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

My Mailing Address

I´ve had some people ask for my mailing address here in Spain.  We recieve our mail here at the school.  The address is below

Joe Otto
Texas Tech University
Recaredo 44
41003 Sevilla, Spain

10-2-10

Blog Entry 10-2-2010

                Howdy readers,

Another week has flown by here in Spain.  Nothing too exciting happened this week.  I had a lot of school work going on all week and was trying to catch up on my work hours.  As far as classes go, my grammar class and conversation class are coming to an end this coming week.  They will be done on October 8^th.  So we have been racing trying to finish all of our stuff.  We have some projects going on that are big parts of our grades.  We also have some tests coming up and all the other stuff that comes along with the ending of a class.  So this coming week is looking like it will also be pretty hectic.  I got back a grade report in my conversation class, and I have an A in there Thank God.  And we got our latest test back in our grammar class, and I was lucky enough to get an A so grade wise I should come out with A’s unless I really mess something up. 

                My internship class doesn’t end until December, and as I had said before I started my job kind of late so last week I tried to make up as many hours as I could.  I worked 3 or 4 hours every day last week.  May not sound like much but it was a lot of time and energy.  The job is really going pretty well I think.  I’m pretty much just feeding balls to students that are taking classes there.  I’m learning some good tennis terminology that will be nice to have and also some good drills.  The other people I work with are usually nice and seem to be glad that I’m there.  Some of the kids are starting to talk to me some and that is fun.  Most of the times the younger kids talk to me I have no idea what they are saying, but they seem to be enjoying saying whatever it is they are saying haha. 

                I feel like my Spanish made a nice move forward this week.  With going from class to tennis to homework all in Spanish last week I think helped.  Also, almost every day I watch a DVD or at least part of a DVD in Spanish before I go to sleep.  I also found two people that I’ll be able to do intercambios with.  For example, last night I met with a guy that wants to practice English, and we talked the first 30 minutes in Spanish and the next 30 minutes in English. 

                For our conversation class, our final project is a short video that we have to make where we speak Spanish.  I think ours is coming along slowly, but it should end up being pretty funny if it all comes together well. 

That’s all for now I think.  This coming weekend we are going to Lisbon, Portugal, and I’m super excited about it.  Elliott will be coming on that trip with us, and it should be a great trip.  Until later, wish me luck on my tests this week J 

Hasta Luego

José

Link to all Photos

http://picasaweb.google.com/jjotto?authkey=Gv1sRgCJT877-KtKSR0gE

That is the link that will get you to my entire web album and from there you can click on the specific albums.

Crazy Week of Travel/ 9-26-10

Wow another week has flown by maybe even faster than any of the others.  This week our school was super busy.  We had regular class on Monday and Thursday; the other days we were doing stuff outside of the classroom.  On Wednesday we went to the Sevilla Alcazar which is a palace for the king of Spain.  The king and queen still have their own rooms there for when they want to visit Sevilla.  The buildings there are very impressive and have a ton of decorated plaster throughout the whole complex.  Also, many of the ceilings there are made of many many pieces of wood that is cut into shapes that fit together like a puzzle.  The pieces are then steamed so that they expand and hold together.  We have seen this type of ceiling many places in Spain already.  It is a technique that was used heavily by the Muslims when they occupied Spain.  The Sevilla Alcazar is not a Muslim building but, it is decorated in the Muslim style.  Also the Alcazar has a huge garden with paths and fountains all over.  The gardens are kept up very well and are beautiful to walk around. 

The next day we went to another city called Mérida.  Mérida was one of the most important cities of the entire peninsula during the reign of the Romans.  Mérida has some of the best Roman buildings in the world.  We stood in an amphitheater that was used for gladiator fights, scripted naval battles, and other sporting events.  We walked around a Roman theater that was used for plays and is still in pretty good condition.  The world’s best preserved Roman chariot race track, circus, is also in Mérida which we saw.  We saw the longest bridge that the Roman’s ever built to our knowledge and an awesome aqueduct.  We also went to the archeological museum where we saw many relics from the Romans including some mosaics that covered entire walls of the museum.  Also when they were building the museum they found more Roman ruins and a Roman road that connected Mérida to other important cities.  We were able to see these things in a basement section of the Museum.  All in all, Mérida was incredible.  We did all of this in one day so we were very busy.  And I’m sure there was more to see that we just didn’t have time to see.  So as you can tell Mérida has a very impressive Roman past that I thoroughly enjoyed seeing first hand.  I have pictures that will be put up onto the internet soon. 

Then we had regular class on Thursday, and then early Friday morning we left for Granada on our first overnight trip.  Elliott and another girl, Taylor, from his program came along with us.  It was a great trip.  Granada has a ton of impressive things to see.  The most impressive is the Alhambra.  The Alhambra is a royal palace and fortress but really a city in itself that was constructed in the 1300s.  It is a large complex that was in the running of being one of the 7 wonders of the modern world.  Here is a link with more information about it if you care to read it:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra    It is a beautiful place with huge gardens.  The gardens are called the Generalife and are extremely impressive with views over the whole city.  Granada also receives enough snow to be a place to ski in the winter with a 45 minute drive to the Mediterranean Sea.  Also in Granada, we saw the Royal Chapel where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella are actually buried.  These two got married and united Spain, so they are very important in Spanish history.  They also have some relics from their lives along with their own personal art collection.  We were actually able to see the crown, scepter, and sword of the king and queen.  After the Royal Chapel, we headed to the Cathedral of Granada which by the way is still not actually 100% completed.  It will never be finished actually.  It took 180 years to “complete.”  It was amazing just as most of the cathedrals are.  This cathedral had several side chapels that had extremely impressive alters.  There were two alters that were ultra-baroque in style, churrigueresco in Spanish.  They pretty much didn’t have even one inch that wasn’t decorated.  The city was great and is often a favorite place to visit for Spaniards and tourists alike.  I, however, wasn’t able to take pictures in some places so you won’t be able to get the full effect. 

In addition to all these things that went on this week, we are still not done.  Tonight we are going to a bull fight!  Supposedly we are very lucky to be getting to see the bull fighters that are fighting tonight.  Usually, the groups of students can only get tickets to see the younger less known fighters and tonight’s are supposed to be incredible.  I’m pretty excited about the experience, but I hope it isn’t too gruesome. 

That’s all for now, I should be working on homework anyway.  So until next time people.

José

Pictures from Morocco Trip

Morocco Pictures <----- Click there

9-20-10 and Morocco

Blog entry for 9-20-10 and Morocco

Howdy peeps, another week has passed, and I think even faster than the last week.  Time is FLYING here with all the stuff that is going on to keep me busy.  This last week for school we had several small quizzes, had to watch a Spanish movie, had an oral exam where we had to act out scenes from pictures, I started my internship finally, a big presentation that each student has to do once each semester, and then the regular school stuff on top of that.  The movie I watched was called Lope.  It is a movie about Lope de Vega, a famous poet and playwright.  Everyone in our entire class ended up seeing this movie because it was the only movie that wasn’t dubbed over from another language and that was a requirement.  I understood the storyline of the movie but not the details.  Also, I volunteered to do my newspaper presentation first so I could get it over with for the semester.  I gave a presentation over an article that talked about psychology as a treatment for cancer.  It was pretty interesting, and I feel like my presentation went pretty well.  Overall, I think most of the stuff from this past week dealing with school, except one vocabulary quiz that I forgot about and did terribly on. 

I also started my Spanish internship finally.  I am working at a sports complex that has tennis, padel (a game kind of between tennis and racquetball), and a weightlifting gym.  I have just so far been doing stuff with tennis, and I think that is where I’m going to be staying.  Basically, my job is to help the tennis instructors that are there with whatever they want me to do.  I’ve been feeding balls to people that are having lessons.  I hope to maybe meet some people through this internship and obviously learn a lot of Spanish.  I’ll be working Monday – Thursday as it is scheduled now, and I think it will end up working out pretty well.  I have a sore arm already after just two days of working there because it has been so long since I’ve held a racket for that period of time.  I hope I end up getting to play some tennis while I’m working there.  My Achilles seems to be doing pretty good.  I’ve been trying to do some distance running; I still feel like the muscle and Achilles need more time to do full out sprints. 

This past weekend I was in AFRICA.  I went to Morocco with a tour group and 7 other students from my school.  I was a little worried about the trip at first because I didn’t know what to expect or much about the other students from my school, but it all went really great.  We had a great time in Morocco and saw some really awesome things.  It is like a whole different world there than most anything I’ve seen before.  There are similarities but also many differences.  The cities of Morocco, from what I experienced, had some similarities to Mexico City but…. That’s not a good comparison really.

We left on Friday from Sevilla on a bus, went to Cadiz, Spain to pick up some other people.  From there we went directly to the coast so that we could cross between the two continents.  We crossed on a big ferry.  The two continents are actually close enough in place to see from on to another.  You may not be able to see a city or something like that, but we were able to see some mountains in the distance on the African continent.  We were on the ferry for about 45 minutes.  We arrived to the port of the Spanish city Cueta.  I had no idea before this trip that Spain has two cities/regions on the African continent.  It was very cool to be able to say that I was in Spain but also in Africa at the same time.  From there we drove to the border between Morocco and Spain.  We had to sit at the border for over an hour while all the people and buses passed.  Our passports had to be stamped then a Moroccan official had to come aboard the bus and check the passports.  It was a little scary I thought, but we made it through without any problems.  From there we went to our hotel for the night which happened to be directly on the ocean and was very nice.

Ok I can already see that this blog could be a little TOO long so I’m going to cut a lot of detail from this point on. 

We left the next morning to go to the city of Tetuan.  We had a walking tour of Tetuan.  We walked through markets and plazas and many things.  I have pictures of everything so check them out when I get them online.  The center of Tetuan has over 3000 small streets and everything is written in Arabic so we paid close attention to not get lost.  Some of the little paths were small enough that you would have problems getting a bike though them!  The center of the city was a great experience.  We had our tour guide at the front of our group, a native at the end of our group and another guy kind of in the middle keeping people away from us.  He also would sometimes run ahead and check the next street/path we would turn on to and signal to our guide to come or not to come.  I’m not sure if this was for safety or what it was for exactly but….. I could see how it could be a very dangerous place if you were to get separated or not be with locals.  After the tour we ate at a typical Moroccan restaurant that was very good with music and even a belly dancer.  We then boarded the bus again and headed to Tangier (Tanger, I’m not sure I’ve seen it written both ways many times now), one of the larger cities especially in the northern part of Morocco.  We were able to go out and about in Tangier kind of on our own.  Which by this time, it was already approaching night.  All 8 of us from my school went out and saw some local market areas.  Some of us bought some stuff, but mainly we just walked around and tried to experience as much as we could.  It was really really cool, and I took some video and a ton of pictures.  We then had to wake up the next morning at 6 to leave for a mountain city called, ChefChaouen.  It was a very pretty city with most of the buildings and walls painted blue.  We had a very entertaining tour guide in this city.  I have some good pictures from this town also that I think will be interesting to look at.  We left the mountain city and started our decent.  It was a ROUGH ride back down the mountain.  It was hot, the tour guide said because we were close to the sun on the mountain and we were all a little confuse by this statement, but we turned and spiraled down the mountain eventually.  We headed back the boarder and boarded out ferry to head back to Spain.  We then boarded our bus and headed back to Spain. 

A few quick things I didn’t put up there:  I rode a camel right on the coast, you can see the ocean in the back ground.  I bought a handmade small carpet that is very pretty.  And I saw the point where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean and took a picture where you can see both at the same time. 

That pretty much concludes this entry.  I hope it wasn’t TOO long.  I tried to keep it kind readable.  Until next post! 

9-13-10

Hola readers,


I am currently sitting in the kitchen of my house at midnight sweating, not feeling tired, and working on a bunch of homework that I need to have done for tomorrow. Not so glamorous…. But I had a really long siesta and put off my homework till the last minute so that’s what brings me here.

Anyway, this past week flew by very quickly. I stayed busy with school and a professional tennis tournament that was going on here in Seville. School stuff is going pretty well. We get several things to do for homework each day and then projects that are kind of going on all the time in the background which means I have stuff I can do for school all the time. I guess that’s how they want it though. Every Tuesday we have a tutoring session with some other kids around our age which is fun. Last Tuesday my tutor was a very pretty 21 year old girl. Some of her other friends were doing the tutoring so we went with several other people to a plaza downtown. It was a lot of fun, and that group of tutors wants to hang out with some of us some time soon. They were all pretty fun and nice people. One of the guys had just gotten back from Texas where he went to visit one of the friends he had made from a previous semester. I hope I can become friends with them.

I also got my first two tests back that we had taken last Friday. The first exam was an oral job interview which was actually pretty stressful because we didn’t know what questions the teacher was going to ask. I made a 96 on that so I was pleased. The next exam was in the grammar class and was also stressful because we have covered quite a bit of stuff. I made a 96 on that test also so I’m glad to get the first round of tests over with and have done well.

There was a tennis tournament going on here in Sevilla called the “Copa de Sevilla.” I went there pretty much every day for a few hours and watched some really good tennis. The number one seed in the tournament is ranked 76 in the world so he was very good. There were also many other good players there. It was a lot of fun. The tournament happens to be at the same tennis club where I’m trying to get my internship. We didn’t have any luck getting to talk to anyone last week though because of the tournament. I’m pretty sure I’m the only student that is supposed to have an internship that doesn’t have one yet. That is going to be a major project of this upcoming week. Now that the tournament is over, we are going to try to talk to them again this week and see if we can work something out. If not at that club, there is another club that is near the school that is more of a gym but also has tennis courts. The boss of that place is on vacation until the 15th, so that will be our next option. If neither of those work, then I’ll be working somewhere else. I really am holding out hope for a tennis internship to work because if not then I really have no idea where I would work.

This weekend we went to a town called Cordoba. Cordoba has a lot of history. It was one of the cultural centers of the world for many years. It was a place where for a time, Jews, Christians, and Muslims all lived together with relative harmony which was very rare for past times. We saw a massive mosque that around 700 years old. It was beautiful. It was massive, and very famous. The mosque was built to not have many walls so it has many small pillars with a double arch on top. It is an architectural marvel of the time period. The mosque also has a very unique history. At some point the city became a Christian city, and a cathedral was built right in the middle of the mosque. So you can be walking through the mosque and then all of a sudden you are in a beautiful Christian cathedral. And the mosque was originally built on the site of an old Visigoth church and some parts of that are still visible. I took a lot of pictures that I will put up soon, but they won’t do the building justice by any means. It is arguably the most beautiful building in Spain. Also, while in Cordoba we walked across a very large Roman bridge and saw some Roman ruins. In addition to the Muslim, Christian, and Roman culture, we saw one of the only three medieval Jewish synagogues still standing in Spain. It was relatively small but nonetheless very interesting. All of this happened on Friday.

On Saturday, I went to the beach in a city called Matalacañas. The beach was beautiful, and I went with some very fun people from my program, Elliott, some people from his program, and then a few other US friends. We had a great time there it was very relaxing. This weekend, I’m planning on going to Morocco! I haven’t gotten all the details set yet so I’m not 100% sure, but several people from my school are planning on going. It does cost some extra money but when am I going to have the chance to go back to Africa or Morocco. I’m very excited and hope it works out.

Ok well, I’m getting tired finally, and I still have a ton of homework to do so I’ll end this here.

Oh Isa and I have been talking more and I think she likes us better now that she knows us a little better.

Link to Spain Pictures Again

Uploaded some new pictures so here is the link again.

Click Here for Spain 2010

9-4-10 Day After Portugal and La Rabida

Buenos Dias de Sevilla! I wanted to write this one before it got away from my memory. Yesterday we had another excursion, which I did not miss, to a place called “La Rabida.” We went several places yesterday actually. We left Sevilla yesterday morning on a charter bus and went to an old water well. The well was just not a normal water well though because it was the exact well where Christopher Columbus filled his water supplies for the last time before leaving for the Americas. After the well we got back on the bus for about 15 minutes and drove to the monastery where Columbus stayed for a while. Columbus stayed at this monastery after he had asked Spain, Portugal, and France to fun his voyage to the Americas. As Columbus was there he spoke of his ambitions to find another route to India for trade, and the more he talked the more the monks there began to believe that he might actually know what he was talking about. One of the priests at the monastery happened to be the priest who Queen Elizabeth confessed to. Finally that priest decided that he should tell the Queen about this man, Columbus, who wanted to sail. She took the advice and then decided to fund Columbus’s voyage. She provided him with one ship. She then proceeded to buy the entire town of La Rabida and offer the town two options. The town could either provide two additional ships and sailors or pay 25% tax on everything. The town obliged by providing the ships and sailors. The rest from there is history!



While at the monastery, we saw some of the first maps of the New World. It is so interesting because the first maps just had that entire part of the world as a spattering of islands not anything like the large masses of land that are actually there. I’m not sure if it was the original or not, one of our professors said he thought it was the original map, but there was one of the first maps of the Americas on buffalo hide at the monastery. I have a picture of it that I will put up on the internet soon, but I’m not sure how well you will be able to see it. On the map the New World is just a few islands, and they didn’t know about any of the rest of the land at the time. It was just something so cool I thought. There was so much history and world changing events that happened right where we were visiting. If you think about things that have changed the world the most in the last 1000 years the discovery of the Americas has to be in the top 5 without a doubt. I know that it is not universally agreed that Columbus was the first to discovery the Americas, and honestly I’m not so sure he was, but the bottom line is that it is what we are taught in schools today because there are no other definite records of other people discovering the Americas so as for now Columbus gets the credit. Whether he did or didn’t discover the New World, it was still a massive part of history, and I feel very lucky to have been there.


After the monastery, we went to a place where they had replicas of the 3 ships that Columbus was in charge of on his first voyage and discovery. We were able to walk around on the ships, and it was so cool. I have pictures of the ships that will be on the internet soon too.


We left for Portugal after ship replicas! We went to a city called Lagos. Lagos is a city on the ocean that is known for its beaches. The majority of the students in my school are actually staying there until this Sunday. I, however, along with 4 others decided to come back to Sevilla. We were only in Lagos for about 1 hour and 30 minutes, but I had enough time to go put my feet in the water. I also got some pictures that show how pretty it was there. I hope they turned out ok. It was a beautiful place.


Anyway, I just wanted to write about my experiences yesterday. I cannot believe that just yesterday I was at many of the same places as Christopher Columbus and then in Portugal! It still isn’t really registering that I’m in Europe many, many miles away from home, but I’m trying to take it all in as much as I can.

9-1-10

Hola de España, half way through the second week of school and stuff is speeding up. My classes are becoming something that takes up A LOT of time. I’m only taking two classes right now, but we have homework in both of them everyday. We have stuff we are supposed to be doing daily, weekly, and bi-weekly. So as you can image that stuff starts to take up a lot of time. Once my internship starts, I’ll have even more going on with it. I will not only be working, but I will also have reports on current events, reports on the job, formal journals, and informal journals to add to the list. Nonetheless, I’m very excited for the internship stuff to get going. Most people have already started theirs this week. The director of the school and I have been working to find a place where I can get involved into some tennis somehow. Part of the problem has been that a lot of businesses didn’t reopen until today from the Summer vacation period. So tonight at around 5pm, we are going to call a place again about the internship. We are in a rush to get it started because I don’t want to be behind in mine and also the director leaves for Texas for 10 days tomorrow. Tomorrow I have two tests, one of them being strictly oral. It should be “interesting.” Tonight I will be doing some pretty serious studying; I really like to try and do well on the first test to give myself a little room to breathe.



On Friday we will be going to Rabida and Lagos, Portugal. Rabida is the location where Columbus set sail for the Americas. They are going to have replicas of the ships that he sailed on for us to walk on, and I’m very excited about it. Hopefully, I can get up on time for this one; we have to leave early again though…. After Rabida, we are going to be taking the bus to Lagos, Portugal. It is supposed to be a beautiful place known for its beaches. We will only be there for about two hours. Almost everyone in my school will be staying there until Sunday and coming back Sunday evening. I, however, decided against it. I’m hoping to try and meet some Spanish people that I can make friends. I would love to go to the beach, but I can go to the beach with a bunch of people from Texas in Texas….. Just my thoughts, plus I’d rather save my money for a trip to maybe Italy! I do plan to go to the beach sometime this September before it gets cooler; I just have to find a time to go.


If I can get the internship stuff started soon that would be great because I think I’ll be spending a good bit of time there. I would really really like to make some Spanish friends that like tennis. It’s always good to have something that you enjoy in common with friends….. ok well I guess that’s the basis of friendship but anyway you know what I mean.


My friend Elliott, whom I played tennis with at Meridian CC, is back in Spain from his tour of North Spain. He has since rented a city bike like me, and we have been able to get around to almost anywhere we want with pretty much ease. We found a place last night where we can watch the US Open. We will probably be staying at the sports bar quite a bit for the next two weeks 


Last night we went out with our tutors, it is something that we will be doing for the next 6 Tuesdays. My tutor this week was a very friendly girl named Susana. She was talking slower and clearer for me, but I was still happy because I could understand pretty much everything she was saying. She also said that my Spanish was good. I still don’t feel as if my Spanish is back to where it was when I left Mexico two years ago, but it is getting back there for sure. I’m thinking that by the end of this week I’ll be back to that level. I hope then I can start moving forward. I’m very excited that I’m going to be here so long so that I can really, hopefully, get good at Spanish.


Anyway that’s all for now, and it’s about lunch!


I haven’t decided yet, but I think I might start writing some of my blog after the English part in Spanish just for the practice so if you speak Spanish don’t make fun of me too much haha

Map showing where my house is

Map to where my house is, Click Here

1st Week of School Done

Well the first week of class is over here in Spain, and it was a good one I think.  I feel like my classes are pretty good and that I’m going to learn a lot.  I’m really excited about the internship that hopefully will start next week for everyone.  I am going to try to get a position at a tennis complex.  I really really hope it works out because I think it could be a fun job, and I could get to know some other people interested in tennis.  If it works out I’m not really sure what I’m going to be doing but…. Time will tell.

It is still SUPER hot here and the lack of A/C in the house is a problem.  It is hard to sleep well or enjoy yourself in the house much.  We always are sweating when we eat our meals so that really is a bad deal.  It has been over 100 for like the last 3 days, and it is supposed to be over 100 until at least Monday.  Our host mom is pretty nice usually, and she makes great food.  The only thing is that she has never had kids so I know that that affects things here.  I feel that some things are hard for a person that has never been a parent to understand when trying to act as a host parent.  I’m not sure how to explain it well, but I think you probably know what I mean.  And I can’t really think of a specific example so …. Well yeah you get the picture.

Today we were supposed to go to Italica, a place near Sevilla with Roman ruins I think.  We were supposed to leave at 9 from a bus stop across town, but of course my roommate and I over slept.  I’m really feeling like crap about it too.  It is something I wanted to attend, and I hate that I missed the first excursion.  It makes a really bad impression to the teachers, and I’m not sure what the consequences will be.  I don’t feel like that is something I would normally do by any means.  I’m, generally speaking, a responsible person I think.  I seem to always have problems getting up in the morning though even back home.  With the difficulty of falling asleep, sometimes the mornings are even worse for me. 

Isa our host mom is also not happy about us missing because she got up earlier than normal to make our breakfast of toast and coffee.  She also tried to wake me up because I told her yesterday that I have problems getting up in the morning when I have to wake up earlier than normal.  See normally my roommate and I don’t have class until 10am so we don’t have to wake up so early, but this morning we had planned to get up by 7:45.  Anyway Isa said she is never ever getting up early for that kind of thing again for us because we didn’t even get up for her.  I felt like that was a little harsh and maybe that’s what I was talking about that she has never had kids.  I know a parent would be upset but would be able to get over it without making statements like that.  Anyway enough about that, as you can tell I’m not happy about how this morning has progressed.

On a better note, I think my Spanish is improving.  I’m still having some serious problems with the differences in sound of Mexican Spanish and Spain Spanish.  Some people I can almost understand completely and others I have no clue what they are talking about.  It is getting better though.  Our director told us that the South of Spain has a pretty distinct and heavy accent, so that makes me feel better.  He also said that once you are able to understand this Spanish, it will help tremendously to understand almost all the other dialects of Spanish from around the world because our ears will already be trained to pay very close attention.  I can understand all the teachers very, very well when they speak Spanish.  I would say I understand about 95-100% of what is said in class. 

Also, I rented a bike this a few days ago which has been much better than walking everywhere.  Sevilla has a public biking system where there are bike stations throughout the whole city and you can take and return a bike to any station.  So it is not so much that I rented a bike, it is more like I have the availability to get a bike whenever I need. 

As of right now, I’m only taking two classes every day.  Our schedules change in mid-October, and I think I’ll actually only be taking on class then but not sure yet.  The two classes I’m taking are called “Basic Conversation” and “Advanced Grammar”.  I really like both my teachers for those classes.  They are nice, fluent, enjoy their jobs, and very helpful.  And honestly, I enjoy the classes most of the time.  I, however, am mainly looking forward to making some native friends here.  I think my best opportunity for that might be the tennis place where I hope to work.  Some Spanish friends here would awesome and would help my Spanish by leaps and bounds.  

Isa has two nieces that go to the University of Sevilla that are going to be coming to stay here during the weeks starting sometime in September as I understand.  They apparently have done it for their duration while attending the university.  I hope they are nice people and are glad to have Americans in the house.  If they are nice, they could really help to make this trip great.  Maybe they can help us meet people and show us around.  Plus, it would give this house a little more excitement.  Right now there is no internet and only one TV which is in the living room which also happens to be Isa’s bedroom.  So when we are at the house there isn’t much going on.  Its sitting in the room, eating, doing homework, or sitting on the couch with Isa watching TV.  

Ok this one is long because, well, I’m sitting in my room waiting until it is time to eat.  After we eat I plan on taking a siesta then go to an internet café…. Exciting day.  Anyway, I’m about to save this in Word so I can upload it later haha.