Giving Thanks...

As Thanksgiving Day approached I couldn't help but start to miss home a little bit more. It's strange to know friends and familiy are all gathering together to carry out their Thanksgiving traditions yet be living in a country where all they know of this holiday is the giant, beautiful dinners Hollywood portrays in the movies. I have to admit Thanksgiving and the customs it entails is something I've always taken for granted until living abroad. In Spain, they don't sell turkey (or it's hard to find), there's no stuffing, no cranberry suace...no pumpkin pie...you get the picture. So it made celebrating Thanksgiving a little bit challenging, yet with a group of "teachers" we used our creative juices to put together quite the feast. The table was set for 15 and among those 15 we had a mixture new friends both American and Spainish. It was awesome to be able to share what we are thankful for and to share it with a new culture. The Spaniards were amazed with the flavors of the dishes and at the portion size. The menu consisted of Butternut squash soup, mac n cheese, chicken, a sweet potato and beet dish, salad and green been casserole, all home made. I luckily was in charge of dessert and proudly bought a delicious truffle cake at the supermarket. Don't judge I don't have an oven or much baking skills. But who cares where it came from cause everyone loved it and there wasn't any left to take home. Thank god. Along with our food we had accumulated about 20 bottles of wine as of course it was the easiest thing for people to bring. Don't worry we didn't drink them all.

More importantly than the food and wine, I am thankful for many things this year. This year is the first out of college, and it couldn't really be going any better. While my life in Spain isn't really "real world" quite yet, I am still grateful for this experience and all of those who have supported me to get here and continue to support me while I'm here. I also feel rather grateful to be employed in a country where many are struggling financially or without work. And as much as I hate to say it, I am grateful for all the students that I am exposed to on a daily basis, even though sometimes I just want to scream. I know they are teaching me more than I even realize and will continue to teach me things about life even after I return to the states. Lastly, living and working abroad continually makes me grateful and proud to be a citizen of our country. I think the reason why is obvious and I'm already looking forward to returning to my motherland!

Table set for 15!!!

I wasn't lying about the wine..at least we had this sweet, antique cart to put it all on

Abby preparing the food!

A family away from home...and my cake is in the background...look at that beauty!

The whole entourage...please note the turkey hand hanging from the chandelier!

A trip to El País Vasco (Basque Country), aka Northern Spain...a whole new world!

I remember in my high school Spanish classes my teacher would always talk about Northern Spain or more formally, the Basque Country. Mr. Newell would go on and on about how beautiful it was and how different this region of Spain was from the rest. Seeing how I still remember this over 4 years later, Mr. Newell really must have made an impression on me or maybe it's just my inner world traveler that was intrigued. With that said, I finally made a trip up north this past weekend. Between the comments from Mr. Newell and my Spanish roommate, I had high expectations for this hidden gem. I can gladly say after just 3 nights, my expectations were exceeded and I would not hesitate to go back.

The regions of Spain: The Basque Country is in orange. I visited 2 basque cities, San Sebastian and Bilbao. San Sebastian is on the coast and Bilbao is about an hour drive inland and South of San Sebastian.

My fellow American friend, Taylor and I took a flight from Sevilla to Bilbao and arrived in Northern Spain within 90 minutes. I was once again reminded of how small Spain is as a country relative the our homeland. Flying across country for less than $100 and in less than 2 hours, I only wish that was the case at home. Upon landing at the small airport in Bilbao we took an hour bus to San Sebastian, a very well known basque city on the northern coast. Unfortunately, it was dark for most of the bus ride but from what I could make out I already felt like I was in a different land. White houses with red roofs, rolling green hills, fall leaves changing colors (FINALLY I got to see them!!!), giant cows, sheep...etc. were all part of the natural beauty. Finally the bus arrived, we stepped out into the brisk fall weather and followed the river to our accommodation, Pensión San Juan. November isn't exactly tourist season in San Sebastian so we were the only guests staying at the pension but luckily that just meant we got all the attention of the gracious owner, Mr. Juan himself. I think he was rather excited to have guests. Being always hungry 22 year olds, we set off to try what the Basque Country is known for, their cuisine or los pintxos (pronounced pinchos). Pintxos is basque (the basque speak a different dialect than those from southern Spain) for tapas (the small portions of food they have for dinner in southern Spain). Between recommendations from Mr. Juan and our handy travel book by Rick Steves, we found some SPECTACULAR local, authentic bars with pintxos I could have literally eaten all night (and just might have). All the bars either had a chalkboard with a list of the pintxos and drinks for that night and you just pick one from the menu and it's ready in a flash. Some bars even have all the food out on the counter top so you can see exactly what you're ordering. This is something that is so different than southern Spain and something I really liked, especially when you don't know half the words on the menu. Most of the options included some type of seafood (octopus legs, muscles, fish, shrimp...), mushrooms, bacon, peppers...it was always so hard to choose. Among my favorites was La Carrillera de Ternera, an extremely tender beef with a red wine sauce. It puts any type of red meat I've ever had to shame and pair it was a 1 euro glass of red wine and you're good to go.  Another great thing is the food isn't too expensive, the portions are small (so you can try many and bar hop) and it's polite to throw your dirty napkins on the FLOOR. For three days my taste buds were just in heaven. One of the teachers at Taylors work had told her to go to La Vina, which apparently has the best cheesecake and wine you could ask for. We had been so excited to go and finally when we arrived, THEY WERE CLOSED FOR VACATIONS. No me digas. Such a disappointment. Oh well, now we will just have to go back.

La Carrillera de Ternera..nom nom

Taylor outside our first bar, Bordabarri

Here we have shrimp bruscetta, mushrooms wrapped in bacon, beef on a stick...

Note how the have the options right on the bar!

Thank you Rick Steve's! Best guid book ever. Lead us to this delicious breakfast spot!

So San Sebastian yes we ate lots of food, but did we do anything else?? YES!!! Fortunately we spent our one full day walking through the entire city. Our first stop was the famous, underground market, La Brexta. Here you could get your fresh bread, vegetables, fish, octopus, squid, shrimp, you name it. It had the same smell and feeling of Pike's Pike in Seattle, unfortunately there was no on throwing fish around. San Sebastian is right on the beach. The beach is called Playa de la Concha (or Conch shell Beach) as it has a half moon/rounded shape to it that goes for about 2miles. Along the beach there are beautiful, Eastern European looking buildings, and a backdrop of rolling hills. Just see the pictures below. Its really too much to describe. As we walked along the beach we couldn't help but notice the NUMEROUS older people going out for their morning swim! brrrrrr. It was impressive. Later that night, for sunset, we hiked to the top of Monte Urgill (an old fortress) for a beautiful picturesque view of the entire city. We had been so fortunate to have a full day of sun as it is very common for it to rain most days.

Yum, take your pic..sting ray, flounder or squid.

The meat stand. Those objects hanging are the famous jamon legs (ham legs).

Verduras verduras!!!

Taylor and I on Playa de la Concha!

Panaramoa shot!

 A group of men playing "pelota" against the beach on the wall. Not a bad spot for a game if you ask me. Pelota is bacially like raquetball, its a very popular game in the Basque Country

 

The cathedral of San Sebastian.

The sunset over the entire bay taken from the Monte Urgill. Couldn't get enough of it. I wish I could make this picture bigger for you...

 

 

Just a view on our casual stroll along the Port...awesome

The next morning, after our experience at a Spanish style 1950s diner where we had eggs, bacon, and chocolate and churros (a very traditional Spanish breakfast dish) we made our way back to the bus station as we would spend our last night in the city of Bilbao. A smaller, more inland city in the Basque Country. Bilbao is the cuisine capital of Spain. Go figure. While Bilbao lacked the beach and coastline, there was still something very beautiful about the city. It too had buildings that reminded me from scenes of Prague and small streets that were old yet compact with many people out and about enjoying an afternoon beer and pintxo. Once again, we followed the recommendation of Rick Steve's travel guide and went to an authentic basque restaurant where we gorged on a tender, succulent beef stew and some fresh vegetables. Afterwards we headed to the main (and really only) attraction of the city, the Guggenheim Museum. After talking to locals in San Sebastian about the museum most had said the outside of the building was much more worthwhile than all the modern art exhibits on the inside. I would most definitely agree. I know I'm not an art fan to begin with but I figured I'd only probably be here once in my life. Throughout the three levels of "art" all I kept thinking was, "how is this art?" and "I have friends that could make this". Ok, yes that's being dramatic but there were many structures made out of vinyl that were light switches, food, vacuum...common appliances. Not to mention exhibits of antiques that anyone could have in their own homes. I just didn't get it. But thats ok, at least I supported the struggling Spanish economy. The outside though reminded me very much of the EMP in Seattle, an abstract, silver metal structure that looked like something different from every angle. My other favorite, the giant puppy made out of flowers they had in the entrance way.

Breakfast at the 1950s Santa Lucia Diner

Welcome to Bilbao!!!

walking to the Guggenheim...

Giant spider structure outside the museum...

another POV of the outside of the museum...

Hmmm...what else. Our last night in Bilbao was a little rainy so we spent it hoping from bar to bar, watching various futbol games and observing locals. At one point we met a very excited Spanish women, who couldn't have been more excited to meet some young Americans and to tell us how much so loved our Democratic country and she also might have mentioned, just a few times, that her sister is a chef at restaurant down the street and she had just won some big award. NBD. Back at our hostel we had met some younger British guys from Manchester who just wanted to get out of town for the weekend and picked Bilbao as their destination. Another reminder about how easy it is to country hop over on this side of the world.

Well, that's all for now folks.

P.S. I forgot to mention I was jumping for joy as I finally found a freshly baked, goey CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE!!! All for 1 euro. Hit the spot!

A different type of week...

This week was a strange one. It began with a commute day after day in a torrential downpour. There were changes in my work schedule as the PE teacher at school showed up with a neck brace and is now out for 10 days, then I learned the music teacher is pregnant and hasn't been coming into school due to illness. So now I go to school and have to look busy during the hours when I would normally teach those classes. Election Day came and I swear if I had a penny (or perhaps a Euro) for every time someone said Obama with a big smile on their face, I would be "vacationing" in Greece right now. On Election Day, I had my social studies class in which the teacher, Marcos, displayed an impressive amount of knowledge (and I think more knowledge than some Americans) about our voting system and government. He had certainly captured my attention as I felt like I was getting a review on the nitty gritty details of how everything works but I couldn't quite tell if the 13 year olds were really understanding a word he said. I did learn one thing though, they somehow were all pro-Obama and when I told them I wasn't I was shocked by a response of "boo's". I was offended because I knew their opinions came from the portrayal of Obama on the news. Throughout the day, I was continuously surprised to overhear Spaniards talking about the election and being happy about the results. And also fun fact, coincidentally, gay marriage was approved in Spain within 24hrs of Election Day. The world is changing, that's all I can say.

In other news, I have gotten one step closer to teaching my 6 year olds the alphabet. Victory!!!! We played Alphabet BINGO on Wednesday for almost an hour. If only they could remember "J" from "G" and "B" from "V". We shall see come next time, if they remember what "alphabet" even means.

As for the weekend, well, I went to Badajoz to visit my friend Daron for her birthday. Daron graduated from UPS with me and studied abroad with me and she is teaching (like me) but in a different province of Spain. Badajoz is about 3 hours Northwest from Sevilla and on the border of Portugal in the province of Extremadura. The town is quite small, but is an authentic Spanish town with real tapas, no tourists and beautiful viewpoints. We had walked around the city, ate some tapas and shortly thereafter I found myself with a VERY upset stomach. I believe it was food poisoning and hoping not the stomach flu. I had the chills, couldn't keep anything in my system and slept like a baby. I was so bummed I had missed the rock concert and celebrating Daron's birthday, but at the same time I was grateful to have gotten rather ill where I was in good company. All I had wanted was to be able to call my mom, be in a familiar place and even just go to Walgreens. Luckily the next morning, after successfully eating a piece of toast (ya TOAST!!!!), I decided I would attempt to endure the 3 hr bus ride home. I survived, that's all we need to say about that.

Now, 2.5 days later, I am still recovering. As if this weekend couldn't have been a better weekend to get sick, today also happened to be a big rowing regatta on the river versus two Sevilla teams. I think my love for rowing miraculously got me out of the house and I don't know what else would have. I was really excited to watch the race and to meet some new Spaniards as my rowing club was hosting a party to watch it and mingle. I made it for a few minutes but was not feeling up to socializing. Not to mention I had forgotten that Spaniards dress to impress always no matter what the occasion or day and I, in my "I barely made it out of the house" clothes was feeling a little embarrassed to be seen. I tried to stick around as I was supposed to meet a woman who trains with a triathlon club but I just couldn't do it.  I did manage to see the race go by (all 5 seconds) and it was quite an unexpected sight. There were only 2 teams racing, but between the boats there was about 7 launches (boats with coaches and whoever else) driving between them, creating a chaotic scene in the seemingly narrow river. Then along the bike path there was a crowd of bikers following the race, it was overwhelming and took away from the race so I'm not really sure what was actually happening in terms of the results. Anyway, it was fun to see a an international regatta. After my hour of fun for the day, I slowly meandered back home and figured I could at least blog about this.

 Daron and I in Badajoz!

View of the old Plaza de Toros (bull fighting ring)

 

 The tapas that may have resulted in my food poisoning! But it's just goat cheese and bread!

Daron excited about the concert!

 

If you can see it, the sign reads "Regata, Sevilla-Betis"

Here they come! Note the crowd on the path and on the river!

You can't even see the boats racing! I felt like I was watching some James Bond movie with a high speed chase. And this guy on his Moto clearly thought he could beat them all!

 

 

The flyer for the Regata.

Reassurance

It's official, today marks the completion of my second month in Spain. Even though, it feels like I have been here much longer, I am starting to enjoy each day more and more. I've been fighting this unsatisfactory feeling that I want to be traveling or seeing something all the time as I know these 9 months are going to fly by. I am trying almost to hard to take advantage of my limited time abroad, to the point where I'm blinded as to what "taking advantage of" really means. I get antsy to leave Sevilla but due to time, money and my job it's not always worthwhile to pick up and leave for a weekend. Plus working with kids is exhausting, so most of the time I just want to pop in a movie and eat candy. This weekend is a Spanish holiday and therefore a 4 day weekend. As I was strolling down the street today, happiliy making my way to the gym, I realized something. I was observing the large amounts of families, teenagers and elders out of the street enjoying the beautiful fall day with a cool breeze and vibrant blue sky and I noticed something in common about everything that was happening around me. Everyone, including myself, was so at peace with the world seemed sincerely happy. I realized I shouldn't be so ansty to leave such a beautiful, pleasant city and that I should better appreciate the simple fact that I am LIVING in Spain. I thought about how I don't always want to commute an hour to school to be there for two hours or want to tutor the rascals or want to cook. But then I thought about how cool it is that I can do all these normal daily activities in SPAIN and that should be satisfactory within itself. I mean how cool is it I can eat my cereal and banana and drink my coffee for breakfast every morning while watching to sunrise over the city from the 8th floor of my apartment?!?! It's the little moments I am experiencing on a daily basis that I need to learn to better appreciate.

Last weekend I did manage to get out of the city and took a day trip thirty minutes outside the city to a town called Carmona. My friends and I enjoyed the small streets, white houses, wine, pastries, beautiful views and SILENCE!!! You almost forget how much constant street noise you experience in a city and how life moves a bit faster in Seville. The village of Carmona was extremely relaxed and rarely did you hear more than a few cars or motos at a time.

Free wine samples! I think I liked it...

View from the "Parador Carmoa", a beautiful hotel

 

Street View

 Typical Spanish architecture!

The "center" of town

 

Captured two happy Spanish men, please notice how well dressed they are for a stroll around town

The sunset on the bus ride home!

 

 

This week of work was a rather enlightening one, mostly because of Halloween. I was interested to see how the Spaniards had adopted the holiday from America and what they made of it. The younger kids at my school had been preparing for the classroom decorating contest and dance contest. The classrooms ranged from having some spiderwebs and cut out pumpkins to a giant girl doll attempting to look like a mummy. I managed to make it on the wall of one of the classrooms as one boy named Pepe drew a little stick figure of me and wrote "Estoy muerte. Soy Mandy". (I'm dead. I'm Mandy). I wasn't really sure what to think so I playfully got him back and with the help of some of the girls in the class and drew a boy stick figure and wrote "Me llamo Pepe. Soy un Zombie." (My name is Pepe. I am a Zombie), while that is not funny really at all, the kids thought it was hilarious. Winning. On the actual day of Halloween, there was a performance put on by the bilingual program. It attempted to explain the history and traditions of Halloween, yet the kids couldn't be quite and the acoustics were horrible so I don't really think anyone heard anything. My favorite part was watching the dances some of the kids had prepared. These 14 year olds had picked a song (anything from Lady Gaga, Thriller, Chris Brown, and "I'm sexy and I know it") and choreographed very elaborate dance moves and costumes. There were definitely the awkward dancers but there were some kids that might be the next winners on "So you think you can dance" as they managed to move their bodies in ways they probably shouldn't know how to do at the age of 14, but you can thank YouTube for that one. During this whole presentation I was invited to SHARE a KIDS SIZED DESK with probably the smallest girl of all my students. While she was small, that seat was not meant for more than one person, but I enjoyed sitting with the kids and it certainly brought a smile to their faces. I took out my camera at one point and they literally started screaming "foto, foto! camara camara!" I think they were a little excited. Also, random but some of the kids have started giving me fist pumps or "pounding it". They absolutely love it and I secretly do too.



 

 Students dressed in costume for their dances and SO excited about the picture!

 

Yep, this dance, a classic group of 13 year old girls all trying to strut their stuff to today's pop hits. I've never seen someone flip their hair so many times in a matter of 3mins. But they did do a great job.

 

 

 

I was excited for Halloween with my tutoring jobs as it would give me a solid topic to talk about. It kinda worked. For my more fluent student, Rosa, I printed out the lyrics to "Monster Mash" and took out some of the words and then made her listen to the song and try and fill in the missing words. I haven't really challenged her yet and this activity kinda made her mad cause it was hard. bahaha. I secretly loved it cause she always thinks she knows everything there is to know about English. Don't worry I am nice to her most of the time, I let her put purple and blue dye (made for Barbie dolls) in my hair. As for the kids who don't speak English very well, I tried to teach the classic (aka necessary ) Halloween vocabularly with pictures and sounds. Javier kept saying bitch instead of witch. That "w" proves to be more and more of a challenge for non-native speakers everyday. But I couldn't help but smile everytime he said it and hey, maybe he has a point. On my way home that night, I saw a few kids dressed in costumes as they were most likely on their way to a friends house. As there aren't really houses to go door to door trick-or-treating they don't really do that here. I went out with some American friends to a dance club for Halloween and that was the most festive place I saw all night. There were some very scary masked people dancing the night away. While I enjoyed my night out, I still would have liked to enjoy some Reese's Peanut Butter cups (they DON'T have them here) while enjoying some repeat Halloween movie on Disney Channel. As it was certaily interesting to experience Halloween abroad it did make me miss being home for something so familiar.

THIS WEEKEND I returned to my roots...Granada! My excuse for returning to this city I had spent 4 months getting to know 2 years ago, was to run (for the 2nd time) the Granada Half Marathon (el media maraton). I went to Granada alone and mostly did my own thing. Luckily a friend of mine happened to be in town as well, so we roamed around, ate food, ate more food and drank tea. Granada has to be one of the most beautiful cities I have ever traveled too. I can't even really put it into words. It's the combination of the architecture and colors of the buildings, the plazas, the fountains, the Sierra Nevada mountain range, the Alhambra and the strong Arab influence that creates a beautiful atmosphere. Spending a mere 2 days in Granada made me realize and remember exactly why I wanted to come back to this country. It gave me confidence and reassurance in my decision to spend 9 months here. That said, if you ever come to Spain you MUST hit up Granada. Oh..yes...the half marathon! There were about 2700 runners and 215 females. Two years ago when I ran it there were only 50 women total! So it was exciting to see the numbers are growing. I did well, missed my time goal by 2 mins but overall a PR, an enjoyable event and motivation to keep training for life. The only bummer was that my awesome race shirt doesn't fit. It's a large but the thing is Spanish women are tiny people slash I have rower arms, aka I look like one of those guys at the gym that are trying to rip through their t-shirt. No bueno. Maybe it will just have to be a wall decoration.

 My "large" race shirt and bib number!

 

Sad news, my camera died and this is the only picture I have from the whole weekend. The view from my hotel!

 

 

Well, I think that's all I have for now. My neighboors above my room are having a birthday party (we can hear them singing) and blasting some salsa music. How rude they didn't invite us?!?! Maybe I'll just venture up there and see how they react to a angry blonde girl at their doorstep. Just kidding.

Kinda.

 

Until next time. Un beso.