Tuesday, September 28, 2010

When pros and cons get tossed out the window by awesomeness.

My sophomore year of college I decided that I couldn’t handle living in the dorms for a third year. My group of friends and I decided that we would find a large house and we’d all live together. After a multiple week search and having a house leased out from underneath us we finally found an incredible house in a perfect location and the 9 of us rocked the “purple castle” during my junior year.


Some good times in that house junior year...

Fast forward to the present. I arrived in Motril on Saturday with 5 days paid in a hotel. During those 5 days I had to find an apartment that I would be living in for the next 8 months. Compare these two stories. Multiple weeks to find a place in Ann Arbor that I would live in the following year, versus 5 days to find a place I needed to move into at the end of the week. Awesome.

With this said Michael Lynn and I have been diligent in our search for a piso. It started Saturday afternoon when we walked around and continued Sunday night (see the previous entry) with us seeing a great place in the center of town that was owned by an extremely nice couple that even bought us dinner afterwards.

After walking around both Saturday and Sunday afternoon we had a game plan of which places we wanted to check out and which realtor companies we wanted to visit.

Company One:
This was our first choice—they had a 3 bedroom, 2 bath place with a garage that we wanted to look at. We checked it out and although it had a nice view of the sea, it was easy to pass on it in terms of its comparison to the place we saw Sunday night. In fact, the place we saw Sunday night proved to be the standard in which we compared all of the other pisos. I am really glad we got to see that first piso before we did our intense searching yesterday. This ended up being the only piso we saw by this company because he was working by himself, so he couldn’t spend a lot of time out of the office on this particular day.

Company Two:
After seeing one piso with the first company we made our way to the second company. This was a realtor I had found online while looking at several pisos on a particular website. They had multiple places with 3 bedrooms and many of them looked really nice. We went inside and I explained that we were three teachers who needed a place for 8 months. We told the guy what schools we were at as well as our price range. He said to return at 5 and we could go check some out. Simple enough.

Company Three:
With a 5 o’clock date with the other company we moved on to the third realtors we’d found. They also had several places posted in their windows and similarly I had found several listings of theirs online. I gave them the same information I’d given the previous realtor and they said to come back in 30 minutes. Perfect. We went and walked around for a short while then returned to the realtor and they were ready to go.

They showed us four pisos, all of which had advantages and disadvantages. However, one really stuck out to me as a very strong candidate because of its size, price and overall quality. We now had a ranking of pisos:


Top three:

1. The one we saw Sunday night with the nice family
2. The one discussed above
3. All the others….

Number 1 and 2 above were pretty even, and it was going to take a major pro/con list (which Michael Lynn was all over) or a different piso that would blow us out of the water for us to decide.

We told this company (2) that we were going to see some other places and that we would let them know what we were going to do in the next day or two. We returned to the hotel for a few hours to grab some lunch and a quick siesta.

At 5 we left for the third company and this realtor was ready to go. I had high hopes for the places he was going to show us because I knew they had some nice places that I had found on the Internet. Boy, was I wrong.

The first place we were taken to was in an older building. I knew it wasn’t going to work because as the landlord fussed with her ring of keys, trying to find the correct one to open the door, there was a runt of a dog with an extremely high pitch bark yelping at us as in the piso next door. The inside of this piso proved to be as outdated inside as it was outside.


I imagine this is maybe what that dog looked like, minus the American outfit of course...

We eventually moved on to a second piso. If the first one was bad, this second one was terrible. Old furniture, old bathrooms and terrible beds. I was flabbergasted. I had seen all these great places online and these were the two the guy showed us. After leaving the second piso the realtor said that he had one more he wanted to show us. However, the landlord was not available until 7:30. It was now 6 and Michael Lynn and I were tired. We also had two viable choices to choose from. However, we decided that seeing one more place might be worth it so we agreed to meet back at his office at 7:30.

An hour and a half later we made our way over and he was waiting for us. He grabbed his car keys and crossed the street to where his American made Chrysler 300C Tourer was parked. Michael Lynn and I jumped in and we sped off to this last piso.

This was a pretty fun experience: we were driving in Spain, with a realtor, in an American made car. Not only this, he had a mix CD going and one of the first songs played was by Katy Perry. It was America, but in Spain.

We eventually arrived to the last piso, which was in a more residential area of town. The realtor said it was new within the last two years, and it looked that way. We walked up to the building and made our way towards the piso. As soon as we entered I knew we had most likely found our winner. The apartment was new and modern. Nice couches, brand new appliances in the kitchen (all appliances as well: oven, stove top, refrigerator, microwave. This wasn’t the case with some of the other places we’d been in). The bedrooms were all a decent size with good beds. And the best part was the balcony. It had an enormous balcony that was accessible by all three bedrooms as well as the living room. And it looked out towards the Mediterranean! The piso would be 500 Euros a month (this includes the community fee, internet, and television) plus whatever water and electricity would cost (water every three months about 40 Euros, electric every month around 30 Euros, all depending on use). This automatically made its way to the top of our list and we were both glad we chose to see the last piso.



(Note: I feel like maybe this realtor had buttered us up a little bit by first showing us two really bad places and then this third place. Either way, we were blown away by this new and modern piso.)

During all of this a side story was going on. Emily is currently in Sevilla for orientation but because of some worker strikes her trip to Motril had to be sped up to Tuesday night (the strikes begin Wednesday), which was a day earlier then we expected. With that said, she would be able to see these pisos before we had to leave our hotel after 5 nights. So, we agreed with the realtor that we would bring our third roommate with us on Wednesday morning to see this piso and we would decide afterwards. We are also going to go see the other piso on top of our list (the one from Sunday night) with Emily as well. These are our two top choices and hopefully by Wednesday afternoon we will have a winner.

A busy but productive day for Michael Lynn and I. I just can’t wait to have my own place and stop living out of a suitcase. I am tired, sort of like this bear...



Adios.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Story Time.

It has been a long day. Michael Lynn and I looked at 7 apartments today and are pretty “piso-ed” out. This also means I really don’t feel like writing about my long day right now, so that will have to wait until tomorrow.

However, I do want to tell you a story that will hopefully bring a smile (and maybe a laugh) to all of your faces.

My homestay in Sevilla ended up being rather mediocre in my eyes. My senora was really nice, and I had a lot of fun trying to talk Spanish with her. However, she had several rules and it was difficult adjusting to the expectations she had for Steven, Alex (the German exchange student) and I. These included not allowing us to buy desk fans when it was over 100 degrees outside because they used too much electricity (we all had ceiling fans in our rooms, but they created very minimal air circulation), and only taking one shower a day (which was obviously doable, but when you are living in 100+ degree heat, like it was for the first two weeks, and constantly sweating, it is nice to hop into the shower real quick two or three times a day to cool off). However, we grew accustom to the situation and it was working out well. However, we did have a mishap when Steven’s bedroom desk chair was becoming a little wobbly and she wanted him to buy her a new one because she said Steven had broken it. To avoid further conflict Steven complied with her request and spent 40 Euros on a new chair.



This leads me to my final night in Sevilla. I had just hopped out of the shower, gotten dress, and was waiting to head out to meet friends when I decided to quickly check my email. I hopped on my bed with my computer and soon realized that I was pretty warm. I had just taken a hot shower and put on jeans and noticed that I had turned my ceiling fan off. No big deal right? Well, while still looking at my computer I nonchalantly reached over and hit the switch to turn my ceiling fan on. Within a few seconds I heard a giant CRASH and I had to have jumped at least one foot out of my bed. I looked up from my computer and there, sitting in the middle of my room, was my ceiling fan. The entire ceiling fan had fallen from its mount on my ceiling and came crashing to the floor. All that was left on the ceiling was the circular mount and the wires hanging out of that circular mount. Steven quickly darted into my room to see what the commotion was and shortly after so did my senora. I was quickly accused by my senora for breaking her fan and being too hard on the cords that are used to turn the fan on and off.

Short story within a story.
Previously, our senora had decided that we no longer needed our ceiling fan (when it was still in the 80s in Sevilla) so she had pulled the cord that turned the ceiling fan off and taped that cord around the body of the ceiling fan. Get it? Basically what she did was that when you hit the switch, only the light came on and the fan no longer began to spin. Steven and I had asked her if we could keep the fans accessible for the last few days and she said that would be okay. Now I was regretting it.


Sort of what the broken fan looked like on my floor. Maybe a little too extreme...

After explaining to her that I had only been using the switch to turn the fan on and off and that I hadn’t actually touched the fan she grabbed a dustpan and broom and we meticulously cleaned up the mess in the middle of my room. This mess included a shattered light bulb, broken plastic pieces of the fan, as well as a broken fan blade and the fan itself.

What an experience. I am just glad I hadn’t been using the cords to turn the fan on and off because if I had, I would have been under that ceiling fan when it fell, and it probably wouldn’t have felt very good.

Tomorrow should be a chill day so I should get a post up about our piso search here in Motril.

I hoped you enjoyed that story, and maybe broke a smile or even a laugh (but hopefully not a fan).

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Welcome to Motril. Take One.


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Note: this is a second edition of this post. I re-read the first and decided to re-write it.

When I was working in Honduras I had to wake up every morning at 5:45 am. That is the life of a schoolteacher. Saturday morning I felt like I was back in Honduras. My alarm was set for 5:45 and I had a taxi coming to pick me up at 6:30 to take me to the bus station. All went as planned and I arrived at the bus station where I met Michael Lynn. She is another teacher who is placed in Motril with me and will be a roommate as well. My good friend Emily is also placed in Motril, and will be the third roommate of mine, but she will not be arriving in Motril until Tuesday night. Anyway, at 7 am our bus left and a little over 6 hours later we arrived in Motril.

At the bust station we found two taxis that could bring us to our hotel. Even though the hotel was only 5 blocks away, neither of us felt like dragging our two suitcases uphill and around the corner. We soon arrived at the hotel, via taxi, checked in, and then checked out (napped) in our respective rooms for 2 hours. We met up at 4 and headed out to explore Motril and began looking for pisos. We were successful in finding several “Se Aquila” signs (for rent) and jotted down several phone numbers. We also came across a couple of realtors who had photographs of pisos for rent in their windows and decided that we would check out the realtors on Monday.


Yup, still a Lions fan...

Today (Sunday) we ended up doing the exact same thing we did yesterday—walked around looking for “Se Aquila” signs and phone numbers. We came across several other pisos and wrote down a few more phone numbers. After two hours of walking around Motril we decided to retire back to the hotel for a nap (you got to love Spanish siestas). We decided to meet up afterwards to research more pisos online. After an incredible siesta I met Michael Lynn downstairs in the restaurant and we began to explore more pisos via the web. We researched for almost 2 hours. We eventually wore ourselves out and after sending off several emails to landlords we decided to head over to the hotel’s lobby where we began watching our respective football teams (Lions for me and Cowboys for her) via an online television channel I had found. During this time I received a phone call from one of the private owners of a piso I had written an email to earlier. It was also one of the pisos that Michael Lynn and I both liked. We set a meeting time with the landlord at 9 o’clock and Michael Lynn and I walked down towards the location of the piso early to grab a quick bite to eat. After a quick tapa we walked over to the entrance of the building and met the landlord (a couple and their daughter). The apartment was on the fourth floor of the building and had a great view of the street below. It was well equipped with the necessities (plates, silverware, glasses, pots and pans, etc.) with newer furniture and décor. It is the first piso we have seen so we are trying to keep an open mind, but it was pretty awesome.



The living room. Check out the listing here

After going our separate ways with the landlords right after touring the apartment we ended up running back into the couple (minus their daughter). Michael Lynn and I were still a little hungry so we asked if they knew of any good places to get a tapa. They asked if we liked fish and we said “yes,” (a little bit of a lie for me…) and they said to follow them. They ended up taking us to a smaller tapa bar and bought us drinks. Unlike in Sevilla, here in Motril when you buy a drink, you get a free tapa. So the first tapa we got was a fried white fish, which was very well marinated. This was very good and I enjoyed. After polishing off this tapa we got a second. However, this one did not look as pleasant—octopus. Michael Lynn and I had eaten octopus the previous day right after our bus ride to Motril. We had tried it and it was rather chewy. If I had a preference I would have stayed away from it, but I was still hungry and this really friendly couple was buying us dinner. So, I ate it. It was chewy, but doable. Like calamari, it will take me some time to get used to it.

What a day. We spend 4 hours looking for pisos. Received a phone call about one of our top choices. Go see this top choice, which is owned by an extremely nice family and ends up being really nice itself, and then we have dinner with the couple! A great start to my time here in Motril.

Right now the plan is for us to go check out other places tomorrow and then hopefully decide by tomorrow night what we want to do. We are both eager to find a place and settle in. I’ll keep you updated.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Where is Doc when you want him?

I am upon my final days in Sevilla and it is hard to believe that I have been here for 5 weeks, let alone in Spain for 6 weeks. At 7 am Saturday morning I am taking a bus to my final destination in Spain where I will actually be teaching, Motril. Here, for the next 8 months, I will be working about 12 hours a week as a Language and Cultural Assistant in what is comparable to an American high school (ages 15-18). I will be helping students out with their English by assisting Spanish teachers with lessons and activities (more on this later, once I actually figure more out. My first day of school is October 1).



I couldn’t have asked for a better time in Sevilla, or a better group of people to spend time with while I was here. You need to be a certain type of individual to move to a foreign country for a year and work, and we (everyone in my 4-week immersion group) were all able to connect having that as the core of why we were here. I do wish I could hop in an old De Lorean with a flux capacitor and shoot myself back 5 weeks, but what is the fun in that? This is an adventure and time continues to move on and I am extremely excited to move to Motril, my home for the rest of my time here.



It is going to get a little complicated though. CIEE, the program I applied to that has organized everything up to this point, is putting me up in a hotel for 5 nights once I arrive in Motril. During this time I am on my own as I try to find my own “piso” (apartnment) in the Motril area. There are two other girls placed in Motril as well, including my good college friend Emily Allshouse who told me about this program. The plan is for all three of us to find a place together. Emily is currently in Granada spending time with the family she lived with when she studied there her junior year of college (she has orientation here in Sevilla next week), while the other girl, Michael Lynn, is here in Sevilla with me and we’ve talked on several occasions. Although I am finally settling down in the place I will be for the next 8 months, I do have a busy coming week shooting around Motril trying to find a place to live with those girls (actually only Michael, because Emily will be in Sevilla). It definitely should be an adventure.


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Although I have plans to come back to Sevilla in December with Rachel when she comes and visit, as well as maybe making several trips here when and if my younger brother studies abroad here this coming winter semester, I am going to miss it. I was walking around with a group of friends last night and even though we have been here for 5 weeks, as we approached the center of town, we all had our heads up looking at La Giralda like it was the first time we had seen that magnificent bell tower.

Sevilla will be missed, but bring on Motril.



NOTE: I know I mentioned that I would write entries about the Alcazar Gardens and being taught by teachers who were learning how to be teach, but I decided not to. You’ve all seen pictures of the Alcazar (as well as my buddy’s video) and I didn’t continue going to those Spanish classes that were being taught by teachers who were learning how to teach Spanish (mostly because I wasn’t getting anything out of them and could learn more by studying on my own).

Monday, September 20, 2010

We're not in Spain anymore.


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I heard someone say it on the way home yesterday. It was a simple thing that many of us agreed with. For some background information, I am living in Sevilla, Spain, one of the most culturally rich cities in Spain and maybe even all of Europe; an awesome place to spend 4-weeks taking Spanish classes and taking in the Andalucían culture. However, when it was said, I could not help but nod in agreement—“I never thought going back to Sevilla would be disappointing.”

A rather strong statement for an incredible place to live, but it goes to show how awesome this past weekend was in Portugal. I could writes hundreds of words about this weekend, and I might just do that…


The birthday boy and the boys

After celebrating my homestay-mate’s (Steven's) birthday Thursday night by going out for tapas and drinks I woke up around 8 am to finish packing and to make sure we were out the door by 9:15. We were successful and Steven, my friends Palmer and Karl, and myself split a taxi to the Portuguese Embassy where the buses were waiting to take us to Lagos. Less than 4 hours later I was staring at this:



I had to prove I was there by getting in one of the pictures...

This is the beach where me and over 100 Americans, mostly whom were travel abroad students, would spend the day playing beach soccer, taking in the sun, and exploring the rocks. Our first day at the beach was followed up by an incredible dinner at Nah Nah Bar in the center of Lagos. I have eaten several burgers in my 24 years, but not too many rival the pure tastiness of the burger I had at Nah Nah. Good meat, good cheese, perfect bacon, and some pineapple and special sauce makes one delicious burger. From here we went to a bar that the travel company we went with had basically rented out for us. Most of us spent the rest of the night hanging out and dancing at the oh-so-Americanly named bar Joe’s Garage.

Saturday morning was greeted with an excellent breakfast at the hotel and a short bus ride to where I got to hang out on this:



That is the sailboat that many of us hung out on for 2 hours late Saturday morning and into the early afternoon. It gave us some incredible views of the Lagos coastline. We also went for a ride on this:



Which gave us an up close view of the caves and rock formations along the coast.

After our sailboat cruise we left the docks and walked about 15-minutes to a nearby beach. From about 1:30 to 5ish I played beach soccer and volleyball, took in the sun, and swam. What did it look like? Yes, I’ve got a picture for that…




Two days and two incredibly relaxing and beautiful beaches.


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After returning from the beach many of us decided to go on an optional activity and took a 25-minute bus ride to a place called Sagres. This town is situated on the southwest corner of the country and gives some of the best sunsets around. Unfortunately, it was pretty cloudy when we arrived and the sun was taken away from us by clouds rather then the horizon, but it was an incredible area. Enjoy these photos.






We arrived back in Lagos for dinner. Me and a few others were on a mission to find a Thai restaurant (yes, I know, a Thai restaurant in Portugal is weird. However, one, people went to it the previous night and said it was incredible and two, this is a continuation of finding the best Thai restaurant while overseas in places I am visiting. This started when I was on vacation this summer with Rachel and we ate Thai food in Antigua, Guatemala and Roatan, Honduras). We finally found it but it was a 40-minute wait. So we decided to stay in the same geographical area (roughly) of the world and eat Indian food instead. Good choice, it was delicious. We ordered four plates (which I could not tell you the names of) and shared all of them. After dinner we checked out the area, got a few drinks at one of the many bars lining the main street of town and eventually made our way to the second place the travel company was hosting us at, Bar Grande. Here most of us again spent the night hanging out and having drinks while dancing the night away. An awesome time had by all.

Sunday morning came pretty early after a fun night at Bar Grande, but it was really the day I was looking forward to the most. I was going surfing. At 11 we took the bus to a beach that was about 40 minutes up the coast (about 20 minutes north of Sagres). It was a surfing beach, which was evident by the dozens of surfers dotting the water and the handful of surf shops right on the beach. Within 20 minutes our boards and wetsuits were ready and we made our way down to the beach with our surf instructor. After some opening stretching and basic lessons on how to catch a wave and the proper way to stand on the board I eagerly ventured into the water. Now, I have surfed twice before, once on the coast of Washington state with my brothers and another time in San Diego with a few friends. Both times I would have no problem catching a wave (thanks to my many years of body surfing on Lake Michigan), but would quickly get destroyed by the wave as I went head-over-heels into the water because I had no idea how to properly stand up on the board. However, this time I was a lot more successful. Instead of venturing out into the deeper waters where the waves were enormous, I stayed closer to shore, improving my ability to catch a wave and then stand up. Not to sound cocky, but I got really good at this and was getting up on almost every attempt. I eventually made my way a little further out where I began to catch waves that were a little larger and had a lot of fun actually surfing. Although many of those who didn’t go surfing took several pictures of those of us who did, no one was able to catch me in action. So, you will have to take my word for it. Here are some pictures of the group though.





It was a lot of fun and by the end of 2 hours I was exhausted. This was by far my favorite beach as well because of its mostly untouched natural setting. A pretty awesome place.




After a quick lunch and about 45 minutes of relaxing on the beach we made our way to the bus and back to the hotel in Lagos. Here, I showered and changed and before I knew it we were back on the bus heading towards Sevilla.

Overall, it was one of the best weekends I’ve ever had. From the three incredible beaches, to the food, to the activities we did, to the company of friends I was with, it was spectacular and will be hard to top in regards to future trips I take.

A quick note on the language.
I was surprised to hear that Portuguese, although in written form is very similar to Spanish, is extremely different from Spanish when spoken. I was not aware of this and was quite surprised. However, this really didn’t affect us too badly because everyone we came across during the trip (including the random people I asked about the location of the Thai restaurant) spoke English.

I also want to thank some of the other teachers for the pictures I stole from their albums on Facebook and used above. I took several pictures but some of them took better ones...

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Paradise? Paradise.

This was paradise for me:


A picture I took of a beach in Roatan, Honduras

This is going to be paradise for me this weekend:



That would be Lagos, Portugal, the long awaited destination of this weekend.

It’s been a super busy week so I apologize for not having a midweek post, but that will have to wait. A few things to look forward to for early next week’s post.

An entry on being a teacher (me), and observing other teachers (professors) teaching how to teach (new teachers), and then being taught by those new teachers.

The gardens of the Real Alcazar.

And of course a solid entry about my weekend in Lagos.

Until then, stay classy.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Inconveniently located tables.


That's been me before, and probably you too...

It is a fact of life—you will somehow cause yourself a split second of excruciating pain by running into something in your own house. From stubbing your toe on the legs of a chair or table, to crushing your hip on the corner of a table or a wall, to hitting your head on an open cupboard, or your shin on an open dishwasher (my nemesis)—it is inevitable. These are all items that are inconveniently located as you walk around your home.

My Saturday was a Saturday of inconveniences while walking around Sevilla (it was actually mostly bad luck but I’ll keep this whole “inconvenient” theme going from a few posts ago). However, there were some inconveniently located tables (even though I didn’t stub my toe on them…)

I chose to stay in Sevilla again this weekend because next weekend’s trip to Lagos is going to be very busy, very fun, and very expensive. Friday night I had talked to some people to see if they would be interested in going to the Basilica de Macarena (a very famous church only blocks away from where I live) and Plaza de Toros and the Real Maestranza (the bull fighting ring I talked about before). I had a few people interested so I told them if you want to do it, meet outside La Macarena at 11. I arrived in an un-Spanish way, punctually at 10:55, and as I walked up to the La Macarena there was a bride walking through the main doors towards the front of the church. The inside looked incredible, but I was going to have to wait to see it as the ushers closed the doors behind the bride.


I snapped a shot before they closed the doors...

Shortly after, Emily and Kim, two other teachers I have gotten to know, arrived and I informed them of this first inconvenience (or bad luck). Kim had already been to the bull ring so we decided to walk towards the center of town where she had seen several painted refrigerators sitting in Plaza de San Francisco. These were evidently pieces of art that were on display for the public and we were all intrigued at the originality of painting a household item like a refrigerator. However, inconvenience struck again; I didn’t stub my toe on one of the refrigerators, rather the refrigerators were gone when we arrived. No more kitchen appliance artwork. With our second strike out we decided to walk towards the well-known Barrio de Santa Cruz, one of the older parts of the town which used to be known as the Jewish Quarter. This was a pretty cool area, however you could tell it was a well publicized area of Sevilla do to the number of tourists, tourist trap stores, and high end restaurants around the streets of the barrio. At this point we were getting a little hungry so we stopped at a smaller restaurant and got a quick tapa. Afterwards Emily and I decided to head towards Plaza de Toros to check out Real Maestranza and Kim decided to head home.


One of the corridors in Barrio de Santa Cruz

Emily and I arrived at the stadium and bought our tickets for the tour—4 Euros with a student discount. Within 5 minutes our tour guide arrived and opened up the doors to the ring. What an awesome sight, the background of my blog. However, what was there on the field? Inconveniently located tables. They, at least for me, unfortunately took away from the spectacle of the ring. But it was still a pretty cool sight.



We sat in the stands for about 10 minutes and then went through their museum, which was mostly a collection of bull fighting paintings and memorabilia. The tour was quick, about 40 minutes, but worth the 4 Euros to see the inside of the ring.



Inconveniently located tables.

There was a bullfight today (Sunday) that Emily and I thought about going to but it was younger matadors and younger bulls, so we decided we’d save that experience for later on down the road.

After the bullring we walked home for lunch and agreed to meet up at 5:15 to try La Macarena again. After lunch and a quick siesta I headed down there and met Emily. The doors were closed again. However this time people were coming and going through the side doors. We followed, stepped into the church, and there was a mass going on. Many people were doing this, but we didn’t want to disrupt the service. We only stayed inside to take in the incredible altar and painted ceiling before leaving.

After another Saturday walking tour I was tired and spent the rest of the night watching college football. I heard this quarterback from Michigan named Denard Robinson had a pretty good game on the road, in South Bend, in his second ever career start. Sounds impressive… My fellow Michigan fans over at mgoblog had this appropriate image.



Go Blue!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

History Geek. Take 3.

Previously: Take 1. Take 2.


Not where I went this weekend.

I had high hopes to go to Marbella this past weekend. But after looking into the price of bus tickets and one night at a hostel, along with the food and drinks that would increase the costs, I decided against it (good thing because my friends ended up spending over 100 Euro each). Not to mention a group of us had been discussing going to Lagos, Portugal in two weekends and I wanted to save my money for that trip (this trip is happening, I booked it today).

So with my roommate and a few of my other buddies heading to Marbella, and some of the other CIEE teachers heading to the beach (which I didn’t feel like doing this past weekend) I decided I’d taken the time to scout out Sevilla.

Saturday morning I woke up and saw Steven out the door to Marbella. Afterwards I quickly turned to my computer to see what time the famous Catholic Cathedral here in Sevilla opened to tourists: 11 AM. I had asked my buddy who was going to Marbella if I could borrow his rent-a-bike pass since he wasn’t going to be around all weekend. He agreed. Basically, for 5 Euros a week, you can have access to this rent-a-bike company that has bikes all over the city. It is extremely convenient and I used it most of the day. You just go to where the bikes are, put in your information, and it unlocks a bike that you can use for up to 30 minutes. Anyway, I biked down towards Cathedral de Santa María de la Sede snapping a few pictures on my way and made it to the tourist entrance right at 11. For the next 2 and a half hours, at an entrance fee of 0 Euros for being with CIEE and 3 Euros for an audio guide, I was blown away by the detail and extravagance of this 500-year old church. It is the third largest church in the world and the largest of the gothic style. It has 80 chapels and contains the final resting place of both Christopher Columbus and his son. Check out my photo album on Facebook for more pictures but here is just a sample of what I saw.






The famous bell tower La Giralda is also attached to the cathedral, and was part of the tour. The Moors built the majority of the tower as part of their Mosque prior to the conquering of the Christians. When the Christians conquered the Moors they simply added their bell tower on top of the Moorish part and that is what we have today. There are 36 flights of ramps, not stairs, to the top of the tower. They are ramps because the Muslims used to ride their horses to the top of the tower to ring the bell for daily prayer. There were some incredible views from the tower, enjoy.




After my long tour I hopped on a bike and rode over to the other famous location in Sevilla, Plaza de España. The plaza was under construction but as you can see it was still incredible.




After checking out the plaza I had to quickly bike home because I told my senora I’d be home for lunch at 2:30. Not a bad history walk (and bike) for a Saturday.


Did the Romans have Wolverines?

Saturday night I decided that I wanted to go to Italica (while rooting for my Wolverines, Go Blue!) an old Roman city just north of Sevilla. Italica was built in 200 BC and became one of the most important cities in the entire Roman Empire; it was also the birthplace of two Roman Emperors. I was able to recruit a couple of the girls to come with and we met at the bust station at 10 in the morning. The bus cost 1.30 Euro and took us 30 minutes. When we arrived we were pleasantly greeted with the fact that admission into the ruins was free on Sundays. Sweet.

We first wandered into what was at one time one of the largest amphitheaters in the Roman Empire at a capacity of 25,000. After wandering around the amphitheater and through its two millennia old arches and halls we made our way around the rest of the ruins. Other then the amphitheater, Italica is well known for having some of the best-preserved Roman mosaics. Check them out:





After about an hour and a half we caught the bus back into Sevilla where I just relaxed the rest of the day.

Other than the audio guide at the Cathedral (3 Euros) and the bus ticket to and from Italica (2.60 Euro) I did pretty well with regards to my expenses. I’m glad I chose to stay home this weekend and see more of Sevilla. Not only that, but I saved some money I can use on that trip to Lagos. Speaking of, check this place out:



NOTE: If the Wikipedia links bring you to pages in Spanish I apologize. I haven't figured out how to access Wikipedia in English. I can understand what those pages say because my browser (Google Chrome) automatically translates it for me.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Hodgepodge.

Spanish Classes:
I started my second week of Spanish classes today. Per usual I left the 4 hours of class with an achy head and a lot of jumbled Spanish vocabulary running through my head. This may sound terrible to some of you, but it is really exciting for me. After living in Honduras for 6 months my Spanish barely improved. I think it did help me in the area of listening and trying to pick out keywords to help me understand, but my overall speaking skills really didn’t improve. Coming to Spain and actually having formal classes has been awesome. I have learned more Spanish in 6 formal class periods then I did in 6 months in Honduras. However, this doesn’t mean I haven’t gotten frustrated. Today during my communicative Spanish class I spoke for over an hour with another student in my class. We were playing a game in which we flipped a coin to move 1 or 2 spaces and then had to describe what we landed on. Possibilities included “Your teacher,” “Your parents,” “Your girlfriend,” etc. It was a fun game to practice vocabulary but it was challenging because many times I wanted to use a word and I had no idea what it was in Spanish. It just gets frustrating. However that’s part of the learning process, especially with a second language.


Muy guapo.

I remember going over a new vocabulary list with my English language learning class in Honduras—“Clothes.” I wrote out a list of clothes vocabulary on the board and had the students copy it down. We then went through that list as a class and I would try my best to draw a picture of each vocabulary word. There was one word in particular that I had a hard time getting my students to understand: suit. I drew a picture of a guy wearing a jacket, pants and a tie. The students could not get it and both the students and I began to get frustrated. I went back and took the “pants” vocabulary word drew a “+” sign then took the “jacket” vocabulary word and drew a “+” and then took the “tie” vocabulary word and wrote an “=” sign. The students finally got it; suit. I recalled this memory today when I was doing my Spanish homework and got frustrated because I could not recall the Spanish word for suit—traje. Talk about a role reversal.



Ahh the conveniences of America...

Closed:
The United States is all about the conveniences of life and being as efficient as possible. We have our 24/7 mega grocery stores—Meijer and Wal-Mart. We have our fast food drive through as well as our late night drive through (Taco Bell fourth meal anyone?). We have microwave dinners and frozen pizzas. You fill in the blank and most likely that blank allows us to be more efficient or it is a convenient item to have. This is one thing I had a hard time dealing with when I lived in Honduras; they are neither efficient nor have access to many things down there (however this does allow for an a relaxing pace of life that everyone is incredibly content with). Because of this I was able to slow my pace of life down and learn to appreciate the many things I have access to back home in the States. Coming to Spain I knew it was a developed country and I would have easier access to most things. However, there is one thing I have quickly learned about Spain, and it relates to Honduras. The Spanish are in no hurry and they like to take their time. This makes sense because the people in Honduras were the same way, and with Central America once being part of Spain, you can see why that is a part of Honduras’ culture. However, I am again facing the “inconvenience” of a culture.


I see this a lot, except in Spanish...

My bedroom is on the third floor of a house that does not have air conditioning. During the afternoon my senora (the woman whom I am staying with) does not want us to have the blinds open in our room because it brings in heat. So if I am in my room during the afternoon I am sitting in the dark. I hate that. So I decided I wanted to go out and find somewhere else to hang out during the afternoon. This became very challenging because of one part of the Spanish culture—the siesta. It is a custom here for people to eat lunch around 2 to 3 and then sleep the hot afternoon away. If everyone is sleeping who is working? Not very many people. Which makes trying to find a place to study or hangout in the afternoon very difficult and for me an inconvenience. Compare this to the United States where there are infinite places to go in the afternoon to hang out, study, etc. I guess that just means I need to adapt to the siesta culture of Spain and partake in it myself. No complaints here… Today I finally asked my Senora if she knew of any places that were open during the afternoon that were close by. She did and suggested a small restaurant/bar/café a few blocks away (in an area I hadn’t explored yet) that had both air conditioning and free WiFi. I studied there for two hours this afternoon.