MacBook: MIA

Where to start? I´ve cooled down quite a bit and realize that life goes on, regardless of what happens, until life just doesn´t go on anymore. And I´m not dead, so here I am.

Yes, upon returning to my apartment after a weekend trip to Granada, I discovered that my computer was missing. I flipped out, lemme tell ya. My first thought was that I had been played (old folks' translation: fooled, tricked, taken advantage of) by my host parents and, began shouting a little bit in Spanglish. Well, you would have too. After they offered to pay for it right away and apologized profusely, I realized that they couldn't have possibly stolen it. Then, after returning from the police station, they discovered that they had two cameras missing. yeesh. no bueno.

I actually spent several hours the last few days visiting all the pawn shops in town to look for my computer. When someone enters your property (or borrowed living space) and takes your stuff, you feel personally violated. You want revenge, you want to slit their throats, you want to take your stuff back. I figured, shoot, if I could steal back my stolen car senior year of high school back at home, I could steal back my computer here. Yeah, didn't work. I hope they enjoy my MacBook though. I can just picture them now, throwing it across the room in frustration after desperately trying to put in the right password to access my desktop. Good luck, suckers. Whatsup.

It's a huge mess, and if you think bureacracy is bad in the US, come to Spain. I've experienced Spanish culture first-hand now. My coordinator Armando said the system is so screwed up that as long as someone doesn't steal more than €500 worth of stuff, nothing really happens to them. It's because the liberal politicians and government are so concerned about the "rights" of the accused (thieves) that they end up screwing over the victims, the tax-paying citizens, the people. Those are his words not mine. And he is a Spaniard. Take it for what it's worth. Needless to say, my computer most likely will never be recovered, and I'm giving it one more day until I order a new one online. Can't buy one here because 1. there are maybe 12 Macs in existence in Spain. No one uses them. And 2. they all have Spanish keyboards. Extra buttons and symbols and difficult to use, as I'm sure I've made quite a few typos on here.

And oh yeah, Granada was cool too. I'll post pictures...sometime? Or just Google "Alhambra" and see it for yourself. Ancient castle, temple, whatever you wanna call it from waaay before our country was even discovered. Speaking of which, we also saw the place where, in 1492, Christopher Columbus appealed to Spain's royalty at that time, Ferdinand and Isabella, to sign an agreement for him to sail out to the West Indies and eventually, accidentally, find America. Just think about that for a second. It's pretty cool.

More to come. I'll try to post more often with less words. Hope all is well at home. It's 70 degrees here today and I'll be hittin up the playa for some soccer this afternoon. Hasta luego.