Mérida y Salamanca

During my Thanksgiving break, I took two excursions outside of my lovely Badajoz.  My first stop was Mérida (an hour by bus), the capital of Extremadura.  This ancient city was one of the most important cities during the Roman Empire.  In Spain, it's famous for having the most preserved Roman monuments in the country. My friends and I had spare time before our delicious Thanksgiving meal, so we decided to roam around the Roman ruins. We were surprised that we were allowed to actually walk on top of them.

 



Kate and I



I wasn't sure how to pose amongst the ruins so why not grab an ancient rock?

The amphitheatre

 



The longest ancient Roman bridge in the world

On Black Friday Teresa and I took off for Salamanca.  A beautiful city known for its university that dates back to the year 1218.  Even though Salamanca is known for its night life, being a university town and all, we spent most of our time sightseeing. The script on all of the buildings gave off a Harry Potter vibe (see below). 



 

 

Our view after climbing up one of the buildings

 

Teresa and I outside of the church

 

One of the traditions of the university students is to spot a tiny frog on the outside of the building.  It is said that if you see the frog (la rana) then you will pass your exams.  We stood outside staring at this wall for a good 10 minutes and couldn't find this frog, thanks to google we got ourselves a clue.

 

La rana = the frog

 



This is the most detailed building ever, how are you suppose to find a frog?!



 


All of the tourists trying to find the frog

 


Ah ha! Here it is, on top of a skull



One of the most beautiful things about Salamanca is the town square (la plaza).  "Plazas" are one of my favorite things about Spain.  They are lined with cafes, full of people, beautifully constructed and of course, great places to take photos :)

 

So pretty

 




Overall, I would recommend a trip to both Mérida and Salamanca. Mérida is a great piece of history without an overwhelming amount of tourists and Salamanca is easy to tour.  All of the impressive buildings and monuments are within close distances and won't leave you disappointed.

 

Gobble Gobble

El Día de Acción de Gracias

The day of the action of thanks, sounds better in English right? My first Thanksgiving abroad was great, I actually had two.  The entire week of, I gave lessons about the American holiday.  By lessons, I mean we made hand turkeys and talked about food.  I tried my best to explain our traditions (without confusing them about the history) but I'm pretty sure they know it as the American holiday where everyone eats turkey.  Which is correct!  What more can you say other than you gather with your loved ones, eat too much, watch football and then fall asleep. 

My impressive turkey

 

Thanksgivirg Tarkey (one of the students)

My teacher friends and I all gathered to eat traditional American food.  I'd say we did a pretty good job for being so far away from home.  However, some ingredients were difficult to find.  For example, I made an Apple Crisp...without brown sugar.  I couldn't find any ANYWHERE! I ended up buying raw sugar cane and mixing it with honey to create a similar consistency.  I also had to eyeball all of the ingredients because we don't have American measuring cups.  Surprisingly, it was a hit!

 



My apple crisp





Buffet style

Mashed potatoes

 


Stuffing



Appetizers, Spanish style

 



The cute decor at Thanksgiving #2

 


a

Thanksgiving #2

Everything looks delicious, right? It was :) It was also great to reunite with friends who live in other cities nearby.  I took the day off on the following Friday and did some sight seeing with my friend Teresa. We saw a little bit of the city Merida and then we went to Salamanca for the weekend. The city of Merida is known for its ancient Roman ruins (this is the land of the conquistadors) and Salamanca is known for it's prestigious university. I'll be filling you in soon :) Stay tuned!



Life as an English teacher

I love English, yes. Teaching it....welllll

I come from a family of teachers; my mother and my aunt (now principal), even two of my grandparents were teachers.  Even though I enjoyed school as a kid, I knew that I would never have the patience to be a teacher.  I knew that this program meant teaching English but it also meant living in Spain and traveling Europe! So worth the trade off, plus I even get a salary..pretty nice deal.  I would think to myself, "maybe this program will change my mind and I will fall in love with teaching"...aah nope.  I'm still pretty certain that I'm not meant to be a teacher. Oh well, it's a great experience.

I work in two elementary schools; one in the city and one in a village.  Which one do you think I prefer?  Well going to the village is like visiting a zoo, the children are loud and misbehaved.  In fact, I barely teach.  The level of English is so low that I sit on the side and get stared at while the teachers ramble off in Spanish.  However, in the city, it is much better.  The teachers are organized, they know what they want me to do or say every week.  I usually prepare powerpoint presentations; Halloween, Thanksgiving, All about Samantha, American food, etc.  It's an easy job no matter what anyone says.  You get paid to go speak your native language and talk about yourself.  I am supposed to be in the classroom for 12 hours a week but in order to carpool with teachers, I'm really at school from 9-2 every day except Mondays. 

The students: Kids are kids..loud, silly, obnoxious, funny, blunt..we all know this. Kids who don't speak English can be even more hilarious.  Imagine 50 little kids running up to you every day and all they can come up with is "SAMAAANTTTAAAA!!!" Yes, I left out the H on purpose, they don't pronounce it.  I've even been called "Hamantha" before.  I'm the celebrity in school, they love me. 

Halloween crafts

 

...haha

 

cute, right?

My reasons for coming to Spain were to travel and improve my Spanish.  Although I spend my entire day speaking English, I'm still learning Spanish.  I try to carry around a notebook with me to write down new vocabulary words or phrases that the teachers say to the kids.  I also translate the worksheets that I teach to the students.  I teach Science, English and Art.  My first week in my school they threw me into teaching the reproductive system in English.  WHY!? It went suprisingly well but it was still awkward. Things have become more comfortable ever since those first few lessons and I'm adjusted to my new routine. I feel as if I did a good job explaining Halloween and Thanksgiving, next up...Christmas!

 



Shout out to my mother; I am proud of how hard you work every day as a teacher in the United States, especially in the city of New Orleans. Not only do you put your time into teaching, but also your heart and soul. The education system that I have seen so far in Spain is a cake walk compared to what you go through. The hours of the day are shorter and the preparation seems to be more basic here..also, there are double the amount of vacations!

 

Finding an apartment in Spain

Even though this program is a great opportunity, living in Spain and all, they do not provide assistance for finding a place to live.  It can seem very stressful at first, "How am I going to find  an apartment?! Can I speak Spanish well enough to negotiate everything that I want?" Well let me tell you from experience that everything WILL work out, it always does right? It just may not work out the FIRST time :) Fellow Auxiliares, learn from my mistake...

 

I was lucky enough to stay with my teacher the first week I was in Spain.  She helped me make phone calls to ads posted online for rooms available in various apartments.  I told myself before coming to Spain that I was going to live with other Spaniards to improve my Spanish.  Well, I chickened out. At the last minute I heard of other English teachers needing one more person to fill a room, so I went for it.  I figured that it would be nice to have a place to go "home" to at night and feel comfortable with my roommates speaking English.  I was right, it's nice to have other English speakers to relate to.  However, we learned our lesson the hard way. 

 

 In late September we found an apartment (piso in Spanish), we had no idea what the "standard" was here in Badajoz so we figured we had found a good one. Our rent was only 137 euros a month (cheap!!) and we had a pretty nice location.  As time went on, we started realizing that our apartment wasn't so great.  Things didn't work properly; our oven, our chairs, our table...things were falling apart.  Not to mention, our landlord was the most annoying man in the continent of Europe.  I could write an entire blog just about how rude this man was.  He would come over to our apartment 4 nights a week, without notice.  No phone call, no "hey I'm going to stop by tomorrow", nada.  Not only would he show up unexpected, he would over stay his welcome.  This man soon realized how much we despised him.  To this day, to hear his name "Antonio" makes us cringe. 

 

It wasn't until late October that we finally all became honest with ourselves and agreed we weren't happy in our apartment.  So we told Antonio that we weren't happy and were going to move.  He tried so hard to convince us that it was impossible to find an apartment and that we weren't going to be able to do it (yeah right, good one buddy).  This battle between us became our first experience negotiating in Spanish.  Let me tell you, it is very hard to get your point across in another language.  It's very stressful because this man thought we were ignorant because there was a language barrier.  Bottom line, we came to Spain to have the time of our lives and we won't settle for a crappy apartment.

 

We started the search immediately and within one week we had found a gorgeous apartment in a fantastic part of town. We are located in the city center with everything you can imagine surrounding us (we live directly above a pizza place and 10 footsteps from a huge mall..this might be dangerous)  Not only is our landlord super nice, he doesn't bother us every night at 10pm! We even have a door man now who collects our garbage! On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the greatest) my happiness has gone over 20+

 



My old living room

My beautiful new living room

yuck, the old living room...

the new dining table

The new kitchen has a working oven, a coffee pot, a dishwasher, all new dishes, a nicer fridge..all upgrades!

My new room is HUGE! 2x the size of my old one

We now have a guest room! Visitors welcome :) We have an additional three beds in this new apartment



The other half of my room (excuse the mess, I just moved in)

As you can see from the pictures, we have definitely upgraded to a great apartment.  I can't tell you how much better this location is too! We are minutes away from everything in the city center.  We have a more modern washing machine as well.  The only thing missing is that we have yet to acquire wifi, but that should be happening soon. 

My advice; No matter how rushed you feel when searching for an apartment, please DO NOT settle! Even though we lost our deposit on the first apartment and our rent is now a little more expensive..It's worth it to feel good when coming home every night, it's also worth it to never see the face of Antonio again :) At the end of the day, the rent here is less than half of what it is in the United States, so do yourself a favor and splurge on a place you love. 

You know you're in Spain when....

The following are my first impressions of Spain after living here for almost two months.  I find myself being very observant every time I adventure into a new store or just in general when I am walking around.  The thing about where I live (Badajoz), is that there are hardly any English speakers, even less tourists and there isn't much diversity. So the following are just my personal observations that I find amusing, the list is probably going to grow as I spend more time here but here's a start!

You know you are in Spain when...

• Everyone greets everyone..even complete strangers "Hola! Buenos dias! Que tal? Hasta luego! Adios! (very friendly people)
• You get two kisses on the cheek when introduced
• People touch you when they talk to you
• The people are very fashionable- especially the women
• Speaking of fashion, the women color coordinate like none other.  If your shoes are green..then your belt, your earrings, and your eye shadow is also green.
• The people smoke like chimneys
• ^^^Maybe this is why they are all so thin? (Obesity is not an issue here)
• The men wear a lot of cologne
• You can buy a bottle of wine for 1 euro
• Everything shuts down at 2pm and opens later around 6 or 7 (restaurants, bars, shops)
• The bathrooms have dibets.. don't think I'll ever be using that

 

"Closed for the strike"

• Everyone talks about "La Crisis" and the students go on strike
• Your landlord thinks its normal to show up unannounced at 10pm (okay this is just my case)
• It is completely acceptable to take long naps in the afternoon
• Your lunch is the biggest meal--around 2 or 3
• You don't eat dinner until 10pm or later
• Ham is plentiful..they are very proud of their ham products
• Cafes line all the streets---usually packed with people
• Speaking of cafe...you know you're in Spain when coffee is served with milk and sugar (Cafe con leche) and it's the size of a shot (but very strong)

"They call this a cup of coffee?"

• You are served free snacks when you order something to drink (chips, olives, bread, potatoes)
• Its not unusual to go out past midnight and party until 5 or 6am
• No one eats the skin of the apple (I still can't figure this one out- the skin has a lot of nutrients!)  
• You don't have to leave a tip at a cafe or restaurant (pretty nice for my wallet)
• Every third person you meet is named Maria- this gets confusing

Okay so these bullet points were pretty random but they are just things that popped into my head at the moment.  Like I said, these are just my FIRST impressions, I still have a long time to go and more places to see here. Spain is a country that cannot be generalized because it varies so much depending in what area you are in..keep that in mind!

Disclaimer: I don't mean to offend any Spaniards, these are just my personal opinions.

P.S... There's a strike tomorrow

It's not a crisis, it's a trick!

 

General Strike- November 14th

 

A strike is called together to demonstrate (our rights)




I happened to see signs about this strike about a week ago.  To be honest, I only recognized the word "huelga" so I knew there was a strike to be held on November 14.  From what I've heard, its going to be a general strike.  Everyone has a right to do it, teachers included.  My teacher told me that you have the right to strike but you will lose part of your pay if you don't show up to school. My first question was, "So what am I suppose to do"? Three of my teachers shrugged their shoulders and said "I don't know".  Well, let's see..I'm not Spanish so I don't feel comfortable protesting in a foreign country and I also don't want to bail on my students that want to learn English.  The only answer that I got at the end of the day was that if none of my teachers show up tomorrow, then I don't have to either.  I'm a little confused as to what the school is going to do with a bunch of students without teachers- and I'm not suppose to be left alone in the classroom without a teacher.  To my knowledge, they didn't prepare anything for the kids to do when they are off on strike. Hmm....so I let one of them know that it's not my responsibility to teach these kids if their professor decides to be gone for the day- so I guess we will see what happens! 

  I knew that Spain was struggling before I decided to live here but I tried to be wise and save my money (knowing that they won't pay us on time).  Turns out, the economic situation is so bad; high taxes (21%), budget cuts on health care and education and some serious unemployment rates, that this strike tomorrow is meant to prove a point to show the government what Spain would be like without its workers (teachers, etc.)

So, here's to not knowing if I should go to work tomorrow! ?


Hostels, the best way to travel



Our hostel's terrace in Porto, Portugal

 

I've always loved going to hotels, don't ask me why..but its something I've always enjoyed..the comfy beds, free breakfast, the mini- sized free toiletries (I can't be the only person that takes those). Now that I'm in Europe, hostels are my new favorite thing.  In one month, I've stayed in 5 hostels and every one of them has been great.  Sure, there's probably crappy ones that are dirty but if you're smart about it (read the ratings) then you will end up happy with what you are paying for. 

 





These beds were so comfortable!
 

 



Our room



The first few things that come to mind when you say hostel are; cheap and international.  Hostels are traditionally very cheap places to lay your head at night when you travel.  The important thing to remember is that when you are young and traveling the world, you aren't going to be spending all of your time in your room! Most of the rooms are dormitory style and if your room is big enough, you could have a bathroom included.  I personally love the international dynamic of hostels.  I have met people from all over the entire world in that past month thanks to the social environments hostels provide. I remember sitting on the hostel terrace in Lisbon...I was surrounded by so many different people that I actually stopped in the moment to think to myself how cool this experience was.  I had a Canadian speaking French to a Frenchman to my right, two Portuguese speaking Portuguese to my left, across from me sat an Australian, a girl from Finland, guy from Switzerland, an Italian who was dating an English man, a lawyer from Chile, and another American from Washington (who was sitting in the corner watching the Seahawks game..typical American!).  But see my point?? How cool is that. 

 

To sum it all up....

• Hostels are budget orientated; ranging from 10- 25 euros a night
• Your room can vary on size, how many beds in each, multi-sex, etc. (You pay more if you have less people staying in your room, or if you want a female only room)
• They provide more entertainment than hotels; free book exchanges, pub crawls, group dinners, free city tours, dance classes, etc. (they're a great way to get to know a city)
• There are more general areas to socialize (terraces, dining rooms, lounges)
• They typically host younger travelers although I've seen older couples before at a youth hostel
• They are self-catering; you wash your own dishes, you can cook your own food too
 



Typical sign advertising their dinner specials

 

 

Basically, hostels are less formal and less private than hotels.  However, if you are a 20 something world traveler, do you really want to sit alone your room without meeting people? No..so the bullet points above do not bother me at all, in fact I think its fun. 

 

 

To book these hostels; I usually turn to HostelBookers or HostelWorld.  These sites are great, they categorize them by cities, ratings, price, etc.  I usually read through a lot of reviews to make my decision.  If a hostel has a 90% + rating with 300 reviews, you know that you can't go wrong.  Plus, at the end of the day its convenient to take advantage of the free breakfasts, free walking tours, and if you can handle a pub crawl that lasts until 5 in the morning, then I recommend doing those too!

A hostel in Sevilla I'll be staying at in December

 

Rooftop terrace in Cadiz, Spain.



Who knows, maybe I'll become a travel agent after all of this planning is done :) Many more trips to come!