I slept for 15 hours last night, so I´m feeling very refreshed and not jet lagged at all. Isabel is at school today, so I´ve been hanging out with her boyfriend Felipe. He took me to the old part of town to change my money, and we walked around a bit and I got to see some of the old buildings and narrow streets you see in the pictures. It is really really gorgeous. We ran into a couple of Felipe´s friends in the street, I didn´t understand much of their conversation, I heard something about clothes and watching and imagining, and for some reason I thought they were standing there scoping out women. But afterwards Felipe, who is a policeman, told me they were friends from work and there were working right there undercover watching for a thief from Madrid who they think is in Toledo. They know what he´s wearing today, so that´s what they were watching for. Then we each had a drink at an outdoor bar, I had cerveza con limon (beer w- lemon) which is what a lot of Spanish women drink. It´s really tasty and there´s not much alcohol in it.

Felipe speaks almost no English, so talked in Spanish for a while and then came home, now he´s cooking lunch. I just can´t get over how nice he and Isabel are! Isabel spent so much time yesterday, and Monday, calling people to find apartments for me, and yesterday took me to three different places to look. After I get my first paycheck I´m definitely going to take them out to dinner or something, and I think I´ll have mom and Laura buy something sweet to bring them from the states. Oh yeah, and Isabel has a tatto on her back and a nose ring. I asked if she was allowed to wear her nose ring to work and she said yeah, you can wear nose rings, jeans, dreadlocks...whatever you want. Also, mom, Felipe has been a policeman for a year now and said Toledo is very peaceful, quiet, almost no crime. He said it is very difficult to get a gun here in Spain, so almost no one has them. I told him Topeka is mostly safe, but has some bad areas, he said here in Toledo there aren´t even any dangerous areas of town. He said all the bad guys are in Barcelona and Madrid.

Other than the language, and the gorgeous old part of town, things aren´t all that different here. American music is all over the radio, Felipe likes U2 a lot, and Isabel listens to The Strokes, The Killers etc. I haven´t been in any house or apartment yet that had carpet, it´s all tile or wood floors. Isabel and Felipe own a house in the suburbs, their front door doesn´t have a doorjam or anything, it´s totally flat as you walk through, the tile just extends from their hallway inside out to their porch. Their house, and the apartments I looked at had small front loading washing machines in the kitchens, and everyone just dries clothes outside. Cars are smaller (but there aren´t any smart cars), meals are later, people are more well dressed and more people smoke (especially women, according to Isabel)...those are the main differences I´ve seen so far.

Isabel said I would be working mostly with kids ages 3 to 7, but also I will be helping a teacher named Miriam who is supposed to teach English, and teach science in English, but she doesn´t speak English herself!! I´ll work monday, tuesday, wednesday and be off thursday and friday. Isabel said I can do extra stuff and make more money, so I´ll probably do that.