1 week pre-race

It’s been a pretty good week.

I got a job!  Last weekend, a man overheard me speaking in English on Skype in the Internet café and approached me when I was done to ask if I’d be interested in teaching English to his kids.  I met the entire family yesterday afternoon and have been officially hired—I practice my Spanish with the parents, speak in English with their three beautiful and very well-behaved children (triplets), and I’ll get an extra 20 euros a week. 

My host mom bought romaine lettuce instead of iceberg last weekend and served that for dinner.  Yes, this was a highlight of the day.

I finally made it to the chupitería—the shot bar of Granada.  The menu has 121 different kinds of shots, and with every shot you get a card with a value of 1 point—certain amounts of points win you different prizes.  75 points wins you a sweatshirt, for example so my collection has officially started.  The most adventurous shot I had Saturday night was one with vodka, rum, and tabasco sauce.  Get this—I liked it. 

And now I’m en route to Munich, Germany, where I’ll meet up with a friend from Running Club before heading on to Cologne with her for my half marathon on Sunday.  Even at the first gate in the Madrid airport, I was surrounded by the German language… and therefore instantly less ostentatious as an American, since I look 100 percent more German than Spanish.  Thank you, Kesslers, for the German genes.  Unfortunately, when I say I don’t know a lick of German I mean it; I don’t even know how to say “hello”.

Needless to say, I’m stoked for the race.  One of the first things I noticed when I first got here was that my American personality had seemed to fold away into the pocket lint of being one small person in the disorienting world of… the world.  Literally, it's terrifying.  So since my American personality has seemed to be hiding since I've been in Spain, as if shying away behind Mom’s leg in front of a stranger, running has come to define me—my complete need to be in my running shoes out on a trail every day is kind of hard to hide.  So I’d say this is the most in tune with running I’ve ever been.  And amidst trying to be modest in the face of so much awe and support from my friends here, it might not hit me how cool it is to run a race in another country until after the fact, maybe not even until I return the States. 

What my friends here don’t know is that once I’m back in Granada next week, my running routine doesn’t change.  This whole past month and a half wasn’t just training, it was me.  Hi, everyone.