Reflections on my first week

Highlights:

-Celebrating my first anniversary with Emily :-)  We had a delicious, huge lunch with family at Chelo & Gonzalo's house, then spent the remainder of the eveing alone.  Late at night we went out for a small Spanish style tapas dinner, sharing a few small dishes over some drinks.  After dinner we went for a walk around Raxo, taking in the view from all around while most of the town was already in home and silent.

-Feira Franca.  (See previous post)

-¡La Vendimia!  Separate blog post to follow, but making the wine at Gonzalo's was the most fun experience so far, by a long shot.

-The return of dolphins to our Ria (estuary).  I remember dolphins swimming up to our little boat when I 5, but I hadn't seen any the last four or five times I've visited here.  They've been easy to spot this year, and are a majestic view in the ocean.  I will try and post a photograph soon, but they're so fast that they are hard to catch...especially without a telephoto lens :-(

-The family.  Emily and I have been treated phenomenally by all of our family, who never cease to amaze me in their generosity, sincerity, and capacity for sweet gestures.

-The food.  Subject for a future post, but bears mentioning here.


Lowlights:

-The weather.  We had two very rainy days in our first four days here, forcing us to alter our plans a bit, though as of late the weather has taken a tremendous turn for the better (beach, boat time recently).

-Spanish bureaucracy.  I'll spare readers the boring details, but suffice it to say it has been a headache to secure the paperwork needed to get me a DNI (national identity card, essential for Spanish citizens to get anything more than a carton of milk), and to register Emily appropriately so that she can live here without a visa.  Basically, nobody seems to really  have any idea what we need to do, so my only hope is that we can accomplish everything necessary in under three months, so that Emily doesn't get deported.  (Doubly frustrating since the Spanish consulate in New York assured us we had done everything necessary prior to leaving.)

-The language barrier.  When people ask me if I'm fluent, my answer has always been "I'm proficient, which is to say I could carry a conversation with anyone so long as we want to understand each other, but I could never translate a book."  That's a pretty good summary of where my Spanish skills are right now (getting better bit by bit the longer I am here), but the limitations of my language become amplified every day.  Especially as a translator for Emily, I have become very frustrated in the things I cannot properly convey.  When you define your eloquence by saying "I can get around what I don't know," you find yourself saying a lot of the same things, and inconsequential things and/or jokes, puns, playful jibes (basically, the crux of friendly communication) often become not-worth the effort in attempting to explain and translate.  I have always prided myself on my ability to communicate and express myself, and my ability to get along and carry on conversations with anyone; I will have to work very hard to get to that point in Spanish.  (Add in the fact that almost all of the locals here speak what is called Trapaso--literally, Castilian Spanish mixed with Galego, an entirely distinct language indigenous to Galicia--and that is harder than it may sound.)

-My computer.  One of my major goals this year was to work on my documentary project about my family's immigration story, all the while becoming a much better technical and practical editor of my own work.  To have a year to work on that was like a dream come true.  Unfortunately, I've spent the last few weeks agonizing over the decision of how to get my computer to Spain, and more lately whether I should at all.  (Note, for those who don't know: the computer in question is my new very special, very expensive, very tricked-out 27" iMac, the specs of which I had specially ordered to function perfectly for HD video editing.)  The computer is very heavy and, unfortunately, I completely underestimated the cost of shipping it to Spain.  As of now, my only option seems to be shipping costs that would likely exceed $1200 total, which still does not include a potential duty at Spanish customs that nobody can yet give me an accurate prediction for (but which might, on its own, exceed the shipping costs).  At that point, it would nearly match the cost of buying an identical computer brand new, and, needless to say, I don't have sufficient bankroll for that kind of unplanned cost.  If I don't get better news in a hurry, I might choose to keep the computer at home, and put my editing training on the back burner. Fortunately, I would still be able to work on my documentary project, if even in a limited form, without the luxury of being able to critically review my footage as its shot.


All in all, the highlights still have it.  It's been a great first week, and I am thus far completely pleased and at peace with our decision.  Tomorrow morning Emily starts her language classes, which puts us both on a more rigid, daily work schedule that should prove very productive.  I am looking forward to becoming more situated in our new home.