My Travels

I've been here for close to 6 weeks and have already seen a great deal. I've been to Toledo, Madrid, Coruna, a lot of small villages close to VDF. and tomorrow, November 6th, Ian and I are going to Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. It is about 80 degrees there everyday with a ton of beaches...so after a hard 3 day work week we are escaping to an island paradise, poor me, things are just so hard here and getting worse everyday.

Toledo

So our first weekend here, Ian and I had orientation on a Monday at some university in Toledo, so we decided to leave VDF on Friday and stay there till Monday.  The place is unreal. As soon as you are within visible distance of the city, you see this:

The place is gorgeous. It is about as European as I thought a city could be: gothic style architecture (To be honest, I don't even really know what that means but it is how I envision architecture when it is called Gothic), cobblestone roads, restaurants outside, narrow streets.  We had a really strange night. We first met two American ladies in their 30's and began talking with them at a pizza place in Zocodover plaza, the main plaza of Toledo, and one of the ladies' husbands is from Longmont! She had been there last Christmas and hated every moment of it! (not Longmont itself but just her in-laws, haha) And if that weren't enough, she goes on to say that she lives in Houston now, in an area called Bear Creek, which  Gretchen tells me is where she went to elementary school!

If that weren't enough, we get up from the dinner table after talking with these ladies and I see a kid rocking a DU Intramural Championship T-Shirt! Turns out there was a group of study abroad students in Toledo for the night and 7 of them go to DU. It's a small world, indeed. So we ended up walking around with them and the next two days visiting other parts of the city and going on a hike around the outside of the city next to the Rio Taja (I think). The scenery was amazing with the river and views of the city right next to one another. We also went to see Toledo's football team play outside the city against Atletico Madrid's B team. Pretty awesome!

Madrid

So here in VDF, the first few nights Ian stayed with an older lady named Inma. She is an absolute saint, and we call her our Spanish Grandmother. Anyways, she has two nieces who we met, and became good friends with. Luckily for us, the two girls both study at a university in Madrid, so when we went to visit, we stayed with them and they showed us around etc. Madrid is really cool because it is a huge city without a huge city feel. From what I experienced and Sara told me (I think she did, at least), there is no exact "downtown" location. But regardless, we walked around, saw the train station that was bombed in 2003, went to the Reina Sofia, (some art museum...although my appreciation for art is about as big as this period:  .   ) saw the palace where the King (figurehead) lives,and then went out that night and ate dinner.I have to say that at first, I was skeptical about the validity to the notion that the Spanish really take naps in the middle of the day and eat dinner really late. That skepticism is now totally annihilated. They sleep their asses off here, but only because it is normal for dinner to start at 11 pm or even 12 am. That night in Madrid we began dinner at 11 pm and ended around 1 am. After that we went out to various bars and then some club till 5 am. Needless to say, the next day there was a siesta.

While I'm talking about Madrid, I should mention that the following Wednesday, after being back for only 2 days, I was there again. I went with some fellow teachers to watch some sport they call football, with some team I think is called Real Madrid. It happened to be a Champion's League game against AC Milan. Oh nothing, just two of the world's biggest teams with probably over 1 billion dollars worth of players (Kaka, Pato, Ronaldinho, Seedorf, Pirlo, Benzema, Xabi Alonso etc etc etc) on the field.While RMCF lost 3-2, I didn't care, the game was unbelievable, the crowd was fantastic and I loved every moment of it. 

A Coruña

Last weekend Ian and I went with Sara, the science teacher I work with, and her fiancee Manuel, to their home city of Coruna, in the province of Galicia. It was an amazing place and thank God, a welcome contrast from VDF. It was totally green, had real buildings, people with teeth, and even the ocean!  We had a really spectacular time thanks to Sara and Manuel. They graciously opened up their houses to us and we met their entire families, who treated us greatly, always even making sure to mind my incredibly, fantastically science fictionish habit of not eating meat (QUE!!????). We experienced the great nightlife, once again staying out till 5 am or so, going to the beach, walking around the city, and taking about 3 hours for every meal. It was also a really good opportunity to speak more Spanish, as the car ride was 7 hours each way. Lucky for me, Manuel is pretty fluent in English so whenever I needed help, or to ask a difficult question, we could speak in English, but for most of the rides it was Spanish.  

To go on a tangent, I think my Spanish is improving nicely. Compared to where I was a month ago, if I could achieve linear improvement each month then I will be fairly fluent.  That is great, but also says very little for my Spanish now.  My problem isn't expressing my ideas, but listening, which has always been my problem in all languages I've tried to learn. It's hard to converse if you don't know what the other person is saying. (unless you talk to yourself, in which case, why are you speaking a different language?)

Other Odds and Ends

In between two of those trips, we visited Consuegra for a freaking sweet Saffron festival (kidding). We spent about a week there one afternoon (Thanks for the line Harry Chapin).  The one positive was that we got to see the really typical Castilla La Mancha old time windmills. They were beautiful and a definitely a sight to behold, especially as people here have so much pride in them.

Last week we also carved a pumpkin. This was awesome because people here don't carve pumpkins or really celebrate Halloween, so it was fun to bring a little American culture to the VDF. It was great because my Dad graciously sent me a huge package and in it, included a pumpkin carving tool set.  Ian and I did two little pumpkins (the pumpkins here are different than American pumpkins and not meant for carving) that turned out great, but what really got us some serious acclaim was the big one we did. We put this out our window for the kids to see and the next day I took it to school and it was like I invented fire. Of course, I didn't tell them about the huge Halloween industry in the USA that practically carves these things for you.

(One quick final note*...Placing pictures on this blog and having it flow well with the text is apparently very difficult for people of my ilk so I apologize for lots of empty weird space--kinda like Castilla La Mancha and VDF!). Anyways, Ian and I are off to Tenerife tomorrow, with I'm sure some more amazing stories and pictures.  I hope to not take two weeks in between posts again but you never really know. So adios, talk to everyone soon!