Happy New Year from Melanie's Mass Mailings...

date: Sep 15, 2006 3:07 AM
subject: Happy New Year from Melanie's Mass Mailings...

Dear Friends, Families, Frisbees,

Hola from the beautiful city of Sevilla, where the tapas are sizzling, the flamenco guitars are strumming, and winning the bull's ear at a bull fight instantly makes you a hero. I hope all is well wherever you find yourselves, enjoying life and looking for adventures.

I am nearing the end of my orientation in Sevilla and will be moving across the country to Murcia, Spain a week from today. I will ''convienently'' arrive in Murcia at the start of Rosh Hashonah, the Jewish new year and one of the most important Jewish holidays. I'm scrambling to find a place for the holidays and a synagogue to go to in the area. If only the Jews hadn't been kicked out of Spain 500 years ago, I wouldn't be having this problem locating Jews now. It is a little strange to try to acclimate myself to a city, make friends, find a frisbee team, and then a few weeks later do it all over again on the other side of Spain where the language and culture is completely different. Its like doing an orientation for rural Mississippi in San Francisco.

But yes, no worries, I did find a frisbee team. Picture the situation: I'm running late for class among the windy cobblestone streets of Sevilla, trying to dodge German tourists and horse-drawn buggies. But imagine my luck and immense joy at seeing someone on the street wearing a FRISBEE SHIRT! He was running for a bus but I grabbed him and wouldn't let go until I had all the details for the next frisbee practice. What are the chances, seriously, that out of 60 frisbee players in a country of 45 million people, I happen to randomly pass one of those 60 people on the street, who randomly just happens to be wearing his only frisbee shirt? Frisbee G-ds, I'm telling you. They're looking out for me.

Another amazing discovery: the Triana bridge, an old stone ridge rock climbers have claimed and turned into one of Spain's most interesting spots to boulder (climb low to the ground without ropes). Now that the temperature has dropped from an unbelievable 110 degrees to a more manageable 80 (in the span of three days), there's a group of people out there every day. Once we established the fact that we can all laugh at my inability to roll ''rrrrrrr's'' despite my years (read: minutes) of practice, they welcomed me into the fold. After a few days, I'm rock climbing better than I have in my whole life (which is to say, not much). Today we also established the fact that I'm the first Jew most of them have met. Isabella and Ferndinand: I hold you directly responsible for Spain's lack of Jewish climbers.

Melanie's Mass Mailings is crossing a new frontier with the publication of ''Turtilla on a Half Shell: Adventures of a Terp in Spain,'' a biweekly column I'll be writing for the Diamondback, my university's newspaper. You can read the first column here:
http://www.diamondbackonline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/09/13/45077cff66cf9?in_archive=1

As I said before, I'm excited to be starting on a new adventure, but all beginnings are hard. My culture shock and sense of isolation were (are) very much increased as a result of what happened this summer. With the help of my parents and friends I'm getting through it, but it's been a bumpy and tough beginning.

I want to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy and healthy new year. May you all be blessed with lots of laughter, love, new experiences, and the ability to appreciate everything you have. May we all take advantage of every moment in whatever twists and turns come our way. And may you all get to attend a bull fight at some point in your life, preferably with people sporting mullets.

Love and flamenco,
Melanie

P.S. note new cell phone below... ;)