Virgen de las Angustias

Today in Granada we happened to stumble across a marching band, a huge crowd of people, and a religous procession. We realized at some point that today is the celebration of the Virgen de las Angustias, who is the patron saint of Granada. We really just lucked out in that every time we turned around there was something new going on.

Granada

Today is my second day in Granada, where I am for the next 3 days to sightsee and for our orientation on Tuesday.

Granada is a decently-sized city of 215,000. It is situated at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and is built almost entirely on hills (which is exhausting if you walk everywhere like we do!). At one point, Granada’s population was predominately Muslim, and this influence is still visible today in the city’s architecture (especially in the Alhambra, a Moorish fortress) and in the Arab quarter (the Albaicin).


It was quite the process getting here as I had to figure out the bus and train schedules as I went along. First I had to take a bus to the bus station in Rota, then a bus to El Puerto de Santa Maria (the closest town with a train station) and then a train to Dos Hermanas, where I changed trains to go to Granada. The problem was that I had never been to the bus station in Rota (and it was smaller than I expected), so I missed my stop without even realizing it. Since the buses only go around Rota in one direction, I had to ride around for another 40 minutes and I missed the morning train to Granada. This meant that I had 3 and a half hours to kill in El Puerto before the next train. I also had a huge backpack with me, and there is no luggage storage there, so I ended up taking a taxi to the centre of town and wandering around for quite awhile. So all in all it took me 12 hours from the time I got up, to the time I finally arrived in Granada (about 7:30 pm last night). I then met up with the same auxilares that I had hung out with in Seville, and we are staying in a really nice hostel with a swimming pool and a great view of the city!

I.E.S Castillo de Luna

Yesterday I went to the school in Rota where I will be teaching for the next 8 months. It was pretty interesting, and I met a lot of people all at once, so I'm not going to remember anyone's names when I go back to start teaching on Wednesday. Everyone was really nice, and I'm excited about having a chance to practice my Spanish while I'm there, as a few of the teachers and office assistants don't speak English at all.

Here in Spain, they are lagging behind the rest of the world in terms of the level of English that its people speak. To offset this, the Spanish government has instituted a new bilingual program in which students in both primary and secondary schools all across Spain will start taking certain classes (I think mostly science and possibly technology courses) in English. This is the main reason behind the Language Assistant program. My school hasn't instituted this program yet, but wants to for next year. This means that they will be working with students who have gone to school entirely in Spanish their whole lives. A lot of the teacher's don't even have a very high level of English, which will make it difficult for them to teach the material.

Originally I was told that I would be mostly working with the teachers to set up the program (ie. researching to find materials, and helping the teachers with their English), but now it looks like I will be doing a little bit of that and a little bit of assisting in the English classes. The teachers all want to take advantage of having native English speakers here while they can, which is fine by me. And my schedule is looking decent, as I will only have to work Monday to Thursday, for 3 hours per day. And I'm crossing my fingers that it will be a little bit flexible in case I want to do some travelling!

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!!!

Sevilla

Well, here I am in Sevilla, on the first of what I hope to be many weekend trips around Spain and Europe! As my new roommate's parents have a house here, I'm even staying here for free, so that makes this trip even better.

The shopping is great here, especially since there is an El Corte Inglés just down the street. El Corte Inglés is a huge department store chain popular throughout Spain. The store, at least from what I've seen, is generally anywhere from four to eight stories high, and you can buy pretty much anything: they sell electronics, movies, music, toys, textbooks, clothes, perfume, luggage, and there's usually even a supermarket in the basement of the building! The only misconception I had about this store before coming here is that I thought it was a store similar to Walmart. In reality, they have some of the most expensive prices and tend to sell high quality, brand name items. I imagine it's more similar to somewhere like Macy's in the States.

There's also a great big shopping mall type complex near El Corte Inglés, which has all the typically European stores like Zara, Mango, Bershka and the United Colors of Benetton. Not to mention the McDonald's and Starbucks in the food court!

The other part about shopping in Sevilla, that I personally enjoy the most, are the *illegal* street vendors. They sell knockoffs of brand name sunglasses, purses, belts, etc. and they also have piles and piles of burned DVDs for sale. I've seen these guys in Italy a lot, so they are very familiar to me. Obviously the prices are pretty cheap, although I imagine you have to haggle with the vendors to get them down to a realistic price. And I would recommend doing the haggling in Spanish to try to avoid the "I'm a rich tourist, please take me for all I'm worth" look.

Cell phones

Well, I've finally done it... I am now the proud owner of a Spanish mobile phone! I decided to go with Vodafone, one of three major companies in Spain (the other two being Movistar and Orange). Basically I discovered that Vodafone is the company that is right in the middle of the other two. They have good coverage but also good prices, which is a combination that is hard to beat.

Orange can be a bit cheaper for some kinds of calls, but the service is not as good, and Movistar is just plain more expensive. And the number one feature of Vodafone is... their 60 x 1 plan which lets you call all national landlines (fijos) and Vodafone mobiles and talk for an hour, while only paying for the first minute! This plan works great in combination with a calling card to phone home, at least to Canada.

Settling In

Whew! I'm finally all settled in Rota. It's very stressful hauling heavy suitcases around the country without knowing when I'll have a safe place to put them! Especially since it's been above 25 degrees Celsius every day that I've been here. Now I have a beautiful apartment, overlooking the beach, and I have the whole place to myself for one more day. My English teacher had already found the place for me, and set up a last minute appointment with the landlord for me to see it the night I arrived. I loved the place, so we didn't even have to look any farther. Today I had a massive cleaning day, as it seemed like it hadn't had a good cleaning in a while.

Tomorrow, a Spanish teacher arrives from Seville and she will probably stay with me until the end of the month at least. I'm looking forward to it as it gets pretty lonely living by yourself!

Check out my pictures from Madrid here and Rota here.

Parque del Retiro

I met up with a friend this morning to go to this beautiful, huge park in the middle of Madrid. There was even a lake and a couple of big palaces on the ground, and some of the tallest trees I´ve ever seen! We also did a little bit of window shopping, and it was interesting to see all the different styles here that you just don´t see in Canada!

Day 2 in Madrid

I have to say that the more time I spend here Madrid, and Spain in general, the more I like it. I arrived here on Tuesday afternoon, with no hostel reserved (which had caused me to have a major panic attack before leaving Canada). However, I met some friendly Canadians in the airport. We all shared a taxi to downtown Madrid, where two of us split off to find a hostel. After a few hours of dragging my suitcase and carrying my backpack around, we finally managed to find a place that had room for us.

We then slept for 14 hours that night... and then last night I went out in true madrileño style with all 3 of them. Here in Madrid, you start dinner at about 9:30pm, although it´s quite a light meal with just a bunch tapas (appetizers) shared between a group of people. After tapas, which lasted a good couple of hours, we went to Plaza Santa Ana for some sangria on the house (my newfound friends knew one of the waiters). The party was just getting started at the next place we went to, which was a little Spanish pub. When that place closed at 3:00am, we started to head home... until we were convinced by a guy giving out cheap drink tickets to go to yet another bar. This time is was a dance club, where we stayed until 4:30am, when we finally headed back to the hostel! What a night!

Madrid

Well, I am now officially in Spain for 8 months (except for when I fly home at Christmas)! It was a long, stressful couple of days what with not getting my visa until Monday morning before my flight and having no hostels booked for my arrival in Madrid. But it´s all worked out. I can´t believe I´m actually here!

Courier blues

I used to think that as soon as my visa was approved, that would be it. No more worrying... but boy was I wrong. Yesterday, the woman in change of visas at the Consulate of Spain in Toronto explained to me that I had to set up the courier service myself if I wanted to get my visa and passport back sooner than 2-3 days (the amount of time it takes with the XpressPost envelope they normally mail them in.) So I called Purolator, and they were very helpful. They set everything up so that my visa would be in Edmonton by today (Saturday). All the woman from the consulate had to do was fill out the sender forms with my address. Apparently she did so, but then refused to put her signature on the envelope and slammed the door in the Purolator driver's face! And now I just found out that she neglected to check the 'Saturday Delivery' box, so my visa won't be here until Monday morning and I fly out Monday afternoon. Luckily, although I was supposed to fly out of Calgary (which would be fairly stressful and involve a LOT of driving on Monday), I got Aeroplan to add a connection from Edmonton to Calgary free of charge! So now I just have to pick up the passport/visa before noon on Monday and go straight to the airport. Wish me luck!

Visa status update

I think I'm still in shock from the news this morning... my visa has been approved! And I was beginning to lose all hope! The only problem now is that I'm supposed to fly out on Saturday, and the consulate is not ready for the courier to pick it up until tomorrow. Which means I have to postpone my flight yet again, although likely it will only be for one day. Which means I might get to leave as early as Sunday, unless the courier service screws up or something else unforeseeable happens. Good think I'm all packed and ready to go!

Apparently I made a mistake on the application form and put my departure date as September 30th instead of August 30th. I don't know if that is what caused the delay, but let that serve as a lesson to anyone else applying for their visas to check the application over VERY carefully, just in case!