my how time flies

Well my friends, it's been an entire month since I've been in Spain and I have to say that I'm glad I got this month over with. Not that it was bad...just that it was quite an interesting adjustment period. Not only did I have to adapt to a completely new place and culture, but I also began intense Spanish courses and had to get used to taking those every day for 3.5 hours as well as beginning a new job with people who hardly understand what I'm saying in English.

As you all know, change is not easy no matter how positive the outcome is going to be. I had a hard time catching up on my sleep for at least 2.5 weeks, I needed some of the necessary items in my apartment to feel comfortable and I needed to get a lot better at speaking Spanish...pronto!

As of now, I feel my Spanish is tremendously better than it was before I got here. I can definitely get around on my own. I can basically understand anything I listen to in Spanish and my speaking is following along a little slower but still improving greatly. I have come to realize that when I have a little alcohol in me, the Spanish flows right out of my mouth...losing inhibitions is great!

I have met a lot of amazing people...making lots of international friends, which I love but I do hope in these next months I will make friends with some local Spaniards. That's important to me.

My job is going well. I really enjoy teaching. My days are really long with classes before but I am currently working on cutting my teaching time in half so that I feel like I actually have somewhat of a day outside of classroom walls.

In between classes and teaching my number one goal is to continue traveling around Spain. I have seen some amazing places so far, but I'd really like to go to some of the main cities. I think Madrid is next...hopefully in about 2 weeks.

Yay for Spain....me encanta.

La Rioja...sort of

This past weekend my roommates and I took a short trip to La Rioja, one of the primary wine regions of Spain. It took a little over an hour on a bus to get there. The problem was that we did not plan one single thing in advance. I found out it was going to be great weather outside for the weekend and immediately jumped to the conclusion to go somewhere beautiful. I have been wanting to go to La Rioja ever since I tasted the wine back in Texas about 2 months before I left. It is so delicious! After more research, I learned that La Rioja is quite famous and that the area is gorgeous if you go before it gets too cold.

As soon as we got off the bus...we had all the hopes in the world to visit some great wineries (bodegas) and drink some awesome wine. Little did we know nothing would work in our favor. We arrived in a small town called Haro, which is the capital area of bodegas and walked straight to the tourism center. The woman there told us we probably would not find any hotels or bodegas to visit this weekend because they are all booked. You are supposed to always call and book in advance, especially on the weekends. So she pointed out a few hotels to try that were more expensive than we wanted and further away from the town of Haro, where we planned to stay for that visit.

After arguing with a woman at a hotel in B.F.E. compared to where Haro is, she told me she would save a room for us. After glancing at a map and comparing where we were and where the hotel was, and given my large and heavy bag I was dragging around (you all know I always pack for a small army...this really needs to change)we decided it would be best to take a taxi. However, Haro is a very small town and we found out that there are only 4 taxi drivers total there and they are usually in different towns that contain more people. We called a taxi number that was on the map and the man I spoke to was incomprehensible. I finally said three short words in Spanish to explain where we were and he found us.

Once we dropped our things off in the hotel-Hotel Eth Rioja, a fabulous three star hotel, we tried to call a taxi once again to go back into town. Of course there were none available so we walked about 30 minutes on a dangerous road with no sidewalks. That was fun. Finally we began to look for one building that the tourism lady said we would be able to visit and taste some wine because they were celebrating the 125th anniversary of the wine creator's birthday. This place was awesome. There was an exhibition describing the vineyard, the history, the family that is still working it today...it was very neat...I have pictures to send so you can see a little of what I am talking about. There was also a wine tasting area that was so pretty and modern. It actually reminded me a little of the Guggenheim because everything inside was curvy and the structure had no straight lines except the ceiling. It was all silver and white with neat modern looking tables and chairs. There was an interesting contrast inside because the original booth made for an exposition in Paris in 1912 sat in the back of the room. The very antiquated structure against the very modern building was quite a sight. An of course the wine was delicious. We all practiced our wine tasting skills that we learned at the course in Bilbao.

Later, we walked around the Plaza de Paz (Plaza of Peace) which is the central area of town where all the restaurants, bars and shopping are. We sat at a popular cafe for a while and drank more wine. Later we went to dinner at a very fancy restaurant that the wine tasting girl recommended. La Rioja is also known for certain types of food such as roasted lamb (which is what I had), venison, veal and many other delicacies. We all loved our dinners.

I think probably the funniest part of this trip was the fact that we could not for the life of us get a taxi back to the hotel! We called the number several times and no one answered. People kept telling us different places to go to find one. Finally, we ended up at a police station where they said at that time of night in that town, you cannot find any taxis. However, they told us they would take us back to our hotel. Wow, police escort....how touristy and unprepared us foreigners are! They were really sweet men though and they had nothing better to do.

After a lovely rest in the three star hotel we all woke up and ate breakfast in the restaurant connected to our hotel. I sent pictures through Shutterfly of the wall full if wine. I thought that was pretty awesome. I think all of La Rioja is like that...either walls of wine or actual wine cellars. After waiting 45 minutes for a taxi to come get us, we went to the coolest wine cultural museum in a town called Briones. It was set on a working bodega and the family who owns the bodega played a vital role in creating the museum. They wanted you to know everything you could possibly know about wine making. It was huge with one floor per subject such as the process of finding quality grapes, the process of making the wine, making the oak barrels to store the wine, etc. There was an entire floor entirely devoted to display cork screw openers. There were thousands! It was unbelievable. And last but not least, you got a free glass of the vineyard's wine when you were finished with the exhibits. That was delicious of course. I believe we were at this museum for about 3.5 hours! Finally we took the bus back to Bilbao.

So next time I will book ahead and actually visit a bodega and hopefully taste a lot more wine! It was still beautiful and we still enjoyed ourselves. It's fun to laugh at yourself every once and a while too and I did a lot of that this past weekend.

Mi Trabajo (my job)

(My school)

Well I started my job on Monday and although I know it will be a good experience, I have to admit I am pretty overwhelmed. I am teaching conversational English at a private institution called Mugakoa- a Basque term which means "in between." The town I work in is along the coast, about 25 minutes away from Bilbao and it's called Portugalete. The area is called Pinota. Actually the building itself is in between Pinota and Portugalete, hence "Mugakoa." The city is beautiful and very much a port town. If it would ever stop raining I would like to wander around and discover it more.


(Portugalete)

I basically have 5 classes (sometimes 6) every afternoon beginning at 4 pm and running until 9 or 10 pm at night. The students come twice a week, alternating with 5 or 6 other classes, so that's about 11 classes total! It's a very long day for me since I have classes all morning and early afternoon! The good news is I only have to work Monday through Thursday so I get Friday off. The classes are not based on age, they are based on understanding level so I have some classes with a decently large age range. But I have adults (up to 41 years old), teenagers, children...all ages. They all have Basque names, which are nothing like Spanish names. Most of them I can't even pronounce. The Basque language looks like Greek to me. So maybe by the end of 6 months I will know them all by their names...but I have a lot of students! Most of them are very nice but some of the younger kids like to make fun of the way I pronounce their names and they are so resistant to speak English. I'm not supposed to speak even one word of Spanish in the classrooms or they will take advantage of the fact that they know I know Spanish and never speak in English.

Some of the younger ones caught me off-guard yesterday so they are now always speaking to me in Spanish and I'm trying really hard not to respond in Spanish. It's hard when you've been speaking and hearing Spanish all morning!

Things are a little disorganized right now...I have like 10 books to use for different classes and it's hard remembering which book goes with what class. But I think in the end, it's more about talking and encouraging them to speak English. I'm pretty exhausted by the end of the day but I go home feeling rewarded. Even if I can help just a few students speak English a little easier I will be happy.