Algeciras.

Ever since I got to Algeciras (a whole day and a half ago), I've been starting and deleting blog entries. I just don't want to post a sad, rambling, whiny post about how my life sucks since I (by choice) uprooted myself from everything and everyone I know, and moved to a foreign country to work for a year, just because I could. How bratty would that sound?

But come on.

I still sort of have a right to vent since I didn't get to pick the city that I would be calling home for a year. Algeciras. Oh joy. It took me about 10 minutes into my exploration of the city today to realize I wasn't exactly in love with it.

Here's the explanation I came up with during my walk:

I went to Fiji for a week in 2008, a country known for it's poverty. What I noticed while my group was in Nadi, the capital, were all the gorgeous exotic flowers that were spilling over ugly cement walls, and growing up the sides of houses to hide the fact they were falling apart. It seemed like they tried to counteract the dustiness and grittiness of the city with beautiful flowers. And it almost worked.

And that's how I feel about Algeciras.

The city is dirty, grimy, very sketchy in certain places, and not typically anywhere I'd want to be.

But the amounts of flowers sprouting up from every corner is pretty impressive. Pink, orange, blue, purple, white, more pink, it's so pretty. And then they paint some of their buildings different colors to try and make it nicer looking.

And it almost works.

But not quite.

It's still dirty looking.