Surgeon General's Warning: The following post may or may not contain mild whining. Whining is considered annoying to the health.

Well. Here we are back at MAD hostel after a weekend stay at what Astin and I now refer to as "The Hostel from Hell." Really, the hostel itself wasn't awful, aside from running out of toilet paper. When we arrived at 11 or 12, there was no sign of a desk or any way of getting beyond the locked doors on the 7th floor of the building we were in. Apparently, guests are supposed to miraculously divine that the desk is located at least a block away where an elderly and grumpy old man was attending to several outraged clients. (Apparently there were several problems with the hostel.) In short, it took the goodwill (and different levels of broken Spanish) of several amazingly kind individuals to get us situated. For example, Sabine and Filipe from France let three different groups store luggage in their room since we couldn't check in till 2. Or the Spanish couple that wouldn't leave the office until Astin had her room keys, even though they had theirs. They also gave her their cell number in case we ran into anymore problems. There was also the taxi driver that we miscommunicated with when we gave directions. He pulled over, shut off the meter, and helped us find exactly where to go. So many suprising acts of kindness kept us safe and relatively happy.

I now have another suggestion for future travelers. You should get sick while you're living in a hostel. In fact, you should convert your old nose to a new-and-improved faucet. You should also accidentally keep half your fake hostel up at night when you can't sleep. This will make you feel like a great person.

Final news...no apartment. We may be relatively close on one. We're crossing our fingers. Tomorrow begins the test to see if I am fit to teach grammar. I am pretty nervous. Most of what I know and what I write is gut feeling. I'm not sure I will be able to explain how or why things work. But I guess I'll find out tomorrow!