Staff Christmas Party

This afternoon after school was our Christmas party at the school. Erin and I went to dinner with about 25 other teachers, and were served a big Spanish meal at a restaurant near our house. We had 4 different entrees (most of which were seafood) a main course, and dessert. In true Spanish style, the party continued long into the night, as when lunch ended later that evening, we continued on to one of our favourite bars in Rota - El Torito ("little bull").

Porto

On Saturday morning, we woke up in a new Portuguese city: Porto. Porto is the second biggest city in Portugal, and is famous for its Port wine. We had all day Saturday to explore this new city, and luckily Jodie knew a girl from Porto (Filippa) who spent all day showing us around. My favourite part of Porto was the Douro river, which runs through the middle of the city. There were many beautiful views to be found around the river, especially once the sun started to set.

A group picture in front of the Douro River: Ellen, Jodie, Bea, me, Grace, Rebecca, and Eilidh.

The city streets were also very pretty as there are Christmas decorations, especially Christmas lights, everywhere! We also got to see the biggest Christmas tree in Europe, and it was huge! By the end of the day, we were again so tired from all the walking we had done that we just ended up going out for dinner at the typical Portuguese restaurant that Filippa brought us to, then going back to the hostel to bed.

The biggest Christmas tree in Europe.

Sightseeing in Lisbon

On Saturday we spent most of the day sightseeing Lisbon as it was our only day to get it all done! We woke up somewhat early and had breakfast (it was actually free at the amazing hostel we stayed at called "Hostel Lemon Lisbon"). We mostly just wandered around the city all day, as we didn't know what the big sights to see were. We did find lots of great views of the city though, as the city is built almost entirely on very steep hills. This also made for a lot of walking and exhaustion, so by noon we had to stop for a coffee break and relax. Afterwards we took a tram back up into the hills to finish exploring.

A pretty view of Lisbon.

The rest of the day passed by quickly, and after lunch, we decided it would be fun to go ice skating in one of the squares we had passed. We did our best, but almost everyone fell down at least once. Most of the other girls are from places where ice skating is not very popular, and the ice skates were very awkward anyways (they were more like ski boots than ice skates!) Since we had worn ourselves out from all the skating, we decided to head straight to our next destination, which was good since we didn't make it to Porto until midnight that night!

Ellen (left), Eilidh (right), and I showing off our ice skating skills.

Road Trip to Portugal

Since we had a Thursday and Friday off this past weekend, I went on a road trip to Portugal with our language assistant friends from Utrera (Eilidh and Ellen) and Córdoba (Jodie, Grace, and Rebecca) and an English teacher from Córdoba named Bea.

The trip began when we all met in Seville on Thursday morning. The girls from Córdoba had rented a 7-person van, but with all of our luggage it was still a bit of a tight squeeze. It was a long trip to Lisbon (about 4.5 hours), but it was definitely worth it. Lisbon is the capital city of Portugal, and the largest in the country (approx. 2.8 million inhabitants). The city is very hilly, with some beautiful views.

Our van

Once we were finally in the city we drove around for another hour trying to navigate through the city streets to find our hostel. We had to stop and ask for directions several times, and it was strange to hear people speaking Portuguese instead of Spanish. The really strange part was that I found I could understand most of what they were saying. It was like a weird mix of Spanish and Italian words, with a few different sounds thrown in for good measure. This was lucky though, since we needed all the help we could get to make it to our hostel.

Since it had taken so long to get to the hostel and get settled in, we were all pretty hungry by te time we got there, so we decided to go find some dinner. We ended up in a little side street where we found a cute little Portuguese restaurant. The owner recommended the special, and brought us two gigantic platters of pork and steak, along with French fries and salads. It was all delicious!

Our first Portuguese meal: Bea, me, Jodie, Rebecca, Eilidh, and Grace.

My Birthday in Spain

Yesterday was my 22nd birthday, and I had a great day! I woke up to my phone ringing early in the morning... it was my mom and my sister calling to sing "Happy Birthday" to me! Then I called a friend from home and we ended up talking for an hour and a half, until the credit on my phone ran out. By then it was quarter past nine, so I had to quickly get ready and rush off to school! Then when I finally got to school, I found out that both of the teachers that I have one-on-one conversation classes with on Tuesdays couldn't have class, so I basically had a free day. I couldn't go home though, because after school I was going to Victoria's house to tutor her daughters. When I got there, they all surprised me with a birthday present (a nice, soft blanket), cards (written in English of course!) and even a birthday cake with candles. What sweet kids!

Teresa and Maria (they only had one '2' candle, so they improvised!)

Then later that night, Rachael, Erin, Nuria, Jerry and I went out for dinner at an Italian restaurant in Rota, which I hadn't even realized existed! We finished the night off with some drinking, pool, and hanging out in an almost empty bar (it was Tuesday night after all) called "Los Arcos" until 2:00 am. Good thing I only had an hour of work today!

Utrera

Since my birthday is coming up next week, Rachael, Erin and I decided to pre-celebrate by going to hang out in Utrera with a big group of language assistants (we seem to congregate here as we are all in similar situations and have a lot in common). We started out on Saturday morning by meeting our friend Ellen in Seville for an entire day of shopping! I love the stores here... specifically H&M, Zara, Mango, Sfera... there are just too many to name! Plus I just got paid on Friday, so I ended up buying a ton of new clothes.

After our shopping spree, we met up with Nuria and some of her friends, and Brian, a friend of Ellen's for lunch. Then we went to Utrera, about 20 minutes outside of Seville, where Ellen lives with our other friend Eilidh (although she was away for the weekend). Utrera is a cute town, and it is a lot bigger than Rota (about twice the size). It even has a train station with a train that goes right into the big city of Seville, so we were slightly jealous! For dinner Erin, who is a cook back home in Michigan, whipped us up some delicious pasta with chicken. Afterwards we went to Evan and Amanda's apartment (more language assistants who live in Utrera) and met even more language assistants! This brought our total to 9 girls and 1 guy, with a whole lot of alcohol, so got a little crazy! After a couple hours of predrinking there, we headed to the first bar, where Amanda bought me a birthday shot! We went to one other bar, and then it was late enough, we headed to the disco. Since discos in Spain don't get busy or sometimes don't even open until 2:00 or 3:00 am, we ended up having a late night. I finally got back to Ellen's at 5:30 am, which means that today I am doing absolutely nothing!

Random Spaniard, Amanda, Rachael, Sam, and me... doing a birthday shot!