Christmas Holidays

Well, here I am back in Spain after a 2-week holiday in Canada (wow, saying it like that really makes me realize that I live in Spain.) As some of you might already know, it was a long and painful process just to get to Canada in the first place, but it was all worth it.

The trip started off well on Friday, December 21, as I managed to get to the airport in Jerez with plenty of time to spare to catch my flight. After that though, everything went downhill. Boarding for the flight from there to Madrid was delayed by about 45 minutes, which wasn't a big deal, since I wasn't actually supposed to fly out of Madrid until early the next morning. So although I was an hour late getting into Madrid, I just called my friend Princess (who I was going to hang out with in the city until I had to get back to the airport) and told her I would be a bit late. After finding the luggage storage (which is in a very inconvenient location outside the airport and across the road), and dragging my heavy bag over there, I hopped on the metro and met Princess. We did some shopping and just wandering, and just like in Rota, all the streets and many of the buildings were decorated with Christmas lights.

Afterwards we went for dinner and back to Princess' house, and then at half past midnight I left to catch the last train to the airport. Unfortunately, because my flight left at 6:30 am, that meant I had to spend the night in the Madrid airport. I managed to find some comfortable chairs to sleep on for about an hour, and soon enough it was time to get in the massive line up to check in for my next flight to Frankfurt, Germany. Supposedly as a result of this long line up, our flight was delayed for 2 hours. Since my connection time in Germany was less than 2 hours, I had to run to catch my next flight to London. And the only reason I caught that flight was that it too was delayed for about an hour leaving Frankfurt. Later it was also delayed as there was a lot of fog in London and we had to wait for another hour before we could land.

By the time I got to London, I was 4 hours later arriving than expected, and the flight to Calgary had already left without me an hour earlier! There were many other people who had missed flights due to the fog, so Air Canada started putting people on standby flights to Toronto. Since I had booked my flight with Aeroplan Miles though, they told me that my ticket was the lowest priority. I didn't catch the first flight, but they did manage to put me on the second flight to Toronto later that night. So I ended up spending another night in yet another airport... although at least I was in Canada. Especially since I heard later that the next day hundreds of flights out of London were not just delayed, but cancelled due to the fog! I flew to Calgary early the next morning, after spending the night with some people I had met in the London airport in the same situation as me.

All in all, the trip home took me 80 hours from start to finish and made me hate airports with a passion. I highly recommend NOT travelling on December 22 as it is one of the busiest travel days of the year.

My time at home was really great (though not long enough), as I got to spend time with friends and family, and I got the chance to bring back lots of things I'd been missing the last 3 months! The trip back to Spain was a lot less exciting, but still took about 17 hours, so I'm pretty tired. The best news about being back in Spain is that when I left Canada, it was -20 degrees Celsius, and here in Spain it is +15 degrees!

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").

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!

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!

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.

Busing it

I´ve just arrived home after an interesting adventure in Seville. Along the way, I gathered lots of valuable information about the bus system in Seville, but boy was it a long night! This is a long story, but to get right to the point, this website is an invaluable resource for anyone else trying to figure out the buses in Seville. And if you're going to Ikea, I recommend you double check the hours of the store and make friends with a Spaniard who can drive you there!

Earlier on tonight, I met up with two other language assistants, who I'd met on Facebook and arranged to get together with. But the interesting part of the story begins when I left to make my way to Ikea. I had checked the website, which said it was open Sundays from 10:00 am to 10:00 pm, and it also listed the buses which leave from the Plaza de Armas in Seville and pass by the store. First it was quite an ordeal just to find Plaza de Armas. I ended up walking for at least 15 minutes, all while consulting my sketchy (and somewhat incomplete) map of Seville that I had printed off Google. (I highly recommend getting a proper map from one of the Tourist Information booths in the city as the first order of business in Seville.)

When I finally got there, I talked to someone at the Information booth, and she was able to tell me where to buy my ticket from. From there, the woman at the ticket booth told me where to catch the bus. Just to make sure, I double checked with the bus driver that this bus went to Ikea (this was lucky as I had in fact gone one platform too far and gotten on the wrong bus.) After getting on the correct bus, I was able to relax for a while (the bus was even air conditioned!) Of course I kept a close eye on where we were going, as I was terrified I would miss the stop and end up out in the outskirts of Seville, all alone! I soon saw the telltale Ikea flags and the store itself.

Unfortunately the bus breezed right by, and didn't appear to be stopping anytime soon (it turns out that you have to push a button to request your specific stop, which I hadn't done!) Luckily just as I was realizing my mistake, someone else requested the next stop, where I got off. I was able to walk a couple of extra blocks, and I made it to the store just fine.... unfortunately after all the trouble I took to get there, the store was closed, and the whole area completely deserted!

I figured it wasn't a big deal, as I plan on being in Seville often enough, so I started to look for the bus stop to return to Seville. I sat at one stop for about 20 minutes, assuming there would be a bus at about 8:30 pm. When a bus hadn't shown up by then, I looked around a little more carefully, and realized that while the place I was sitting looked identical to the other bus stops, there was no schedule or route posted... I think it was a booth meant for people just catching taxis. So I headed back to the original bus stop, and waited patiently at the one across the street (going the opposite direction). My only problem at this point was that it appeared that the next bus wasn't scheduled to arrive until 9:15 pm (as it was a Sunday) and it was slowly getting darker and darker. Luckily I had a book with me and a place to sit, but I was a little worried nonetheless, especially by 9:35, when there was still no bus to be seen. A few minutes later the bus finally showed up, and I managed to get back to the main station in Seville. Two more city buses later, and I finally made it back to the house I'm staying at!

Despite how unsuccessful the trip was overall, I'm pretty impressed with my navigation skills in a city that I arrived in only 2 days ago, not to mention a foreign country! But I still have yet to figure out why Ikea wasn't open when it specifically says on their website that they are open on Sundays (I even double checked when I got home)! Maybe someone will be able to enlighten me one day...

Until then, I strongly suggest NOT going to Ikea on a Sunday, especially at night!!!

iPod mania

After buying a new iPod video this past weekend, I've discovered something great - podcasts! And not just any podcasts, but travel podcasts focusing on Spain, as well as a ton of other countries. I think they'll come in handy in the next few months, at least to fight boredom on the plane.

About me

Hi, I’m Kristin, and I write 'The Adventures of a Language Assistant in Spain,' a blog which describes my experiences working as a language assistant in Spain from beginning to end.

When I first began the long process of applying for this program in February 2007, I found very little information about the program itself, let alone any additional information about the experience of being a language assistant. I started this blog to help future potential applicants by providing answers to a few of the unanswered questions I had during the whole process.

Prior to applying for this program, I attended the University of Alberta, where I obtained my Bachelor of Arts in Romance Languages (Italian, Spanish, and French).

If you have any questions at all, either about the program specifically or life in Spain in general, don't hesitate to e-mail me at kdinspain@gmail.com.