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 :)
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
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).
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).
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
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
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