I know teachers aren't supposed to have favorites, but I'll admit, I've got one! I finish school on Friday, June 1st and now that it's only ONE week away, it's starting to set in that I'm not gonna see these kids anymore after that :(

It's gonna be weird not seeing their smiling faces and not having little "Monkey Zaira" as everyone calls her, jump on me and latch onto my leg everytime I walk into the classroom.

On one hand, I'm gonna be really glad to be done, but on the other hand really sad. Even though overall, I haven't really enjoyed this year at school as much as I enjoyed last year, I like the bilingual classes better this year. 

Since there are 2 bilingual classes, 1st and 2nd grade, and 2 bilingual teachers, Valeria and Jose Luis, we combine the two classes for science and math. We've had a great time all year with these classes (3 hours a week) and the kids have learned a TON. Combining Valeria's and Jose Luis's different strengths has resulted in awesome results and these kids are seriously badasses at understanding English. I literally talk to them how I talk to a regular American kid. Granted they don't understand every word I'm saying, but they usually get the gist of what I'm saying. That's what I'm gonna miss.

Unfortunately as the economic crisis in Spain gets worse (it's REALLY bad by the way, for anyone who didn't know), I think that the bilingual program is gonna be one of the first things to go. Education has already been deemed one of the areas that's gonna receive heavy budget cuts, so I would not be at all surprised if the bilingual programs had dissolved in the next 2 years. 

It makes me sad to know that these kids are gonna lose a good majority of their English the moment their home room teacher isn't bilingual. It's such a shame because if they were to continue in the direction that they're headed now they would basically be bilingual by the time they got to high school.  

Butttt, what can ya do. Hopefully some of their parents will realize this and will enroll them in English classes somewhere else, because sadly to say, without the bilingual program, I have very little faith in the Spanish education system's teaching of foreign languages.

This picture is of three of my favorite second graders--Zaira, Aihnoa, and Carmen, with their 3-year old little siblings--Abel, Idune, and Shere! SO adorable! This picture makes me want to see my lil Zeke-sterrr :(

I'm not exactly sure of the true significance of Las Cruces de Mayo, but from what I was able to gather it's basically a religious celebration that's a fund raiser for Semana Santa. If I understood correctly, the cofradías, or different groups that sponsor the pasos during Semana Santa hold dinners and events downtown during the first week or two of May in order to raise money for their Semana Santa festivities.

At school, the preschool moms and dads planned a little part for Friday, May 4th. Basically all it was was a bunch of food and drink and kids running around dressed up in the typical Sevillana costume for the last two hours of the day. The three girls pictured above definitely get the award for best dressed!

This is the lemon meringue pie I made Juanmi for his birthday! It was my first attempt at meringue and I was super nervous because everything I read on the internet made it seem hard or at least really tedious.

Supposedly the egg whites won't fluff up if there is any sort of oil present in the bowl with them so you have to be sure to use the right type of bowl--metal or glass is ideal as plastic retains the oil from previous dishes. Also I had to wash everything like 95 times to make sure it was perfectly clean and oil-free. You have to try to not get oils from your hands on the parts of the egg shell that they whites touch when you separate them. You can't make it on a humid day because it won't fluff up, etc.

It sounded like a huge hassle but mine turned out just perfectly! Next time it'll definitely be much easier, and yes, there will be a next time because it was super tasty!

On the night of Saturday April 28th we went out for Juanmi's birthday which is the 29th. Since he seems to know like all the bartenders everywhere, he was torn as to where to celebrate. Guarapo won him over when they made him this sign and publicized it on their facebook! hahahaha



At 2 or 3 am they played the traditional Feliz Cumpleaños song and gave him a bottle of champagne with a sparkler on top haha. It was quite the spectacle as all the boys were pretty intoxicated at that point. Needless to say the bottle of champagne got opened by one of the guys and sprayed everywhere...it splashed off the ceiling and got a LOT of random people wet. They were not happy campers haha

The excursion was to last until like 4:30 so all the kids had brought their lunch. Around 2, instead of eating the lunches we had brought with us, much to our surprise all the teachers headed back up to the restaurant where the owner had prepared a paella for all 10 of us! It was GLORIOUS. 

Paella is a traditional rice dish which I believe originated in Valencia. According to wikipedia there are 3 types of paella: "Valencian paella consists of white rice, green vegetables, meat (rabbit, chicken, duck), land snails, beans, and seasoning. Seafood paella replaces meat and snails with seafood and omits beans and green vegetables. Mixed paella is a free-style combination of meat, seafood, vegetables, and sometimes beans...Other key ingredients include saffron and olive oil."

The paella they made us was mixed. It had white rice, red peppers, peas, shrimp, clams, snails, and pork. SO good.

After we had stuffed our faces, they brought us plates of the house deserts to sample them. Later we just sat around til 4 and waited for the bus to come. Overall, a great day :) I wish every day was field trip day!

At the farm there were several ponies and much to their liking, all the kids got to ride one! The guy who was with the first and second graders was AWESOME. He was such a character...always making funny faces and making the kids laugh. He was even able to convince some of them that were scared to ride the pony. The kid in the picture claimed he couldn't get onto the pony by himself so the guy threw him on! Haha

How do you make a peacock open its tail? I still don't know how to answer that question. I do, however, know that throwing pebbles at it doesn't work haha. Jose Luis and Valeria, the first and second grade teachers spent a good 3 minutes chunking pebbles through the fence at the poor peacock while i tried to get a good picture of it. We are SO mature. This was the best picture I got of the little guy...beautiful colors, especially the blue on his head and chest!

 
Is there anything cuter than baby animals?? Even the ugliest of animals are cute when they're babies! Look at these baby goats. Goats are hideous when they're full grown but the little ones sure were adorable.

There were also pigs... 

rabbits...

 
donkeys, as well as iguanas, ferrets, guinea pigs, chickens, various other birds, and more!

On April 26th, we took our last field trip of the year. We went to a town about 15 minutes from Rioja called Sierra Alhamilla to visit a farm called Cortijo El Puntalillo. It was a super cool place and the best part was that the people running the place completely took over and we didn't even have to go with the kids! 


At first they took all of us teachers up to the owner's restaurant and served us a breakfast of toast with your choice of tomato, ham, butter, or jelly and a cup of coffee. Then they showed us the spa which uses the water from the natural hot spring there in the town. After that they finally took us down to the farm and let us wander around without having to supervise the kids. It was great!

At least here in the south of Spain, Mojacar is probably most well-known for it's most prestigious discoteca, Mandala. Juanmi and I went there on Saturday afternoon to get some coffee and so he could show it to me. Even seeing it in April when it's completely empty was impressive. It's absolutely enormous, complete with a pool, a waterfall, several different levels with various different bars, a restaurant, a lounge area in the sand with couches, as well as private beach access. Check out this link to take a virtual tour of the club. I'm determined to make it back to Mojacar to see what this place is like in the summer!

The week after LB left, Juanmi found a cheap hotel in a little town up the coast called Mojacar for a relaxing weekend trip. In the summer, Mojacar is a crazy party destination, but right now it's just a quiet, peaceful little resort town.

On Friday after I finished class, we caught the bus from Almería and headed to Mojacar! We checked into our badass hotel, Hotel Marina Playa, which was right on the beach but not actually in the part of Mojacar where the boardwalk is...it's about 2 miles to the east. Since we got in late-ish and weren't sure of how late the buses would run, we just hung out there that afternoon. As you can see from the above picture, the views from our balcony were stunning, so I had no complaints about having to hang out there that evening.

The price of the hotel included breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the hotel's buffet so we didn't have to worry about heading into town to find places for lunch or dinner. The buffet was AWESOME. I'm not usually a fan of all-you-can-eat style places, but there were tons of options including stuff that's not cheap like fresh seafood. Needless to say, we didn't go hungry!

After resting up from the day of hiking, LB and I went to dinner and then to Alberto's house with my friends. Pictured above are, from left to right: LB, Barby, Lulu, Ceci, Me, and in the front, Patri.

On Sunday, LB and I didn't do anything but cook (we made banana bread...she had to take part in my "baking day" tradition), hang out at my apartment, and watch movies. LB packed up her stuff and we crashed early as she had to catch a cab for the airport at 5:30AM to head back to good ol' Austin, Texas! 

The awesome landscapes at Cabo de Gata made for some really sweet panoramics. Click on them to see the full size images.

The view of Genoveses facing the beach

Genoveses facing away from the beach

Me looking windblown with Genoveses in the background. This was about an hour into our 4 hour long hike! So much fun!

The trail isn't really a well marked path so there are some places were you lose the trail and make your own. The only way you know if you're going the right way is if you stumble upon one of these rocks marked with blue and white stripes. 

 

I know Chicago is called "The windy city," but I'm thinking that as of late, Almería would be more deserving of this name. LB and I knew that the forecast had called for wind, but we had no idea how much.

Thanks to the 45-50 MPH gusts of wind, our legs were left nice and smooth by the sand-blast exfoliation treatment. We were able to lean forward and not fall over as the wind literally held us up. When we got to Monsul, the last beach I wanted LB to see, we literally couldn't even turn around to look at it because there was so much sand blowing in our faces it was painful and we couldn't open our eyes.
 

Check out the above video to see and hear what it was like! If you want to watch it in full screen on YouTube you have to click on the little gear icon at the bottom of the video toolbar and change the quality to "original" or the video will be of horrible quality.

As you can see, it was a beautiful day for hiking! The sky was cloudless and we were in shorts and light jackets. There was only one small problem...

THE WIND!

On Saturday we got up early, ate breakfast, and literally RAN to the bus station (we left the house a little late haha) to catch the bus to San José (pictured above). 

Once in San José, we stopped at a little grocery store and bought some bread and lunch meat to make sandwiches before we took off. From there, we headed to the trail that starts at the west side of town and goes through the mountains alongside the beaches of Genoveses and Monsul, both of which you've seen before on my blog.