Winter is coming. . .

by Amy

Well, this past weekend it definitely got cold here. It dropped below 0 degrees celcius on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. We went out with some friends for tapas on Friday night and it was cold! Phil and I didn´t come too prepared for the winter here so. . . after much talk by our friends about our lack of coats (and cause we were cold), we went out on Saturday and bought some:
In other news: Phil made some amazing empanadillas with chicken, tomato, onion, and spinach. Delicious!

We are also proficient now at making the typical tortilla español:

I also made some chocolate chip cookies this past week too, a taste of home:) It was a little hard to find some of the ingredients here, but they still tasted the same. Brown sugar here is just white sugar except, brown. I couldn´t find any chocolate chips either so I just bought a chocolate bar and chopped it up. Just as good. Today Phil is in the process of making croquetas, another typical Spanish food so tonight we´ll be eating good once again! We hope to become proficient in cooking all sorts of Spanish delicacies so when we come back to the States we can open our own Spanish restuarant and serve tapas the correct way (for free with the cost of a drink) or. . . just make tasty food for all our friends and family to enjoy :) Hope you´re all doing well. We miss you guys!

Amy´s job. . . or lack thereof :)

by Amy

I was realizing this morning that some of you who may read this blog might be wondering what I am doing for work. Well, it has been hard and slow going (due to my lack of a proper work visa) but I am making some money now. I put up a bunch of signs around town advertising english tutoring. I had my first pupil about three weeks ago who is studying english at the school Phil works at and she just wanted help with her homework that night. She hasn´t called since for more help but it was a good start for me. Now I have two regular students. One, Alfonso, is a computer engineer and has a pretty high level of English but wants to work on conversation and speaking for his job. The other, Mariana, I met through a friend when we were invited over to her house for dinner. She has a lot lower level of English which makes it harder for me since I have to remember grammatical rules and stuff which I haven´t thought about since probably jr. high :) I meet with both of them once a week right now. Other than that, I have a lot of people I meet who say they are interested and will maybe call me but . . . we´ll see about that.

Mexican Food Night! (Thursday, Nov. 15)

by Amy

This past week we had Christina, an English teacher at Phil´s work, and her husband Luis over for dinner. The theme of the night was Mexican food. Christina and her husband like traveling and experiencing different cultures and different food so we thought it´s be fun to make some Mexican food for them. The menu for the evening was chips and guacamole (the avocados were from Granada), chicken quesadillas, and steak tacos. For dessert Christina made bizcocho and I had made some chocolate chip oatmeal cookies (Mom´s recipe) too. It was a wonderful night and we had fun eating well and getting to know our friends better. It was good practice for the spanish too :)

Segovia and Madrid (Nov 9-11)

by Amy

On Friday, the 9th of November Phil and I had plans to go to Madrid to meet up with our friends who live there and go rockclimbing with them and the youth group they work with on Saturday. Since we didn´t have anything planned for Friday, we decided to take the train up to Segovia (2 hours north of Madrid) to see some more of Spain. While waiting on the platform to catch the train to Segovia from Madrid we met another Enligsh speaker (Australian) who was going for the day to visit Segovia also. We ended up sticking together the whole day sightseeing and eating. It was a good time.

Segovia´s main attraction is the old Roman aqueduct that runs through the town and was built to bring water from the mountains to the castle and the townspeople. It is quite the an impressive structure. Besides this, other tourist interests are the castle (which Disneyland supposedly replicated in its fairytale castle), the cathedral, and a convent. We only walked by the cathedral, since it cost $5 or something to enter and we heard that the inside is a letdown. We went to the castle though which was like probably most other castles: big cold stone-walled rooms, an artillery museum, tapestries on the walls, and a couple turrets that you could climb up to have a great view from the top.

Our friend Dioni and me in front of the castle

On top of the castle, Segovia in the background

Segovia is also known for it´s fried pig, cochinillo frito. It is most commonly sold as a whole pig (picture what you would have disected in science class) but you can also get it in portions. We ended up buying some portions of pig with some other tapas. It was very delicious. We also went out for churros and chocolate at a chocolateria which actually makes a lot of the more expensive chocolate bars that you can buy in the stores here. Very good. Some of the best I´ve had here yet. When we returned to Madrid we also went our for pallella (rice mixed with with all sorts of meat and veggies) so we ate very well that day:)

On Saturday we caught the bus to Patones (the rockclimbing place outside of Madrid) with our friends Michelle, Jody, and 8 others from their youth group. We had a very nice day. Not much climbing for Phil and I, but we had fun teaching the youth how to climb and it was good fellowship. Michelle and Jody help out at a church in Madrid whose pastor is Guatemalan, so consequently all the youth were from Guatemala too. They are a fun bunch of people and we swapped numbers with a few who were interested in climbing with us again.

Eating lunch at Patones

We spent the night in Madrid and caught the train home in time for night church in Valdepeñas.

Puente weekend

All Saints Days (November 1) was a national holiday here. Because it fell on a Thursday a lot of people got Friday off hence the name ´puente` meaning bridge. We were thinking of going to Barcelona for this long weekend; however, after spending the weekend in Moral and not returning until Monday night we hadn´t done much planning. By the time we started planning we found there was very limited availability in hostels. We decided to go somewhere else. We ended up going on a rockclimbing trip. We left Thursday morning for Huesca in the Aragon region of northen Spain. The train from Valdepeñas to Madrid was sold out so we took the bus. Then the highspeed train to Huesca. It took two people 40 minutes at the ticket office to book our train tickets. Amy had her rail pass from her Paris deal and they mixed things up for me to get a better price on a couple of legs of the journey. The highspeed only took two hours.

After arrival we wandered around Huesca and found a hostel. We then went out and grabbed a light dinner at a bar. I had some pintxos (or pinchos), which are pretty much the north´s version of Tapas but at this bar they were pay per pintxo and were all set out in self service glass boxes on the bar.

castle ruins

The next day we went around town looking for a tent so we could camp out at Huesca. We are kind of picky about a tent because I want a light weight one. I didn´t have room to bring my backpacking tent from home. We didn´t find a suitable tent. We decided try to make our way to Rodellar, the village where we were going to climb. We picked up my stove fuel (I´m still using my Pepsi can stove) and some food. Then we went for a nice little hike (with our packs) to a mountain road which goes to Rodellar. We discovered once there though that no one goes to Rodellar via this road so hitching with some other climbers was not going to work. So we hiked back to town and rented a car. They had a weekend deal so the price was quite reasonable and saved us from spending any more money on hostels.

Bierge, the town where we missed our turn

It felt great to be driving a car (I picked the Volkswagen Polo over the Fiat figuring I would feel more at home with a VW). It is a beautiful 40 minute drive to Rodellar from Huesca, mostly on a small windy mountain road (with no center line) which goes through some awesome little villages. We took the scenic route and ended up having to backtrack but we arrived safely and joined the row of vans (think VW camper van types) and a few small RVs. We decided to sleep in the car as we are poor and besides we don´t have a tent.

Rodellar is an tiny village perched on the edge of a beautiful canyon with hardly anything there besides a few bars and campgrounds. The grocery store is at the campground, they had awesome bread. There are many hiking options and beautiful limestone cliffs and a couple of arches. We climbed Saturday and Sunday and left early Monday morning to catch our train back to Madrid. I really wanted to stay there longer. Reuben had shown us where the Valdepeñas climbing gym is, so Wednesday I went and climbed there.

Moral de la Calatrava (Phillip)

The weekend of the 27th Amy and I were invited by a teacher at my school to his house. There is some rockclimbing near his village so the plan was to climb on Saturday. He picked us up Friday night. Moral de la Calatrava is about a 15 minute drive from Valdepeñas and takes its name, along with several other villages around, from the knights of calatrava. Reuben has a big house in this small village. It is very Spanish looking with white walls and red tile roof. Also an enclosed courtyard and short doorways. Grape vines growing on a lattice over part of the courtyard.

He prepared pan con tomate Friday night. It is Catalan (Barcelona area of Spain) and is toast with garlic and tomato rubbed on it with a little olive oil. Simple but tasty. We also sampled a bunch of Manchego cheeses (famous cheese from this region). Saturday we climbed a little and then returned to the house for gachas manchegas. A typical dish which consists of some kind of pork sausage and garlic in a special flour and water sauce. Reuben cooked it over a wood fire. His friend Marcos also came and made a tasty salad with avocado and tomate. He was expecting us to be unfamiliar with avocado so we had a good laugh when we told him our Dad raises avocados. We ate the gachas out of the pot using forks and pieces of bread. It was delicious. Saturday night Reuben had a fútbol game so Amy and I went with Marcos to another village, Almagro for theater. It turned out to be poetry but was pretty interesting and there were free drinks and cookies. We returned to Reuben´s and realized that we were going to stay in Moral the whole weekend. Marcos ended up spending the night too. Reuben has plenty of spare rooms and extra mattresses, he says people come for a night and end up staying the whole weekend quite a bit...

Sunday we all went in Reuben´s vehicle to look for wild mushrooms in the mountains in the province of Jaen (Andulucía). We stopped on the way at a natural fountian they have piped into a pool where Reuben gets all his drinking water. People in general don´t like to drink the tap water here. We didn´t find many mushrooms. Reuben had made a tortilla española for lunch so we had a delicious lunch. I was completely famished by the time we ate because like most Spaniards, we didn´t do much for breakfast and we didn´t have any snack before our 2 o´clock lunch either. Next we went further into the mountains and ended up seeing a Madroño tree along the road with ripe madroños. They are a red-orange berry-fruit thing. There is a famous statue in Madrid of a bear eating madroños from a madroño tree (sometimes called a strawberry tree). We picked a bunch.

We ended up at Cimbarra, a beautiful area with a couple of waterfalls and steep canyons. There was not a lot of water so we will have to return in the Spring and see it again. I think it is only about an hour away.

We all stayed at Reuben´s Sunday night, too. Monday Amy and I went with Marcos to the churrería in Moral and then he dropped us off at the rock climbing crag. We climbed all morning and Reuben picked us up and we went out for lunch. We had another typical dish. Liebre con arroz. Hare with rice. It was menú del dia so it was a full course meal and we all had another plate as well and desert too. It was a good weekend and now we know how to make a proper tortilla española. We haven´t got around to trying to make gachas yet though. Amy made some empeñadas the other night which were pretty good (not near as good as El Nandú though). Amy will probably modify a few things next time though and perfect them.

Tapas

We´re discovering tapa bars. Here, you go to a bar and order a caña (a small draft beer) or a glass of wine. Along with your drinks they give you a plate of tapas. It might be a small sandwich and some french fries, or some tasty meat, or it could be a whole grilled ham and cheese sandwich... The drinks are quite cheap and the snacks delicious. We´ve gone out with one of the teachers here a couple times and her husband. Her husband works at a bank so I ended up going to his bank to set up my spanish bank account so hopefully I will get paid one of these days. We made a trip to Ciudad Real to get my Identity card and extend my Visa. I filled out the applications and I found out this week that I have to go back to finalize the process. Ciudad Real is the capital of the province and is about a 45 minute bus ride away. We were finally able to go to a Churrería while in Ciudad Real. The churros here are different from the Mexican type ones you find in the states. You can get a really thick hot chocolate to dunk them in, but I prefer to get a café con leche and use part of the huge sugar packet they give you to sprinkle on my churros.

Since then we have figured out where the churrerías are in Valdepeñas and there is one quite near to our piso.

Job situation

Where to start? They made a schedule for my 12 hour work week at the Official Language School. I go every Tuesday through Thursday at 1PM until 2PM. This is to help with a class of primary and secondary teachers. It is a new program trying to teach teachers English so they will be able to have bilingual education in their schools. I have been helping them prepare speeches and leading discussions. I also go for an extra hour on Tuesday mornings for audiovisual hours and watch a movie with them. This happens to be at 10AM so I end up with 2 hours between classes to just hang around and use the internet rather than walking the 20 minutes to go home.

I also come in for two hours every evening, Mon. through Thurs. This time is for me to speak to various classes. The schedule is arranged so that I can be available for every class offered at the school so it also has gaps. More downtime for hanging around, internet browsing and watching movies... So far I have not been utilized in too many classes but this will probably start to change next week. I also have two hours a week in my schedule for socializing with the other teachers during coffee break time. The evening classes are all students over the age of 16, mostly adults though. My weekends are beautiful. Thurday night from 9 PM until Monday at 5PM.

Amy is giving a lesson here and there but not too many yet.

Amy goes to Paris

By Amy

Well, I think it is about time I told you guys about when I first came to Spain via Paris since it was quite the adventure.

I left the U.S. Tuesday, 24th of September on a plane from LAX to Paris. For those of you who may not have know, I found a really cheap ticket ($350) on standby and figured it out that it would be cheaper to buy this plus a euro rail pass for 4 days ($250) and take the train from Paris to Madrid, a one day trip, leaving me with three more travel days by train which I could use within the next two months.

So I left the States without Phillip and not knowing when Phil would get his visa and be able to fly out and meet up with me. I arrived in Paris 9am Wednesday and from there the adventure began. I only took two bags, my backpacking backpack and my big blue duffel bag on wheels which I definitely need to replace. It is quite a pain to haul around and is very awkward, especially when it weighs a ton :). Well I didn´t plan my time in Paris very well (booked a hostel a few nights before I left and made a frantic phone call to Eric about sightseeing info) so on arrival to the airport, which is located a little ways outside of Paris, I didn´t know exactly how I was going to get to my hostel. After wandering around for too long I discovered that the taxis where too expensive (thanks to a French couple that spoke english) and that my best bet was to take the train in and then hop on the metro to my hostel.

I successively did all this and arrived on a street in Paris from which I was supposed to find my hostel. The problem was I was standing in front of a traffic circle intersection which probably had about 6 or 7 different streets coming off of it and I had no idea which direction I was supposed to go for my hostel. Thankfully not all the French are rude and hate Americans ;) and a little old man saw me standing there studying my map and looking confused and decided to help me. He didn´t know any english but was nice enough to walk me all the way to my hostel!

After I checked in and dropped off my bags it was time to explore Paris. The plan was to have the rest of Wed. and then all of Thurs. to see the sights and then take a train to Madrid Friday. Well I went to the train station to reserve a ticket and found out that the trains were all booked up until Sunday, but I could get one for the next morning. I decided it would be better to have less time in Paris than 4 more days. I was also kind of anxious to be in Madrid where I knew teh language, town, and some people than in Paris where it is more expensive and I no idea even how to say thank you. So the whirlwind tour of Paris began. I made my first stop at teh Notre Dame cathedral. It had beautiful stainglass windows. I payed to go up to the towers and there learned the story of Quasimodo and had beautiful views of Paris depite it being cold and rainy.


I decided to go to the Sacroceur cathedral next but didn´t take quite the right metro line so I walked around a bit before I found it. It´s on top of a hill so it looks really cool and has good views of Paris although you can´t see the Effiel Tower. Inside the catedral was a massive mosaic over the altar which was really impressive.

It started raining harder so I bought my first souvenier, an umbrella with Paris written on it and I bought a watch since I forgot mine at home and was clueless about the time. I went to the Arch of Triumph and then to the Effiel Tower. I was told it is beautiful when it is lit up but I didn´t feel like waiting around for an hour in the rain to see this so I went back to my hostel and tried to use the internet to get in contact with Michelle, whom I met this summer in Chicago, and is living in Madrid. I had already arranged to stay with her starting Friday night but that was before my plans had changed. Back in my room at the hostel which was a big dorm of 6 beds I met some of my roommates, Sergio and Ivan who are originally from Mexico but have been living in Madrid for a couple of years now. While we were talking two more people showed up, Andrew and Lexi from Australia. They were both backpacking Europe and following the rugby tournament around at the same time. We all went out for dinner at a fondu place. I got herring, potatoes and tomatoes soaked in olive oil which was very delicious. We had a good time getting to know eachother a little and eating good food.


The next morning I got up and used the internet in the hostel but hadn´t received anything from Michelle about staying with her that night. Somehow I was able to work it with the French lady at my hostel who spoke absolutely no english so that I could get my refund for the night I wasn´t going to use in Paris. This took a little more time than planned and when I finally got on the metro to the train station I got a little nervious that I might miss my train since I has 10 minutes util departure and I still was 5 stops away. When I got off I tried to run with all my bags and not hit any of the many people walking. I found my train, asked a lady who didn´t know english where my coach was and she pointed to the way end of the train and said a lot of stuff in French so I just started running and then sprinted as fast as I could to the closest door when the warning buzzer for the train leaving started going off. Well I made the train but I found out that I was only in the fourth car and my seat was in the 18th car. I thought for a second about just staying there but then figured I should find my seat since it was going to be 5 hours until my layover at the border. I proceeded then to make my way carefully through the cars up to car 10 where it stopped and there was no door to the next car. I must have looked ridiculous dripping with sweat from running with all my bags and backing my way down the aisles since my bags were so big. When I was standing in the last car that I could go to, wondering what to do know and if my backing down the aisles of the last 6 cars was in vain, a train officer came through and I showed him my ticket and did the universal body language sign of "I´m confused". He didn´t any english, maybe a few words here and there but I found out that there were 2 trains connected and at Bordeaux, France the one I was in was going to go east in France and the other one was going to go to Spain. I was very thankful to find all this information out and successfully find my seat in the right car at the next stop.

Well, I was able to stay with my friend Michelle and her four other roomates in Madrid and actually ended up staying there until Phillip came the next week. They are a great group of girls and were very kind and generous to accomodate me for such a long period of time. I passed my time going to a youth group some of them are involved in, going to a church fair thingy for churches in Madrid, playing futbol in the park, giving blood, helping set up for a pray event at a local church, watching movies with the roommates, drinking lots of tea (they all drink alot of it, I think it´s cause one is British:), reading, and just by walking around Madrid. Overall, it was a good time.

And that´s the end of my long story of my trip here to Spain. Sorry it´s so long (and so late) and if you´re still reading, hopefully you enjoyed it. :)