Buddy the Elf, what´s your favorite color?!

hey all!! well, once again I have lagged a little in the blog entries. My roommate came back from her month visit with the fam in Argentina so I don´t really have access to the computer in my piso anymore since she is usually on it. I have also been more busy than usual at work making it harder to write entries when there either.

Anyways, I good news is that my boss, after having asked her two times before, changed her mind and told me the beginning of December that I could go home for Christmas. Very exciting!! I am going home the 22nd until the 31st and am looking forward to celebrating Christmas with all my family!

Update on the weather here: it´s been cold, hitting freezing during the nights and not being too much warmer during the days. Well, this past Sunday it snowed! It was only for a few hours and most of it melted away the next day but it was kind a cool to see the snow. It´s nice that it´s gone though.

Well, that´s all for now. Hope to see some of you soon!! with love,

Amy

Christmas plans and the new piso

I forgot to mention that before I went to Alicante, I changed flats. I now live quite a bit further away from school, in a normal apartment flat I found advertised in the county newspaper. I share a 4 bedroom with 2 Spanish guys. One is into cross country skiing and climbs a little bit. We did a little hike (8 hours) the other day to the mountain where the three kingdoms meet (Aragón, Valencia, and Cataluña). It is the current day boundary as well.

Tonight I am catching the bus to Zaragoza and then directly to the airport in Madrid, I will spend a few days in Chicago and then I will spend a few weeks in California with the family for Christmas.

Alicante

I was offered a ride to Alicante last weekend so naturally I took Sergio up on the offer and Daniel and Valentina came along too. After staying with Sergio the first night, he dropped us off near Sella where we stayed in a refuge and enjoyed the mountain scenery while rock climbing

in the sun.

Thanksgiving Alcañiz

He´s 4.7 kilos, a little over 10 pounds

Pilgrims crossing the river to settle in Alcañiz

The feast

Valentina and I decided to prepare a thanksgiving dinner. I went to a butcher´s shop the week before thanksgiving and asked for a whole turkey. The lady there told me to come back by on Wednesday and they would have a whole turkey for me. I was a little nervous about this word of mouth arrangement, never having set foot in this butcher shop before, but sure enough the following Wednesday I went back and my turkey was on it´s way (it arrived Wednesday afternoon).

Tuesday night I printed up some apple pie recipes and showed up at Valentina´s apartment with apple pie ingredients. (I don´t have an oven at my apartment so we did most of the cooking at her place and carried the food down to my place to eat.) The apple pies were delicious.

Thursday, I skipped my typical rock climbing excursion and we cooked the turkey. I made the stuffing seperate and we did the turkey for about 3 1/2 hours. We finished off the legs in the micro because they weren´t quite done. The turkey barely fit in the oven, we had to let the legs go sideways to get it in. We also made mashed potatoes (no gravy though because I didn´t get any juices from the turky), sweet potatos with brown sugar, corn and people brought some things as well (Spanish potato omelette, russian salad, wine, and quince desert).

We had my roomates, a couple rockclimbers and their girlfriends, some professors/students, and Valentina. I gave a thanksgiving day prayer in Spanish. All in all it was a good time and everyone was stuffed and impressed with the American feast.

Also, in rockclimbing news, there is a new boulder problem in Alcañiz named Accion de Gracias (Thanksgiving).

Weekend update: by Amy

This past weekend:

-I went out for tapas Friday night. This week and the week to come is the feria of the tapa here in Valdepeñas. 19 bars are participating and they offer an special tapa with your choice of drink for $2.50. Yum. Some of them are pretty fancy.

-I went to Decathlon for the first time. This is a big sporting goods store here in Spain. I had heard a lot about it and upon visiting it was not impressed and think that a lot of what they offer is of poor quality.

-I participated in my second climbing competition. I placed 2nd out of 4 girls. I was once again reminded how I do not enjoy competing, I´d rather just climb. I had fun though and enjoyed hanging out with everyone I went with. Here are some pics:

The guys planning out their moves.

Fofo on the roof. He won the men´s competition.
Gabriel and Carlitos waiting for their turns.

To Everyone´s Dismay. . .

Yes, Amy is still alive and well in Spain. After much procrastination and many people´s requests, I decided I should write on the blog. To catch everyone up I went home for three weeks in September and had a wonderful time visiting with my family and also with some of my friends that I was able to see. I came back to Spain in time to start my job up again at the Ludoteca Arca de Noe but this time with a little change in my job description. I now only teach/tutor english. Before I would help out with the birthday parties we would host and monitor kids that came in to play and do activities with us. Now I start at 4pm and technically work until 10pm but usually am able to get off early since I don´t have 6 hours of classes. I have a large group of 3-6 year olds that I teach (actually I more play games with them, but who said learning can´t be fun:) and then I have a handful of older students that come in for tutoring help or just a reinforcement of what they are learning in school.
Hannah´s wedding

Besides my work at the Ludoteca I am giving a few private classes. I have an interesting one with a 1 1/2 year old who I meet with 2 hours 5 days a week and basically babysit her but speaking only in english. Interesting huh? we´ll see what kind of results will come of it.

I definitely keep pretty busy and am now turning down people who want private tutoring. Apart from work I´ve been doing some climbing, but not as much due to the cold weather and rain. I was sick this past week but am now pretty much better.
Recent trip to the Sierra de Segura (I didn´t bike)Gallardo, Antonio, Blas and Quiros about to take off at the top of mountian in wind, rain, and the cold.

Well, That´s the short update and I´m going to write more frequently, staying in touch is important and sometimes I´m not the best at it but I´m going to be more diligent in the effort! Love you all and hope that you truly are doing well,

Amy

Phillip visits Amy in Valdepeñas

Last weekend I made the trip down to Valdepeñas to visit Amy. She is doing well, and maybe she will post on the blog someday. I met Gonzalo in Zaragoza Thursday and it took us 5 hours to drive down to Valdepeñas. I stayed with Amy, her roomate was out of town (she went home to Argentina). We made a chocolate marble cake that was delicious. It was good to see everyone in Valdepeñas again, unfortunately it rained all weekend so the only climbing we did was in the climbing gym. Next week I will try to post some more pictures...

Last week was kind of rainy, but we still managed to boulder on Thursday afternoon. Friday Gonzalo called saying he was in Huesca and would come find me when he got done with a meeting there. So I caught a ride to Zaragoza with a fellow teacher and ate a good menú del día while I waited for Gonzalo.

We headed down to Albarracín (Teruel province) to meet up with Paco and Carlitos to boulder for the weekend. As soon as we arrived I spotted Maki´s van, and we met up with Maki (a climber from Alcañiz) and some other climbers for dinner in Bobby´s little motorhome. Spaghetti with fresh picked mushrooms. Climbed all weekend, slept in a dirt parking lot on a bouldering crash pad, and ate fresh mushrooms. The place was packed with climbers. Bouldering is really popular right now, although personally I much prefer climbing routes with a rope. I didn´t get a chance to see much of the town of Albarracín, but I´m sure I´ll be back again.

Monday I went to Teruel with the French language assitant, the American language assistant from Nebraska, and an Australian girl who lives in Alcañiz with her Spanish husband. We had appointments to get our residence cards. Even with the appointment it still took 3 hours of waiting around and I got referred to as the redhead (el pelirojo). Now I have to go back in a month to pick up the card. We didn´t do any exploring so next time I go I will have to explore Teruel. (Andy, I still have the link you sent me.)

Settling in in Alcañiz

So my first couple weeks of classes consisted mostly of wandering around campus with a big map of the United States trying to find the right classroom or teacher who I was supposed to go to class with. Now I´ve given my introduction/lifestory to most of the English classes and am going on to other subjects.

Two weekends ago I went to Rodellar (Huesca) with a few rockclimbers I met here. We were met up there by some other climbers from Alcañiz and rented a bungalow to stay in. I had heard also that Paco and Carlitos (from Valdepeñas area) were up in Rodellar too, but I didn´t have cell phone coverage. Finally one morning on the way to climb I ran into them and it was really good to climb together and hang out.

Last weekend, Gonzalo (from Valdepeñas) showed up Thursday afternoon and we took off for Siurana (Tarragona). We climbed and ate out a bunch and then came back Saturday when we got rained out. Gonzalo was heading up to Graos for his mountaineering courses. Sunday I went to the gypsy church. The acoustics in the building were pretty poor and I had trouble understanding. The music was sung by whoever was holding the microphone (passed around a group of women in the front pews) with piano, and rhythmic clapping from the rest of the congregation. At night I went back to the evangelical church I had been to before and the prayers and sermon were more biblical then they had been the week before.

This week I went climbing on Monday afternoon, I gave private lessons Tuesday afternoon (and will again this afternoon), and then hopefully if the weather permits I´ll go climbing again Thursday afternoon, and I still have to make plans for the weekend.

Home base

My room, now I have a desk in the corner too.

Alcañiz at nightfall

Our Kitchen

the living room

Alcañiz, you can see the school and the red metal building which is right below my apartment

Alcañiz

I had this ready yesterday, but failed to post as I was rushing to a class.

The Flat -inside was recently renovated, IKEA furnished

The Alcañiz Calatrava Castle

My Room-Apartment

The view out my window, boulders on the hillsides, my school on the right

Phil´s return to Spain

I left Chicago (after visiting friends, going to a wedding in Louisville and climbing in the Red River Gorge) on Monday and made it to the orientation in Madrid without any problems. The orientation wasn´t much but with free food and lodging I had a decent time meeting some of the other conversation assistants.

I hopped a bus for Zaragoza on Thursday and met some other conversation assistants, one of whom was heading for Alcañiz as well. It was about a 4hr ride to Zgz. and then another 1hr 40min to Alcañiz. Valentina had already arranged to share an apartment but we shared a cab and I got situated in Hostal Alcañiz. There are two other conversation assitants here as well, Carolane (french) and Kevin (English in the grade school). Valentina is English in the adult language school.

Friday I saw the Instituto (de Enseñanza Secundaria) aka High School and the English director started helping me find a place to live. We ended up going out for Menú del día with a group from the school. Then we went out to the kart track to watch his son but ended up taking a tour of the Formula One track they are building as part of MotorLand Aragón.

Then I went and looked at a living space. Saturday morning after looking around a little more I went and put my money down on an apartment at this space. It is a huge space that these two Spanish guys have renovated into apartments. They live in loft apartments off the main hall. The rest of the apartments (6 or 7?) have shared kitchens (2) and living room. Most have their own bathrooms as well, then there are 3 shared bathrooms off the main hall as well. I just found out I share one of these bathrooms with just one of the owners (his loft doesn´t have one). My apartment is off the living room with a couple others (the rest are down a side hall). It is fairly small but adequate and has a sink so I can brush my teeth right there.

I just got my schedule at the school and I´ll be working Tuesday through Thursday. I also have a bunch of side jobs lined up- individual classes and a teachers´ course. I´ve met some climbers and went climbing yesterday, and am going again this afternoon. I also found one of the evangelical churches Sunday night. They are a small group and the worship service left a lot to be desired. The other church in the area is apparently the gypsy church, so I´ll probably check that out.

Pictures to come soon...

What I´ve Been Up To:

So, it´s been awhile. It´s hard to write on a blog when you don´t have a computer but here I am. So I moved to a new apartment August 1. I am now living with Belen who is 24 and from Argentina but has been living in Valdepeñas for a year or so now. The apartment is very nice and the roommate too, although we don´t see eachother much cause we have very different work schedules. It´s good though. Once again I must cook for myself which has it´s postitives and negatives, the major negative being that the apartment did not come equiped with any cooking utensils and my roommate does not have much. I have some things but am lacking a lot. . . for example I was going to make some eggs the other day and realized I had nothing to flip them with. . . slight problem. I ended up eating something else. :) gotta to go shopping.

Work is going well. My co-workers are cool. We all got a casa rural (house in the country) in Cazorla last weekend together. There were nine of us and we just ate a lot of food and swam in the pool, oh and ate more food. It was nice and relaxing and good to get to know the people I work with better.

I´ve been climbing as much as i can on the weekends and hope to subir grado (that´s for Phil) soon (7a?). Went on an adventure last night with Gabriel and Antonio. Antonio (owner of a mountain bike shop) is hosting a nocturnal night bike ride this weekend in a village an hour away. Last night we went driving around to find a good route. We were off-roading in his ´93 golf, almost got stuck once, maybe got lost a few times, and got stopped by the Civil Guards and a private security company. we arrived back in Valdepeñas at 4:30 in the morning with work the next day at 9am! I managed pretty well.

Tomorrow is a national holiday so I don´t have work! woo hoo! i do have to work Saturday though, but only for 2 hours. Tonight a bunch of friends are all getting together to eat at Fofo´s house. Should be fun. Saturday night I am going to kill myself by going on the night bike ride (I haven´t biked or ran in some time now).

In other news I have bought plane tickets to the U.S! For those of you who are awaiting my coming these are the dates: I will be in San Diego Sunday, Sept 14 until Wed. Sept. 25 and then I will be in Chicago/the lovely state of Iowa from the 25th to the 29th. it´s a short amount of time so I plan to make the most of it! Take care and I´ll write again. . . but I´m not going to say soon ;) Love to all and besitos
-Amy

Because i told Sue i would. . .

Well, here is a better pic of the family that I am currently staying with. I snapped this last weekend before they went to a wedding. This is right across the street from my house, we live on the edge of town and there is a park on the hill, very nice. I have been staying with them for a little over a month now and have really enjoyed my time with them, playing with the girls, talking with Ana, eating the good food Ana makes, laughing at Ruben and his jokes and spanish play on words. . . it´s been great for using my spanishh more. Well, unfortunately I will be moving soon again. Ruben´s father is being operated on this Tuesday for stomach cancer and he will be needing to stay with his family. There are actually three siblings who live here in Valdepeñas who will be taking turns housing Gregorio. I was told Friday night that I should start looking for another place and I already have talked with three people about possible options. Keep Gregorio in your prayers this coming week and his family too.

Some random pics from a few months ago

This was a while ago when we went to Jaen for the climbing concentration. Here we all are lined up: Antonio, Gallardo, Gonzalo, Bea, Phil, Oso the dog, Blas, and Gabriel.
We went bouldering one afternoon somewhere on the border between Jaen and Cuidad Real. That´s Maria doing a problem and Gabriel, Phil, and Antonio watching, with Gonzalo on the rock.

Stream with cool rock formations by where we were bouldering.

One day Betty (my German friend) and I made 2 apple pies and 1 strawberry pie. Phil, Bernardo and Betty enjoying the apple pie! mmmm!

I went and visited my American friends, Jody and Michelle, in Madrid before they went back home for the summer.

Some Pictures for You

This is a group of us from the church and some neighboring churches when we went to watch the New York Central Baptist Church Gospel Choir in Cuidad Real this past Monday. I live with Ana, who is in yellow, and Ruben who I am standing next to at the end on the right.

Ruben, Irene (2), and Esther (6) at the park recently.

Ok, I was planning on putting more pics up but for some reason the button on the blogger is not workin for me right now- i´ll try again later.

Phil safely arrives on U.S. soil

Yes, after spending two weeks climbing in El Chorro (the highpoint of which was the ascent of a 200+ meter route) I passed through Valdepenas for a final farewell: rock climbing in two previously unvisited spots and saying goodbye to everyone at church. Friday night I slept at the climbing gym and the other nights with Gonzalo and Marcos. Monday morning I missed the 7AM bus to Madrid but still managed to arrive at the airport with a little time to spare catching a later train.

I am now in Chicago for a week and will arrive in San Diego next Tuesday. As for summer plans I will be working for Dad and climbing in Yosemite in September (hopefully).

I have just found out that I will be working in a high school next year in Alcañiz, Teruel, Aragon. It is Teruel's second biggest town with 15,000 inhabitants (about half the size of Valdepenas). Hard to find a whole lot on the internet about it but it should be all right. (I think there is a climbing gym there and also some real quality climbing spots within a 100 kms) Check out the location on google maps, it's a little of the beaten path which could mean some rather long bus rides.

UPDATES!!

It´s been way to long since I´ve written an update and it´s about time since a lot has changed over the past month and many of you probably have no clue what´s going on in my life right now here in far-away Spain!

Well, let me inform you! Phil´s job ended May 29th and we had to move out of our aparment the next day. For the previous two weeks I had frantically been looking for a place to live, perferably a shared apartment but the choosing was slim. Thankfully the Lord was looking out for me (as He is always doing for His children) and a woman from my church who heard I was looking for a room told me one day at church that she had talked to her husband and I could stay with them in their extra room if I didn´t find anything by moveout time. Well, after a crazy day of packing up all our stuff (we waited til the last moment cause we thought, ´we don´t have much, it won´t take long´) I moved in with Ana and Ruben and their two daughters, Esther and Irene and Phil left for El Chorro in Malaga to live the climbing life for two weeks before heading back to the U.S. What I didn´t know was that what my family was thinking about me staying with them--how long, how much should i pay them, etc, etc. Well it turns out that they are fine with me staying here for as much time as I like. Of course this may change once they discover how hard I am to live with (right Annette?) :) Furthermore they told me I don´t need to pay anything for the room because they aren´t using it and the only thing is when Ana´s parents come to visit I will have to sleep in the girl´s room. I only have to pay for the food that I eat.

Well, it´s been almost 2 weeks now that I have been living with them and it is working out really well. It has truly been a blessing living with this family. Not only am I learning and practicing more Spanish with them, eating delicious food everyday, but I am gettting to know more of the people at church because of them which had been a challenge for Phil and I to do before. It´s always good to have an enchufe (look that one up in the spanish dict. :)

Besides the move, I am making the switch from having different tutoring classes due to the beginning of summer and the change in people´s schedules. I have a lost a few students but am also gaining others so things are looking good. I turned in my resume to a high school here for a possible job next school year helping with the bilingual teaching. The director says I have a good chance but it´s the Education Council of Cuidad Real that really has the ultimate say so you can keep that in your prayers for me.

Pictures are coming very very soon.

What should I do today?

I´m have about half a month left in Valdepeñas, plane tickets look expensive.  I´m planning on heading up North for a few weeks in June before flying back to the states.  But in the mean time...

Café bombón, condensed milk, coffee, and whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles on top if you have them.  A desert coffee.  I´m not a huge coffee drinker but occasionally...  I also like going to different cafés around town to get out of the flat and read the newspaper or write in Spanish.  The Valdepeñas library sees quite a bit of me as well.

Bouldering just over the Jaén border.  A group of us went one evening to explore this beautiful area of granite boulders.

The Angel Monument, partially destroyed by an ETA bomb.

We missed the bus or maybe it wasn´t running due to a festival day in Ciudad Real so we decided to head over to this monument rather than going to Moral to rock climb.  We´d heard of people from our club climbing there.  You climb up a ladder in the middle of one of the columns to set up the top rope.  The face gets really hard around the height of the wing so working the edges proves to be the best way up.

Amy hanging out on the wing.

Red chalk bag, that´s me.

What´s this?! Amy is writing a blog entry?!?

So. . . many of you may be wondering "what are Amy and Phillip doing?" , "are they still living in Spain?", "are they still alive!?". Well, we have been rather slack in our blog postings so you have the right to have these questions running through your head. As our most recent postings mention our parents made the trip across the pond to visit us for Spring Break. We had an excellent time and it was great to see some family again.

Over the past few months I have been having a steady amount of work with about 10 regular students every week. I usually meet with most of my students at night but I have a few I meet with now in the mornings and a two kids I meet with twice a week in the afternoon. I now have two groups of kids that I work with which is fun but much more challenging than the adults I have because I actually have to prepare something and try to keep them in line :) I was recently offered a job as an english teacher for a class of kids for three times a week that may start in June. A girl at church is planning on opening a center for kids (room for birthday parties and tutoring classes offered too). She´s still in the process of renting the place and working out all the details so nothing is for certain yet but there´s possiblity here for me!

Besides the heavy work load I have daily (ha! that´s a joke;) I have been keeping busy by going to the climbing gym here to workout on Tuesdays and Thursdays and sometimes other days to just hang out with friends there. I usually go climbing outside on the weekends nearby. This past weekend a large group of us from Valdepeñas went down to Jaen (2 hours) where there was a concentration of climbers for three days. What this means is that climbers from all over go to a certain place and go climbing during the day and hang out, camping in masse at night. Phil went on the bus on Friday and met some people to go climbing with on Sat. I went with some friends here on Sat. and we ran into Phil that night in camp. It was really hot but we had a good time climbing and hanging out.

This weekend there is a workers´ holiday in Spain on Thursday so it forms what is called a puente, or bridge, and many people have Friday off too making a long 4 day weekend. We hope to go climbing in the some mountains close to Madrid but we´re not sure yet what will actually happen. We play it day by day here sometimes :)

In other news, Phil is almost done with his work term here. It ends the end of May and then he is planning on doing some traveling, probably in the north of Spain before returing home to California. I will be staying here for the summer and plan to come home in September to visit the family and friends and then possibly will be returning to live here for another year. . . another year for more learning Spanish wouldn´t be a bad idea right?! Learning a language is quite a process I´ve come to realize.

Well, that´s the update and I hope I´ve been able to fill in some of the gaps or quited your questioning minds. Hope you are all doing well and feel free to give us an update on your lives too! we´ll try to be more faithful to updating this too :)

Scroll down for the pictures

Mom and Dad come visit (week 2)

Continuing.

Wednesday found us on the road to Granada. We had called our hostel and they advised us to arrive as soon as possible as some streets would be blocked off for the holy week processions in the evening. We stopped in Nerja on the way to Granada just so Mom and Dad could see the balcony of Europe. Our hostal in Granada was on the street leading up to the Alhambra (very central). We walked around a bit that evening and saw a procession. The different churches have different floats with statues of Mary or Jesus and the participants dress in robes with hats (resembling the KKK) and bands. The streets fill up with spectators who move around seeing the different processions. It was interesting watching them attempt to cover the floats with plastic in the light rain. Oh yeah, we ate dinner in a teteria (although Dad was the only one who had a tea).

Thursday we visited the cathedral and the chapel (where Ferdinand and Isabel) are buried. In the evening we had guided tours of Alhambra, Amy and I went on a Spanish tour and Mom and Dad went on an English one. The views were dampened some by the rain. For dinner we went to a flamenco dinner show. After the food, we ran into some of the processions coming out of the cathedral. The music is the best part, the sound of the brass and drums in the crisp night air is exceptional. We decided to try to see the procession they call El Silencio. As it approaches the street lights are turned off, the people hush, and a crucifix carried by blackrobed participants followed by a single drum passes through. Very eerie with the candles providing the only light on a street packed full of people in complete silence save the lonely drum beating.

Friday we left Granada and passed through Gaudix stopping to see the cave neighborhoods. The next stop was the Cabo de Gata coast in Almería. We had pizza for lunch in San Jose and then took a little walk on a nude beach (to look at the weird rock formations). Parts of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade were filmed here. We drove on up the coast and decided to drive through a natural park in the mountains of Murcia. It turned out to be a very small road but luckily we didn´t have to backtrack and came down a mountainside with a plethora of switchbacks. You could look down as you went and see switchbacks falling like a leaf as far as you could see. Our hotel this night was outside of Murcia capital a ways and proved a little difficult to find. It was an apartment hotel so we could have actually cooked but we were too tired so we went to a Chinese place around the corner (everything else was closed being Good Friday).

Saturday we headed into Murcia and headed to the old mill which is now a very interesting museum. The water mill shares the location with a long history of mills and has 24 water wheels. They could be rented out to individual millers who would have use of the water wheels to turn their millstones. If you want to know more check out this link http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/murcia/murcia.pdf Next we walked around Murcia central and stepped inside the cathedral which was adjoined by a museum. It had a giant carving from Roman times which they had found adorning the tomb of some catholic noble. We went down to Cartagena next just to drive through, then we headed up the coast. There is a peculiar strand out in the sea here with all kinds of hotels appearing to be sitting in the sea. We didn´t take the time to drive out on the strand but we did check out the salt flats on the other end. We continued up the coast and arrived in Calpe. It is a big rock similiar to Gibralter. Amy and I hiked up (we didn´t have the rockclimbing gear with). Our hotel was in Pego that night. We barely found it period. Then we drove into town center for dinner and had a great meal in a typical noisy Spanish restaurant (once we eventually found the restaurant district). When we left we couldn´t find the hotel again until we had driven around forever. This town was just not making sense to us.

Sunday we drove into Valencia and eventually found the English speaking church. After the service we drove to the city of arts and sciences and admired the architecture. Next we went and found our hotel and ate lunch. We spent the afternoon in Segunto exploring the ruins of a city fortress.

Monday we turned towards home. With a detour to Cuenca. Cuenca is a cliff top city famous for the hanging houses built right on the cliff among other things. There was a little bit of snow on the ground up in the hills around Cuenca. On our way back to Valdepeñas we stopped at Belmonte but the castle was closed. So we backtracked to a different castle which we had seen out in the fields and I tried to drive the rental car up the steep dirt track leading to it but to no avail (front wheel drive). We had to walk up to see the locked doors. Back to Valdepeñas.

Tuesday was a take it easy day. We visited the wine museum here in Valdepeñas and went out for pastries and coffee. That evening we took a winery tour of which we were plesently suprised to have an English speaking tour guide.

Wednesday it was up early and to the Madrid airport. Amy is still working on adding photos (computer issues) (now that the writing is done maybe I´ll add them myself).

Mom and Dad come visit (Week 1)

First, apologies for not updating the blog in a timely manner (Amy is going to update the photos).  Now, the details you´ve all been waiting for.  Mom and Dad were here visiting us the March 12-26.   I rented a car for them out of Malaga (it was significantly cheaper and allowed me to go climb in Malaga the weekend after Mom and Dad left).  So I went down there on the train Sunday afternoon, stayed with some friends from Valdepeñas who go to university in Malaga capital and rented the car Monday morning.  Drove the 3.5 hours back to Valdepeñas in time for work.  Tuesday morning Amy and I woke up at some insane hour and drove to Madrid to pick up los padres.  Since Mom and Dad weren´t too tired and because Dad wanted to see some castles we decided to go directly to Segovia to see one of Spain´s most impressive castles.  We drove back to Valdepeñas in time for me to go to work.  

Wednesday we slept in and headed to a castle called Calatrava la Nueva.  The castle appears to have been built in the 1100s and later passed into the hands of the Knights of Calatrava who fortified it further and passed it on the the Order of Calatrava.  It was used until the 1800s when it was abandoned.  We wandered around there until it closed and then headed to Almagro, a little town with a bunch of old churches and convents.  Wednesday night we went out for some tapas and Enrique joined us.  

Thursday we headed to Ubeda and Baeza.  We saw the sights and especially enjoyed the church tower in Baeza.  On the way back we stopped by the Cimbarra to see the waterfall.  

Friday the real fun began.  We packed our bags and drove down to Cordoba.  Saw the Mezquita and the castle there.  The Mezquita is the old Mosque with beautiful arches. With the Christian reconquest a cathedral and chapels were built inside the original building preserving parts of the original Moorish architecture.  We continued on to Seville and found a hotel on the city outskirts (I had intended to stay in a hostel in town center but they had never followed through on the confirmation and it slipped my mind.)  We enjoyed walking around Seville that evening visiting the Plaza de España and the old Jewish district.  

Saturday we visited the Alcazar (the castle palace) and the Cathedral. Then we went to visit Amy´s señora (Who she lived with during semester in Spain).  After our visit we headed down to our casa rural on the coast south of Cadiz.  The beach town of El Palmar is a little surf town.  Apparently during the winter they actually have surf but despite the lack of waves there were still a lot of people in the water with surfboards.  We were here two nights and enjoyed our own little house (a short drive from the beach).  

Sunday we went to a baptist church in Rota.  Rota has a US military base so there is an English speaking presence.  We actually were following direction to a different baptist church I had found on the internet and ended up at a this other English speaking baptist church with the same service time.  Sunday afternoon we walked around Cadiz and headed back to our casa rural to relax for the evening.  

Monday found us heading to Gibralter.  We took a turn off for the Punto Paloma beach and succeeded in finding the beach after going through a small military base and trying a couple of dirt roads.  This part of the coast is where you can really see Africa the clearest.  We drove to Tarifa next and ate a whole bunch of churros.  When we got Gibralter we took a guided tour and saw all the sights real fast and then had our fish and chips in town center.  I think I was most impressed by the seige tunnel which was dug to place artillery facing the land border with Spain during the American Revolution when Spain and France tried to take Gibralter from the British.  Leaving Gibralter we backtracked slighted and headed up the road to Ronda.  We turned off onto a smaller road to take the back way to Igualeja (the white hill town where we had another casa rural).  The road was windy and steep, weaving its way up and down the steep mountain hillsides passing Cork trees with their red trunks exposed after the harvest of cork.  We ended up in some little town where after studying our map we decided to backtrack a few kilometers and turn onto a different road.  This turned out to be a mistake as going straight would have taken us directly to our town (but our map was wrong and we didn´t ask for directions).  People in Spain are incredibly willing to give directions and in some small towns it turns into quite a lengthy discussion with maps drawn and everything.  Anyway, our road soon turned to dirt and got quite rough.  But luckily our Ford Fusion rental car had more ground clearance than most sedans and the steep parts were down hill so drive wheel traction wasn´t a problem here.  We asked directions in the next town and realized we were off track and weren´t going to arrive in town by the back way (it was dark now).  We cruised out to the main road and entered Igualeja on the well marked, recommended road.  Our casa rural was awesome.  It was a older home in town with three small floors, patio on the third.  The town is on a hillside with mostly pedestrian streets so we had to leave the car up the hill a little ways and walk our bags down.  The town was such a typical small town.  The people (mostly older people) were very friendly and helpful.   The region is a chestnut growing region,  they also grow some almond trees which were in blossom.

Tuesday we hiked up the hill above town to find the caves.  It was quite a steep hike but the caves were rewarding and completely uncommercialized.  After going to the meat co-op and buying really cheap meat we had a delicious midday meal.   That evening we drove up to Ronda and saw the cliffs, gorge, and bridges and then went to Setennil de las Bodegas which is another white town.  This town is impressive beyond just being incredibly white because it is built into the cliffs with numerous cave homes and cave restaurants. 

We took pictures when the parents came to Spain. . .

Plaza de España, Seville

Alcazar, Seville

Cadiz

Churros, Tarifa

Gibralter

Casa rural, Igualeja (tilt your head or hold your monitor sideways for a better view)

Igualeja from the caves

Nerja




Granada

Alhambra, Granada

Calpe

Calpe

Travel activities

Moral de la Calatrava

Cuenca

Jaen

Hanging houses, Cuenca

Valdepeñas warms up

January brought the end of my morning class. Now I (Phillip) only have to go to the school in the evening (instead of twice a day) and I have a lot more free time. Our last day of class we went out to eat. I ordered migas which is a typical dish here made with bread crumbs. Lately I have been a little bored in the mornings with nothing to do but I am looking for other work and reading more...

Jodi and Michelle came down from Madrid one weekend to visit us. That Saturday we explored Valdepeñas a little more with them. After a breakfast of french toast, we walked up to the old windmills on one end of Valdepeñas where I hadn´t been yet.

When our friend Gabriel got off work we all went to Moral de la Calatrava to rockclimb a little bit. Back in Valdepeñas, the bar we wanted to go to for sandwiches was not serving food yet so Gabriel took us up to the Angel monument on the other side of Valdepeñas. It is two block towers with a figure of an angel in between the towers. We climbed the ladder in the center of one of the towers and reached the top where there was just room to sit with our feet hanging into the access hole we had just climbed up. After this we went back to the bar for our sandwiches. The sandwiches are a whole loaf of bread heated in the oven with you choice of tortilla española, tuna, salmon, ham, or cheese for only 3.50 euros. They have a special of the week for 2.50 euro. Needless to say we were stuffed.

The first weekend of February was Carnaval. I only had class on Thursday of that week. The celebrations here were unimpressive and I only stuck around because I didn´t know where to go and there were plans in the works to rockclimb. In the end we rockclimbed Saturday in Moral, Sunday in Jaen, and Wednesday in Ayna. I went to Ayna with Gonzalo. They call it the swiss manchego because it is a beautiful mountain town in the province of Albecete, surrounded by huge cliffs. We didn´t do anything besides rockclimb, I could easily spend more time there. This past Saturday Amy and I went to Cuenca with Fofo to rockclimb. At the end of the day, we briefly walked through the city and saw the famous hanging houses. Cuenca is another place we could spend a lot more time exploring. Traveling by car really beats public transport but our friends are usually on a tighter schedule and don´t have as much time or interest in seeing the sights.

Sunday evening we accompanied the pastor and his wife to La Solana to a mission outreach of the Valdepeñas church. This is a small church made up of mostly immigrant families.