What is this white stuff?

The last time I touched snow was December of 2009. It was two weeks before my departure to Honduras and Holland was pounded with a blanket of snow a few days after Christmas. With all the snow, my family and I decided to really enjoy it. Pictures from that December 2009 snowstorm:






After living in Honduras until June 2010, and then experiencing summer in Michigan until August when I left for Spain, I have avoided snow since December of 2009. However, I do miss it and was eager to experience it once again.
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In eighth grade I was “going steady” with a girl who had grown up downhill skiing. For Christmas, she decided that my present was going to be the two of us downhill skiing at the mountainous of a hill (read that sarcastically), Bittersweet, which is halfway between Holland and Kalamazoo in Otsego. From that day on I really enjoyed downhill skiing. I had grown up cross-country skiing with my mom and brother, and had always enjoyed going downhill on cross-country skis. But now I was on skis with the purpose of going downhill, and it was fantastic. I ended up doing ski club through high school and made it to both Caberfae and Boyne while in college (two of the better skiing hills in the lower peninsula of Michigan).
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When people think of Southern Spain most people think Mediterranean Sea and warm weather. Which is true. Along the Costa del Sol you rarely go longer than a few days without seeing the sun (since Costa del Sol literally translates to “Sun Coast”) or experiencing warmer weather. However, many don’t know that there are also 9,000 – 11,000 foot snow capped mountains in Southern Spain as well. One of the things I have always wanted to do was mountain ski—the hill(s) of Bittersweet, Caberfae, and Boyne, and their 7-minute lift rides for only a minute of downhill skiing, were getting old. Well, this is what I was looking at last weekend here in Spain:




That was the view we had as we were climbing higher and higher into the real Sierra Nevada towards our full day of skiing. Me and my roomies, along with our friend Javier, had decided that we were going to spend the day skiing, and left early last Friday morning to get in a full day.

We arrived at the base of the ski resort shortly after 9 and by 11 we were outfitted in rented equipment, had bought our day pass, and were on the gondola heading up the mountain. Out of the four of us I had the most skiing experience, although Emily had mountain skied in Utah and Michael Lynn skied at a young age while living in Colorado. Javier, who is from Los Angeles, had only snowboarded a couple of times (he also rented a snowboard, while the rest of us rented skis). We first took the bunny hill and then the greens to test our skills, and Emily and I quickly found the process coming back, while Javier and Michael Lynn were re-learning the process. Feeling confident, Emily and I embarked on 5 hours of skiing that would bring us up and down the entire mountain two times (about 40 minutes to go all the way down) and familiarizing ourselves with different lifts and runs. Pictures? I got those:







Michael Lynn and Javier both ended up taking some nasty falls and hung out getting a tan at one of the many slope-side restaurants much of the afternoon. But we all really enjoyed the day. We could have not asked for a better one—it had been snowing for the previous 48 hours and there was not a cloud in the sky much of the afternoon. In fact, my face got a little sun burnt and peeled.

If you want a more detailed look at the mountain check out Emily’s entry about the day. She went as far as to take a map of the mountain and outline our descent the two times we skied all the way down.

Caves and a Castle

Last Friday the roomies and I woke up early and were out the door by 10 am. We were heading towards Granada, where we were going to drop off Emily, and then Michael Lynn and I were going to continue towards the town of Guadix, which is about 30 minutes east of Granada. Guadix is a well-known town in Spain and has a very unique aspect that is unlike any other in the country—its’ cave houses. Many of these homes are modernly equipped with the likes of electricity and water, but are built into the hills of the town. Often, you can only see their chimneys sticking out on top of the hill. The inhabitants of Guadix have used this style for centuries because during the summer they stay cool and during the winter they are well insulated and keep in the heat. A couple of thousand people still live in these traditional homes. Not only that, but Guadix has a backdrop of the Sierra Nevada mountains, so the drive there was incredible and you could see the snow capped mountains in the distance.

After exploring the Cave House Museum and actually going into one of the homes (a few locals open up their homes to tourists, often selling water, cokes, or specialty items), we walked back towards town and checked out the cathedral. We then walked and found a tapa bar and grabbed some lunch.

Being content with our visit to Guadix, we hopped back in the car and made our way towards the town of La Calahorra, which is about 20 minutes further east. Here there is a 500-year-old castle that sits on a hill with an incredible backdrop of the Sierra Nevadas. I was extremely excited to see this and I was not disappointed. After driving into town we drove half way up towards the castle, parked the car, and hiked the rest of the way. It was one of the most incredible views I have ever had. Check it out:

The castle does not look anything like a traditional Spanish Christian castle of the 16^th Century. This is because it was actually designed and constructed by an Italian, so it is very unique to Spain.

After sitting atop the hill and enjoying the view for over an hour, Michael Lynn and I returned to the car and headed back towards Motril. A successful day of exploring.

Teaser.

So, as mentioned at the end of yesterday's blog, Michael Lynn and I made our way over to Guadix to check out the famous cave dwellings and then made our way a little further down the highway to La Calahorra. Check out this video I filmed. More tomorrow or early this week!

Brother y Brother and School

So my blog has been a major fail on my part. I have not only not written in this blog for two weeks, but I just realized that I completely forgot about my La Zafra blog where I was supposed to be writing down what I did at school everyday; my last entry in that blog was before holiday vacation! Oops. Is it to late for a New Years resolution of consistently writing a blog entry? I don’t think so. Consider it done.

There really are no excuses for not posting for two weeks. Yet, I have been surprisingly busy. Most of it actually centers around one thing: the “real” world. That’s right, it is officially February and that means I have started browsing the net for teaching jobs back in the States for next school year. In the last two weeks I have completed several applications as well as cover letters for open positions scanning the East coast, south and Midwest. Oh, Colorado too. So, we will see how this process goes and I am hoping for the best!

Jay’s Arrival

As mentioned in my earlier entry, my brother Jay is officially in Spain and has now been here for a month. I picked him up in Malaga on January 11 and we hung out in Motril for a couple of days before we headed to Algeciras to visit with my family there. We went out for tapas and drinks one night…

*Thanks to Emily for providing these pictures.

and also went down to Playa Granada, the Motril beach for a sunset…

On Thursday Jay and I, along with Emily, Michael Lynn and our friend Bern went down toSalobreña, the nearby pueblo blanco (white village). We hung around the beach there all afternoon as well and enjoyed the view from a large rock that sticks out into the sea. This included seeing a very large jelly fish hanging out below us. We also saw another sunset.

That following Friday morning we hopped in the Beamer and drove over to Algeciras to spend the weekend with my aunt, uncle and cousin. We relaxed Friday afternoon and on Saturday afternoon all 5 of us hopped in my uncles new Mazda and took off to show Jay the drive along the coast towards Tarifa. We then took him up to the Roman ruins my uncle had showed me back in August when I first arrive in Spain. After walking around the ruins we grabbed some lunch near the beach. We enjoyed some typical Spanish salad with several servings of different types of fish and seafood. I’ll be honest, some of that seafood is starting to grow on me and I can easily order fried calamari now and enjoy it.

After lunch, and with a stuffed belly, we went down to the beach. We ended up running around playing Frisbee and soccer, and enjoyed the beautiful afternoon and sun on the Atlantic. Some pictures:

We eventually made our way back to Algeciras. Sunday morning I took off back for Motril and Jay hung around another day until Monday, when my uncle brought him up to Sevilla where he was starting his orientation for his study abroad program. Two VandenBrinks in Spain now, not too bad. I am working on getting up there to see him in the next couple of weeks.

Work? Yeah, I guess you can call it that…

I’ve been back to work for a month now and things are continuing to go well. I am continuing to work with all of the content area teachers at La Zafra, helping them with their English and proof reading worksheets and other handouts they’ve written in English. My time in the classroom with the students has also been awesome, and is obvious the highlight of my time working at the school. I am seeing such large improvements in the kids’ English skills, especially the first eso (sixth graders). This is their first year in the bilingual program and many of the students have grown by leaps and bounds in their English skills over the last 4 months.

Last week I had science class with this first eso and they were working on the pronunciation of vocabulary words for plant life and biology. My teacher had created a chart that had a column for the English vocabulary words, a column for how those words could be written using Spanish pronunciation, and a third column for what the word was in Spanish. I was really intrigued by the second column, how the students heard the English pronunciation of the word but written using Spanish pronunciation. I thought I’d share that chart with you.

WORD	PRONUNTIATION	MEANING	WORD	PRONUNTIATION	MEANING
Water	guater	agua	Feed	fiiid	alimentarse
Mineral salts	Mineral salts	Sales minerales	Collect	colect	captar
Carbon dioxide	Carbon diaxaid	Dióxido de carbono	Absorb	absorb	absorber
Sun	san	sol	Expel	expel	expulsar
Oxygen	axyllen	oxígeno	Breath	briiiz	respirar
Photosynthesis	foutosíntesis	fotosíntesis	Useful	iusful	Útil
			Worthless	worzles	inutil
Chlorophyll	clorofil	clorofila	Harmful	jarmful	Perjudicial (dañino)

I thought it was pretty entertaining and the students have done it with a few other sets of vocabulary words.

My academy classes have also been going well. Although I am still have issues with my 12 and 13 year olds speaking too much Spanish in class, I feel like I have been able to vary the content more so that they aren’t so bored. Before break I was doing a lot of work out of the textbook, which is the Cambridge University EFL curriculum that we use at the academy. It was boring the students to death. So, over break I thought about different things I could do and I have begun to break the 90-minute class into 3 thirty-minute sections. I spend 30 minutes doing a vocabulary review/writing assignment or in-class project, I then spend 30 minutes working out of the textbook, and I then spend 30 minutes playing some sort of game or doing another type of activity to help the students apply the content from the first 60 minutes. It has been going much better and I feel like I have been able to keep the students more engaged. But, the whole Spanish-speaking thing has been difficult with the students; I am still working on the best way to fight that problem.

Anyway, hopefully this month I can get back to some sort of routine in terms of posting once or twice a week. Tomorrow Michael Lynn and I are heading up to Guadix to explore its’ famous caves and then down the road to La Calahorra to see one of the more famous castles in all of Spain. Look for an entry in couple of days about that day trip!

Post Rachel: Algeciras and home.

Rachel flew out on Sunday January 2 and after going to the airport with her and saying goodbye I hopped on a bus towards Algeciras. I spent my last week of break there hanging out with my aunt and uncle and cousin and had an awesome time.

Along with Christmas, Spain celebrates Three Kings Day, which is on January 6. It is just as big of a holiday as Christmas and it is a common practice to give gifts for it as well. There are also parades that happen throughout Spain on the night of the 5th. They contain decorated floats with people throwing out handfuls of candy, and at the end, like in a typical Holiday parade in the United States where there is Santa, there are the Three Kings, each on their own float throwing out candy. Me, my aunt, and her mom, and my cousin Daniel went to the parade in Algeciras. We first went and ate some churros for dinner and walked around the center, and then went and watched the parade. Check it out:





I mostly spent my time relaxing with my family, but along with the parade I went to one of my cousin Daniel’s swim lessons. They were at the municipal pool and it was fun watching him do laps. Check out the pictures and the video of him diving at the end of the class. I love the wetsuit and swim cap.

I also watched some football with my uncle. I consider myself to be an avid college football fan, and I follow it very closely, but when it comes to the NFL my uncle might even out do my knowledge of college with his knowledge of players and teams in the NFL. Spanish television actually broadcasts 4 games live every weekend, a 1 o’clock game, a 4:30 game, the Sunday night game, and the Monday night game. With the time difference those games are on at 7 PM, 10:30 PM, 2:30 AM and 2AM respectively here in Spain. With the first round of the playoffs the first game was on at 4:30 that Saturday, or 10:30 Spanish time. My uncle and I stayed up and watched the entire game—the Seahawks upsetting the Saints. My uncle also has DVR so he was planning on DVRing the second game, the Colts and Jets, but when we woke up Sunday morning we found that the DVR didn’t work. That was disappointing because I was planning on watching the recorded second game before I left for Motril later that afternoon.

Overall, my post-Rachel vacation was fantastic and relaxing, but it was coming to a close as I headed back to Motril that Sunday afternoon.

However, I had an unfortunate surprise waiting for me when I arrived in Motril. I walked in the door and was greeted by Michael Lynn who told me Emily was at the hospital with our friends Bern and Pablo. I had talked to Emily earlier that morning and she said she was really sick and was probably running a fever. I told her I had a thermometer in my room so she took her temperature and it was over 102 degrees. She ended up having other problems (“digestive”) along with that high temperature and thought it would be best to go to the hospital. I checked my phone and I actually had a couple of miss calls from Emily’s mom too. Not a good thing to come home to, your good friend in the hospital because she was so sick. I ended up connecting with Bern and talked to him. He said to hold tight because there wasn't much going on at the hospital, and a couple hours later Emily was home. The doctors weren’t too helpful but did prescribe a few medications, and after a couple more days of a high fever and other symptoms she eventually recovered. Not fun though. Luckily ML and I didn’t catch whatever it was, probably just an old fashion flu.

Anyway, I’ll keep this entry short and sweet and post another later this week about my brother Jay’s arrival in Spain.

Until then, happy winter from sunny Spain.

Barça con mi amor.

Barcelona.

Many consider it the most enchanting city in all of Spain.

And for this reason it is probably the most visited city in all of Spain.

From its architecture and history, to its proximity to the water and iconic soccer team, it did not disappoint.

We flew out of Seville early on the morning of December 29 and arrived in Barcelona in the early afternoon. We took a bus towards the center of town and found our hostel. After checking in, doing some grocery shopping, and having a quick lunch, we decided to head out and do some exploring.

Our ultimate destination for the day was going to eventually be the Picasso museum. However, we wanted to see some sights before we made it down there, most notably a couple of Gaudi’s famous houses. We were successful. Check them out.

After seeing the houses we browsed past some shops, doing some window-shopping and gawking at the prices in the high-end stores. We finally determined that shopping wasn’t our thing and began walking towards the Picasso museum. However, we kept our heads up and anything that caught our attention we took a detour and checked out. This included one of Barcelona’s most famous theaters.

And the Barcelona cathedral.

We eventually made it to the Picasso art museum and enjoyed the exhibit. After the museum we decided to continue our exploration and walked down towards the port. On our way to the port we stumbled across another large church, which we later learned was a basilica. We stepped inside and their was a choir singing. We found a seat in one of the pews and enjoyed a free concert. It was an incredible experience, listening to a choir sing in a church over 400 years old. The church.

Now, being the thinker I am, and thinking about what we were planning to do the next day, we passed a La Caixa ATM. We were going to go to the Sagrada Familia the next day, and after witnessing the line at the Picasso museum, I remembered reading at some point that you could purchase tickets for the Sagrada Familia at a La Caixa ATM. So, I told Rachel I wanted to check it out and after exploring the options on the ATM found a way to purchase two tickets for an 11 AM entrance into the famous Gaudi church. More on this later.

After purchasing our tickets we found the end of the famous La Rambla (a famous street in Barcelona) and decided to follow it back towards the center of town towards Plaza de Catalonia. Along the way we experienced the street performers and tourist shops (as well as restaurants) that made this street so famous. We were beginning to get hungry, and after checking out the outrageous prices of the restaurants along La Rambla we took a side street and checked out a few different places. We finally found one, and were planning on only getting tapas, but once we were seated and had ordered drinks, we were told tapas could only be ordered while sitting at the bar near the front of the restaurant. Nuts. We ended up ordering two of the cheaper things on the menu, which were good (we had spent a lot of money in Seville and were going to try and keep it cheap in Barcelona. Our hostel had a kitchen so we were planning on doing breakfast there each morning and only doing low-key meals while out and about).

After dinner we were exhausted from traveling and walking around, so we headed back towards our hostel. But we first stopped in Plaza de Catalonia and snapped a few pictures.

When we arrived I got a text from my roommate Emily and her boyfriend Connor. They were going to be in Barcelona during the same time period and had just arrived. We planned on meeting them tomorrow afternoon at some point.

The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast, and headed towards Sagrade Familia. We decided to buy an underground pass, 10 trips (5 each) that we could use all day. The stop we got off at was located right on the corner of the Sagrada. We came above ground, looked up, and BAM. There it was.

Absolutely incredible. However, the other thing we noticed was the extremely long line that wrapped around the block. I was hoping that since we had bought tickets from the ATM the night before we could bypass the line and get in. We began walking past everyone in line, although not very discretely—Rachel tripped on the curb and fell (she was alright, just had a large bruise the rest of the trip). We eventually made our way to the entrance. Sure enough, we got right in with our prepaid tickets (therefore, if any of you ever visit the Sagrada Familia, find a La Caixa bank ATM and purchase tickets ahead of time. You can do this for the Alhambra in Granada too). After getting in we were blown away. The exterior was incredible, but the interior caused a jaw drop experience I have never had before. Pictures don’t do it justice, but enjoy:

After over 3 hours of wandering and going to the top of one of the towers and touring the museum in the basement, we were off to connect with Emily and Connor at Park Guell, one of Barcelona’s other famous attractions that contains much of Gaudi’s work as well. We ate lunch in the park, which overlooks the city. Enjoy.

We were all pretty exhausted, so we planned on meeting again at the Sagrada Familia for some night pictures, and then hang out and do dinner afterwards. Rachel and I went home to take a nap. After we connected with Emily and Connor again at the Sagrada. Night pictures? Night pictures…

We then headed down towards La Rambla to find some dinner. We ended up just finding an Irish bar (lame, I know, but we were feeling hamburgers) and eventually just walked around La Rambla. Tired, we went our separate ways and Rachel and I went back to the hostel.

The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast, and headed out the door for our final day in Barcelona. It was New Years Eve day and we had a set itinerary of things to see before we were going to celebrate the arrival of the New Year in Plaza de Catalonia. First on the list: Camp Nou, home of FC Barcelona, arguably the best soccer club in the world (it sort of helps that they have half of the Spanish national team on their roster and the best player in the world, Messi…). The stadium tour was 19 Euro a person, and with our funds running low Rachel and I decided to just walk around the stadium and go into the team store. Check it out.

Next on the list was Olympic Park, where the 1992 Summer Olympics were held. We were going to meet Emily and Connor there to check it out.

After walking around Olympic Park, we made our way towards the Barcelona/Catalonia art museum. The museum sits on a hill that overlooks Plaza de Espana. It was a pretty cool building with a pretty cool view.

Afterwards we hopped on the subway to the Arc de Triomf of Spain. It is the second largest archway after the original, which is located in Paris.

Rachel and I had wanted to get back to La Rambla and visit the famous market that is located off of the tourist trap street. We had peaked through it earlier, but really wanted to check it out again. We left Emily and Connor with plans to get together later that night for New Years Eve made our way to the market.

The first shop you see in the market is a sweet shop. Rachel’s eyes grew the size of two apples and she looked at the goodies. She then got a bag and went goodie hunting. Pictures? Pictures.

After indulging herself (I actually bought some sweets too) we went and bought 4 bags of 12 grapes. The tradition in Spain is to eat 12 grapes during the last 12 seconds of the year. If you finish them in time, before the New Year hits, you will have good luck (I think you are supposed to make a wish too…). We bought bags of grapes for all of us, walked around the market looking at all the fresh fruit, veggies, fish and meat (including several animal heads, sheep I think, and plucked chickens with either their legs, head, or both still attached. Yum) and made our way home to get ready for the night.

We took off for Emily and Connor’s hotel around 9-9:30 and after arriving decided it was time to go out and find some dinner. Easier said then done. Thousands of people had the same idea and after trying several restaurants we settled on bocadillos from a shop right off of La Rambla. We brought them back to the hotel where we ate and hung out until we decided we should head down to Plaza de Catalonia. This is where we, and thousands of others, rang in the New Year, stuffing out face with grapes and celebrating.

We eventually made our way back to Emily and Connor’s hotel and hung out for a while. We did not become adventurous enough to try the New Year’s bar scene because we needed to check out from our hostel mid next morning and catch a flight to Malaga. We eventually headed back to our hostel around 2.

Thanks to some software flaw the alarm I had set on my iTouch did not go off and Rachel and I woke up at 11, the exact time we were supposed to be checking out. After politely asking the front desk for more time we hurried and gathered our things and made it out the door around 11:30. We stopped and had some coffee before catching a bus to the airport and our 3:30 flight to Malaga.

Everything was on time and after a 5 minute, 20 Euro taxi ride to our hotel in Malaga we settled in to watch my Wolverine’s play their bowl game. However, before the game started, hunger set in and we made our way out to Burger King to grab some dinner, and while we were out made sure we had enough cash for a taxi ride back to the airport in the morning. We made it back watched the game, and enjoyed our last night together. Did I mention what Rachel wore during the football game?

I am slowly but surely converting her from her Michigan State roots… GO BLUE!

The next morning we were up at 4, and had a taxi ready to bring us to the airport at 4:45. It was difficult to say good-bye…

But, I can’t wait for her to come back in April for a week!