Valencia

We arrived at the hostel (the same one I stayed at for Las Falles in 2010) around 2pm and quickly decided to walk to the beach as it was another day above 90•F. We knew it wasn't going to be a short walk, but neither of us expected to walk about five miles. On the way there we passed by many monuments including the Grand Prix, City of the Arts and Sciences towers and the "river." We stayed at the beach for a while because the water was nice and warm, but on our way out we found a lot of garbage along the edge of the water. We were told it was from the festival held there last weekend.
. Having learned our lesson, we opted to take a cab back to the hostel, where we got paella for dinner.

The next morning I took the free guided walking tour of the city while Emily went to the beach. On the tour I learned a few local legends and a bit of Spanish history. One story in particular stuck with me.

When Valencia was settled by the Romans it was a small islands surrounded by a river, separating it from the mainland. During the time of the Moors it became a larger city. The river would flood every few years. One year the water rose to a very high level and washed out most of the city. So the city government decided to cut off one of the legs of the river and let all the water go to one side, so that it wouldn't flood. Because of this, Valencia is no longer an island. In the 1980s left with just a dry riverbed, the city decided they wanted to build a highway. Everyday the city workers would try to convert part of the riverbed into a road and every night the citizens of Valencia would come through and plant trees to undo the work done by the city workers that day. After a while the city gave up their highway aspirations. So the riverbed sat empty for another few years until it was eventually converted into a park. This park includes the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències (City of Arts and Sciences), which is a group of buildings designed by Santiago Calatrava, a famous Valencian architect who I am told is also currently designing the Ground Zero monument in Manhattan (although some sources say that this is untrue).

Another fun fact about Valencia is that it was the last refuge for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War.

He vuelto a España, first 3 days back in Spain

Bueno, I am back in Spain, this time only for two months. I got to Becky's place on Tuesday morning while she was at work. So, I did my best to lay low but stay awake til she got home to help me with jet lag. It was only 10am (4am on the East Coast). I managed to only stay awake about an hour since I had only slept an hour at the beginning of the flight. So, I slept for a few hours until Becky got home.

On Wednesday my roommate Emily joined us and I tried to keep her active to get her used the time difference. We tooka few walks around Madrid, going to the Paseo del Prado, El Parque del Retiro and even running into a teacher strike, even though it is summer vacation. We each bought a shirt to support the cause. Finally we want for dinner and crashed Becky's living room for good night sleep.


On Thursday morning Emily and I went towards the centre and we tried to see the Palacio Real but it was closed to the public because there were some ambassadors from South America visiting however, we got to see a nice possession of horses soldiers, guards and a royal carriage. After visiting the Palacio Real we went to the Catedral, Plaza de Sol and Plaza Mayor before heading home for a home-cooked meal thanks to Becky.

After lunch we met up with a friend of Emilys who's teaching here in Madrid. Then we tried to go to an Egyptian temple but it was closed, so we went to a Chileno restaurant for dinner and dessert. Finally we went to see our friend La Risa (or Larisa) selling scarves at her house and then came home around 1 AM.

Montreal

Only a day after moving into my new house in Lebanon, New Hampshire, I took off for a trip north of the border, to Montréal.  It was a trip I had been wanting to take for years, to finally see my favourite band, Ace of Base, in concert!  They had not made a trip to North America since their 1995 to promote their second album The Bridge which features their hit song "Beautiful Life."  I didn´t see them in concert then because I was all of nine years old, but even then they were my favourite band.  I tried several times while I was in Europe to see them, but even then, they only performed in Estonia, Lativa and Lithuania.  All three are countries I would like to visit one day, but, they are not serviced by the budget airlines from Western Europe, and so a weekend trip there would have cost me about a month´s pay, which didn´t seem worth it for a concert if I was going by myself.  Of course, they came to Spain about a week after I moved back to the Americas (figures, doesn´t it).

So this time, with the band performing only a few hours drive away, I decided I had to go.  Despite all the build up, my expectations were low.  The two singers who were in the band in my childhood have left.  One left after a fan tried to stab her sister.  The sister (and second singer) left the band a little over a year ago, due to the record companies demands.  So the band hired 2 new singers and I had not been impressed by their new music with the new girls, or with their versions of the songs that made them famous.  Anyway, I decided to go ahead and see the concert because I probably wouldn´t get another chance.

Boy was I pleasantly surprised!

They started off with what is probably their best known song The Sign.  Then they sang their most famous song in Europe, Life is a Flower.  Then they sang Vision in Blue, which is my favourite song from the album with the 2 new singers.  Next up were Lucky Love and Clara singing a cover of Russian Roulette by Rihanna, and another cover song that I did not recognize.  Happy Nation, Black Sea, Cruel Summer and Golden Ratio were their next songs.  After that they had more songs, but since I am posting this months later, I do not remember which they were, sorry.  Very anti-climactic, I know

2011-2012: A year in review, part 1 of 3

Bueno, it´s been quite a while since I have written in here, mostly because I have been travelling a lot less this year than in the past few.  However, I am on summer vacation now!  During vacation I will be going to take a nice journey and should be writing more often again (although I will have limited internet access, so I might not write immediately, but will probably blog about it after the journey has completed).

That said, I wanted to reflect a little bit on the highlights of the 2011-2012 school year.

First off, I moved back to the US.  Many of my friends and family were thrilled by this.  I was not.  However it has been a decent year, and financially it has been far more rewarding than living in Costa Rica or working part time in Spain.  I movemd to Lebanon, NH, which for those of you who don´t know is the town next to Hanover (or should I say Dartmouth, because Dartmouth College is half the town and owns most of the rest).  I started the Spanish programme at two schools in Vermont.  At Thetford Elementary School I teach Spanish K-6, and at the Newton School I teach Spanish 5-8.  I had my reservations about teaching Spanish as a foreign language.  I really didn´t think it was what I wanted to be doing, but it turns out I really enjoy it!  So, I´ve signed on for a second year!  First time since college I´ll be staying at the same job for two years!  So that´ll bring my total to 5 schools (and one language academy) in 5 years.  So, still not the best average, but at least it´s moving the right direction.  It turns out at work I have one co-worker, Sarah Zack, who I had several classes with at UVM.  I also work with AnMari Kicza, who taught at the CEC/Cloud Forest School in Costa Rica six years before me!  What a small world it is.

Anyway, I moved into a house with three roommates: Emily, Amena and Nate.  Nate didn´t stay very long (thankfully) and a guy named Kyle moved in.  The four of us hung out a lot and would spend most of our free time together.  In September we had an issue where the upstairs shower was leaking into the downstairs shower.  Even though my room was upstairs, I always showered downstairs because the upstairs shower head was only about five-feet four-inches off the ground, making it impossible for me to wash my hair unless I kneeled on the floor.  So, one day after noticing the leak, I was about to shower downstairs when my roommate asked me if I wanted to get groceries, so I decided that was a priority.  When we returned less than an hour later, the ceiling from the downstairs shower had fallen onto the floor.  For a few days the downstairs bathroom was unusable.  However, we shouldn´t have been using the upstairs shower either, because the floor underneath was basically mush, you could easily stick your finger through it.   When the landlords (in India) finally authorized work to be done (five or six weeks later) they had to remove the shower, and along with it most of the insulation on that side of the wall, and the walls between the bathroom and my room and my closet.  From my bed I could see the toilet upstairs, the toilet downstairs and into the shower downstairs!  It made for a very interesting week, especially with Kyle having just moved in.  Some highlights from the week include me yelling to Kyle late at night (jokingly) “Don´t pee in my bedroom”  Anyway, after about a week of making sure I wasn´t in my room and awake if someone was in the bathroom, and having toilets basically set up like bunk-beds where you could hear the other person in the other bathroom, it got fixed and we got a new shower that was tall enough for me!  

View from my bedroom

On a related note, all year we thought we had a laundry chute, but had blocked it off so the cats wouldn´t accidentally fall into it.  However, this past week, I dropped a sponge in to see where it goes, and it did not seem to fall anywhere.  This just adds to the long list of weird things in the house such as a doorbell in the kitchen that seems to ring in the basement.  The hole in the basement, large closets and the “caves” in Emily´s room and my room, hooks on the stairs, indoor wind chimes, the “poop-swastika or poopstika” the light switch on the stairs that shuts off the hot water heater, the TV that is heard best outside the room its in, many light switches that don´t seem to turn anything on, the random chords in the cabinet and, of course, the fact that we´ve never seen a key for the front door.

Simon (left) and Roxy (right) 

As previously mentioned, we (technically Emily) got 2 cats, Simon and Roxy (aka Profe Simone and Profe Foxxy, according to one co-worker).  They are adorable little kittens, but I won´t go into the cutesy cat stories now, although they are a lot of fun.

I started my master´s degree with Jones International University, an online school based in Colorado.  I would prefer not to take courses online, because I learn more socially, and I am still not sold on the credibility of an online degree, but they offer the courses I need to get a full-fledged license to teach Spanish in Vermont, so I´ve taken the first course and I have nine courses left.  I believe I will finish no later than December 2013.