Home to my father, first cousin, and son

Good heavens! Every time I write in this blog I have so much to say and then I publish it and I realize my entry is ridiculously long and people are probably less inclined to read it, so for that I am sorry. I just always have a lot to say.

Today was my first day at my internship and I really love it. The man that I work for, Orestes is just such a down to earth person, really friendly and seems very on top of his game. I walked into the intimidating building of the PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español) and the security guard knew my name right off because I suppose my boss told him he was expecting me and since I don't really look Spanish at all it was no mystery as to who I was. Last time I was at the PSOE I was with a woman, who works in Human Relations like I said to figure out a schedule but today, since it was my first day, I was in the office where I will be working.

I am working for the Secretary of International Relations. I got my own huge desk (like all the other full time workers) my nice desktop, PSOE email, all they had promised. I did a lot of reading today about the party, what is has done in the past 4 years, what it plans to do if they win the elections in March and just basic beliefs of the party. I met a few of my coworkers, me and 3 other full time workers sit in cubicles that form a square, but the walls dividing the cubicles are short so we all can see each other and chat, which we did a bit since I am the new girl. They were all so friendly, all appear to be at the oldest in their early 30s, if that but all very energetic, witty and fun to be around.

They were swearing like it was no tomorrow in the office, I was shocked because last week my impression of the office was pretty serious, my interview was relaxed because we were only figuring out my schedule but the appearance of the building as well as everyone in business attire lead me to believe it was far more formal. But once I stepped into my floor, people were swearing (joder which means "fuck" or "to mess with", Spaniards often stay "no me jodas" meaning "stop fucking/messing with me" but definitely a derogatory term) and the men wearing jeans loosened the tone of the office. But everyone was great, they said we should eat lunch together sometime this week. I also knew that the internship would be far more relaxed when I told my boss I was scheduled to come in at 9:30AM and he was like that is really early, people probably won't be here, you don't have to come that early. I probably will anyway just because I am so excited to be in the midst of an office of Spaniards who are interested in politics. Also the PSOE gets this neat little packet of all the newspapers in Spain complied for them to read when they get to the office, very convenient and free.

I am not 100% sure of what I am going to be doing for the duration of the internship. A lot of it will be translating things from Spanish to English for my department which will be cool because I will have to read everything my department creates, which is a lot, international relations spans so much. I also am going to be in charge of this event with different American political organizations like MoveOn.org and inviting and organizing them to come to Spain for like a conference of organizations of that type, that should be a big and cool project, we didn't get to details but I am already excited.

My boss also talked about me teaching more English to the department and helping them with pronunciation so they don't sound funny when they are trying to speak English. It was extremely amusing when my boss was talking about the grunge culture in Seattle, but his pronunciation of "grunge" brought us both to laughter. Anyway, I am very excited and it feels like this internship will be an incredible experience because they are treating me like one of their own.

Also, crazy but Jose Luis Zapatero, the Prime Minister of Spain's office is on my floor so whenever he comes to the party's building, it is very likely he will just be around the office. So different from the USA, when would a foreign student get an internship that puts them within a couple hundred feet of our president? Probably never. I am super excited to potentially have a Zapatero sighting but also to learn more about Spanish politics.

Ok, in the interest of not writing too much to read, I will save more commentary for perhaps later tonight or tomorrow.