Brrrr!

The Spanish skies are grey and bleak as Winter steadily rolls in, and there's a chill in the air these days, one that seeps under your five layers of clothing, through your skin, and sinks right into your bones. It refuses to leave. It sinks its claws right into you, and sometimes no matter how long you stand under that boiling hot shower, it does everything it can to stay with you. There's no rain or snow, and most of the time there isn't any wind, it's just this frosty, biting weather that has sunk into Córdoba, into the very ground the Romans used to walk on.

Still, the Spanish people are friendly as ever. Apparently every year at about this time Spain goes absolutely wild with Christmas cheer. Strings of lights shelter the city in a glowing web of reds and whites, and bells and Nativity Scenes and even the occasional Papa Noel light up the night sky as the Spaniards take to the streets, as they are determined to get out of the house and have a coffee. They huddle under their coats and cling to their loved ones as they stroll along. They refuse to let December's bitter weather defeat them.

Across the city a strange sort of expositions begins. Individuals, churches, families, and stores set up Belenes, miniature Nativity scenes that sprawl across a huge hand painted, hand crafted Bethlehem. Some have real, working fountains, others have pyrotechnics, and all of them have dimming and brightening lights to show the passage from Night, to Dawn, to Day, and to Dusk. If no where else, the Spanish reverence of the Christmas season is here.

Everyone know Christmas is coming, and I'm not sure who's more excited, the students or the teachers. When I walk through the school the kids burst into song -- a choppy rendition of "We Wish A Merry Christmas and a Happy New You." They don't quite know the tune, but they make up for that with effort. The teachers sit in the staff room during recess, sipping small glasses of 55% Anis that burns all the way down, but with a cold like this, you need anything you can get to stay warm. I should know by know that when they give me something to drink, it won't taste good, but where's the adventure in that?

And, in three days I'm off on my great trek across Europe. A week in Paris for Christmas, a week in Amsterdam for New Years, and a week in Madrid after it all where I'll spend some quiet time wandering the parks and museums. So, although I'll be M.I.A. for a few weeks, when I return I'll have plenty of stories and plenty of pictures.

Merry Christmas, everyone, and Happy New You. ;)

Random Pictures of Spain!

Aaaaaand here they are at last! Random pictures of Spain!
Yeah I don't know what's up with the formatting either. Right click on the pic and click "View Picture" to see the whole thing! =D

La Plaza de España, Sevilla



A Flamenco Show In Sevilla


Really Old Ruins!


Around Cordoba

Kids can be cute... when they're not being little devils!

Sadly, little to no traveling has happened on my part quite yet. This is due mostly to the fact that I am going to Paris for Christmas, Amsterdam for New Years, and Toledo immediately afterwards and all of this is going to require money! Instead, much of my time has been spent sleeping all day on the weekends, and drinking beer all night.

It's not such a terrible life. ;)

This job is also getting much, much easier. I can plan out a lesson in just a few minutes, or even walk in with just a vague sort of idea as to what I want to do and just sort of go with the flow. And, on top of that, I FINALLY have other English speakers to talk to at my school! Shortly after arriving at my school Sarah, from LA coincidentally, arrived and within two days decided to go home. Several weeks later, Karolina from Poland arrived. She's studying at the University in Cordoba (taking English classes in Spanish. And she doesn't speak Spanish. Needless to say she doesn't bother going to class much). She's stuck it out, and is pretty awesome. Finally, Ane from Norway arrived at about the same time, but she didn't last a week and has gone back home.

They're dropping like flies over here. Turns out this is all a little harder than we thought. But Karolina is getting into the groove of things, and my Spanish listening skills are getting better, so communication with most people is coming along smoothly.

As for the kids I teach, well... that's another story.

They are still as nuts, insane, and bonkers as always, but every once in a while they do something so obnoxiously cute that it doesn't matter how loony they are.

Take for example today. Being December 1st (and being allowed to do whatever I want thanks to my principal just being happy I'm here), I decided to teach my kids a Christmas song. Well, surprise, the 12 Days of Christmas is not easy for 4th grade non-English speakers to learn. Who knew!

It was pretty clear to the class and me that this was going to be impossible. I'd sing very slowly and they'd mumble along (everyone coming together on the 'meeeee' part of 'my true love gave to me'). And even though they didn't have a clue what they were saying, they'd burst into cheers and applause at the end of every verse and ask to do another.

How can you not love something like that? We gave up after a half hour and then decorated construction paper Christmas Trees.

Later, I teach English to a small group of third graders, and I had to explain something in Spanish, and even though it's not very good, the second I finished speaking they all broke into applause and said "Eeeeeey! Espanish!!" It's all very cute and you quickly forget that you were yelling at them two minutes previously.

So yes, kids can be cute and adorable sometimes. Here are some pics from the mummy races we did for Halloween!! (My computer is finally deciding it wants to upload pictures! Many to come soon!)

But yes, life pushes on, and even though I haven't traveled yet, huge travel plans are coming shortly. I'm looking at a 30 euro flight to Brussels in February, going to Italy at some point in time (maybe April?) and then, holy cow, after this is all over I'm hitting up the UK, France, Luxembourg, Prague. Before you know it the six and a half months I have left over here will be over...

Teaching Children

Teaching children a foreign language. Who knew it could all devolve into utter, utter chaos.

I haven't gotten my hold on the class yet, and this is the problem. As my friend once said to me, teaching children requires a careful finesse between games and structure. If you run your class like a cross between Mother Goose and a Nazi you're golden.

Or in the words of my mom -- Nothing works better on little children than blackmail and bribery.

Top it all off with the fact that when I'm sick I become impatient and little Spanish children absolutely love to SCREAM their little heads off at the top of their lungs, it can make for some very hectic days.

This was all until I came up with a brilliant little strategy. 

Every class I give the class three points. If I have to tell them to hush, minus point. "For the love of God sit down!", minus point. No more points? You get to to copy the names of the States ten times each in alphabetical order. No, it's not fun, which is why you should sit down and shut up.

And then you have the kids who know everything. And you're thrilled that they know everything. My god, you understand what I'm saying and it's fantastic and I love that you know what's going on... but I absolutely cannot have you answer every question. I'm sorry, don't look at me like that because I'm not calling on you. I know you want to show off how awesome your English is, but I have to get little Carlota to participate as well, and she only does when I call on her.

But there are good times, as well. Take for example my private tutoring class where in I teach 6 third graders who know absolutely no English. In one hour I got all six of them to recite the names of the months, and they could introduce themselves, say how old they are, and when their birthday is. 

Oh, and then there's the magic of the high five.

Kids go nuts for high fives. They think they're the coolest thing in the entire world. Sure I don't have any candy on me, but I'll give you a high five and you're just as content that I'm proud of you! It's all very fantastic.

Okay, two quick posts and I'm done for the evening. This coming week should be rather busy. I've been organizing everything to finally apply to grad school for when I get back to the states and I need to finish my statement of purpose about how ohmygod I'm the BESTEST grad student EVER (p.s. give lots of scholarships)!!!! All so I can move to San Diego when I get back to California and go to a Campus that -- literally -- borders the beach!

¡Qué emocionante! (How exciting!)

A quick little story about Edgar Alan Po-ey

So with being sick, busy, birthday madness having come and gone, and finally settling into a bit of a groove over here, and of course the ever necessary siesta, I haven't had much time to write again in this. The days pass by much more quickly than when we first arrived. At times it's hard to believe it's already been over a month that I've been here -- other times it's hard to believe it's ONLY been a month.

Work is fine. The kids think I'm totally awesome which is just way too much fun. I need to wear my sunglasses and cowboy hat to school more often so I can feel like a foreigner. A couple other tricks that work include wearing flip flops and long woolen scarfs. Then people just stare at you like you're nuts, it's fantastic.

Take, for example, this past weekend. In the small, sleepy town of Fernan Nuñez up on a hill just outside Córdoba there was a reading of various Edgar Alan Poe stories (or as they call him, Edgar Alan Po-ey). Briana informed that this would be a monumental event for Fernan Nuñez, as they've never had TWO foreigners in their city before.

This was pretty much obvious. Walking down the street women and children watched us with an amused curiosity. They know we're not from around here, and we know they know we're not from around here, and so whenever we had to ask for directions they responded with kind, slightly embarrassed smiles and very helpful instructions.

Ah, to get away from the big city!

So we make our way to La Casa de la Cultura where the readings are to be held (having stopped on the way for some coffee. Upon entering the coffee shop all conversation suddenly came to a halt and everyone's heads swiveled around to look at us. You could hear crickets chirping in the background) where we joined a meager crowd of 20 or 30 people who found themselves with nothing to do or like us, hopefully, had a genuine interest in Po-ey.

They begin with The Tell-Tale Heart (read beautiful, with an intense passion that made my heart want to swan dive out of my chest to hide in my pocket) and followed it up with several poems and the Fall of the House of Usher (at least I think it was Usher -- I think a cat was involved, along with some guy's wife). Afterwards when they had finished we asked to take pictures with the three readers and, lemme tell ya, we made their day.

Oh where are you from?

The United States!

Oh hey they're American!

And a lengthy conversation about Poe ensued. I hope that the next morning during coffee with their friends they were able to brag about how two foreigners came to their show to hear their readings. Lord knows I would.

And it was free! Can't top that.

What do you mean you're dropping me off in a foreign country with five days to find an apartment?

No, really, this is how things work here. Oh, but if only it were that simple. It gets better.

Okay, we're dropped off in a hotel, as I said previously, jet lagged and cranky and just not happy and all you really want to do is get some food in your stomach and take a siesta. And, so, that's what we do on Friday.

So now we have Saturday through Tuesday to find a place, oh and by the way your first day of work is on Monday. So you'll be working and searching for a place to live, and getting a cell phone, and setting up a bank account while beginning work at school.

Oh, and P.S., the entire city shuts down on Sunday, banks close by 2pm on the weekdays, might not be open on weekends, and if you want to do anything between 2 and 5:30, you might as well just forget about it, because most of the city goes home for a siesta.

So how the hell are you supposed to get anything done? Please tell me, who thought this was a good idea? Who thought, oh, I know what I'll do, I'll give everyone 5 days to find a place to live in a foreign country and one of those days will be a day where NOTHING IS OPEN.

Can you tell I was frustrated by this? Just a tiny bit.

Well, as it turns out, Spain has a very strange apartment culture, as in everyone has a piso (flat/apartment) for sale, and everyone is looking to rent. On top of that, agencies have jumped in on this business and charge you a boat load for using their service to find a place. There are, however, news papers that come out every month with all sorts of piso listings and phone numbers to call.

A girl who's on the trip with us was incredibly efficient and found a place that Sunday, and thankfully had a ton of numbers for us to call and check places out. The first place we look at is beautiful. It's this stunning Spanish style house, three levels with an open patio in the very middle that reaches all the way up to massive terrace on top with plants and bamboo and shade and it's out in the open air. There's marble and tile and a huge kitchen... but there are two catches.

Catch Number 1: You split a room, 250€ a piece, but all the bills are included. Okay, that doesn't sound too bad.

Catch Number 2: You live with the flats owner, a 68 year old man who loves wearing track suits and has a 28 year old girl friend from Morocco.

On top of that, the first thing he said to Carol when she introduced herself is that she's "muy guapa" (very pretty) and then laughed for about three minutes while the rest of us were uncomfortably staring at one another. Creepo.

And boy does he like to talk. He talks. And talks. And talks talks talks talks talks UGH. Stop talking to me you creepy old man!

Can you say red flag? I can't. I was down to live in this place. I was ready to move in. I was gung ho. "Let's do it!" I kept telling everyone, "It'll be fine!" I kept telling everyone.

No. No no no no no.

We visit the place Saturday. I'm fine. Visit the place Sunday. Still fine, whatever.

We visit the place Monday for the third time. Not fine. Noooooot fine. NOT fine at all. Yes, it took me that long to figure out that this was, indeed, a rather poor idea.

So Carol and I are on the way back to the hotel, practically running through the streets of Córdoba because it's Monday and we must must must must have a place by Tuesday.

#%@!

Okay. Okay it's fine. We rush back, crack open our laptops and start searching. We now have ONE day to find an apartment. One day in a foreign country. Okay, well if we absolutely have to we can get a room in the hotel for one more night, but in spite of the intense freaking out we're all doing we some how manage to be incredibly productive and within 30 minutes of getting back to the hotel we've set up an appointment to go see a four bedroom apartment.

We walk in, and it's beautiful. It's perfect. Huge kitchen, everyone has their own room, two bathrooms, a HUGE living room, and it's in a very decent part of town. Did I mention it's about a 10 minute walk from my school? Sign me up. Well, we did. We signed the lease the next day, moved all our stuff in and, finally, found ourselves a home in Spain.

Did I mention our Landlady is not a creepo? Actually, she's probably one of the most awesome people I've met in my life. She let us move in two days before we signed the contract, and two days before we even paid rent. On top of that, she's only charging us until the 7th of June, but has said we can stay here the entire month if we like as long as we pay bills. She loves to talk, is a genuinely fantastic little lady, and is, thankfully, not a creeper. 

So in case you are wondering, no, moving your entire life into another country, and then moving your entire life into a different city in that country, and then finally moving your entire life into a apartment every five days is not, surprisingly, the most enjoyable experience in the world.

But the sense of relief you have when you finally have a clean bed you can call your own to fall asleep in... It's priceless. It's beautiful. It's amazing. And suddenly the sun in Córdoba shined a little bit brighter.

The Great Move To Córdoba, and Random Things About Gypsies!

Have I mentioned all ready that if you ever need to lose weight you should just move your entire life to a foreign country and live in hotels for about a week and a half? Because you will.

(a) You'll get frustrated with having to eat out every single meal.

(b) You don't have a fridge, or a microwave, or an oven, so you can't cook or keep anything.

(c) Eventually the stress of moving your entire life in two pieces of luggage will cause you to just give up and stop eating all together.

Okay maybe give up isn't the proper term. How about "suspend optimism"? I like that better.

In any case, after a few days of me being a cranky, crotchety Bryan we move to Córdoba to another hotel where I'm pretty much hoping that I can just no longer be jet lagged. We wander around the town once we arrive to sort of get situated and ... well ...

Okay, so there's this lady standing by The Mezquita handing out little bits of olive leaves. How dangers could she possibly be? And, since she told me "It's just a gift!" she, clearly, must just be some person working with the tourist department welcoming foreigners, right? She seems friendly enough.

No. Not friendly. Not friendly at all. As soon as I take the olive branch, the lady snags my wrist with one hand, her acrylic nails digging into my skin, and starts tracing a line down my palm as if she's reading it.

Uhm. Excuse me. What.

Thankfully Kyrie, being ever vigilant, jumps in instantly, throws the lady off of me while saying "No! No, Bryan, no!" and pushing me away by the shoulders. Essentially whapping me on the nose with a newspaper.

Oh, you mean that was a bad idea. Got it. Okay.

Bryan/Kyrie: 1. Gypsies: 0.

In terms of Gypsy experiences I found it rather tame. For those of you who haven't heard, a common trick they like to pull is they take their babies and throw them at you (I'm serious) and then when you catch them, they all swoop in steal all your cash out of your pockets, so pretty much from the very beginning I was saying that I really was hoping that someone was going to throw their kid at me, so I could let it fall to the ground and see the angered look in their eyes. Maybe they'd even shake their fists at me while I got a picture of them. It'd be, in my opinion, kind of fantastic.

But no, no baby throwing, not yet.

We have, however, made it to Córdoba, and I still have my wallet, so it's a good day.

Others, however, were not so lucky.

Take, for example, the sad case of Denise and Tyler, two other people placed in Córdoba. Imagine with me, if you will.

Both of them are over 6 feet tall, and are pretty much what you would expect photoshopped starving fashion models to look like, except their not photoshopped or starving. Bright blonde hair, and on their backs as they're traveling there are, of course, backpacking backpacks with all the pockets and straps and gadgets.

Well here they are in Madrid, ready to get on a train to travel south. The train pulls up and then something very strange happens -- all of a sudden a huge group of people starts shoving them against the train as people are coming out, shoving shoving shoving until some woman behind them starts freaking out and yelling about how she's tired of being pushed and everyone better knock it off.

So Denise and Tyler and shoved on to the train, the group of people magically disperses like they weren't even there, the doors close and away they go.

This all happens in the course of about ten seconds.

Now get this -- Denise's purse had a zipper and a flap over it as well as a latch to keep the flap closed. On top of that, she was holding it under her arm and holding it close against her ribs. In all the pushing, they STILL managed to get into her bag and steal her wallet without her noticing a thing. And of course Tyler's wallet was stolen out of his pocket in no time flat.

In their very own words, "They're good."

Needless to say I'm a little careful when I'm wandering around, and I'm not keeping anything important on me when I don't need it. But don't worry, no one else had any problems, and they say that pick-pocketing is the only thing they really have problems with here, and violent crime is never an issue. Still, better safe than sorry.

Moving on.

Now here's the funny thing. We arrive on a Friday, still jet lagged and still cranky (at least me, anyway), and we need to begin hunting for an apartment. No, they don't arrange housing for us, we have to find it ourselves, and not having cell phones makes that rather hard.

But wait, just wait, because the next bit is going to be about Paco, aka Creepy Creepy Track Suit Guy.

Sevilla

So, finally, we have arrived in Sevilla. We have our hotel room after a 30 hour travel day and we're pretty much just ready to pass out. I, on the other hand, am incredibly stressed because I haven't eaten, I haven't slept, and now my adaptors don't work so I can't plug in my dead computer to charge which means I can't call my parents!

Needless to say, I'm not pleased.

To top it all off, they gave us a room with one bed, so the three of us (Kyrie, Carol and I) squeeze into one bed for the night and sleep the kind of sleep you can only have after a 30 hour travel day -- sporadic and constantly interrupted.

The next morning, however, we awake to the breakfast buffet, a feast of eggs, meats, juices, and breads. We gorge on the bounty before us, thanking god that we're staying in such an awesome hotel with such an awesome breakfast and we walk away full and happy.

Thus commences the orientation. Five days of following a schedule so that we can receive some important information (and some useless information as well) but so that at the end of the week we still walk away not having a clue as to what we're doing aside from playing games with kids and teaching them words like Red and Apple.

But! We do get to wander around Sevilla which is fantastically beautiful and full of life and light and love and a huge cathedral in the middle of town. This thing has got spires that just stretch up into the sky, and around it all the German tourists wander about taking pictures. You can sit in a cafe out in the open sun right before this monster of a church that's been around since the 12th Century, and you can drink your café, eat your ice cream, and talk on your cell phone all before this gorgeous building.

Then there's the Plaza de España which is perhaps the most romantic place I've seen in my entire life. So romantic, in fact, that on the day we went to go visit it, there were three different women getting their pictures taken for the wedding ... and then on my second visit, there were two. It's just that romantic.

I can imagine the conversations now:

María: Oh, so where'd you end up getting your wedding pictures taken?

Julieta: Just down at the Plaza de España, you know, where everyone gets them done.

Or how about:

Rosa: Where'd he take you on your first date??

Carmen: Oh it was totally lame. We went to the Plaza de España, life I've never been there before.

Thankfully, it seems like the Spaniards appreciate the historical significance of the place, and if not them, then at least all the German tourists do!

Okay, so I haven't gotten to the bit about the Dancing Dragon yet, but I'll get there.

More to come!

The Fight To Get To The Airport, or: The Amazing Race

I honestly believe that whenever I travel somewhere, it essentially has to turn into an episode of The Amazing Race. Like running through an Osaka train station during rush hour and getting in the way of the crazy mob of Japanese business men as they also run around to get to their train.

No, it's nuts. No traveling for my life can ever be easy, and here's why.

The morning began at roughly 3:00 at the hotel, to be at the airport by 4:30. The six minute drive between the hotel and the air port was about the easiest part of the entire journey.

Well, you see, we have two separate flights. One to Madrid via Chicago, and another from Madrid to Sevilla, with only an hour in between these two flights. You see where this is going already, don't you?

We arrive in Chicago just fine, where we sit about for about three hours and I spend $5.40 on 4 pieces of fruit because, uh, airport fruit is made from gold.

Now we board for our 8 hour flight to Spain, and of course, we're an hour late. See how this works? This, my friends, is why you always leave several hours in between your flights, so that this very thing does not happen.

On top of this, Carol (one of the two girls with whom I'm traveling) sent her luggage straight to Sevilla, so who even knows where her stuff is going.

I'm stuck right in front of the tiny child who is absolutely SCREAMING for his mother, even though she's sitting right next to him. This led me to believe that the poor child was kidnapped, but due to the intensity of the headache he ended up giving me for several hours, I figured he deserved it and thus did not alert the proper authorities. Meanwhile, all the suave Spanish people are milling about the plane, standing around and chatting. Yeah, like, standing around the plane for hours, just chatting. No one's telling them to remain seated, so they just stand about and chat in Spanish. All the while my poor stomach is in knots because we've missed our flight and god knows where my luggage (aka my entire life in two suitcases) is going to end up.

Fantastico.

Now, the funny thing about traveling to Europe in the early morning is that you get about 8 hours of day light before the sun goes down, and then as you fly into Europe the sun comes back up. Mix this with leaving at 4:30 in the morning, and arriving in Madrid at 11:30 in the evening our time with about 2 hours of sleep on the plan is really helpful when you now have to wander around a foreign country in search of a new flight to your destination.

So we start asking around. And, as most customer service in the States work, they send us to another person, who sends us to another, who sends to a fourth, a fifth, a 23rd, and so on. Thankfully, they became progressively nicer, at first saying we'd have to pay for a new flight, and then finally putting us on Stand By and checking all our luggage for free.

Another 4 hours to kill in the Madrid airport. We end up passing out on benches, and I finally, for once, felt like I was having a Europe moment.

Several hours later we're in a very long Stand By line waiting behind some woman who's screaming at the customer service rep in Russian about (I think) how she needs to get home for her daughter's wedding. There's a family from the UK behind us who's patiently waiting, and the more I stand there, the more I feel the urge to join the crazy Russian lady in her screaming.

I shove Carol up to the front of the desk, cutting in front of several people because our plane is boarding NOW, and she asks a few quick questions and finally we receive our tickets.

Here's where the Amazing Race bit comes in. We are at gate 27. Our plane, boarding now, is leaving in a few minutes from gate 98.

So imagine, if you will, a long stretch of air port, and three American 20 year olds running through, pushing over little old ladies, because I refuse to spend the night in an airport. Refuse. Not interested. I can't even remember the last time I went to the gym. I'm sweating profusely, my calves are burning, I'm dragging two heavy pieces of carry on luggage and a roll along and all I know is that the person sitting next to me on the plane is going to have to deal with the fact that I haven't applied deoderant in 24 hours.

Sorry buddy.

Thankfully! At Last! We board our plane, reach Sevilla, get our luggage, take a taxi to the hotel, and pass out.

Por fin, we've made it to España.

The story gets better. Ever heard of Murphy's Law? Just you wait.

Ah, Spain!

Yes, Spain!

The land of Sangría, Paella, and perhaps the most beautiful invention of all, the Siesta. I mean, let's get real, why wouldn't you want to live in a country that shuts down in the middle of the day so you can go home and take a nap. It's no wonder they like to dance until five in the morning, or that they don't normally finish dinner until ten.

And so, here I am at last, in the city of Seville for five days before moving onto the equally historical Córdoba where I will being teaching kids between the ages of 3 and 12.

Let's just say that it'll be a growing experience for me. Well, mostly for my patience. As the Spaniards like to say, ten paciencia!

Updates with sweet pictures to come!