First days in Spain!

Prado Museum

Falafel had his own seat on the plane. 

 Ok people first blog post! Get excited. I have been in Spain for almost 2 weeks, so I guess before it gets too late I should update on what I have been up to. My Parents accompanied me here since my mom has never been to Spain and it was a good excuse for a vacation for them. We got in the morning of September 21^st and spent a very sleepy day wandering around Madrid with the highlight being the few hours we spent in the Prado Museum. We went out for dinner that night and my dad lit the menu on fire on accident. It was pretty funny. The waiter hated us though. :p

Anyway, so after that we drove down to Almeria where I live now. Its about 8 hours by car from Madrid. We passed the town I work in as we were driving and we decided to take a slight detour to check it out and try to find my school. Its a very interesting town to say the least. Its a relatively small tomato farming town and its basically completely surrounded by greenhouses. From the highway it looks like the ground is covered with snow. I't is definitely different than where I live in Colorado. Right when you are driving in there are houses that are half made of tarps and look like they are about to crumble, but the houses right next to my school are nice. Its kind of crazy the differences in such a small town. We couldn't find the school that day so we just went to Almeria and walked around. If you know me at all you know that I love cities and this one is the perfect size, you can pretty much walk everywhere and there are local buses too. The beach is also really nice, it takes up the whole southern part of the town and there are lots of cafes right on the boardwalk.

 

Sunset on the beach

 A few days after getting here I met up with my now current roommate that I met on the facebook group for Auxiliares to look for apartments. We were aiming to live right by the beach but it ended up not working out. One apartment we really liked we missed out on by 30 minutes! But we ended up finding one which is about a 10 minute walk to the beach and about 15 to the bus/train station. Its a nice size and has a big kitchen which is perfect for me. :) So I live with 3 other people; Lauren the other auxiliar, a Spanish girl and an Palistinian guy. Everyone is really nice so its working out really well. I would be totally lost without Lauren though, our landlord can't understand me and I can only understand about 85% of what he says in person and basically nothing when I talk to him on the phone, so I have to rely on her to talk to him for me, which she does with no complaints. :) (Thanks Lauren!!)

My School!!!!

After we got the apartment all settled I decided to take the bus to Campohermoso to make sure it would work as my way to get to and from work (I would be totally screwed if it didn't work). I got there at 9 when the school started and everyone was so welcoming! I met the director and the head of studies first and even though I showed up unannounced the head of studies put down what she was working on and took me to find Antonio the bilingual coordinator. He had just started a class but still gave me a little tour and introduced me to Javi, the second grade teacher/teacher I am going to work with most. I spent an hour at the school meeting people and just getting a feel for how things work. I was really nervous when I got my placement and found out that it was in such a small town, but after visiting the school I am really excited to work there. I met some of Antonio's students and was greeted very politely with a “How are you?” from one girl. It was really cute. :) So I am going to be working with 1^st and 2^nd graders 12 hours a week. 5 classes of science, 3 of art and 2 of PE plus 2 hours of planning with Javi and Maria Jose (1st grade teacher).

Rock of Gibraltar

Protest sign

Once I got all the school stuff figured out my parents and I decided to travel again. My dad really wanted to go to Gibraltar so we headed there first. We ended up staying in Algeciras since the site we used to get the hotel said there was no hotels in Gibraltar. It made for a very interesting night. Algeciras is very close to Africa and has a huge shipping port so its a really diverse town. We stayed at the hotel Vime Octavio. Which we couldn't find so my mom went to another hotel to ask for directions, there she found out that our hotel was going out of business....so when we finally got there there were protest signs posted outside saying how they didnt want the hotel to close. It was really weird. After we got settled we went down to the port to walk around and try to get a picture of the Rock of Gibraltar. It was very uncomfortable being down there. If any of you go to Algeciras don't walk by the port. I felt really unsafe there. But luckily we found a nice area a few blocks away from the port to hang out in. The next day we headed for Gibraltar. It took a long time to get in even though its just the next town over and that would be because its a different country. :) Its part of the UK so it was really strange going in and hearing English and seeing British phone booths but knowing that just down the street is Spain. The rock was really cool, we got lots of good pictures, saw Africa and hung out with some wild apes.

One of the courtyards in La Alhambra.
 Everything is symmetrical in this one.

In the Cathedral in Sevilla

The next day we headed to Sevilla. It took us about 2-3 hours to find the hotel, it was nuts. Once we found it we wandered around the town and ate at a really good restaurant where the waiter was surprised when I answered one of his questions in Spanish. Welcome to tourist country. We went to the Cathedral the next day which was fun. Its the 3^rd largest church in Europe and the largest Gothic building in Europe. Its massive. After that we went to the Real Alcazar which is an old Moorish fort and royal palace. Which is also fun place to walk around. The detail in the ceilings walls and tiles is just incredible. After convincing my parents that they couldn’t leave Spain without seeing La Alhambra we added Granada to our itinerary. We left early the next day to get there by our scheduled entrance time. La Alhambra is one of my favorite places in Spain. Its a massive Moorish/Christian fortress. There is way too much history to get into here. There are TONS of gardens as you walk around and they are beautiful. Since its so far above the town of Granada you get amazing views too. Its just a really beautiful place and anyone that comes to visit me will have to go. :p

View of Granada

After we left Granada we drove back to Almeria and hung out for a few days. My parents left for Madrid this morning so I finally got unpacked and now I am just trying to get everything settled for my first day of class tomorrow. :)