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.

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.