Tutoring

Today I started tutoring two of the sweetest girls ever! They are the daughters of one of the teachers that I work with at the high school. She found out that I was interested in giving private English classes, so she asked me to tutor her two girls. Since she lives in El Puerto, 15 minutes away from Rota, she will be driving me to her house after school every Tuesday. Then I eat lunch with her and her family, and play with/tutor the girls for a few hours (she basically left the length of the "classes" up to me and said to stay as long as I wanted. Then I just keep track of these hours and she will pay me at the end of the month!

So far, things are going great! I love these girls already, and I think they like me too. Maria, who is eight years old, already asked me to sleep over at their house tonight, and she also wanted me to go to her English class! Teresa, who is twelve years old, speaks English well and understands a lot of what I say. Maria understands a lot less but has a better English accent than most of the adults I've heard speak English here.

This job came at the perfect time, as I was starting to get really bored here in Rota! At least this will occupy one night a week!

Weather Update

As you can probably see from the frequency of my posts, the last two weeks here in Rota have been pretty boring. Since our little road trip to Malaga, the only major thing that's happened here is that it got cold! Well, for awhile anyways. Last week was cold and rainy, and Rachael and I have decided we are going to need a heater of some kind (that's right, we don't actually have central heating in our apartment). Up until last week, this wasn't a problem, even at night as we have nice warm blankets to curl up in. But this past weekend was COLD! Don't get me wrong, it only ever dropped to somewhere between 5 and 10 degrees Celsius, even during the night, but without central heating, and considering the fact that our building is a huge concrete block and there are no carpets or rugs on the floor, it gets more than a little chilly. Most of the time, it's actually colder inside our apartment than it is outside, although that does make for a pleasant surprise when I do venture into the great outdoors.

The only other problem I have is the rain... it doesn't rain often, but when it does, it pours! And if it happens to be windy at the same time (which it was this weekend... actually is felt like a hurricane), then our kitchen window leaks and the floor gets covered in water! We're hoping to get that problem fixed soon though... even if we have to do it ourselves!

Luckily it has warmed up a bit (today was 16 degrees and sunny) and the rain has stopped for now. I still consider myself lucky though, especially since yesterday it was -19 in Edmonton!

Road Trip

Rachael and Erin... and the car.

Yesterday we rented a car and went on our first road trip in Spain! Okay, so we just went to the Málaga airport to pick up Rachael's boyfriend, but it was fun nonetheless... The car rental for 1 day was fairly cheap too. It cost about €50 for the car rental (we went through Aurigae Crown rentals) plus a tank of gas (about €30). All in all, the road trip made me appreciate not being placed on the Costa del Sol / in the province of Málaga, because it was one long coast of tourist cities, with construction everywhere. I like our own beach here in Rota much better, even if it isn't quite as warm here! One other thing that we noticed on our road trip was the stop signs - interestingly enough, the signs here all say STOP... in English!

Huevos and huevas

This afternoon in Jerez de la Frontera, Rachael, Erin and I learned a very important lesson about the Spanish language. We were ordering a bunch of tapas at a bar to share, and had decided to get some eggs. Fried eggs (huevos) with French fries are a popular dish to get here. We assumed that huevos a la plancha was simply a literal translation of fried eggs (since a la plancha usually means grilled). However, in our rush to order, we failed to notice that the word on the menu was huevas with an 'a', not huevos with an 'o' as we had thought. So when the waitress brought out the dish, we were surprised to see something that didn't really resemble fried eggs. The dish looked like some kind of meat with a white sauce similar to mayonnaise. Although I wasn't entirely sure what the meat was, I took a big bite, thinking that it couldn't be anything too horrible... and it wasn't too bad. I thought it was a bit plain, but kind of weird, so I didn't eat anymore. Rachael and Erin both thought it had a fishy taste to it.

Well, they were on the right track. When we texted our Spanish friend Nuria to find out what it was for sure, we were told that huevas are fish ovaries! That's right... I'm still not sure if there were actually eggs inside or not, but either way - gross!

So the obvious lesson to gain from this experience is that as insignificant as the difference between masculine and feminine may seem to us English speakers, one day it may mean the difference between eggs and fish ovaries for you too!

Segovia

For our second day trip from Madrid, Princess and I went to Segovia. This time it took us about an hour and a half by bus, but it was definitely worth it. Like Toledo, Segovia has many sites to see. Soon after we left the bus station, we arrived at the base of an ancient Roman aqueduct. Supposedly it was built sometime in the 1st or 2nd century AD in order to bring water to the town from a nearby river. The Romans built it entirely with stones... as in nothing is holding the stones in place! This huge aqueduct is not only still standing, but it actually still works as well.

Aqueduct (and that's me at the bottom!)

Since we hadn't gotten to Segovia until later on in the day, after seeing the aqueduct we stopped for lunch. We had been told that there were two typically Segovian foods that we had to try, so we did. First we had judiones (some kind of beans in a soup) and then we had conchinillo (suckling pig). For me, the judiones were nothing special, but the conchinillo was delicious... although it was a little strange to be eating pork with a leg and hoof still attached to it. On the bright side, we didn't get the head... that honour went to our neighbours at the table beside us!

After dinner we were slightly rushed for the cathedral and the Alcázar, as it was starting to get cold outside. We managed to make it inside the cathedral before it closed, and it was beautiful inside, with huge gothic ceilings and elaborately decorated chapels.

Cathedral

Unfortunately, by the time we got to the Alcázar, we couldn't go inside. It was amazing even from the outside though. It is said that the design of the Alcázar influenced the design of the castle in Disney's Sleeping Beauty, and I can see why!

Alcázar

The most exciting part of the day was by far what happened later at the bus station though... we were just about at the front of the line to purchase our tickets for the bus home when a Spanish woman at the front of the line started yelling at the man in the ticket booth. Apparently the bus wouldn't be coming after all, so we would all have to wait for the 8 o'clock bus. This made the woman and a few of her friends very upset, and they were all yelling, saying that it was the bus company's "obligation" to get another bus right away! I believe she then proceeded to call the police to explain the situation and demand that they do something as well! Of course, all of this was wasted effort... although it was interesting for me, as I discovered I could understand her fairly well even though she was yelling and quite agitated. Princess and I ended up waiting patiently and taking the 8 o'clock bus back to Madrid.

Toledo

So yesterday I arrived in Madrid for the long weekend (Thursday was All Saints Day, so we also had Friday off). I am staying here with a friend named Princess, who is another language assistant and is working here in Madrid... I know, I really need to widen my circle of friends here.

Anyways, today we decided to go to Toledo, which is about an hour by bus outside of Madrid. Toledo was once the capital of the Spanish Empire, but now it's mostly just a small medieval town popular with tourists. The old part of the city is located on a mountaintop above the Tagus River, which meant that from the top, there was a beautiful view.

Princess and I overlooking the city of Toledo.

We got up late, took the bus, and then just wandered around the city, so it was very relaxing. It was a beautiful day and we managed to see both the cathedral and the Alcazar while still having time to get completely lost in the side streets of Toledo!

Catedral de Santa María de Toledo

Being a tourist

Today we got to be tourists in our own town! Maria Jose, Rachael's coordinator at her school, set up a tour of Rota's castle and church for us today. She knows we are here to learn Spanish, so she even arranged with the tour guide to give us the tour in Spanish, but to speak slowly and clearly so we could understand. The tour was actually a lot more interesting than I had been expecting... I even found out that one of the men who sailed to America with Christopher Columbus was from Rota! And the view from the top of the castle was amazing, especially since we happened to be up there just as the sun was setting. Plus when we left we each got a bag full of Rota paraphenalia... I am now the proud owner of a DVD of Rota, a Rota keychain, a Rota lanyard, and lots of other cool things!

Halloween

Although today was Halloween, it pretty much passed us by without much notice in Spain. I've been talking to my teachers about Halloween all week, but on the actual day of the big event, Rachael, Erin and I had no plans. I was only at school for just over an hour today, as I only had one class, but I didn't see any costumes or decorations at all.

In this short amount of time, I did however have at least 3 different teachers tell me that I was not dressed appropriately for the weather. Keep in mind that although the weather has started cooling down here in Rota, and it was fairly windy today, it was still about 20 degrees Celsius. They all told me that the reason I was sick with a cold is because I was wearing sandals and not proper shoes! Apparently in Spain, it is a widely held belief that when your feet are cold, it causes all sorts of problems and it is just not good for your health! Either way, it was nice to have people worrying about me.