A taste of Galicia

So, I've been here for almost a month now, and I'm finally starting to feel like Vigo is my home. I have a job teaching English, have made some friends and have my first jewelry class on Monday. So far I have really enjoyed the way of life in Galicia, and I am looking forward to everything that is to come!

Last weekend I was lucky enough to have a true introduction to Galician culture. A new friend took me ou to lunch where I had my first taste of pulpo a la gallega (Galician style octopus) and pimientos verdes (grilled green peppers). To my suprise the flavor of the octopus was pretty good, they make it with olive oil and ground red pepper. It has a nice little kick to it! The texture is a little strange, but all in all not too bad.


Then we went to the beach where we spent the day surfing (very poorly) with some of her friends on the northern coast of Portugal, then we came back to Vigo to have a late dinner at a traditional Galician tavern. The people here really know how to eat and drink well! Wine is so superfluos that they brought us four bottles and served it in bowls instead of glasses! We ate tortilla de patatas, calmares, more pimientos verdes, and some sort of sausage. Que rico!! Dinner was followed by traditional Galician music and dancing. The music is very similar to the Celtic style-with bagpipes! Everyone played along using pairs of shells for percussion. We ended the night with the traditional drink of Galicia-Liquor cafe. It tastes like Kahlua, but is supposed to be a lot stronger!

First post from Vigo!

What a wild week it has been! Starting last friday with the Hurricane warnings and having to make all new arrangements for getting to Spain. Mom and I eneded up driving into the hurricane to NJ to stay there without power for 3 days. Finally I was able to get a flight out Tuesday. I flew Newark to Lisbon, Lisbon to Porto, then took a bus to Vigo. I arrived Wednesday afternoon, ran over to my school to figure out what I had to do for my entrance exam on Thursday.

Everyone at my school it very friendly and helpful, but when it comes to getting real information about the course they are definitely lacking...I was under the impression that there was one test on Thursday at the school, based around art History. Turns out it's a two day test, in Santiago de Compostela, and includes history, math (physics and graphing), gallego (the official language of Galicia), and Spanish language. And, the directions were only in Gallego. I saw the test and just laughed because I figured there was no way I would pass. But, 6 hours later the test was over and it turns out that I passed (with the highest grade of the other 3 people that took it). I don't understand how that's possible, but at least I have a little more confidence for the last portion tomorrow, which actually is based on Art History and drawing.



Saturday was spent walking all corners of the city to look at apartments. I saw a total of 5 this week, and really didn't like any of them but one. I ended up selecting the apartment that overlooks the ocean and I have 2 boy roomates. I hadn't thought of living with boys, so we'll see how it goes!

After five days in Vigo I am finally starting to feel like this will be my new home. I'm sitting in my new apartment watching the sunset over the atlantic, which is beautiful. I moved my things into the apartment this morning, and then went to the beach this afternoon. Northern Spain is known for its beautiful white sand beaches, and I have to say I liked it better than the beaches in Southern Spain, where all of the beaches are pretty rocky. And, the beach is only about 10 minutes away on the bus.

 So, all in all it has been a week of lots of ups and downs. Half the time I'm so excited to see what the year will
bring, and the other half I think I'm
absolutely crazy and I should be back
in the States. But, I'm here, so check back to see where things take me! Ciao!

Goodbye Badajoz!!

I know it has been at least 2 months since I last wrote, so I'll just give a short overview of what I have been up to for the last couple months since Valle de Jerte and Galicia:

*Dad came to visit for Semana Santa. We started in Madrid, came to Badajoz then wandered around Portugal for a few days.

*Went to Mallorca with Maureen for the weekend at the end of May. That trip concluded April, which my crazy month of traveling.

*Stayed in Badajoz almost all of May, and then my job ended on May 31st.

*Met Maureen in Madrid to start our trip to Romania and Hungary. My wallet was stolen on the metro in Madrid immediately, so I spent the evening canceling my credit cards and being stressed. Then had some interesting times figuring out Western Union in Bucharest, but then had a wonderful trip through Transylvania (Sinai, Brasov, Sighisoara, Sibiu, and the Transfargasan Road through the mountains) then worked our way to Budapest on a 16 hour overnight train.

*Back to Badajoz for a couple weeks, including a 3-day camp with 2nd of ESO, Birthday celebrations, enjoying the Feria de San Juan, and my Flamenco recital.

*Mom and Joc arrived and we packed up everything in Badajoz, spent a night in the Parador de Merida, and then headed to Copenhagen for a week. Then to Barcelona to meet Miss Sara Jenks, and now a few days in Badajoz before heading home tomorrow.

Wow, what a crazy few months.

It's strange now to be saying goodbye to Badajoz, but I know that it will always hold a special place in my heart, along with all of the wonderful memories I have of this year. I can't put into words how amazing this year has been, and how fortunate I feel to have had this opportunity. I want to thank everyone at IES Sierra la Calera. I really appreciate everyone's openness to me (and my less than perfect Spanish) and their willingness to help me with anything and everything that I needed. I learned so much about myself and about Spain, and I will always feel that I have a home in Badajoz.


Now onto another adventure...Galicia, here I come!

Trip to Valle de Jerte and Galicia

The month of April is crazy for me. I will be traveling for 20 our of 30 days. I already want camping for the first weekend in Valle de Jerte, which is known for it's cherry trees. Every year around this time (depending on when the trees bloom) there is a festival and celebration of the cherries. Everything in the towns within the valley is based on cherries. It was really nice to get out into the wilderness and hike in the area called ''La garganta de los infiernos'', or the throat of hell. It sounded menancing at first, but ended up being a great hike with some really nice views. I went with a group of Erasmus (the European version of Study Abroad) students: There were two French, two Italian, one Turkish, one Spanish, two Americans and one Canadian. Everywhere we went we were asked where we were from, for records and statistics of the tourists, and we always had to list six countries. It was quite the international group

Then, three days later I rented a car with my friend Morgan to go to Vigo, Santiago de Compostela and A Coruña. I am looking at a jewelry design school in Vigo, so I went to spend 3 days there to see if I liked the school. Morgan explored the city and showed me all of the most important parts when I finished school in the afternoon. The school was great, and everyone was super friendly, and helped me with everything I needed. Also, the accent there was so much clearer than in Badajoz! It was much easier to understand. 

After Vigo we went on our way to Santiago de Compostela, where they were celebrating the 800th anniversary of the Cathedral by "hugging" it. People were dressed up in traditional Gallego costumes and they organized people to surround the cathedral holding hands, to give it a hug. It was fun to see. Then, we took a quick trip up to A Coruña, another city on the northern coast of Spain. It was a nice city, but sadly the highlight for us was eating Subway... We were craving American food so badly that we were thrilled to find Subway and Foster's Hollywood Cafe. And we ate at both...

Felipe, Prince of Asturias

Felipe and Letizia getting out of the car

Today there was lots of excitement in Badajoz. Felipe, one of the Spanish princes came to Badajoz to participate in the Congresso Nacional de Jovenes Impresarios (National Congress for young buisnessmen). Lucky for me, my window overlooks the building where it was taking place. The road outside was completely blocked off with barriers, and there were crowds of people waiting to see the Prince arrive. When the motorcade arrived everyone began pushing to see and cheering. There was a group of school children watching, and they shoute 'Felipe, Felipe" as he arrived, and of course him and his wife greeted them, and everyone cheered. The woman next to me yelled, "Felipe, guapo!' His wife, Letizia, is also very popular. It was a very exciting thing for Badajoz.

I was also able to see the democracy of Spain in action. Some of the kids from the dorm brought out a Spanish Republican flag to protest the royal family. Immediately the police went over to them, confiscated the flag, and took their IDs. Nothing else happened, but they were really annoyed, and said to me, "now you know how democracy works in Spain".

Feria Taurina de Olivenza

Two weekends ago my friends and I went to a festival in a nearby town, Olivenza, that marked the beginning of the the Bullfighting season in Spain (Feria Tuarina = Festival of the Bulls). Like any other Spanish festival it involved alot of eating and drinking in the streets. The most important part, however, was the bullfight. The festival lasted 4 days, and there was a bullfight each day. In each bullfight there were three toreros (bullfighters) and six bulls, and each torero fought two bulls.

We tried to get tickets to one of the fights, but it was completely sold out. We left, but then came back about an hour into the fight just to see if we could buy tickets from people who didn't use the tickets they had already bought. Instead of watching the bull fight we saw something much different.

When we walked up to the bullring we saw a large crowd of people standing outside of the doors. We didn't know why they were standing there waiting, but we soon found out. There was a knock on from the inside of the bullring, then police began to push the crowd to the sides. The doors burst open, and three horses ran out, dragging a dead bull out of the ring. The children ran over to the bull and tried to pull out the banderillas (the long, colorful things with a sharp end that are used to weaken the bull). The children who got the banderillas were really excited. Then, the bull was lifted with a machine into a truck, where butchers were waiting to butcher the bull for everyone to see. They used axes and huge knives, and you could see the blood spraying all over the walls of the truck and the men. Yuck! We had no idea that they butcher the bulls right outside of the ring. It turns out that watching the butchering of the bulls is almost as fun as watching the bullfight. The amusing part was that the outside of the truck had a cartoon of a smiling bull, but inside the bull was in pieces, and i don't think it was happy...

Bull with banderillas

Cayetano Rivera

Though I really didn't like watching what happens after the fight, I still want to see a bullfight. It's been a large part of the Spanish Culture, and I think it would be worthwhile to see once. I have heard many different opinions of bullfights since being in Spain; some people saying it is a disgrace, some saying it is extremely important to Spanish Culture, and some saying they are indifferent. While I was studying in Granada, people talked about the artistry and beauty of the bullfight, which is interesting to me, so I'd like to see one to be able to make my own opinions. Also, I think the traje de luz (the outfit that the torero wears) is beautiful, and toreros have a stereotype of being super guapo and manly! Nowadays, toreros have become huge celebrities and are viewed as sex symbols, as can be seen in the ad for Loewe's cologne. So, the bullfight interests me more because of artistic and fashion side, rather than watching a man fight and kill a bull. There will be bullfights in Badajoz during the Feria de San Juan in June, so I will probably go to see one then.

I can't stand it!!!

I'm getting so sick of living in the dorm. I've had my complaints all year, about the food, the size of my room, not being able to have visitors, etc., but those are all things I can deal with. The one thing that has driven me absolutely nuts every single time is the laundry. It has been bad all along, but has gotten worse now. Originally we had one normal washer and one dryer (yes, I know I should feel lucky that I have a dryer) for 80 + residents. It was hard to find a time when both the washer and dryer were free. Because if you use both at the same time the fuse blows... So, it would normally take me a few days to clean my clothes; from the time I decided I needed to do laundry until the washing machine was actually available.

Last week they exchanged the washer and dryer for new, smaller, and apparently more economical versions. Unfortunately, the wash cycle on the new machine takes TWO HOURS! And, when I took my clothes out of the washer, after 2 hours, they were sopping wet. So I had to wring out all of my clothes in the sink, then put them in the dryer for another 2 hours. Now I don't know how I will ever have time to wash my clothes. I put them in the washer tonight at 9pm, it's now 11, and they won't be done until 1am. To me this is absurd. I have put up with a lot of inconvencies living here, but this just seems totally ridiculous. Yes, it costs less now, but I don't have time to sit around the dorm for 4 hours waiting for my clothes.

In January I actually decided to look for an apartment, because I was tired of living here. I ended up deciding that I could stick it out for the next couple months, just because it was free. I had a really hard time thinking about paying for an apartment when I have everything here for free. I will never live in a dorm again though! The positive side of living in the residence is that I don't think I will ever have another living sitaution as inconvenient as this. And I will greatly appreciate having my own place next year, even though it means I have to clean and take care of all the other things that come with having an apartment. Now I know that having a free place to live is not necessarily worth all of the cons that come with it...

Carnaval

Last weekend there was a HUGE celebration in Badajoz for Carnaval. Everyone says that Badajoz has the 3rd largest Carnaval celebration in all of Spain. We had two days off of school, and everyone was in costumes for the entire 4 day weekend. Carnaval here has a couple main components: Las Comparsas, Las Murgas, Botellon, and to close the celebration there is El entierro de la sardina (The Burial of the Sardine).

The Comparsas are large groups of people, about 100 in each group, all dressed in very eleborate and intricate costumes. Each comparsa has a group that dances and is followed my a group of drummers. Each group selects a theme shorter after Carnaval for the next year, and the people in these groups work on the costumes, dances and music all year. There was a children's parade on Friday and the adult parade on Sunday, with about 20 Comparsas in each parade. The costumes were amazing!

The Murgas are groups of people who sing humerous and satirical songs. They are normally politically or socially driven, and there is a competition every year for the best Murgas. The competition begins a week or two before Carnaval and the winner is selected during the celebration. I went to see one of the groups, but I couldn't really understand the jokes they were singing about.

 There are two main nights that people celebrate all night in the streets. Everyone dressed up in costumes, like for Halloween. I dressed up as a nerd one day and a ninja the other day. Both nights there is a Botellon, or "Big Bottle". Botellon is common the rest of the year too, where people gather outdoors and drink. During Carnaval though, there are thousands of people in the plazas in the old part of the city.





On Monday night everyone stays out until the next morning, and goes directly to the Burial of the Sardine. This year it was raining, so there weren't as many people there as there usually are. The Burrial of the Sardine is the symbolic end of Carnaval. It consists of people dressed as "death" carrying a stuffed Sardine, while a man dressed as a widow cries and acts as if someone very important has died. The bars all served fried sardines and beer. It was quite ridiculous, especially at 10am after being out dressed as a Nija all night.

Click to see photos from Hoy neswpaper of Burrial of the Sardine


That's Carnaval in a nutshell. It was a lot of fun, but by the end I was so tired!

Today I went on my first field trip with my students. The 3rd of ESO group went to a nearby school for its "dia del centro". Students from16 bilingual sections from surrounding towns came to participate in a day of speaking English and playing games. There were more or less 20 students from each school, which means 320 students, plus a couple teachers from each school. With that amount of people it turned out to be impossible to control anyone, and I'm pretty sure the students just hung out and spoke Spanish all day. There was a schedule of events, but there was no organized way of telling the students where they were supposed to go and when. I ended up sitting in the auditorium with David for the whole morning listening to students presentations about their schools, watching an abridged rendition of High School Musical and watching students sing karaoke in Spanish. I was amazed at how disorganized everything was in comparison to how everything always has to be organized to a T in the states.

One of the consequences of this disorganization arrose later in the day when we were leaving. Apparently there had been an soccer game earlier in the day, and there had been some tension between my students and another group of kids who didn't even go to the school. These kids were able to just walk in because no one was keeping track of who should be there and who shouldn't. There was an issue with one of the other kids pushing and teasing the students from my school, and later on when it was time to leave it escalated to the point I had to step in.

At the end of the day the students were waiting outside the school gate for the bus, alone. They shouldn't have been allowed to just leave in the first place, but again, no one was keeping track of the students. I was outside talking to another lanuguage assistant and waiting to leave when I saw a couple students run over to me saying that the other kids from the game were going to hit my kids. So I ran over and pushed the kids apart and just stood between them. I told them to leave in my not perfect Spanish, and they just laughed at me. The kids were standing all around us, and kept trying to get my students, and I had to push them away a couple of times.

They were saying things to me that I half understood-enough to know they were not at all friendly- and one of them stood so close behind me I could feel his face in my hair, just to push my buttons.  I had enough of a power position, though, that they didn't try to push past me, and finally I got my students inside of the school gates.  The group of quinquis (loosly translated to hooligans-but with a negative conotation) taunted us and even banged on our bus as we were leaving.

Today was the first day I have been in the position where I needed to be in control, but couldn't because I don't speak Spanish fluently. Usually I am able to communicate whatever I need, but here I was just at a loss. I knew that the only thing I could do was to keep them apart until another teacher came out. Luckily we were supposed to leave right then, so the other teachers came out shortly after.

This situation would have been so easily avoided if there had been some form of supervision throughout the day. This was an issue that had escalated from earlier in the day, and should have been taken care of right then. Instead, I was the only one there to deal with it when it finally turned into a fight. Hmm...

Lots of travels

I've been really busy the last few weeks. It seems like I have hardly spent any time at home. In the past month I've been to Salamanca, Lisbon and Sevilla. When I am home, the internet in the dorm shuts off a lot, so it takes forever to write a blog and upload pictures. That is one of the complaints I have about the dorm on a list of many. I will leave my issues with the dorm for another post, though.

So, my first trip after rreturning to Spain was to Salamanca. My friend Morgan studied abroad in there, so she was our tour guide that weekend. I was there once before with my study abroad program, but we didn't spend enough time there to explore. This time we went to all of the historical sites: the cathedral, la Casa de las Conchas (The entire outside of the building is covered in shells or 'conchas'), the university, and of course Plaza Mayor. We stayed in a great hostal that had a balcony overlooking the plaza.

Two weeks later we took a trip to Lisbon. The only time I had been there before is when I was flying from Porto to Philadelphia, with a stop over in Lisbon. Our suitcases made the plane, but we didn't. We had to stay the night in Lisbon without clothes, toothbrush or anything. We managed to get by, and actually had a great time eating American food at Hard Rock Cafe and going to a Sporting Club soccer match.

This time the trip was very different. We rode an old trolly up to Saint George's Castle where we had a beautiful view of the city and the river. We ate and went out in Barrio Alto, the old part of the city, and ventured to some small towns on the coast. We tried to have a picnic on the beach in Cascais, but as soon as we got off the train it started to pour. We ended up having our picnic under an awning of a building across from the trainstation. Later, it stopped raining and we were able to walk to the beach, where we all took our shoes off and played in the sand and water for a few minutes. It was still too cold to stay out long, so we headed back shortly after to Lisbon.

The next day we went to a beautiful town in the mountians, called Sintra. High up on the summit of one mountain there is a castle called the Palace of Pena. It is a castle that seems like it is out of a fairytale. The ouside is blue, pink, yellow and purple, and resembles a dollhouse. There was a beautful view of the valley and the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. Overall I really enjoyed Lisbon and would love to go back again to see all of the things I still haven't seen.

Unfortunately, I'm still not able to upload pictures, but you can search for any of the places I talked about to see them online!

It's been a while...

 I'm sorry I haven't written in so long, I was really busy while home, and have also been super busy since returning to Spain. I'll just write a brief summary of everything that has been going on over the past month. First, I want to comment that my trip to Valencia (pre-hospital) was wonderful. It is a great city with a really interesting science museum that they call La ciudad de las ciencias. There are multiple, futuristic looking buildings each dedicated to a type of science. It seemed like we could have been in Star Wars! We rented bikes one day with some people we met in the hostal which was also alot of fun!

My trip home for Christmas was really nice. It was great to see my family and friends. I spent 2 weeks at home and then went to NYC to spend New Years with my friends from college. Then back home for a couple days and two days later I left for Spain.

Dad's side of the family. Mom, I don't have any from yours :(

Now I am back in Badajoz and am getting used to being here again. I lost some of my Spanish while I was at home, so now I have to practice alot! I am making plans for lots of trips now, including Salamanca this coming weekend and Lisbon in February. I also have Mallora, Germany, Denmark and the Running of the Bulls in the works for later this year!