's college football package online. Anywhere from 10 - 15 games each week and the ability to watch full screen at a decent quality thanks to a recent, free upgrade in speed to my ADSL service. If you've been reading these entries before you know of my past experiments with watching the NCAA basketball tournament online as well. And as with the tournament there seem to be some blackout issues which they haven't solved yet. As in they are blacking out games which are supposed to be in my local viewing area even though: 1) they state they determine the blackouts by my zip code of my billing address (which is in Spain) and 2) As much as a I flip through my channels I just can't find this game (hmmm...). And being much worse than Yahoo! or Collegesports.com, ESPN does not answer my emails about the unjust blackouts.

Posted by Jeff at 2:27 PM MEST

Updated: Sunday, 29 November 2009 12:37 PM CET

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My long silence over, I thought it was time to update this portion of my site. First of all I was sick of an April date staring at me every time I logged onto the site. Second of all I needed some time off from updating my life on this page. Seeing as I couldn't even keep up with it all myself for a few months...well, it's hard to update what's going on for me when I barely had time to reflect. And I seriously needed a break in between work and other events. Since I have last updated some of the following things have happened, all of which I plan to write about at some point:

• My mother and step-father have come and gone after a 4 month stay. We moved them in around late February and then out in late June. We were welcomed back to the world of signing leases, setting up utilities, and furnishing an apartment. And then we dismantled and disconnected everything! Add to this the sadness you feel after being used to having family live just down the street and it was physically and emotionally tiring. We had a wonderful time and met many visitors - almost every week we found ourselves in El Rinconcillo giving someone a tour!
• Betis won the Copa del Rey and qualified for Champions League. The first match is tonight versus Liverpool, and we can hardly wait. Then matches against Chelsea and Anderlecht should make the season interesting.
• After many months of waiting I received my official tarjeta de residente. Funny how I kept thinking it was all over only to show up at the offices in Plaza de España to learn there was another step involved. Patience was the lesson learned, and I should have known better than to think it would be easy.
• Lanzarote! A brief break took us to the Canary Islands, Lanzarote to be specific. We spent 5 days and nights there and learned we needed a few more. A total disconnect on a small island was perfect. I hope to post these pictures as well as add some information on my side trips section in the coming month.
• North Carolina! We spent another 72 hours from hell flying from Madrid to Munich to Charlotte. Miss one flight (or rather, suffer from delays) on this journey and you can count on a lot of extra travel time. Stupidly we had purchased a separate ticket to get us closer to Maryland and a family reunion. As this was not connected to our international flight we lost our tickets, had to rebook to another airport at an inflated price and then rent a car to drive 5 hours after a Munich to Charlotte to D.C. flight with a 4 hour layover. Add this to our 12 hour stay in the Madrid airport and you can see just how much fun we had! We spent some time visiting friends, doing taxes, visiting with my lawyer, sorting through a year's worth of mail, moving our grandmother to a new apartment and of course seeing family. We did manage to escape to the beach for a week.
• Wedding: the wedding of my sister-in-law and the many activities surrounding it: clothing required, parties, planning and gifts. And it's not even our wedding! Still, we hope to learn a thing or two before we begin to plan ours for next year.
• Real estate. Beginning a very slow search, we sat back and listened to our friends and their hardships of purchasing a house in a small town outside of Seville. I won't name names - either buyers or their contracted lawyer - but I did learn whom I won't hire to help us out when it comes time to buy. Seriously, we learned a lot, and now that it's over we look forward to visits outside of Seville!

There is certainly more, but life moves on and the past is the past, so on and so forth, blah, blah, blah... My break meant not answering all of the emails to this site I should have. I can only say send them again if you can, and I am working backwards to answer most. Again, tonight is Liverpool and I must run to finish work, eat, take a very short nap, then work, then do a little screaming at the match. Another report is coming tomorrow.

Posted by Jeff at 2:27 PM MEST

Updated: Sunday, 29 November 2009 12:37 PM CET

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A historic season for Betis ended in the early morning hours of Sunday, but the day began for us on Saturday morning at 7am. Rising from a restless sleep we made our way to the Santa Justa train station for a breakfast among beticos at the train station cafeteria. We were scheduled for a 9:15 a.m. charter AVE, one of several double AVEs (literally two trains stuck together) to take 30,000 to 40,000 fans to Madrid to see the final game. Tickets were hard to come by, and by the time we purchased them there was only first class available. So we spent 180€ apiece for our train tickets plus 60€ for seats in the upper deck of the final. Adding in the meals and other expenses we were looking at 300€ per person in what we hoped would be a championship. Or as I stated many times, better be a championship if we were spending this kind of money. Some 24 hours after we woke up we arrived in Santa Justa as champions and with a season in Champions League to look forward to. It was well worth the money, the energy and everything else we lost along the way.

Posted by Jeff at 4:26 PM MEST

Updated: Sunday, 29 November 2009 12:37 PM CET

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