feliz dia de la virgen imaculada

So Kirsten and I were hoping to see some type of procession to the Cathedral, but the whole plaza was pretty empty when we went. We did get a chance to look inside (I hadn’t even been inside yet), both of our first Cathedral to go into in Spain. Well, minus the other 100 we saw when we were in Spain before!! Ok, so that’s a little of an exaggeration, but not much if you include all the little churches. So here’s some pictures of the Plaza de la Catedral. There was a ¨puente¨ last weekend which means if there is a holiday on a Thursday, it is ¨bridged¨until the weekend with Friday off as well. Sounds like a good idea to me!

feliz día de constitución!

This is more of a formal holiday and isn't really celebrated that much, except everything is closed. In Madrid this time of year you can celebrate by wearing masks or wigs. I never really figured out if that was to celebrate Day of the Constitution somehow, Christmas, or the coming new year. Anybody know? Here's a big assortment of choices of masks and some dude displaying a very lovely wig...think what you will...

feliz dia de santa kristina!!!

So my students told me that today is the day of Saint Kristina (really Cristina, but hey, what does it matter?). So everybody named Kristina gets to celebrate the day. In Spain everyone gets 2 days to celebrate: your birthday and your own day of the Saint you share the same name with. Everyone celebrates a few of the big, famous Saints days, such as San Jose on June 24, which here in Almeria everyone goes to the beach and has fires. Sounds fun to me! So then my students told me that I must invite them over to celebrate!

oh happy day!!

Ok so life is grand! I just got my new computer and got the Internet working again (hopefully for good), got my other suitcase in the mail a couple of weeks ago, got myself a little space heater to keep me warm (since there’s no dryer to sit on top of!), hung Christmas lights in my room, and best but not least…found a scrumptious döner kebab restaurant that has arroz con leche for dessert - the best combination ever!! I’m going to take advantage of that for sure! They even serve the food on glass plates - now that’s quality! So I have so much to catch up on. If you get tired of reading, at least scroll down until you see pictures of the castle here in Almeria.

sundays

• Maria Carmen y familia
  Today I spent the day after church at Maria Carmen’s house and met her family; she is the only member. I ate delicious albondigas (meatballs), which are coming to be one of my favorite Spanish meals, along with morcilla (blood sausage). I could have done without the latter, but I ate and ate. Asking for a little more rice ends up being a whole plate full, then you eat two pieces of fruit for dessert, then chocolate a little later, and to finish off roasted chestnuts! Wow, what a meal! So I’ve never eaten chestnuts before…they are pretty good! Interesting though. The middle is soft, not like a nut. You’ll have to try them.
  

• Isabel y familia
  The people in the ward have been super nice! Last weekend I went to another member’s house, Isabel and her family. I ate another delicious meal of course. Her husband makes pastries for a living and I ate 2 desserts at their house, plus a chocolate napolitano after church. They are both bigger people and they even said themselves that they like to eat well, especially dessert! Just like me!! So you can imagine that it worked out very nicely…haha! They were a little hard to understand, but I managed. Isabel’s husband, Andres, promised me that I will speak perfect Andalucían by the time I leave and dance the sevillano as well! Wow, what a promise!

more school

So I already have my favorite students. I know that as teachers we aren’t supposed to do that, but it just happens, right? You can’t help it. But I teach so many different students that I always forget who is in which class, so it’s always a surprise when I walk in. I don’t think I’m ever going to learn all of their names - impossible. Now that it’s cold my squeaky voice has decided to present itself to my students. It’s funny cause I know they want to laugh, I can see it in their faces, but they don’t dare. But then I laugh so then they do. Always entertaining to say the least.

Speaking of voices, some things that I’ve noticed is that generally speaking, not always true, the women have lower voices and the men have higher voices. Or maybe just the people I have observed have been the few that that is true for. Also, Andalucí ans speak very loudly. Isabel’s husband even said so himself. At church, there will be 5 people speaking at once all very loudly. I have no idea how they have a conversation or discussion like that, but it seems to work!

On my way home from school the other night, there were some people conducting interviews and doing research on the bus for that particular route. I was one of the lucky ones to be interviewed, how exciting! They just got information about how close you lived/worked to the bus stop, how long it took you to walk, how long the bus ride was, your nationality, etc. Never seen that before…

lots of exercise

I played paddle again last weekend and I think I am getting better. It’s really fun! Has anyone ever heard of it? Maybe it’s more European. I still can’t serve very good (has to be underhand) so they finally just let me serve it like tennis (overhand)- much easier! Antonio told me that I will be a pro after 2 or 3 more matches. Ha, we’ll see about that! I played with a different group of guys, but they were just as good as the other guys - too good!

Also, I went swimming this week, but not just any swimming - swimming laps. I’ve never swam laps before in my life! I really enjoyed it though. I worked on my backstroke and free style. I might even join the club and go a couple times every week. There’s some hard core people there though, a guy had a trainer there timing his laps. I’ll just stay out of his way…

I still go running on the beach 2 or 3 times every week. The other day I saw some surfers! They had to have been beginners though, cause the waves really weren’t that good. As you can see I’m staying active - it’s obligatory with all the delicious things I eat. Hehe!

Alcazaba

I finally visited the local castle here, it was about time! Funny, my roommate didn’t even know that there was a castle here. I don’t know how you couldn’t, it’s HUGE! The biggest tourist attraction of Almeria. I think she watches just a little too much TV…I think the people here take all the castles and old buildings (tons) for granted because they are so common.

Almeria still isn’t very touristy like other cities in Spain. Probably because it’s in the very corner, not very pretty, not much to see, etc. It’s just not as popular. There is more of a Moroccan influence here than European. I wasn’t excited when I first got here, but it grows on you. I now consider it my home and actually really like it! There’s so much to explore.

Oh right, the alcazaba…It’s a really cool castle! I think way more so than the one in Má laga that I saw. It is situated above the city on the hill so you can look out and see the city and harbor. For you history buffs…it was originally founded by the Moors in the year 955 (imagine that!) until taken over by the Catholic monarchs, who built and added more to the structure. Under the protection of this massive fortress, Almería became the most important port and market in Andalucía, or Southern Spain. Merchants and travellers from Egypt, Syria, France, and Italy frequented the port and brought a lot of revenue to the city.

The castle itself has three different parts and there is a mosque, underground water cisterns, baths, etc. They are still working on under covering much of it as the picture shows where they are digging.

There is a small valley that dips down where a wall follows until the top of the opposite hill. There is also a big statue of Christ there as well. Here is a close-up.

Here are some pictures of the city from the view of the castle, which is the opposite side of the city from where I live. I live in a nicer area. Can you see the big passenger ship docked in the port ready to leave for Morocco?

When I was leaving, there was a bride and groom taking their wedding pictures with the castle in the background. The bride’s dress was gorgeous, of course, and the groom was wearing a purely gold suit! Cool! Imagine this picture with a bride and groom in the foreground…

Carmen

I have started teaching Carmen English once a week for an hour. It´s been very fun thus far, plus it´s a little extra income. She speaks pretty well, but has a hard time with saying things in the past. Her husband is from California actually and they are going to visit his family this next summer so she wants to improve her English for that. They met 12 years ago in Salamanca. She was a student there (is now a doctor) and he was a tourist. They met, fell in love, he left after a few days, but they continued to write letters and visit each other once or twice a year. Now they are married with 2 little girls. How crazy is that!

The best Spanish meal EVER!!!

I spent another day with Pablo and Eliana after church yesterday. We went to her parents for lunch and boy was it delicious!! I finally ate my first home-made paella and tortilla...all delicious and soaked in olive oil, of course. You would think that after living in Spain for 4 months before I would eat those 2 most famous dishes of Spain at least once, but many of you know that would never happen. Pero, bueno...needless to say it was delicious.

After sitting at the table for a couple of hours and not understanding hardly any of the conversation, I decided that my Spanish is not progressing like I would like it to. Yes, I understand mostly when people are talking directly to me, but when there is 5 people talking at once and very fast, I don´t know who to concentrate on! Aaaah! Once I can understand and respond to the people of Andalucía, I can say that I speak Spanish perfectly - they are the hardest people to understand of Spain besides the Catalonions and Basque of course since they speak a different language. I definitely speak more English here than I do Spanish and that makes it harder to go back and forth between the two. I´ve hit a wall in my language abilities that hopefully I can knock down soon. I feel like I spoke better when I was in Mexico this summer. I just have to be patient and continue practicing...

So last week I was exuberantly recruited to sing in the ward choir after church. I told everyone that I can´t sing, but they didn´t seem to care - they didn´t give me much choice in the matter. Hehe! We spent the first day learning how to breathe and stand properly. Then they proceeded to have each person sing some notes individually....and that´s when I made my triumphant exit!! Sorry, but there´s no way that I´m going to sing by myself in front of 30 other people. No way!! I like to sing, as many of you know, but not as a solo. Plus, I had to catch the bus, right? Good excuse anyway....

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Make sure you eat lots and lots! So here´s a couple of lists I thought I would make for Thanksgiving...

Things I´m thankful for that I DON´T have here in Spain & you do (bummer):

• fresh milk - the boxed kind that doesn´t have to be refrigerated just doesn´t do it for me


• my car - too much wasted time waiting for the bus


• carpet - I bought myself a small rug just so I can do my daily crunches


• dryer - all my clothes are going to be so stretched out! Plus, I can´t sit on it to keep warm!


• oven - limits my enjoyment of food considerably


• microwave - anything I reheat usually ends up getting burned on the stove


• mexican food - don´t know how in the world I am surviving!


• selection of clothes & shoes - my students see the same outfit too many times
• heating system - usually colder inside than outside unfortunately
• SUVs and trucks - all I see are sedans and smart cars, no variety
• dishwasher - difficult to wash dishes with only 1 side of the sink
  

Things I´m thankful for that I DO have in Spain & you don´t (hehe!):

• döner kebabs - although I have yet to find lamb kebabs (the best)


• all the delicious food I already dedicated a whole entry to...


• the beach - yep, it´s still warm enough to go. In fact, I spent the whole weekend there. Imagine...lying on the beach listening to your favortie tunes with the waves crashing against the shore with a bottle of Fanta in one hand and a delicious pastry in the other...now that´s what I call enjoyin´ life!!


• cobblestone streets


• hundreds of years old buildings all over the place
• Blinds that make the whole room pitch black - have no idea what time it is when I wake up

I´m also extremely thankful for finally getting my extra suitcase that I had to leave behind. It´s nice to have some extra things and more variety. Thanks Mom! I went a month and a half with just some limited things...very hard!

Well, enjoy the holiday with family everyone!!! I´m looking forward to Christmas - my next holiday. I´ve already busted out the Christmas songs on my ipod and the mall here put Christmas lights up the beginning of November. It´s great!

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!

a few of my favorite things...

Manchego cheese, churros con chocolate, döner kebabs, gelato, delicious pan (bread), horchata, napolitanos, yogurt....I have all the delicious European food here just at arms reach!! It´s fantastic! Here is a picture of some of my favorites in Spain. Valencianas - sweat bread with a light dusting of sugar sprinkled over the top. Müller yogurt - the absolute best of European yogurt! Trust me, I would know...I became a yogurt conniseur when I was in Spain before. I had to try all the flavors and all the brands. This definitely wins! If you ever make it to Europe, the first thing you have to do is eat some yogurt. Everything else can wait...Pear juice - so delicious and nutritious. Yosport - the best drinkable yogurt ever! I´m addicted! Milka - one of the best chocolate from Europe, my favorite anyway. I´ll never eat Hershey´s again. Guess we should have named the pup Milka instead of Hershey eh, family? Nah, I love Hershey! As well as Nestle (our dog and cat)! Last but not least...Chuches - sugar-coated licorice with a delicious filling. Nothing to compare!
So check this out - a ready-made tortilla española and frozen croquetas!! Suits me just fine and very yummy! Food here is great, but a lot of things are a little too bland for me. I´m used to lots of flavors and spicy foods! That´s one thing that I´m really missing right now - mexican food. I miss my daily cheese crisp.... I did find some salsa and corn tortillas (I´ve become a little partial to corn after living in Mexico) and made some delicious manchego cheese quesadillas. I was seriously eating a piece of heaven itself. It cost me a small fortune to buy imported tortillas, but is was worth it! Some grocery stores here have a Tex-Mex section that I think I will be a regular visitor of...

Málaga

So I had a long weekend, Thursday to Sunday, and decided to meet my friend, Kirsten, in Málaga for a short side trip. We had some problems with communicating - apparently my phone didn´t work and she didn´t know exactly when she could leave. So I left for Málaga early Thursday morning not knowing when or even if I would meet Kirsten at all. The bus ride was crazy - there was this guy who was definitely high on something and mumbling and shouting pretty much the whole way. I don´t really know exactly what he was saying, just that he was cussing up a storm. He was sitting right behind me too! I was too scared to even look at him! Elise, it reminds me of our near death bus ride in Mexico!! Ok, not really, the dude was just threatening to throw the bus driver out the window...It was driving me crazy though, cause I didn´t get to sit by the window and everyone had the curtains closed. We were driving right along the coast too. I have to have my window seat...

Right when I arrived I went to the hostel to book reservations since no one would answer the phone, dropped my stuff off and went out to explore the city. These are some of the things that I saw. I really love Málaga! It is more of the typical European/Spanish city. The downtown has the narrow streets and plazas. It is also very green with lots of tropical plants. Two things that aren´t like Almería at all! Downtown reminded me a lot of Florence. There is an old fortress connected to a castle, a Roman amphitheater, the Cathedral, the beach, plaza de toros, palace, museum, tons of stuff...

I pretty much just walked around all Thursday afternoon and evening. I went to a Contemporary art museum just to pass some time. Why? I don´t know...how can they even call that art? When I was walking around, a Spanish dude asked me if I knew where a certain restaurant was and we ended up talking for like a half hour. He was really nice and didn´t even know that I was American! He wanted to meet me the next night, but don´t worry Mom, I decided against it. You just never know...So I figured that there was only enough left to do for one more day and I didn´t want to do anything without Kirsten. The next morning, she still hadn´t arrived so I decided to go to Ronda for the day, a small town about 2 hours away. But that´s the next entry....

Well, Friday night after an adventurous day in Ronda, I woke up to a knock on the door at midnight...It was Kirsten!! She had finally arrived!! I´m glad she finally made it. I felt bad, cause since she lives in such a small town, the bus and train schedules are very sporadic. We had an exciting day on Saturday together exploring the city. We went to a museum about fiestas in an old palace, went to a Picasso (he was born in Málaga) museum, ate lunch in the plaza right next to the Cathedral, walked along the beach, climbed to the Castle and fortress on the hill (spectacular views!!), and ended the day with a delicious döner kebab!! Nothing beats Ali Babba´s though...We were so exhausted after walking so much again. We had a third roommate that night in the hostel who thought she had the privilege of leaving the light on for however long she wanted just to read, after we were already in bed!! Then she decided to eat the most noisy snack she could find...I finally put an end to that!

This morning Kirsten and I both left to go back. Hopefully she made it back alright without too much trouble. This time, I sat by the window at the very front of the bus and so had 2 good views!! Can´t beat that - made my day in fact!! In all my bus rides, we drove through tunnels, over bridges, saw a few castles to the side and drove all along the coast. It was great! Seriously, some points, I would look down and there would be the ocean at the bottom of the cliff. Andalucia is a beautiful part of Spain in its own way. There are mountains that just drop into the ocean, cliffs, small old villages...Málaga is definitely greener than Almería, which is the sunniest and driest part of Spain. Also around Almería, there are lots of greenhouses that dot the landscape. The have everything from vegetables to fruits. They are makeshift though, just bars and plastic...kind of interesting.

It was definitely a good weekend though, especially to get out of Almería and meet Kirsten. I hadn´t seen her in over a year or more.

Ronda

I had a beautiful drive along the Costa del Sol before heading inland for Ronda. I saw some pretty amazing places. The coast is beautiful! I wanted to go to the beach, but it is finally starting to get a little too cool for that, although I probably still could if I really wanted to.

After driving along the coast, we drove up through the mountains. The mountains rise up sharply, kind of remind me of the ones in Hawaii. There were some mountain villages scattered throughout and I even some colors of the Fall! Orange, yellow, and red on the trees...it was a beautiful sight after being in the dessert with no trees! That´s my extent of experiencing Fall this year.

Ronda is definitely one of my favorite cities of Spain. It kind of reminds me of Cuenca with houses built on the edge of the cliff, but it is also a little like Cáceres with white-washed buildings, but then like Toledo in the atmosphere. Sorry to all of you who don´t know what I´m talking about. Those were some cities that we visited when I was here before on my Study Abroad. It was just such a cute little town with much of the Spanish traditions and styles. There is a huge bridge connecting the old and new parts of the city, as well as a Moorish castle wall, Arab baths, palaces, churches, and cute narrow winding streets, not to mention the views!! So I was expecting the Arab baths to be accessible to the public so I brought my swimsuit and everything. Well, turns out, it is just the ruins. They are supposed to be the best preserved in all of Spain though. I also hiked down the side of the cliff to get a good view of the enormous bridge. It was a little expensive to come here, but I´m glad that I did for sure. I even had some delicious albóndigas (meatballs) for lunch! It was definitely colder being up in the mountains and I wasn´t entirely prepared, but I survived! Enjoy the pictures!!