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Blog Post for November - Rome, Athens, Madrid Trip

Blog Entry for November

            Ok first of all sorry I kind of took a few weeks off from the blog.  November has flown by I think faster than any of the months I think because of how busy I’ve been.  November has seen me doing quite a bit of traveling!  To briefly mention some of the biggest things that have happened in November: trip to Rome, trip to Athens, trip to Madrid, visit from my sister, and the end of one of my classes. 

            Before any of that happened in November, I was busy with school stuff.  We went and saw a play called “Don Juan Tenorio” for our Literature class, and I had a big presentation over Almodovar a Spanish film director in my Culture class.  Those were two of the biggest things that we did in those two classes.  Of course we had our regular stuff going on, reading, writing, and all the good stuff like that. 

            On the 11^th, I left for ROME with two of my good friends, Heather and Christina.  Another guy was supposed to come but something had happened with his credit card and the purchase didn’t go through which he didn’t realize until about a week or two before it was time to leave for Rome so ended up not coming.  We spent from Thursday the 11^th to Sunday the 14^th in Rome.  There are so many things to see in Rome that I think we could have been there for a month just touring the city of Rome.  We saw tons of stuff while power touring.  Power touring means touring where you go go go go go, see as much as you can, spend time where there is stuff to see, and not much messing around.  I presume we walked around 10-15 miles a day seeing stuff.  We saw many beautiful churches, Roman ruins, and city sites.  We had a tour of the Vatican and that was by far my favorite part of the entire trip.  I think it was all of our favorite thing we visited.

            After getting back to Seville, I had a normal week of classes until Thursday afternoon.  On the 18^th, Thursday afternoon, I rushed straight from class and made it to the airport to pick up my sister Christina.  Christina and I got a taste of the Seville public bike system right away, as Christina and I struggled to purchase a one week pass and get a bike that actually worked.  For lunch on Thursday my host mom, Isa, invited Christina to eat with us.  So we ate soup, chicken, fries, an orange, and a desert.  The food was all good but all of us almost died trying to eat everything.  It was a good meal though and was very nice of Isa to invite us over to eat.  After eating Christina and I power toured parts of Seville.  I knew that the best way for Christina to get adjusted to the time was to just push through the first day of extreme exhaustion and sleep at the same time as everyone else, so that’s what she did.  We saw the cathedral, the Tower of Gold, and the Plaza de España to name some of the big stuff.  By the end of all the traveling Christina had done and the touring of Seville she was extremely tired, but no rest for power tourists like us!  The next morning we got up EARLY, I believe it was 4 something in the morning, for our trip to Athens.  The trip to Athens was a pretty lengthy experience.  We left Seville very early then arrived in Barcelona then finally took the flight to Athens.  We got to Athens and found our hostel which happened to be ultra close to the Acropolis, which is one of if not the focal point of Athens.  We were really glad to be that close.  We snapped some pictures of the Parthenon atop the Acropolis that evening because we were so excited.  We ate some Greek food that night and the next day we did some more power touring.  We saw many things like the Parthenon, Acropolis, Theater of Dionysus, Temple to Zeus, Hadrian’s Arch, and the original modern day Olympic Stadium.  Christina and I noticed that many of the key tourist attractions are not really that tourist friendly in how they are laid out.  This was an inconvenience but she and I made the best of it.  Some of the time we were basically exploring things on our own which worked out fine since we were both motivated to see as much as possible.  We saw a ton that Saturday and then that evening we did a tour of restaurants.  We ate a little at several different places to get as many flavors as possible.  Our main dish was lamb cooked in a clay pot which was delicious.  The next morning, Sunday, we had enough time to tour the Roman Agora which was another incredible place that we were kind of forced to explore on our own.  That afternoon at the Athens airport we had major problems.  There was a late gate change which required everyone at the gate and several other gates to go back through security and to another section of the airport.  Everyone was getting pat down, including a 4 year old girl, and all luggage was being checked thoroughly.  It all made me pretty nervous.  The plane had to wait on all the people that were late, and we took off over an hour late.  Luckily we had a long layover in Barcelona so we didn’t miss that connecting flight to Seville. 

The next day, Monday, I had class and a huge Literature test which was especially difficult after an incredible weekend in Athens, but I just got it back today and I made a 96!  After class Christina and I had the chance to tour the inside of the cathedral here in Seville, which is the largest gothic building on the planet.  It was great! After that we had a disastrous time trying to figure out how to get clothes washed for the Madrid Trip that started the next morning.  We finally found a place and had to pay a pretty penny to get it all done by about 6 am the next morning. 

            We left the next morning on the Madrid Trip, as it is titled by my school.  The Madrid trip lasted from Tuesday the 23^rd until Saturday the 27^th.  Segovia, Toledo, Almagro, and Madrid are a few of the towns we visited on the Madrid trip.  Along the way we saw many palaces and castells that were very impressive.  Many of them we were not allowed to take pictures in so you can just see a few pictures from the outside of the building.  In Almagro we saw a corral style theater called El Corral de las Comedias which is from the 16^th and 17^th century and where plays from Lope de Vega were performed.  In Toledo we saw some beautiful views of the Spanish hill county, wondered the medieval streets, bought some souvenirs (Toledo is famous for works of metal and especially swords), and went to a mass that was done in Latin and Latin Chant.  It was very interesting and Christina and I really enjoyed it.  Also, in Toledo we saw “The Burial of Count Orgaz” which is a very famous painting done by El Greco.  It is possibly the most important painting ever done in Spain.  In Segovia we saw a very impressive aqueduct that still had a span of around 3 miles still standing and reached a height of about 110 feet.  We also saw a Castell there that the Walt Disney castell is based off of, the castell was awesome and had weapons and armor from centuries ago.  Another thing we did in Segovia was eat cuchinillo which is suckling pig.  It was very delicious but not quite as good as it had been talked up to be.  It was so tender that when they brought out the baby cooked pig, they were able to cut all the way through it with a plate.  Honestly in Madrid we didn’t have much time for the entire trip to be called “the Madrid Trip” but we were able to see the Prado.  The Prado is one of the premier art museums in the world.  We stayed there for about 3 and a half hours and saw almost everything we think.  It is a massive art museum and we moved fast to get through in that amount of time.  The museum was impressive but overwhelming.  We were able to see the Palacio Real, Royal Palace, from the outside later that evening.  We also saw the cathedral of Madrid which is a much more modern cathedral that any of the others we have seen in Spain.  It was very pretty and nice to have a change up of style.  The next day, November 27^th, Christina and I parted ways.  Christina took the high speed train to Barcelona, and I took the high speed train back to Seville along with the rest of my school.  The high speed train, Ave, was great.  It went about 160 mph and was very smooth.  Yesterday, Sunday the 28^th I stayed in bed almost the entire day trying to recoup my body.  Today I had class, and it is rainy and cold so I think I won’t be doing much once again.  Anyway that is about as short as I could make November; I hope you have enjoyed it.  Remember all my pictures are online if you would like to view them.  

Blog Entry for 10-31-10 and Happy Halloween

Blog Entry for 10-31-10 and Halloween

Happy Halloween from Spain everyone! 

            Once again the week has sped past with me keeping very busy.  This week hasn’t been exactly eventful, but a great week nonetheless.  Class stuff is all going pretty well.  In my culture class we are talking a lot about everything and it has been interesting.  We had to make our decision on whom or what we would be doing our big formal presentation over this early on this week.  I’ll be doing my presentation on Pedro Almodóvar.  He is a really famous film director, and I should be able to get a pretty good presentation together over him.  It isn’t due until the 9^th for me, but I would love to get started this week.

            In our Literature class we are currently working on a play call Don Juan Tenorio which is a very famous play around these parts.  We have been reading parts of it in class and reading other parts of it at home for homework.  It is really difficult for me to read a play in Spanish the summaries of each scene have been the only things keeping me alive.  We are actually going to go see the play this upcoming Tuesday in the evening and that should be a lot of fun.  Also I have the final copy of a big writing assignment due on Wednesday in my Literature class.  The paper isn’t very long at all, but it has to be written well and have discussed the topic well.  The topic of the paper is to write over a characteristic of Cortázar’s stories.  I’m writing mine on how in all his works he plays with the reader in the sense of what is reality and what is imaginary in the story.  We’ve already been working on it for a little while, and I just need to make some small additions to finish it. 
            As for work, it is still going very well.  I worked a ton last week, and it was pretty fun.  It was exhausting as always but good.  This week I got to work individually with some students which is something I like to do.  One of the other coaches would ask me to work on something specific such as keeping a balanced base or finishing the backhand stroke properly so I had to figure out how to say that and how to make it work.  In addition, I really think the students like one-on-one time like that.  On Wednesday, Eva, who is kind of in charge of the tennis stuff, invited me to play padel with her and some other people.  Padel is a game here that is kind of a combination between big ping pong, small tennis, racquetball, and all in an enclosed court.  It’s popular here.  Where I work there are 4 padel courts and only two tennis courts.  The padel courts are almost always full and there are padel classes that seem to be very popular.  Anyway, so on Thursday I played padel with Eva, Luz Maria who also works with us, and José who I guess is just a friend of theirs.  It was a lot of fun and being able to play tennis defiantly helps.  Also on Thursday, Israel who is actually in charge of the whole padel and tennis program there asked me if I could take the classes from 5-8 because someone was sick.  I said yes so I had a long day at the my work that day starting from 3 playing padel and then until 8 working and all that after classes.  My most difficult class was a class of just 5 kids that were all about 7 years old.  It was quite difficult to understand what they were saying to me when they said something.  Also, they sometimes had problems understanding me I think, and they were FULL of energy.  It was a fun class but hard J 

            This weekend we have 4 days without school.  We didn’t have class on Friday and Monday is All Saints Day so we don’t have class then either.  It has been rainy kind of the last two days which isn’t that fun, but I have been hanging with my friend Elliott.  We haven’t been doing much but still enjoying our time.  Yesterday I went to a Halloween party with a bunch of other people from my school.  It was at one of our tutor’s houses.  The party was a lot of fun.  I didn’t really want to spend money on a costume so I wore my “Above average Joe” shirt and said I was the “above average joe.”  It was only funny to the people from the USA.  There were people there from all over the place: Germany, Holland, Irland, USA, and Spain.  There may have been people from other countries too that I just didn’t talk to.  And that has been my week so until next time. 

Blog Entry for 10-25-10 and Barcelona

Blog Entry for 10-25-10 and Barcelona

            Hola readers, I’ve had another super busy and super fast week.  In school we continued on with our normal class work, covering a lot of material and doing a lot of homework.  I missed my first day of class last week.  I was sick on Tuesday.  I woke up with a pretty rough headache that I had hints of the night before.  The day before I was on the tennis court for five hours without much water so that’s what I think was the cause.  Anyway, that put me behind for the rest of the week kind of, and I struggled to get stuff done last week.  It all turned out fine as far as I know assuming I didn’t forget to turn in homework J.  The next day in our culture class we watched El Cid which is a famous movie about a Spanish War hero.  It was an older movie but we all enjoyed it.  It was very long, and we had to get to school earlier than usual.  The day after that in our culture class we went to a street called “Calle Fería” which is a street long garage sale more or less.  It was fun.  We all had to buy something cheap, under 3 euros, and bring it back to class.  I bought two coins from the dictatorship of Franko.  I like what I bought but some other people got better stuff I would say.  I also worked several days last week, and it continued well.  On Mondays and Wednesdays the other coaches are letting me act as a member of the class.  The students in that class play very well, and it is a lot of fun to play with them.  I’m still trying to get my body back to where it should be to be able to play proper tennis.  It is going to be a while still…..  my leg is, however, doing pretty well I think. 

            This weekend from Friday until Sunday morning I was on a trip to Barcelona.  On Friday morning I met a classmate not far from my house, and we took at taxi at 6am to the airport.  Our flight left at 8am that morning.  It was a rough morning, but it all worked out fine.  In total 11 students from my school went to Barcelona this weekend.  However, a group of them were required to go for their Roman Classics class.  They met with a professor there and had to do some specific things.  The rest of us kind of had the time free to do whatever we wanted.  Pretty much all of us bought a unlimited metro/bus/tram pass that worked for 48 hours and that turned out to be a great idea.  On Friday we went to our hostel which was not necessarily close to where we wanted to be, but it was located in some mountains and was very pretty.  It was only 15 euros for one night, and all of us got to have one big room so it honestly worked out great.  We went into Barcelona and met with our Professor, and all went walking around a bit.  We went to a huge market that was very interesting, where I only bought a smoothie and chocolate J.  We then walked around a street called “Las Ramblas” which is full of people.  There were a ton of people dressed up as all sorts of different things and people.  We ended up at a museum.  The museum was awesome.  Underneath the building there was a big section of Roman town that was excavated.  We walked around on an elevated path and were able to see the entire place.  It was one of my favorite museums we have visited.

            The next day the others all had to go to the required sites for their class.  So it was just three of us all of Saturday which worked out great because there wasn’t as much argument about where or what to do.  We kind of planned out what we wanted to do the night before, and we toured Barcelona the whole next day.  It was a really great day but also SUPER EXHAUSTING.  We walked all day and saw some awesome stuff.  My favorite things were the Mediterranean Sea and the Sagrada Familia.  The Sagrada Familia is a church that is under construction to this day and has been for something like the last 200 years.  It was really impressive.  I took a ton of pictures of it.  You will know it when you see it in the pictures that are online.  It has several kind of cone shaped towers and is very decorated. 

            After touring around all day, we had to decide our plans for the night.  We decided to eat and then watch a movie.  We watched The Social Network.  It was good.  We then had to get to the airport, and it was about 12:45am and our flight left at 6am.  The rest of our group was already sleeping in the airport.  We navigated to the nearest metro station which happened to be packed with quite a variety of people as I’m sure you can image.  We had to change metro lines several times.  In our treck through the underground of Barcelona, I was almost pickpocketed.  A guy was actually messing with my backpack which I didn’t notice then one of the girls I was with, Christina, turned and saw him and said “HEY” he also said “HEY” but then left us alone.  Also a drunk man fell on me in the subway when the metro was turning he lost his balance.  It was quite an experience.  We finally got to the metro line that goes to the airport and of course it is the online line that closes from Saturday to Sunday.  So we retracked our steps to a place we were earlier and had to take a bus.  The bus took forever, and all of us were fading in and out of sleep.  We finally arrived at the airport at about 3:45 am.  The check in counters opened at 4am so we didn’t get to sleep.  I finally got a little sleep when we passed security and were waiting at our gate.  I also slept on the plane.  We got to Sevilla at about 7:30am.  We waited at the airport FOREVER for the bus to come because we were all too poor to take a taxi.  Finally the bus came, and I got home at around 9:00 am.  My trip to Barcelona was over.  It was a great trip, but it drained my body big time.  I slept from 9 until 2:30, ate lunch, then slept from 3 to 8.  I’m back functioning finally today.

            Other news, my sister Christina is going to be able to come to Spain, and while she is here we are going to ATHENS!  I’m very excited.  She will be going along with my school on our “Madrid Trip” which will go to several places along with Madrid.

And as for Isa, my host mom, she is growing on me.  We have been getting along well as of lately haha so that is good. 

Oh just a quick tip, do NOT go into a little supermarket with your backpack on your pack.  I went into supermarket called “El Jamon,” which means “The Ham” so I think they were already bitter about their terrible name but…, to buy some jelly to liven up my toast and butter breakfast that I’ve been blessed with for the last 10 weeks.  I picked up my 75 cent jelly got to the counter and started getting yelled at.  Of course I didn’t understand what was going on because they were yelling.  I said “no entiendo” (I don’t understand) and then they just continued to yell and talk faster so that was pretty much a disaster.  Anyway, “The Ham” and I are not friends.  They were upset that I had already gone through the whole store and made it to the check out counter with my bag.  They checked my bag and believe it or not I didn’t have any merchandise hidden away.  Typical Spain moment for Joe; I wouldn’t say that Spain has the most friendly people around. 

Blog Entry for 10-17-2010

Blog Entry for 10-17-2010

            ¿Qué tal amigos?  This week was a short week because of the Lisbon trip.  We had class on Wednesday and Thursday this week only.  But we did start our new classes so that was actually nice to have a kind of introduction to the classes without having a full first week of them.  My new classes seem like they will be interesting, but they should keep me very busy.  Already after just two days of class we have a ton of homework to be done for Monday.  The Literature class I think is going to be a difficult class for me.  I’ll need to really stay on top of things to make sure I don’t mess up my grade.  We’ve already started reading things that are very difficult to understand. 

            In conversation my Spanish I feel like is not bad, but as soon as we deviate into a specific topic the entire vocabulary changes.  It is the same way in English too, but I’ve just never had to think about it.  I was trying to watch a Spanish movie that was based in the 1700s on an old war ship, and all the words that are specific to that area were new for me.  I know I missed a lot of details in that movie J  Oh well.  There are still people that when they talk I’m not even sure if they are speaking Spanish haha.  It very much depends on the topic and the person that dictates my level of Spanish.  It is getting better though, just slowly. 

            This week I worked Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday so that I could try to get some hours for this short week.  They have started to leave me a court to be in charge of a class by myself.  It is pretty fun, but it can be pretty stressful and frustrating.  There is always someone on the court beside me that can help me if I need them too, but I try not to bother them much with stuff.  And usually if I’m working for someone they stay kind of close in case I need help with something.  On Thursday, however, I did several hours of classes by myself!  My main boss lady, Eva, had to get a lot of paper work done for a tournament, and she had to come a little late because her kids were sick.  It is pretty fun to work there but….. after I work I’m always exhausted both physically and mentally.  All in all things have been very good this week.  I’m hoping next week keeps the trend going. 

José

Link to our video project

Link to our video on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy2rDxRYsVg

10-12-2010/Lisbon Portugal

Blog Entry for 10-12-10/Lisbon, Portugal

Bon Dia…. Okay I’m not sure how to spell it but that is “good day” in Portuguese.  I’ll talk about that in a little.  Since last week, many things have been going on here in Spain.  Most of the things that have been going on have been school related.  This past week I finished two of my classes.  I finished Spanish Conversation and Advanced Grammar.  I haven’t gotten the official report, but I can say with some certainty that I made A’s in both of them!  My Spanish Internship class lasts the duration of the semester so I’ll still be doing stuff for it into December.  For my conversation class, we had a final culture project and an oral exam to complete the class.  My oral exam went very well, and I was very pleased with my grade.  The final culture project was a short video conducted in Spanish with your group.  In my group we had three people, and our video was called “Un Día en Sevilla.”  It was a funny video about our experiences here in Spain, and about some difficulties we have had while being here.  We tried to make it funny, and I think it turned out pretty well.  My group and I started out a little rough I think, but we came together really well in the end.  I’ll put a link to the video if you would like to watch it.  We ended up winning the award for the best video in the class, and we each won a figuring of one of the famous sites here in Seville, La Giralda.  For my grammar class, we had a difficult test over what we had studied these past weeks.  I do not know my grade on that test yet, but I can say that it was quite difficult so we will just have to wait and see. 

Tomorrow morning I’ll be starting two new classes:  Spanish Life and Culture and Spanish Literature.  I’m very excited about the new classes.  We will not be focusing so much on language anymore but will be treating it more as a regular class that’s in Spanish.  I am pretty worried about the literature class as any kinds of reading intensive subjects are not my strong points.  I’ve spoken with the instructor, and she feels that I should do fine in the class as long as I put in the time.  As for the Spanish Life and Culture class, I’m not sure what to expect.  I think the class could really cover a wide range of things so I will just have to wait and see what comes of it. 

            Just earlier today I was in Lisbon, Portugal.  Lisbon is the capital of Portugal and a city of around 2 million inhabitants.  I left for Lisbon last Friday morning early in the rain with my school on a charter bus.  My good friend Elliott came with us and several other additions came along with us, so the bus was pretty dang full.  Lisbon is about 6 hours from Seville counting one pretty long bathroom/rest stop.  We had nasty weather pretty much the whole way there, but the bus ride wasn’t too bad.  When we got to Lisbon we first went and saw several sites.  We saw a Geronomite (not sure about spelling on this at all, sorry) Monastery that was very impressive.  The Geronomites that lived at this place were among the first people to copy the bible and translate it to Latin.  It was a place of great knowledge in past times and the Geronomites that lived there often offered knowledge and advice to the king of the time.  The chapel that was attached to the monastery was also very beautiful and had the tomb of Vasco de Gama.  I’m sure you all remember hearing that name TONS of time back in 7^th grade history class.  Well de Gama was the man that pretty much established the first trade route to India.

            That night we ate at a Brazilian meat house.  I’m not sure exactly what you call the places, but we have them in the USA also.  We had all you can eat meats and salad.  It was really great food; we also had green wine which is typical Lisbon.  The next day we went to an aquarium that was constructed as part of the World’s Fair of 1998.  (I’m not sure about the year, I think that is correct)  It was awesome there.  We saw tons of different types of marine life.  Elliott and I decided we wanted to see a whale though….  After that, we rode a “ski lift” style thing across part of the World Fair set up, and it dropped us off in another section.  We ended up taking the metro back towards our hotel.  On the way back, we stopped at a really big mall, Vasco de Gama is the name of the mall if I remember right.  Our director had told us that the biggest mall in Europe was there in Lisbon, but Elliott and I are not sure if that was the right one or not.  We had some time to go to the downtown area and walk around that afternoon.  I decided that Lisbon is a really beautiful city that I would love to visit again.  Honestly, I wish they spoke Spanish there so I could be doing study abroad there.  It really was a great city and pretty much everyone had the same feeling. 

            The next day we went to Cristo Rei, Christ the King.  It is a big statue that mimics the huge statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janerio.  I paid the fee to ride to the top and the view from atop was amazing.  I’ll be putting pictures on the internet soon so you can see them too.  There is also a big bridge in Lisbon that was made by the same people that created the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco so it looks very similar.  I isn’t far from the Christ statue so I have some pictures of that too.  After that we went to a city just outside Lisbon that is called Sintra.  Sintra is in the mountains and is where many of the rich from Lisbon built huge houses for the Summers.  There are many things there to see such as palaces, castells, and gardens.  Elliott and I only had time to walk around and see the Castell of the Mores which we both really really enjoyed.  It was windy and pretty cold on top of the mountain where the castell was, but it was well worth it.  The site is still under excavation so there is still much to be discovered there.  The palace there was an impressive site from the castell, and I have some pictures of it.  It looks like something out of a story book.  From the castell, Elliott and I walked down some nature trails all the way back to the town.  It was a long trail, but it was stunning.  The next day was today J.  We were on the bus for most of today it feels and that concluded our trip to Lisbon.  So until next time…. Adiós Amigos