el mercado

So every Saturday there is a market with basically everything you can think of. It´s right around the corner from my apartment, so I can´t complain. It´s just like Los Lunes in Alcalá de Henares, but like 5 times bigger. You can buy any of the following and much, much more: clothes, jewelry, sunglasses, music, movies, purses (sorry, no fake Coach ones Terri), home decor, kitchenware, shoes, frutos secos, fresh fruits and vegetables, etc. All for super cheap!! I want to spend so much money there, but have to refrane myself. There is even a guy with a whistle and flourescent vest directing traffic - like the guy in the bakery parking lot in Mexico (Elise, Sonya, & Cliff) How funny is that! There is a make-shift churrería where you can eat hot churros con chocalate - so delectable!

Teaching is still going really well. Most of my groups are older, which is nice. I have at least one older person in each of my 12 classes. I do have a couple groups of rambunctious high school boys, but that´s to be expected. I had to break them up this week. They are entertaining to say the least. So we teach English from British books, and there is definitely some major differences! In vocabulary as well as pronunciation. Take ¨stoppities,¨for example to mean ¨times outs¨or they say ¨burgled¨to mean ¨robbed.¨ I laughed pretty hard at that one!! My voice carries well in the classroom (which many of you know I don´t have the loudest voice and it is very squeaky at times. hehe!) because there is no carpet or anything to absorb sound. So that´s a plus!! Makes it easier for me at least. There are 10 other teachers total that teach English and they are all fairly young, late 20s, early 30s, as well as teachers of French, Italian, German, and Arabic.

Yesterday I played paddle for a couple of hours with some of the teachers from the school. Yeah, I know, you´re asking yourself, ¨What the heck is paddle?¨ It´s just like tennis, basically, with a wall behind you to play off of. It sounds easy, did to me anyway, but it´s pretty difficult. You have to control your strength of hitting the ball and be in the right positions to play off the wall. It was fun though. The other guys were really good! Hopefully they didn´t mind playing with a beginner...I´ll have to practice some more.

Oh no! I found a delicious bakery close to me after all! A little too close....I´ll have to walk a different way to get to the bus stop from now on! So it seems like I spend a good chunk of time waiting for the bus. Good thing I have lots of extra time! Wish I could just buy a moped or something to get around. There is tons and tons of ´em here in Almería, as well as just regular motorcycles. It´s crazy!