Payday!

I got paid today! After a month of working, I was finally given my first paycheque today... Although there was some confusion about who I was supposed to be paid through: the Junta de Andalucía (ie. the school) or MEC (the program which I applied to to get this job). We tried to sort it out, but in the end we just had to wait an extra week to find out, because although one of the many boring speakers at orientation had tried to explain this detail to us, I couldn't understand them as the whole thing was in Spanish!

It's a good thing I had plenty of money in the bank to last me until now.

Unfortunately the cheque the school gave me was through a bank called BBVA, and my bank account that I set up was with the Banco de Andalucia. This meant I would have had to wait in line at one bank to cash the cheque (so that the school is not charged a fee), then go wait in line at my bank to deposit the money. To get around this, I decided to set up a second Spanish bank account. I had originally wanted to open an account at the BBVA, but they wouldn't let me do it with just a passport. Expecting difficulties, today I went in prepared: I had my cheque, a letter from the Junta de Andalucia which we received at orientation that explained our situation and what we would be using the bank account for, and my NIE certificate. I think it was the NIE that did the job, as she needed some sort of an ID number and they are not allowed to open accounts with only a passport - you must be a resident of some kind. However, they gave me a much better account as I can now take out 600 Euros at a time instead of only 150 Euros (like at the Banco de Andalucia). Plus, with the Blue Joven plan they gave me, you do not have to pay any fees if you are under 25!

Getting groceries

Tonight we were lucky enough to be able to borrow our neighbour Nuria's car to go to the grocery store and stock up on heavy food. Normally we have to walk to the grocery store, and we only buy as much as we can carry, so today it was nice to be able to buy bottles of pop and cartons of milk without having to worry about that. Although that also meant that one of us had to drive. Erin had the honour of being the chosen one, since she is Nuria's roommate and was the one who actually borrowed the car. And she did a great job!

An interesting fact that we have discovered about Spanish grocery stores is that they all seem to carry completely different stock. I know this because we have 4 different grocery stores in Rota (Mercadona, Carrefour, SuperSol and Dia) and every time I go shopping at one of them, there is at least one thing on my list that I absolutely cannot find at the grocery store I am at, no matter which one it is. Some have a better pastry section, some carry different types of pasta and sauces but not others, and some just don't have certain food.

So far I am adjusting to Spanish food fairly well... mostly I live in denial and cook the same food as I do at home! There are some things that I've had to get used to though. For example, in Spain most milk comes in a box, not a carton. This kind of milk is only partially pasteurized as it is heated at a high temperature and only for a few seconds, a process called ultra-high temperature treatment (UHT). Milk pasteurized in this way retains more nutrients and can be stored unrefrigerated (as long as it is unopened) for six to nine MONTHS! Apparently this type of milk is very popular in Europe though, and I've jumped on the bandwagon . My only advice: ust don't drink the skimmed or semi-skimmed versions!

Visitors

This weekend we had a great time showing our FIRST visitors around Rota! Some language assistant friends came down from Utrera and Córdoba and they stayed with us on Friday night. First we took them out for some tapas at this cute, cheap little place that we found last week. The food was all amazing!


Then we took them to a small dance club in town, and we had fun even though the music wasn't anything special!


Of course we also spent some time on the beach, and then yesterday afternoon we took the ferry over to Cádiz, where we stayed the night to check out the clubs. We stayed at Casa Caracol, which was a nice enough hostel for 17€ per night. It had a great kitchen, free breakfast and free internet, but the building was very old, the beds basic, and there were no lockers or even doors on the rooms. After a delicious breakfast of churros con chocolate we headed over to the old part of town and spent a few hours sitting on the wall above the ocean, admiring the view while we waited to take the afternoon ferry back to Rota.

Other blogs

Since getting the internet, I've taken to reading all about other language assistants experiences on their blogs. I also found some of these blogs to be a invaluable resource of information about the program before I had applied. So, in order to help out the rest of you would-be language assistants, I have posted links to my favourite blogs out there. Enjoy!

1. Hola Jessica
2. Jaen, Spain Travel Blog
3. The Europicurean Experience
4. Buena pinta: Un año en España
5. Cool Title Pending..

Strike

As the title of this entry implies, there was a strike at my school in Rota today! Why would the teachers go on strike you ask? Well actually, it was the students who went on strike! Mostly it was just some of the 1o and 2o Bachillerato students, but it was still a big deal for me, as I have never known students to go on strike at home. When I arrived at the school today, there was a large group of very loud students (they actually had a bullhorn and everything) chanting in the street, and policemen were there stopping traffic. The students were protesting the additional class time that was added to the schedules of all the Institutos in Rota as of this Wednesday. Our school decided that meant we would start at 8:15am (instead of 8:30) every day and that we would have longer classes (1 hour instead of 55 minutes) and that the second recreo (break) would only be 10 minutes (instead of 15).

Even the teachers weren't happy about this change, and they put up quite the fuss about it at the meeting we had on Tuesday when they broke the bad news to us. I can understand their frustration though, especially since school started almost a month and a half ago and they are being forced to change their whole schedules now. Not to mention the fact that they don't get paid anything extra, although they will be working longer every day.

Oh, and did I mention that we don't even have any idea when exactly all of the school holidays are yet? Plus we have a holiday coming up on Thursday, November 1st, and none of the teachers know if we have school on the Friday or not! Just another one of those things that takes some getting used to I guess!

A Day In The Country

Today we were lucky enough to be invited out to a Spanish home just outside Rota, or en el campo as they say in Spanish. A teacher at Rachael's school, Maria José, invited us to have lunch with her and her husband's family. They have a little house right on the beach, although it is very rocky there, especially compared to our beautiful sandy beach in Rota.

When we first got there, Maria José's father-in-law showed us around. He actually has his own beehives and makes homemade honey which he then sells in Rota. He explained the whole process to us, and it was quite interesting. He said he had just finished collecting the honey 3 days earlier, so all he has left to do now is bottle the honey.

They really put a lot of effort in the lunch they served us. We started with whole sardines, followed by an amazing tortilla española made by Maria José herself. Then we had plates and plates of different meats, cheeses, and salads. The main plate however, was the paella. Paella is a rice dish made with saffron and olive oil that comes from Valencia. It can be made with all different kinds of meat, but ours was made with chicken and pork. It is made in special paella pan, which is a large, shallow, flat pan. After dinner, we had tintilla, a very strong, very sweet wine that is unique to Rota because it is made from a special grape that grows in the area. For dessert, we had an amazing dish called torrijas, or bread pudding. It is basically French toast, but they let the bread go stale, and then soak in in the tintilla before frying it and serving it in honey. It was the most delicious dessert ever! Then after the dessert, we kept on eating, as they brought out fresh granadas (pomegranates).

Finally, we had another mini tour of the actual farm area, and got to hold 1-day old baby goats! All in all it was a great day in Spain!

Botellón

Last night Rachael and I decided to party in Rota, which we usually do at least once a week. Since we are both short on cash until we get paid at the end of the month, we did some predrinking at the apartment. I mixed up my new favourite drink which I discovered here in Spain - Malibu rum with pineapple juice (Malibu con piña) and we were also drinking sangria and doing shots of vodka.

We walked around town for a bit, trying to find a busy place. At first we headed to a disco which we had found while walking around, but it looked closed, so we went towards the port, hoping to find people and a busy club or something. What we found was even better - we ran into the botellón (literally translated, it means "the big bottle"). Botellón is what all the teenagers in Spain do - they take empty bottles or cups, alcohol, and some kind of drink mix or juice and they drink in a big group on the street. In Rota, the "designated area" happens to be along the port. There must have been about a hundred kids milling around, all between the ages of about 15 and 19. And although it became illegal to drink in public in December in Spain, there were police only a little ways away from the group of kids and no one was trying to break up the party, so I get the feeling that they kind of turn a blind eye to this kind of thing and don't really enfore the new law.

On the way home, we stopped in the town's Irish pub. Rachael and her parents had gone there a few times when she first got to Rota, and she had made friends with the Irish guy (Patrick) who owns the place. Because of that and because it's generally fairly busy, we like to stop by and have a drink once in a while. Not to mention the fact that last night, for the second time, Patrick gave us free shots! I could get used to that...

Cádiz by ferry

Since we had no real plans this weekend, we set aside this morning to go explore Cádiz. Since it's so close, we didn't feel rushed or pressured to see everything, so we basically just wandered around the city.

We got there by taking the ferry from the port in Rota, which left at 11:00 AM this morning. We got there pretty early (at 10:20 AM) because last Saturday we tried to go to Cádiz and by the time we got there at 10:55 AM, all 150 tickets had already been sold and the next ferry didn't leave for 4 hours. I think we were there way too early today though, because even when we boarded the ferry at 11:00 AM there weren't that many people. I think last weekend was probably so busy because it was a long weekend.

Once we were on the ferry, we sat next to some nice old Spanish ladies, and Erin struck up a conversation with them, so we got to speak some Spanish. It turns out that one of the ladies is actually our neighbour - she lives a couple floors beneath us, in the same building!

After 35 minutes on the ferry, we arrived in Cádiz and walked around for a few hours. We found a great little café where we had delicious pastries and coffee. Then we just wandered and did some window shopping... we ended up finding a big parade of some kind with bagpipe music and everything! They had a bit of a float and they were carrying it around with crowds of people trailing behind it. No idea what it was all about, but it was pretty cool. We also ended up finding the city's market, which was completely insane and full of every kind of seafood you could possibly imagine!

Of course, the whole city started to shut down for siesta around 2:00 PM, so we caught the ferry home and had a relaxing afternoon at home, like true Spaniards.

Internet at last!

Today we finally have finally been reconnected to the rest of the world! We now have wireless Internet in our apartment! It was interesting getting everything set up for this day to finally come, and it was all done in Spanish, which I think is pretty impressive...

It wasn't easy, what with the guy from ONO calling me 7 times (that's right, 7 times!) to make sure I would be home when he came, and then because he kept getting lost trying to get to our apartment. Plus he didn't seem to understand my Spanish for some reason... I think he was just being stubborn!

He eventually got to the apartment (once I finally met him downstairs because he couldn't find the huge number 5 sign by the door of our building!) and set to work... drilling holes in the wall! And he didn't even ask if he could! So although he did a pretty good job filling in the holes and there are almost invisible, we may have a slight problem getting our damage deposit back.

Anyways, the important thing is, we now have Internet! And the best part is we had signed up during a promotion, so the installation was free and we also got 40 free channels of cable! So supposedly all we have to pay is the 50€ for our WiFi router.

Choosing an Internet provider

Today we got some good news about our Internet (which we have been trying to have hooked up for a week now). But first, here is the basics that you need to know about Internet in Spain:

There are two internet companies (that I know of) here in Spain: Telefonica (ADSL) and ONO (cable). With Telefonica, you have to get a phone line installed before you can have the Internet. The phone line costs 18€ per month, and the Internet costs an additional 45€ per month. If we split that between the four of us, it is really not that expensive, plus we would have a landline telephone.

With ONO you get twice the speed (6MB vs. 3MB with Telefonica) for the same price. Not to mention that you don't need to install a phone line, so that saves you a little money. Obviously, we decided to go with this option.

The only problem was that when we called ONO, they did not have our address on file, so they told us that we could not have cable internet. So last Monday, we signed a contract with Telefonica and they said they would send a technician to hook up the phone line in the next week. Then we would have to go back to the store to pick up the modem and Wifi router. By today, we still hadn't had any contact with Telefonica, and for some strange reason ONO kept tormenting us with their never-ending flyers shoved under our door showing us exactly what we were missing out on.

Finally tonight we caught the girls who were handing out the ONO flyers. When we demanded (politely of course, and in Spanish!) why they would keep giving us these useless flyers when we couldn't even get their service if we wanted to, they proceeded to come into our kitchen and explain. Apparently they had a different address on file than we had been using, and once we discovered that, we were able to sign up for ONO internet. Luckily, we were able to cancel the installation with Telefonica thanks to the really nice lady that works there!

So we should have cable internet in the next week or so now...

Paperwork

Finally we have finished with most of our paperwork to stay here in Spain for eight months. Rachael, Erin and I went to the comisaría de policia (police station) in Rota yesterday and then again today to get everything sorted out, and the following is what we found out. Keep in mind that comisarías are generally only open Monday-Friday from 9:30 am – 1:30 pm.

If you are Canadian or American:
You will need to get at least 2 Spanish passport-sized photos taken and bring them with you. You also need to fill out a form to get your NIE (Número de Identidad de Extranjero) and another form to get permission to ‘study’ in Spain. Finally, you will need 2 photocopies (1 for each form) of your ENTIRE passport (this means every single page, even the ones that are completely blank). They will take your forms and photocopies, and then they should give you a copy of the permission form and tell you when you can come back to pick up your NIE certificate. The permission form may have to be sent to a bigger city (ours had to go to Cádiz) and they will ask for a phone number on the form where they can contact you when it’s finished.

If you are British or a member of the European Union:
You will also need to fill out the NIE form, but the other form is an application for residency. You will only need 1 photocopy of the main page of your passport (the one with your photo) and the two forms. You should receive your NIE certificate right away at the police station, and then you’re done!

Lunch in Rota

This afternoon Nuria invited Erin, Rachael and me out for lunch with some teachers from her school. We met them around 3:30 PM and somehow this "lunch" didn't end until 9:00 PM! And that is only because Rachael and I decided not to go out for more drinks and finally just went home.

First we ate at a restaurant in town which serves mostly seafood... not exactly my favourite food in the world. But I made an effort to try everything, and it wasn't too bad. We had chocos fritos (fried squid), mejillones (mussels), and pulpo a la gallega (Galician octopus), and I actually didn't mind any of it. The squid was almost completely flavourless, just a little chewy and the mussels just tasted like the lemon we put on it. The octopus was little bit strange, but it was mostly the sucker from the tentacle that was disturbing for me, although I ate it anyways!

After this long Spanish-style lunch, we went for drinks at a couple of different places in Rota, then went down to the beach to watch the sun set, which was really pretty. After all this, the other teachers wanted to go have a light supper, but we decided to pass and went home for the night.

Siesta

It’s been a few days since my last post, and since then I have had two more days of conversation classes with the teachers at my school. It’s been fun and I have had a chance to get to know some of the younger teachers better as they invited me out for “coffee” with them the other day. It was a lot of fun, and I especially enjoyed finally having a chance to practice my Spanish!

I say “coffee” with quotation marks because in Spain, people tend to have a small breakfast in the morning, with maybe just some milk, or a piece of toast. Then at about 10:30 or 11:00 am, they have a 2nd breakfast which involves something a little more filling, like a sandwich, and is generally accompanied by some coffee. Their lunch, which is the biggest meal of the day for Spaniards, doesn’t happen until siesta time between 2:00 and 6:00 pm. Since lunch happens so late in the day, students at the schools don’t actually have a lunch break, and instead they get a 20-minute break in the morning and a 15-minute break in the afternoon. Then they just go home to have lunch at 3:00 pm when school finishes.

During the siesta, almost all the shops in town close (except for large chain grocery stores) and then they reopen after siesta at 6:00 pm and stay open until about 9:00 pm. This makes it really hard to get errands done during the daytime. Then since everyone has a big lunch so late in the day, supper doesn’t happen until sometime between 8:00 and 10:00 pm and is usually a much smaller meal than what we would have at home.

I think I’m slowly adjusting to this crazy schedule, and by the end of my eight months here, I might even be hooked!

La Mesquita

We are still here in Córdoba, and the weather is great! Now here is some interesting information for you about this beautiful city…

Córdoba was once the largest city in Western Europe (this was from about 900-1000 BC) and it was also the hub of the Moorish Empire. Nowadays however, it is a modestly-sized city of 310,000 people. This morning we decided to do some real sightseeing of Córdoba while we were there, so we went to a place called the Mesquita (Spanish for ‘mosque’).

The Mesquita is now a Roman-Catholic cathedral, although it was originally intended to be a mosque, and at one time was the second-largest mosque in the world. It is now considered to be the most important Islamic monument in the Western world. The most interesting parts of the Mesquita were the various Christian chapels placed around the inside of the building, as well as the huge cathedral in the middle. These clearly mark the transition of the Mesquita from an Islamic mosque into a Christian church.

Córdoba

Since we have a long weekend, Rachael and I are taking advantage of this fact and we are in Córdoba visiting some language assistant friends of ours. We got a ride to Seville yesterday with our neighbour Nuria, who is from Spain, but teaches English at Rachael’s school. She was nice enough to drop us off at IKEA, so we could stock up on the few remaining things we needed for our apartment. I was quite excited to buy a real quilt, as it has already been getting cool during the night in Rota. The weird thing about going to IKEA in Spain was that everything in the store was exactly the same things that you see at IKEA in Canada. I even saw some of the exact same furniture that I have at home.


Anyways, now we are in Córdoba until tomorrow, (staying with our friends for free!) so hopefully I will have some interesting things to post about soon! So far I really like Córdoba, and I am even a little bit jealous that we didn’t get placed in a bigger city like our friends. Although, we do have the beach in Rota, and it’s hard to beat that!

Spanish School System

I finally had my first official day as a language assistant today! Although Erin and I were supposed to start at the school yesterday, Carmen was too busy to worry about getting us settled in yesterday, so we didn’t have to go in at all. Then today all we really did was figure out our schedules and go to one English class with Carmen. My schedule is actually pretty good, as I have Mondays off and then work Tuesday-Friday. However, it is almost like working full-time, since you have hour-long breaks in between classes. It turns out that I will have to be at school almost all day Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, even though I only have 3-4 hours of class each day. Wednesdays are good though, because I only have 1 hour of class. The majority of my classes (9/12 hours) are actually just conversation classes with the teachers in order to help them improve their English, but I think it will be really interesting.

In Spain the school system is a bit different than at home, although there are some similarities as well. Starting at the age of 6, all children in Spain are required to complete 6 years at a Colegio (elementary school), followed by 4 years at an Instituto (high school). When they are 16, they receive a Secondary Education Certificate. After this, continuing further with their studies is completely optional. If they decide they want to attend University, they must complete the 2-year Bachillerato program, also taught in the Institutos, and then pass an entrance exam (Pruebas de Accesos a la Universidad). They can also choose to take vocational studies (Formación Profesional). One thing that confused me at first was that their high school years are referred to by their initials (ESO – Educación Secundaria Obligatoria) and a numeric designation (1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th).

So the class that I assisted in today was 1ª ESO, or grade 7. Basically all I did was talk to a group of 5 boys in English, asking specific questions that Carmen had provided, which made it really easy, but also kind of boring.

Patron Saint of Rota

Although I’ve only worked one day this week, we already have a day off. Tomorrow is the day of the patron saint of Rota, so it is a holiday here. Tonight we came across some of the celebrations in the old part of town, by our castle (that’s right, we have our very own castle!)

First there was a procession down the street which was made up of a marching band and horse-drawn carriages with girls all dressed up as if there were going to their weddings (in fancy white dresses), accompanied by guys in tuxes. Then later they did something on a stage and went into the castle... as you can see I have no idea what the meaning behind all of this is! But it was fun to watch. Then later on in the night there were fireworks and rockets that were set off.

Orientation

After staying up so late last night, we had to wake up bright and early to have breakfast at 8:00 am. Then we had to make our way over to the Palacio de Congresos, where the actual orientation was held. It wasn’t an easy place to get to, and though we knew we were supposed to be there by 9:30 am, we had not been given any directions, so by the time we got there it was 10:30 am and the orientation had already been going on for an hour!


We turned out to be the lucky ones however, as the whole orientation was a big waste of time… the only useful part was the folders we were given with letters from the Junta de Andalucía that we will need to get our documentation in order for staying in Spain.

Some of the other girls and I tried to stay as long as we could, but we ended up skipping out on the last half, and coming back only for the free lunch. Once again, the food was amazing! The other problem with the orientation was that a lot of people had to leave early to catch the last train of the day to their assigned cities. Luckily I was able to catch a ride with Rachael’s parents, who had rented a car when they came down from Wales to help her settle in.

Hotel Abades Nevada Palace

After touring the Alhambra, we hung out at our hostel all afternoon, but then we had to head over to the hotel where orientation will be held tomorrow. All together, there were 660 language assistants that were scheduled to attend the Andalucian orientation in Granada. Language assistants placed in other regions of Spain had their orientation elsewhere. Most of the European language assistants, as well as those from China stayed at the Hotel Meliá Granada, but the rest of us (North Americans, New Zealanders, and Australians) stayed at the Hotel Abades Nevada Palace.

I should have realized from the name of the hotel that we were staying at a pretty fancy place, but I had no idea that it would be like this! The hotel really is like a palace, with a beautiful swimming pool, fancy rooms, and modern bathrooms. They also fed us extremely well tonight. The first course was a cream soup of some kind, and then we had some sort of poultry (partridge maybe?), rice with a caramel sauce, and mousse for desert. Everything was delicious!


Since dinner wasn’t scheduled until 10:00 pm (a normal Spanish dinner time) and we didn’t actually eat until 10:30 pm, by the time we got through all the courses and were done socializing, it was already 1:00 am!

Tonight during dinner I also met my future roommate Rachael for the first time, who will be teaching with me in Rota. She actually moved into the apartment on Saturday, while I was in Granada. I also met some fellow Canadians, which was nice as we could commiserate together about the horrible woman from the Spanish consulate in Toronto! One of the girls that I met is here for her third year as a language assistant, which makes me hopeful that this will be a good year!

Alhambra

Today was a very busy day… first of all, we had to get up early to get in line for Alhambra tickets, as they limit the number of people they let in to 7700 per day. You can reserve tickets in advance online (www.alhambra-patronato.es, www.alhambratickets.com) or through any Spanish bank branch, although this does involve a fee (about €1 per ticket) and you have to be very careful. For example, I originally tried to book the tickets online, however there was an error on the website and I ended up booking the wrong date. Let’s just say it took a long time and a lot of effort to finally cancel the tickets.

When we arrived at the Alhambra at about 9:20 am, there was already a long line up (especially for a Monday in September), so we had to wait an hour and a half just to buy the tickets. By the time we finally got to the front, they only had tickets remaining for the afternoon. So we ended up leaving and coming back at 2:00 pm to actually see the place. This was slightly inconvenient, as the Alhambra is located at the highest point of Granada, which means lots of walking up and down hills and/or taking a bus. But the Alhambra itself was pretty impressive after all.

It is basically a huge Moorish fortress, and in the past it was home to the Muslim kings of Granada. The word ‘Alhambra’ is Arabic for ‘the red’, and it was derived from the red clay surrounding the fortress. This name is even more fitting now as the whitewashed buildings have become reddish in colour over the years.