Vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacation Time!!!!

I'm excited. Can you tell?
In 3 hours I hop on an overnight bus to Madrid (boo) and in 14 hours I get to see 2 best friends from back home in the states!!! (Excited might be an understatement right now.)
The 3 of us, along with another auxiliar working in Madrid who is also a good friend from back home, are all headed off on a 12 day trip through Italy, Switzerland and France.

So in the meantime, you'll have to pardon my complete lack of disregard for this blog as I stuff myself on the authentic Italian pizza, pack on a couple pounds worth of Swiss chocolate,  stroll along the French Riviera, and get lost in the winding streets of Monaco. But I promise, when I return, I will have plenty of pictures and stories to entertain you all once again!

Roommates reunited!

 The guy in the back isn't coming. Ty, wish you could be here too!

Haircuts&Mullets

Getting a hair cut can be a scary experience. We've all been there, all had that one hair cut that made us swear we were never cutting it again. Mine happened to be when I was about 3 or 4, and the hairdresser decided to bring the mullet back into style. I wish I had a picture to show you, because as embarrassing as it is, it's still pretty funny. It was one truly awful hair cut. (Since I was so young I don't actually remember wearing this style, but when I stumbled across some pictures years later, I demanded an explanation from my mom. She assured me that it had NOT been her decision. Thank god. Or I would have lost all faith in my mom's style.)

[source] THIS IS NOT ME. But it's more or less the same hairstyle.

Fast forward to last November. Getting your hair cut in a different country can be a really scary experience, especially when you're not fluent in the native language. Yes, I speak Spanish, no, I don't have a problem getting by day to day, but I wasn't feeling quite up to having to explain how I wanted my layers and bangs cut. (Kind of like how I choose to take the 45 minute bus to Gibraltar once a week just so I don't have to explain all my back problems in Spanish. It's just easier that way.)

Long story short, thinking that I would automatically get the hair cut I wanted just because they spoke English was a gross-underestimation. It was awful. It was so European. And so not what I wanted.

Needless to say, when I went for an appointment yesterday, I gave up on Gib. Instead I settled for a little place right around the corner from my house. The hairdresser had a rather awful reddish/orange hair dye job, but she was sweet and very friendly. She laughed at my horror story from Gibraltar and assured me that I was safe in her hands.

All was going smoothly until a very loud, very old, very scary looking blonde Spaniard waltzed into the salon. She was waiting to have an appointment after mine, but about 10 minutes in she got disgusted and stood up to leave. The hair dresser said "where are you going? I'm almost done! I just have to blow dry and straighten her hair, and then it's your turn." The old lady stopped, thought about that for a second and then said "La muchacha? La muchacha es jovén! Por qué tienes que planchar su pelo? La muchacha es muy joven!" (The girl? Why do you have to flat iron her hair? She's so young!") Confused? Yeah. So was I.

All I understood of the conversation after that was 'la muchacha joven!' which she repeated every other sentence, coupled with vague gestures to my hair. At one point the hair dresser told her "She's not Spanish! Ask her where she's from!" And the old lady huffily replied "No voy a preguntarle nada!" ("I'm not going to ask her anything!")
Umm, sorry lady, did I offend you with my youngness??

While all this was going on, the hairdresser was cutting/blow drying/straightening my hair. But she would keep stopping to talk to la vieja, and to turn the blow dryer off because she couldn't hear over the noise of it. I know that I've been in Andalucía for 6 months and a lot of 'Spanish things' have stopped drawing my attention, but I couldn't help but laugh at just how Spanish the experience was. In the U.S., if you're at work, you have a job to do. You do your job, and then when your done with your job, you can chat. But work comes first.

In Spain, or at least Andalucía, it's often the other way around. Sure, you might be working and there might be a line forming, but, what's that? You're friend just walked in? Hold everything!! Gotta go give dos besos and hear her life's story. The customers can wait. I know this doesn't hold true for everywhere, but it is definitely an experience I have had many times over.

Luckily, the stop-and-go work didn't affect my hair cut, and I left wishing that I would have found her salon months ago.

Ronda, Spain & other things

This whole last week has been very un-normal. NOT that I'm complaining, it's been nice, but I also feel like it will be twice as hard to go back to work after break. I've only worked 2 hours since last Thursday, so instead I've been filling my time with fitness classes (finally!!) and Dexter marathons. It's been nice. And then next week I only work 3 days and then it's off to Madrid!

Since I seem to have dropped the ball lately on this whole blogging incessantly thing, let's start off with last Saturday when I went to Ronda.

So.
Ronda = love.
Never heard of Ronda? You can read all about its history here. In a nutshell, Andalucía is famous for its pueblos blancos, or 'white towns'. Andalucía is notoriously hot in the summer months and so houses are painted white, or other pale colors, to better reflect the sunlight. This results in little white-washed towns dotting the country side, and some have become more famous than others. Ronda, Arcos de la Frontera, Castellar de la Frontera, and Zahara de la Sierra are a few that I have on my list to visit.

It's hard to see the bridges in this picture, but you can see how the city is built on cliffs, divided by a river. 

Eli and I took a day trip there on Saturday. It's a bit of a trip from Algeciras, 2 hours by train, but the landscape was stunning and the trip went by quickly. We didn't have anything planned, so when we found the main street with shopping stores that we didn't have in Algeciras, we got a little sidetracked.
But after some retail/chocolate cake/café con leche therapy, we were back on track to find the stunning views that the city is famous for!

The pictures below are of the Puente Nuevo, the New Bridge, (which was actually built in the late 1700's.) The bridge crosses the Tajo gorge, which lies 100 feet below. This bridge, and the views off the sides of the cliffs, are the reason Ronda is so famous.

 

Trains run through Ronda daily, and spending 4 hours walking around this gorgeous town makes for a great day trip.

The next day, Sunday, I went on a short hike to explore the southern coast of Algeciras. Silly me, I didn't bring my camera because 1) I already have 4,500 pictures on my computer and can't afford to add any more and 2) assumed that the views wouldn't be anything new since I'd already hiked the coast down to Tarifa. Silly me.
The views were stunning.

[Source] There's Africa in the background!

El faro de Punta Carnero is the local lighthouse in Algeciras. It's about an hour walk along a twisty-windy back road that follows the coast line. The mediterranean was a light crystal blue, the outline of Morocco was perfectly visible, and the flowers were just starting to bloom. It really was a picture perfect day. 

[Source]

[Source] Old boat dock remains

[Source] Looking out over Playa Getares

These next pictures were taken by Christine, from christineinspain. She is a ridiculously gifted photographer and hopefully won't be too annoyed I used her pictures if I give her lots of credit for them :)

Since I bite my nails, this is usually my only orange-peeling option. 

That's Gibraltar in the background.

Hanging out with some ruins, could be 30 years old, could be 300 years old! You never really know.

Córdoba, Spain

I have a confession. When I was bitten by the travel bug back in 2005, it bit me so hard that it left behind an urgency to the whole world now. I get travel anxiety: not from the stress of traveling, but from the idea that I just don't have time and can't afford to go everywhere. (Currently on the stress-causing bucket list are Amsterdam, Istanbul, Budapest, Croatia, and Berlin.) The travel bug in me is always saying 'why are you going back if you can go somewhere new?' Bad bad bad I know, that's not a good way to think, BUT when you're only living in Europe for 1 year you kinda gotta be efficient about it.

The reason this is important is because 2 weekends ago I had the chance to go with my aunt and uncle to Córdoba. Yes! Travel weekend! Except...I'd already been to Córdoba back in high school. (Only for 2 days and I didn't really remember it, but still. I'd been there. And the idea of wasting a travel weekend to see a place I'd already seen was not making me super happy.) For financial reasons however, I accepted the offer and off we were.

I am SO glad I did! The Córdoba in my memory was just bits and fragments of la Mezquita and somewhere down by river. After 2 days touring Córdoba with my aunt and uncle, I left with a new appreciation and a longing to go back.

I have pictures and funny stories to share, but first, rewind back to Wednesday night when I first met them in Algeciras:

It was amazing to see people from back home! My boyfriend had come over Christmas break, but that had been a whole 2 months ago, and I was definitely in need of some familiarity. I took them out to eat at 100 Montaditos (Wednesday nights everything is 1euro, can't beat that) and introduced them to all my friends. 

Who promptly asked me if they could adopt them as their aunt and uncle as well. 

I agreed.

They were a hit.

Thursday night, we once again had tapas. This time, I took them to El Lizarran. This place will never win any awards for its food, but it is consistently delicious, albeit nothing fancy. The reason I love this restaurant is that the waiters bring all the tapas out on serving plates, and walk around to each table, giving you a chance to look and pick&choose what you want to eat. It's especially nice for tapas newbies who aren't sure what the menú is saying. 

Oh, and the deserts.

So good.

I always save room for at least 2 or 3. 

Then Friday, we were off to Córdoba, after some lots of difficulties with the car rental situation. (Read difficulties as 'every car in Algeciras was already rented'.) We caught the train instead at 3pm and arrived in Córdoba at 6pm. The train ride from Algeciras to Córdoba is absolutely gorgeous. Algeciras might be the ugliest city in Spain, but as soon as you leave the city limits you are met with rolling green hills, little pueblos and houses dotting the hillside, miles and miles of olive groves, the occasional orange&lemon tree groves, and lots of horses. (I love horses.)

We spent Friday and Saturday exploring la Mezquita, the old Roman Bridge, the old town, and the main plaza. We found a cafe down the street from our hotel that offered full breakfasts with eggs, toast and chorizo! The little old Mexican man who worked there thought it was oh-so-funny when I ordered scrambled eggs, toast, coffee, and orange juice. (Because compared to Spaniards normal breakfast of half a slice of toast and a coffee, that was like eating an entire days worth of food.)
And on top of that I ordered churros con chocolate to share.
He made fun of how much I was eating (jokingly) but then was honestly shocked when I told him that I had gotten the churros to share with my aunt and uncle. My uncle thought it was funny. I was a little offended. But he was so cute and good humored about the whole thing that by the time we left, I felt like we were old friends! He gave me a huge smile and waved and said "Adió!" Aww :)

Exploring an old city like Córdoba was especially interesting when accompanied by 2 self-acclaimed history geeks. They would point out things like the weird face a gargoyle was making, or how it was surprising that that apostle was part of the statue and not a different one, yadda yadda yadda. I can't recall their exact conversations because I am not a history geek, and therefore couldn't follow most of their conversations even as they were happening....but although I might not remember anything I learned, it was still interesting.

Want to hear a history geek joke? Well, we were in la Mezquita, and my uncle spotted something strange hanging from one of the sky lights. My uncle said, "Honey, do you see that? Why do you think there's a tusk hanging from the ceiling?" (It was a large animal tusk, like an elephant.) To which my aunt replied, without missing a beat, "Maybe that's Tuscan architecture." If we had not been in a mosque, I might have laughed. But we were. So I limited my reaction to a quietly muttered "I have never seen 2 people more perfect for each other."
And it's true.
And that about sums up the weekend.

The main plaza, it's pink!

Exterior door to la Mezquita

Inside the courtyard.

This view will never get old.

Neither will this one!

The Muslim/Christian clash - the placement of a Christian church directly in the middle of a Muslim Mosque. The two styles don't really complement each other, do they?

Not sure what happened here, there was a little section of the mosque with different architecture, like on the right.

Finally got a shot with no one in it! Success (:

"Ceramics made by hand"

The view from the Old Roman Bridge.

Walking along the Old Roman Bridge.

A giant thank you to Chuck and Liz for taking me along with them for the weekend! I had a fantastic time with you guys, and it was definitely one of the more educative trips I've taken this year :) When I go to Florence, Tuscany over Semana Santa I'll be sure to look for more Tuscan architecture for you!

I'm a teacher. I speak the truth. (Usually).

You know that quote "I can only please one person each day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look good either"?

[Source]

Well, that pretty much sums up yesterday and today.

Yesterday during a private class we were practicing numbers. Hard to mess up, right? I say how high to count, the student counts, and we're all happy cause we're learning English. Except until I asked the 8 year old to count de treinta a quinientos. (Since she had just told me that she could count up to 50, I wasn't expecting this to be very hard.) But upon seeing a look of horror and disbelief cross her face, I very quickly realized that I had not said cinquenta, for 50, but quinientos, for 500. She had honestly thought I expected her to count to 500! I'm not that mean, am I?

Then in the next section, we were reviewing shapes, and when the girl couldn't remember how to say 'rectangle' I quickly helped her by saying ' it's rectriangle'. 'Rec-tri-ang-gle', 'rectriangle'. She looked a little confused.

And then it dawned on me. 

I quickly tried to back up and say "no no no lo siento, no es verdad, se llama 'rectangle!" ("no no no sorry, that's not true, it's called rectangle!") but she continued giving me a confused look and just shrugged her shoulders. I guess I'll have to wait until next week to see if I just accidently taught at ESL learner a wrong vocabulary word.

Would that make me happy? .................Maybe.

I'm such a bad English teacher.

As for today, so far it's just been a waste of time. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to teach more incorrect vocabulary, since I just didn't really get a chance to speak at all during my classes. I always thought I would love to get paid to do absolutely nothing. Now I know better.

Stay tuned for my post about my weekend in Córdoba, soaking up Spanish culture and listening to 2 history nerds do what they do best: geek out on history to anyone willing to listen.
(Love you Aunt&Uncle)

Tenerife, Canary Islands

Oh Tenerife, how I miss you! My week of fun in the sun is over. *sigh* Leaving was hard (I might have actually considered "missing" my flight home), but I have to say it's been nice to be back in my bed. //It has also been glorious to fall asleep to the sweet sound of silence, sans 3 hostel people snoring all around me.//

First off, can I just give a big thank you to the city of Algeciras for hosting having their fería in August instead of during the school year. Every city in Spain has their own fería at some point during the year. This is basically a week-long, city-wide festival. For cities in which this takes place during the school year, the schools all shut down for the week.
So then, what happens when the fería isn't celebrated until the summer months? The school system takes a week-long vacation anyway! (Spaniards are never one to be short-changed on their holidays.)

This is the whole reason that I was able to spend that first weekend in Madrid, and then 4 more days soaking up the sun in the Canary Islands in the beginning of March, while friends and family back home where experiencing snow storms. Thank you Spain!

If you ever get the chance to go to to Tenerife, I highly recommend Los Amigos Hostel. Emily and I stayed there for 4 nights, and it was honestly the best part of our entire trip. It is kind of out of the way (okay, very out the way) of everything on the island, but I have never had such a great experience at a hostel before. And since renting a car is ridiculously cheap and the minimum age is only 21, the isolation part isn't really a problem.

Since the hostel is in its own little world, in between 2 small towns on the southern point of the island, it created a very homey-feeling atmosphere when we were at the hostel. (This might also be because the hostel actually is a house, with only 3 dorm rooms and 2 bathrooms. And the owner lives there as well.) Everybody ate breakfast together on the patio outside, and at night after dinner we all stayed out talking for hours before going to bed. I met people from Slovenia, Germany, Poland, Ireland, England, New York, and Italy all in one night! The conversations mostly all took place in English, and were quite interesting to listen to, as a native speaker.

The girl from Slovenia asked the guy from New York to describe the city to her, about anything and everything that he noticed was different from here in Europe. She asked if it was true that the buildings were so tall that some of the streets never got direct sunlight. She said she couldn't imagine not knowing the city by heart, or the nearby cities her friends lived in by heart. She knew everybody and everything in her hometown and all of the surrounding towns. I told her that I still got lost in my university town after living there for 4 years. She was shocked. But then she got indignant when a girl from Germany excitedly said that her parents were going on vacation to Slovenia to see the wolves. "They aren't that common, really."

The guy from Ireland told us about Father Ted, a popular TV show in Ireland with an intense fan-base. Every year two small islands off the coast of Northern Ireland hold a Father Ted festival, to commemorate the show, where party-goers dress up in costumes from the show and get drunk and have great time. They also host a 'Lovely Girl Competition', which is sort of like a beauty pageant, except instead of finding the best looking girl, they crown the girl whom everyone says "what a lovely girl!" (Hearing this in an Irish accent was priceless. I almost asked him to repeat it, but that might have been weird.)

It was a great international experience. I watched the guy from Poland eat a sandwich for breakfast with jam on one half and cheese on the other.

Although I didn't actually wind up seeing much of the island, it was great to finally have a trip to just relax without feeling rushed to see all the sights.

On Wednesday, Emily and I explored the beaches around our hostel, since they were literally a 5 minute walk from the front door.

Then that night went for an impromptu beer with 2 hostel workers and a guy from Italy who turned out to be our roadtripping buddy later in the trip. This gave me the chance to be a part of the most epic parallel parking job I have ever seen:

Bumper to bumper with the car behind, and about 3 inches to spare in front. It was a valiant effort, and we all applauded. 

On Thursday, said Italian roadtripping buddy, Emily and I headed up the coast to Los Cristianos and Playa de las Américas to explore for the day. Since none of the 3 of us were overly extroverted or loud, it made for a rather quiet, but very enjoyable, day. It was particularly interesting since our Italian friend didn't speak a whole lot of either Spanish or English. //And clearly we don't speak Italian.//

I want. 

Los Cristianos. Basically your average retirement resort town. Like all of southern Florida. 

Playa de las Américas, very similar to Los Cristianos. All the beaches here were enclosed by stone breakways, to create safe swimming areas.

We got back Thursday night just in time to hike speed walk up la montaña roja to catch the sunset. I couldn't breathe for the better half of the hike (thanks asthma) and I spent a lot of time muttering under my breathe wondering why on earth I was putting myself through such an intense hike just to see a stupid sunset.

(Oh yeah. That's why.)

                                         

         Don't be fooled by the flatness, the killer hill was behind me.

I made it! And it was so windy that if I would have tripped, the wind probably would have blown me all the way down the side of the mountain. It was a little scary.

Makin' friends.

On Friday, Emily and I did a "whale watching" cruise. Aka we spent 4 hours on a boat cruising up and down the southern coast. During this time Emily befriended a slightly-creepy-when-we-thought-about-it-later older crew member, who brought us glasses of champagne from the crew's stash during lunch, and continued to stop by and chat throughout the cruise. He introduced us to the captain, and to another crew member who turned out to be from Algeciras. (What???) We were a hit with the crew, most likely because we were the only people on the boat over the age of 10 and under the age of 50. Whatever. I'll take what I can get.
The best part of this story came right before we docked, when the man came over with a bottle stuffed in a garbage bag (trying to hide his gift of generosity from the rest of the general public who weren't given the same present) and said "from the crew." It was a WHOLE BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE! And because we had recently discovered an addiction to mimosas, this was the best present we could have asked for!

Mama and baby pilot whale swimming beside our boat.

In front of Los Gigantes, 8-10 million year old ginormous rock formations, creatively named 'the Giants'.

Right after the captain announced we had 20 minutes to go swimming, we saw this little guy swim by. Umm..swimming with jelly fish? PASS.

Yeah, we're cool.

Walking back to the bus stop after the tour. //I kind of have a thing for palm trees.//

See? 

I call this 'The Death of a Palm Tree'

Friday night when we got back, the hostel was celebrating finishing their 3rd bathroom. This may seem like a strange thing to celebrate, but when there are 20 people in a house and only 2 bathrooms....this is the most exciting news in the world. We did a toast, popped some champagne and then kept it classy by signing helpful reminders on the bathroom stall's wall. 

I wrote 'be a sweetie, close the seatie'. 

And then it was Saturday, our last day :( So sad. Emily, Italian friend and I drove to Costa del Silencio, because we were intrigued by its name and heard it was pretty. 

It...wasn't very pretty. And it was eerily silent. And was actually just a town, not an entire coast.

We decided it must have been named Silent Coast because all of its visitors were there to sunbathe and sleep. It was, literally, a silent town for the half hour we were there. We spent about 20 minutes walking around before deciding it was slightly creepy and that we should go somewhere else. 

So back to the hostel we headed, where we sat on the beach and drank mimosas for the next 2 hours. It was glorious. 

And then we caught our flight and headed home, and I finally stumbled into bed at 5:30am the next morning. 

THE END