Monday, June 2nd "Exchange Rate; Jobs; Our Patio; Victory!"

One of the difficulties in living here with our current economy is the ever changing exchange rate. In the last few months my rent has varied from $440-489, the bed we bought on a 3 month plan is now $100 more expensive then when we purchased it. I of course am complaining about this on the day it has dropped (in my favor), but it is one of the issues you must keep an eye on when living off a U.S. bank account in Europe. My current fear is that our government and a certain president likely see the falling dollar as an advantage - the lower the dollar the cheaper it is to import American goods which (supposedly) will help the economy. Of course a solution to this would be to find a job, something I am working on today

I do have a lead on some possible work here and will have a meeting this week. I hopefully will be helping a cyber cafe here in translating their page to English as well as on a future, and larger, tourist related project. As with many opportunities here this is in the "talking stage". That means it doesn't mean a damn thing until the topic of actual pay comes up.

We finally bought a table for our patio. It only set us back about 69€ plus the cab fare to get it to our place. We thought of carrying it until we realized it weighed over 100 lbs. and thus would likely take 2 hours to walk it back to our apartment. Our hope is to use the patio space a little more during the summer although we'll have to see how the temperature affects our plans. The patio is now complete except for a plant or two more and some chairs, which we could not afford to buy, to go along with the table.

We finally watched a Betis away game where they won, beating Alavés 0-1. Not that it was an impressive victory considering Alavés is scheduled for demotion to the 2nd division. That gives us just enough hope for the UEFA, although the chances are slim for the European competition next year. And while you'd think playing in the European tournaments would be something a team owner would want, Lopera (Betis' owner) has indicated he doesn't care because it costs money to play outside of Spain. So with an attitude like that we'll see what happens in the last two games.