As you can imagine, with like 50+ kids at the beach, just about every 5 seconds someone is shouting, "Teacher! Teacher! Mira! Look!" Most of the time it's not anything cool, but this one, a dried up erizo de mar or sea urchin (literally "sea hedgehog" haha), was actually cool.

Amongst other cool finds were jibia bones. I always order jibia when I go out for tapas, but like most of the seafood I eat here, I don't know the exact English equivalent of what I'm eating. I was surprised to find out that jibia, which I figured was just some version squid or octopus, is actually cuttlefish. If any of you currently have or have ever had birds, you might recognize the "cuttlebone" in the above picture. There were tons of them all along the shore.

I don't know what it is about this picture that just screams Spain to me. The beautiful beach, the pants rolled up into short shorts, the guy windsurfing in the background. For the millionth time, I love Cabo de Gata!

We went on a field trip to Cabo de Gata yesterday to top off the "Cuidar la Costa" (Take Care of the Coast) program that the 6th graders took on about a month or so ago. We didn't really do much of anything to be honest except read some info about the natural park, fill out a little questionnaire, and then run around the beach for a few hours, but I take every opportunity I can get to go to Cabo de Gata!

Today is día de San Jose in Spain AKA St. Joseph's day. Instead of always having father's day on the third Sunday of June like we do, they take a more religious approach and always celebrate it on St. Joseph's day as he was Jesus' father. Kinda sucks that often times all the dad's have to go to work on their day...didn't think that one through very well.

Anyway, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish my dad a HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! I tried to call you twice yesterday and you didn't answer, punk! Anyway, I hope you had a great day and have a good one today too! You deserve 2 father's day celebrations so don't worry, I'll still celebrate in June too. With any luck, you guys will be here to celebrate it :) LOVE YOU!

The above picture is the Father's Day project we started on Friday with the first and second graders. I found this cute idea online and replicated it so they could all make cards for their dads. I don't have to work today, so I won't get to see the finished product (with English poems written across the front), but they were looking good on Friday!

Finally, after half a year of waiting, I've finally started working in my friend Manu's academy, Academia Indalestudios.

Now, you're going to ask, what on earth is an Academy?...and no, "sports and outdoors" is not the correct answer. Here in Spain, everybody is crazy for a little thing called clases particulares which is basically tutoring for the classes you're taking at school. They range from regular old math, science, and reading classes for little ones, all the way up to extremely complicated engineering classes for university students. There are private tutors that go from house to house to tutor (as I did last year) or there are academies. Obviously all academies don't offer the possibilities for all these complicated classes, but if  a class exists, it's got a corresponding clase particular.

In any case, these academies also do other things. Depending on the academy, you might find computer skills, photography, or even cooking classes.

Now to explain the other part. The other thing that people in Spain are crazy for is getting títulos. Within the European Union, they've intended to make education uniform so that if, for example, you get your degree in Spain you can go work in Germany and it'll have the same value. As a result, they've had to put in place certain requirements. In terms of defining language proficiency, which is obviously an important aspect of finding a job in a foreign country, they've created a ranking system. The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), which I have previously explained in the explanation of my Spanish class, goes:

A1 Breakthrough or beginner

A2 Waystage or elementary

B1 Threshold or intermediate

B2 Vantage or upper intermediate

C1 Effective Operational Proficiency or advanced

C2 Mastery or proficiency

As these titles, especially those for English, are important for finding jobs, everybody is trying to pass the exams. Cambridge University is the entity that administers the most widely accepted English proficiency exam. Indalestudios as well as many other academies offer prep classes for these exams. I have been contracted to teach the prep classes for the speaking and listening sections of the B1 and B2 exams.

I teach 3 afternoons a week, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for an hour and a half each day. After a year and a half of being super unstimulated by my "teaching" (aka not really teaching anything except to the 1st and 2nd graders) activities at school, my excitement about teaching has been revived! I've rediscovered that it's actually fun to teach when your students are motivated and want to learn. Plus, it helps that they're all my age or older and have at least some previous knowledge of English.

My B2 class is definitely my favorite as it's mostly made up of people that I knew previously...they work in the academy. They all have pretty good levels of English and we're able to discuss some complicated issues. This past Thursday, the theme of the class was consumerism and after doing some related listening exercises, they were able to discuss and debate some fairly complex stuff. I was really surprised by how well it went. I still need to get a couple of them to stop being so shy, but overall it's really enjoyable! It is, however, quite a bit more work than I anticipated to find good quality material to work with and to structure the class well. I think after a few more weeks, I'll get the hang of it and things will get easier.

Check out these cool panoramic pictures I made using this awesome program called Hugin. All you have to do is upload the pictures you want to turn into a panoramic, and it does all the work for you! They're not absolutely perfectly aligned, but they look pretty darn good. Click on the images to see the full size versions.

The weather on day 2 was just as perfect as day 1. We hit the slopes a little after 10, Lulu, and Olga took their lessons again from 12-2 and we met up around 2 for lunch. After lunch, instead of parting ways, we all went up the bunny slope with Lulu and Olga and spent the rest of the day going down the bunny slope and then down El río, the blue run which goes all the way to the bottom of the mountain and ends in Pradollano. Olga and Lulu were terrified as they had only done the bunny slope two or three times the whole trip, but Alberto, Luis, and I convinced them to do it. It took us forever, but we finally got to the bottom around 4:30. It was awesome to see the two of them make it all the way down to the bottom and I was glad we did the last run of the trip all together.

I took tons of video but for some reason when I try to upload it to Youtube, it's horrible quality. I think it has something to do with the fact that the iPhone video horizontal and when it tries to turn it to vertical it changes the quality. I'll post videos later if I can figure out how to make them not suck.

We spent Sunday night in the apartment as well, making dinner, playing games, and just having fun. The next morning we woke up early, ate breakfast, cleaned, and headed out all by 10am. I had to get back to Almería for my Spanish class at the university by 3. It was 4 consecutive hours of class...I was NOT a happy camper. Nor did I do particularly well on the practice test we did that day haha. Oh welllll...the trip was worth it!

On Saturday night since we had 7 people in the apartment, we decided to head down to the main plaza where all the restaurants were instead of cooking for 7. Upon seeing the sign for 1euro jarras de cerveza (big mugs of beer) with the purchase of a tapa, we decided on a place called "100 Montaditos." It was crowded and slow but I enjoyed getting to see the town by night. Afterwards, we headed back to the room and drank for a bit before crashing. The next day would be another 8am-er so we didn't get too crazy.

Being one of the highest places in all of Spain, I suppose these mountains are a hot spot for weather observation, signal retransmission, etc. I have no idea what this satellite is used for but it was enormous (keep in mind it is off in the distance and is much bigger than it looks in comparison to these people) and for it's almost fake-looking appearance, it reminded me of something out of the movie Spaceballs haha

After lunch, Alberto, Jose Antonio (his brother), and I headed to la veleta, AKA the highest point at the ski resort. In fact, it's the highest point in all of Spain! We didn't go up to the very very very top because you have to take off your board and walk probably about 100 yards uphill. I would've done it but needless to say, no matter how sunny it is, it is NOT warm at the top of that mountain! Instead, we just snapped a few pictures from where the forfait (ski lift), left us and headed down the mountain. I had to take of my glove for like 2 minutes to use my camera and my hand was FROZEN for like half an hour after that (I'll partially attribute that to my genetically-inherited, poor circulation...thanks a lot MOM! haha).

The views were gorgeous. With the view of Granada down below, it felt like we were up in the clouds.

The first day of snowboarding was a blast! Once again, I was surprised at how quickly it came back to me. One run on the bunny slopes and I was ready to head up to the more challenging runs. Lulu and Olga took lessons from 12-2 and the rest of us (Luis, Alberto, Alberto's brother, Lulu's cousin Cristi, and I) went to the other side of the mountain in search of harder and less crowded pistas or runs. We lost Cristi along the way as she met up with her friend Juaquin (the two of them stayed the night with us on Saturday).

At 2ish we met up with Lulu and Olga for lunch only to find out that Cristi had fallen down, hurt her wrist, and was down below us in the Pradollano hospital. Later that evening, she showed up in a cast with reports of having fractured her radius. No more snowboarding for her for the weekend :(

2012 Official Roster:

Lourdes "Lulu" Gallart
Member status: Founding member
Hometown: Almería, Spain 
Stance: Regular
Botellón drink of choice: Gin or tinto de verano
Other info: Driver of team car 2
Completed her first blue run this year!
Makes a mean espagueti a la carbonara

Alberto Góngora

Member status: Founding member

Hometown: Almería, Spain 

Stance: Regular

Botellón drink of choice: Whisky or beer

Other info: Driver of team car 1 (bright yellow, you can't miss it hahaha)

Owns his own board and boots

Banished to sleep in other room because he snores

Olga López

Member status: First-year member
Hometown: Berja (AKA "BerHa" hahaha)
Stance: Undecided
Botellón drink of choice: Gin or tinto de verano
Other info: Light sleeper early riser.
Snowboarding first-timer.
Good-sport and extremely resilient after falling several times getting off the lift haha

Luis Ramos

Member status: Founding member

Hometown: Almería, Spain 

Stance: Regular

Botellón drink of choice: Rum or tinto de verano

Other info: Often known as "Franchesca" for falling asleep during post-snowboarding drinking festivities

Gets hilarious "hat hair" (see picture)

Ali Zein-Eldin

Member status: Founding member

Hometown: Galveston, TX, USA

Stance: Regular

Botellón drink of choice: Whatever

Other info: The coolest...duh.
In charge of making an American breakfast of bacon and eggs so as not to get as hungry mid-day.

Banished to sleep in the other room because she's half deaf and doesn't wake up to Alberto's snoring

Temporary members:

Jose Antonio Góngora

Member status: Provisional

Hometown: Almería, Spain

Stance: Regular

Botellón drink of choice: Unknown

Other info: Brother of Alberto...the nicer of the two bahahah ;)

 

Cristina Gonzalez

Member status: Provisional

Hometown: Málaga, Spain

Stance: Unknown

Botellón drink of choice: Beer or rum

Other info: Lulu's cousin

Fractured her wrist on day one.

Juaquin (no image available)

Member status: Provisional

Hometown: Unknown

Stance: Regular

Botellón drink of choice: Beer or rum

Other info: Christina's friend

His dad might move to Lubbock, TX for work

Two Fridays ago, Lulu, Luis, Alberto, and Olga came to Rioja to pick me up at 2. We ate lunch at the only bar in Rioja that anyone ever goes to and then we headed off towards Granada for a weekend of snowboarding! We arrived in Pradollano, the cute little resort town, shortly after 5, picked up our equipment and met up the with the guy who we were renting the house from. We got settled in, made dinner, and crashed before midnight so we could get up early for our first day of snowboarding!

The bus from Málaga to Almería didn't leave til 3:30 in the afternoon, so we spent Leap Day morning wandering around Málaga. I couldn't not post this picture. Málaga is post-card beautiful. It'll always be the first Spanish city I fell in love with.

Liverpool is famous more than anything for its affiliation with The Beatles. It's both the city where all four of the musicians were born and where they became famous. The Cavern Club, located 3 floors underground, was where they played some of their first gigs in the early 1960's. When you enter and you see the low, arched ceilings and thick brick walls, it is apparent that the bar was used as an air raid shelter during the World Wars.

Since the 60's the bar has become a tribute to The Beatles. As you can see in the photo at right, every inch of the walls is covered in signatures and devotionals to the band. We went on Monday night after dinner, had a couple of beers, and listened to some live music, the majority of which was Beatles cover songs. We hung out til midnight when the bar closed and then headed back to the hotel which luckily for us was only about a 3-minute walk.

The next day was a travel day, and a long one at that. The first leg of the trip was 3 different buses: downtown Liverpool to the Liverpool airport at 10:30, Liverpool airport to downtown Machester at 11:40, and downtown Manchester to the Manchester airport at 1. Once there we ate the sandwiches we had bought for lunch and then entered the terminal. It's a good thing we weren't in a hurry because I forgot to take the liquids out of my purse and of course they stopped my bag. As the man took his sweet time going through my bag, he also performed a test for explosives. I have no idea how, but my bag managed to have traces of PETN, the plastic explosive that the infamous "Shoe Bomber" used hahaha. He had to ask me all sorts of questions about how/where I might have acquired it and fill out a mini-report. Luckily the second test came back negative and they let me leave after running me through the new x-ray scanner thing and my shoes through some other machine.

At 4:45 we caught the 3-hour flight to Málaga and arrived at 8:45 after gaining an hour from the time difference. Once in Málaga, we took the train downtown and met up with Jose, his roommate Juane, and my old study abroad director, Iker for dinner. Jose let us crash at his place that night as we had to catch the bus to Almería at 3:30 the following day. It was a long trip, but that's expected when you only pay 35 euros for your roundtrip airfare.

The rainy afternoon and all the puddles made for some cool pictures around the port. This ferris wheel, like the one in Manchester runs year round. Not sure what obsession the Brits have with ferris wheels...apparently all the big cities have em.

On Monday after lunch, we boarded the overpriced city bus (£2 each) to go on a second stadium tour. We got off the bus at the famous Anfield Road, home stadium of the Liverpool Football Club. Unfortunately when we got there, we found out that the last tour had been at 3 o'clock. So, on top of the fact that it was raining, we didn't get to go inside and we had to settle for snapping a few photos outside. They did however, of course, let us enter the official team store. Once again they had EVERYTHING Liverpool. We escaped without getting suckered into buying anything and spent another £4 to get back downtown.

Monday morning, we caught the bus from Manchester to Liverpool, the city most famous for it's affiliation with The Beatles, since it's only about 50 minutes away by bus. Liverpool, one of the more important port cities in England, was to me, much cooler than Manchester. Manchester had the typical big city feel to it while Liverpool had much more personality. There's just something about cities on the water that make them so much more appealing to me. Give me a choice between a coastal city and a land-locked one and 95% of the time, I'll probably choose the coastal one.

While I did prefer Liverpool, the weather was a bit less cooperative there. It was cloudy the entire trip, but in Liverpool there was an almost constant mist effect. It didn't actually rain-rain until about 4:30 in the afternoon, but up until that point it was probably 99% humidity and my hair sure noted the difference. While it did rain, the temperatures were not nearly as low as I had anticipated. I didn't have to wear anything heavier than the jacket I normally wear in Almería.

The above and at right pictures are of Albert Dock which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004 for being "the supreme example of a commercial port at a time of Britain's greatest global influence." We wandered around Albert Dock and the rest of the port on Monday afternoon. We stopped in at a little coffee shop at the dock to grab some coffee at about 5:50, the time Spaniards typically get their afternoon caffeine fix, and were advised that they would be closing at 6pm! What a difference from the Spanish schedule (or should I say "time table" as our British friends do haha)!

Earlier in the afternoon we went to the cathedral which happens to be one of the largest in Europe. It is 620ft long, one of the longest in the world, and 330ft high at the top of the central tower. It doesn't look that big from the outside, but from the inside, it's MASSIVE. While it is free to enter, this church is totally in it to make a profit. Inside to the left...yes, I repeat INSIDE the sanctuary, you'll find a little souvenir shop complete with coffee bar and restaurant. Could someone please tell me how that's ok?

This big guy is located smack-dab in the middle of downtown Manchester and runs year round. Strange. We didn't ride it, I just thought it was a cool picture.

This was where we went for dinner on Saturday night. If only it were like Chinatown in Houston where there were tons of little shops and everything was cheap. This place was pretty darn expensive and most of the places were buffet style. We went to a little restaurant that was actually pretty good but it cost us £13 (about $21) for a pretty small amount of food. According to Juanmi's calculations, the equivalent of what we ordered would've cost us about 7€ (about $9) at the Chinese restaurant next to his house.

We spent the first day of the trip in Manchester. After getting to the hotel and dropping off our stuff, we hopped on the tram and headed out to the burbs to see Manchester United's Old Trafford Stadium. Juanmi is a huge soccer fan so this was at the top of his list of things to do. The tour was quite pricey...£15 (almost $24...man, the dollars blows) for adults and £13 ($21) for students.

Before the tour, there was a 3-story museum which houses tons of old jerseys, cleats, trophies, and other memorabilia. Also, there are tons of different exhibits about players and coaches, both past and present. It's pretty incredible to see the dedication people have to their teams in England and in Europe in general. The amount of stuff in that museum was super extensive...a Manchester United fan could spend hours in there reading all of the old newspaper clippings and plaques on the wall.

On the tour of the stadium that seats 75,000+, we got to see the field, go into the home locker room, sit on the bench--which, by the way, was not so much a bench as there were individual car seats donated by Audi or Citroen or one of those companies--and walk out of the player tunnel to a recording of music and a cheering crowd. It was really cool as I had never before done an official stadium tour of any kind. After the tour was finished, they drop you off in the Man U Official Store. From the typical to the absolutely absurd, you can find pretty much anything under the sun with the Man U logo on it. Jerseys for newborns, toothbrushes, gummy Man U players, Man U Monopoly, and many more things you'd never have thought of. Unlike the majority, we made our way out of the shop without spending a dime on souvenirs...figured the £28 we had spent on the tour and museum was enough of a donation!

 

This past weekend was a holiday weekend--4 days off from work to celebrate Día de Andalucía. Thanks to the Ireland-based Ryanair, we found round-trip tickets to Manchester for 35€! With prices like that, you can't really pass up the opportunity. Plus, I've hardly traveled at all since I've been here, so I was excited to get out of Spain and finally see some other parts of Europe.