Things have still not settled down completely, but I've had a day to catch my breath a bit and try to catch up on some things. Still drowning in school work and work work, and desperately hoping for a quiet quiet quiet August on the translation front, but have at least achieved a flat stretch in my uphill climb towards degree completion and moving back to the States.
You may be wondering at all the sports-type language. It is of course,
juillet, and
juillet means its
Le Tour time! Boring it has not been this year, and I'm very pleased to report that Spain has six riders in the top ten, two each from my favorite teams: Caisse d'Épargne and Euskaltel - Euskadi. Discovery Channel (Lance Armstrong's old team) also has two riders in the top three, including a Spaniard,
Alberto Contador, who holds the virtual yellow jersey. (Today is the last day, but the race ending on the Champs-Élysées generally is only contested by those interested in the green jersey (for sprinters). An Aussie, Cadel Evans, is in second place, and the Australian network has some good
Tour coverage and video. There's been some exciting racing and far too much scandal, and the whole thing has taken up far too much of my time these past three weeks, but I ain't complaining!
Other things I've been doing since, let's check, yikes!, 16 June, in addition to the aforementioned studying and working and being glued to Le Tour, include, in no particular order:
- finishing one job (Open University office);
- sort of finishing another job (teaching, with one student who will hang in there until the bitter end, plus the great video transfer project and miscellaneous bits still to be completed materials-wise);
- a visit from Jane of Vancouver (B.C.) fame, with a brief drop-in and co-visit by Miss Mairi of London fame, which featured a lovely day out to El Pardo, with aborted attempt to visit the
palace, lunch and walk by the river included;
- a couple concerts (
Zucchero and
Youssou N'Dour), both part of the fine
Veranos de la Villa program, and both kickin';
- a couple curries with Colin;
- a visit to Dave's lovely and still relatively new-to-him flat on Calle Mayor, complete with excellent people watching balconies and big light-filled living room, and topped of by a Thai meal;
- seeing the latest
Harry Potter film and then the next week meeting up with Faye of
fazzledazzle fame and Clare after they'd seen it, which led to a late-night purchase (by them) of the newest and last installment of
the saga at
Casa de Libro, which opened at midnight for the express purpose of appeasing rapid Potter fans (books not on sale until 1 a.m., midnight UK time);
- seeing my regular local neighborhood
menu del día provider turned into a satellite branch of my local neighborhood very popular, and fortunately for all concerned, also very yummy,
Rincón de Jaen restaurant, so now must find new provider for days when I want a proper lunch for a reasonable price without having to cook it myself;
- an evening at the theater for a very good English-language production
Cymbeline at the beautiful
Teatro Español, with a pre-theatre drink on one of my favorite plazas, Santa Ana, followed by
some music by a group made up of friends of friend and others, a bit of jazz and bossa nova to end the night;
- many aborted attempts to meet Juan Carlos of that's-how-I-ended-up-in-Spain-in-the-first-place fame for lunch following a much-needed visit to the
Universidad Complutense library to do research for my
art history project, at this point titled '
Conturbatio to
Humiliatio: a consideration of the Virgin's response in four Annunciations';
- getting a very satisfying pair of 88s on
Renaissance in Europe assignments and the same on my art history project plan;
- protracted negotiations with Pedro about cat care (his) while he's biking around Iceland, reminding me why we are still very good friends but no longer a couple;
- getting all Facebook-ed and shit;
- revelling in the not-very-July-like weather, which has now ended and become very very hotness;
- escaping to
Robledo de Chavela for a day and a bit to visit Sam and Josue and Emma and little Hannah;
- trying (unsuccessfully so far) to sign on for unemployment;
- changing the color of my hair dye (although that may have come before);
- getting the sandals out any my toenails all painted and sorted for summer, a ritual which I love;
- a couple evenings out with Sara without an 'H', who was here for work, her lovely workmates and even lovelier friend Mariu, who I only manage to see when Sara comes;
- grooving on
lastfm;
- and finally making it down to the
Spanish language school which sends me lodgers to pick up my money, which had been sitting there for gobstopper knows how long.
I'm sure there's more, but I'm out of breath just writing it, so I will off to tend to this weekend's translation work, in preparation for (dare I say it?) an actual visit to the liberry tomorrow and some proper studying. Lunch time now! Think I will indulge in a
kumato salad and a little
Annie's mac-n-cheese-in-a-box, very kindly supplied by Jane of Vancouver fame, along with excellent
St. Ives apricot face scrub, catnip and other necessities of life.
So there I am, engaged in an agonizing and seemingly endless revision of a very very very, but very very very bad "translation" of rules and regulations for trade fair exhibitors when I come across something along the lines of 'all draws, lotteries and tombolas...'. I say to myself, 'Self, what on earth is up with their shit, "tombola" ain't no English word!' Turning to my handy-dandy Oxford Superlex dictionary in search of other words of this ilk (i.e. synonyms), I discover that, lo and behold! the translation of tómbola is in fact tombola. In perplexity, I refer to the super handy-dandy Answers.com and discover that a tombola is indeed 'A lottery in which tickets are drawn from a revolving drum.'
