Hasta luego Baeza

Well this is my last post from Baeza.  I'm catching the bus out of town in two hours, heading north to Madrid to stash my luggage.  Tomorrow morning bright and early, my friend, Lucia, and I are catching a flight to Italy for two weeks of backpacking adventure complemented by loads of pasta and gelatto.  I land in Chicago on June 15th, so next time I write....I'll be stateside, readjusting to American life.  See you all soon!

Jolly ol' England

So two weekends ago, we were blessed with another puente (read long weekend) here in Baeza, and I figured what better way to celebrate no school and no yelling kids for 5 glorious days than to head back to what is rapidly becoming my most visited country: England!  This time, though, I had someone to visit, my friend Mercedes from college who is currently completing graduate school at Brighton University.  So boarding a plane for the (I calculated this) 8th time in a month, I flew off for London on a Thursday afternoon.

Mercedes was kind enough to come meet me at the Gatwick airport at midnight, which I am grateful for since I'm sure on my way from the airport to Eastbourne, where she's living, I would have become incredibly and irreversibly lost.  That is why maps and friends who know where they are going are my best friends when I travel.  Anyway, that night was reserved for sleeping and the next day, we had a relaxed morning and then caught the train to Brighton so she could show me the sights.  May I observe here that the train system in England is infinitly more convenient and easier to get to than the train in Spain.

Our first stop was the Royal Pavilion, built for the drinking, womanzing, and gambling Prince of Wales George IV in 1787.  He later became the King of England for a short time before his death.  The Pavilion itself is a wonderfully fantastic place to walk around since it is heavily influenced by architecture from India, complete with minarets.  The inside is decorated far differently from what one would expect from an English building.  My favorite part was the dining room where the chandalier consisted of one gigantic dragon carrying the framework in his claws and a few other dragons at a lower tier with the lights in their mouths.  Back in the day when the lights were candles, it looked as if the dragons were breathing fire.  Awesome! 

Afterward, we stopped for lunch at Bill's, which is restaurant in a converted warehouse.  Of course I had to be healthy and have pancakes with fruit.......with ice cream and tons of syrup as well.  Delicious, if not particularly nutritious.  Next was some shopping and exploration of the city, wandering among the streets and shops, eventually making our way to the beach and boardwalk.  Sadly we only stayed there a short time, but it was so cold with the wind blowing in off the ocean that my nose went numb.  Then it was back to Eastbourne for some fish and chips.  Later we met up with some of Mercedes friends who are also studying at Brighton and are in the international program.  We sat on the beach for a bit, listening to music and then headed off to find a pub to while away some time.

The next day, it was off to the Isle of Wight via Southampton where we caught a ferry to the island.  Given all the connections we had to make between trains, buses, and ferries, we had superb luck and never had to wait more than a half hour for any sort of transportation.  Upon arrival to the island, we decided that we should just go visit the Osbourne House before making our way inland to our hotel.  So we stopped by the tourist info center to ask where to go, and happened to hear the lady giving directions to other tourists going the same place.  It sounded relatively simple so we set off without a map and with her directions firmly in our minds.  We took the footbridge (actually another ferry going across a tiny river between cities) over to East Cowes and then started off on foot, Mercedes lugging her bag and me with my backpack.  After about 20 minutes of hiking alongside the main road, feeling like hobos or hitchhikers, we were feeling pretty tired and wondering if we'd gotten the directions wrong.  Turns out we were only 100 yards away from it!  How good is that for a directionally challeneged person like myself?  So we spent the afternoon checking out the Osbourne House, residence to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert who considered it a summer "cottage."  The word cottage does not do the place justice....it is big, but for a royal house, the rooms inside are remarkably small.  We saw the house, some of the estate, and the Swiss cottage where the royal children learned to clean, garden, and cook.

The Braunstone Hotel in Newport, where we stayed that night, was a cute little place with gorgeous rooms and a pretty delicious English breakfast (kudos Mercedes!).  Being in Newport on a Saturday night, Mercedes and I expected there to be bustling activity, but things were pretty quiet there.  We managed to find the oldest pub on the island, where we had greasy pub food for dinner, which was so good, then we walked around a bit, saw the town, and found the movie theater.  We ended up seeing X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  My first English movie in a theater not dubbed in Spanish since September!  Needless to say, I was incredibly excited and it made my night.  

Newport

The next day we walked around West Cowes for a bit, then began our trip back to Eastbourne.  That night we met up with her friends again for a pub quiz at the local pub.  Being internationals, we were at a slight disadvantage, especially when one entire category had to do with British cities.  That was a tough round.  But we did pretty well.  Then that night, I took the train to Gatwick and spent the night there because my flight left early in the am.  I'm getting pretty used to staying in airports and killing time, exploring all the different corridors and whatnot.  Didn't get any sleep, but eh, didn't really want any.  Eventually I made it back to Baeza, ready for another week of school with my crazies.

Speaking of school, it's hard to believe that I only have three weeks left before I'm finished.  This past week, my 6th year students asked me if I was coming back next year.  To their dismay, I said no, and truthfully, I'm not even tempted to come back next year.  It has been a great experience and I love the kids here, but I'm ready for another adventure, another experience, another type of challenge.  So now I'm filling out applications for jobs when I return to the States.  I forgot how tedious applications are, but I'm making headway.  Wish me luck!

As always, here's a link to my facebook album:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2052989&id=11400089&l=21a075ad46 

Barcelona!

Well I'm plumbing the depths of my memory with this post, and my memory has never been that great, but I'm going to do my best to tell you all about my trip to Barcelona which was about a month ago.  The weekend after getting back from Kenya, my friend Lucia and I packed up our bags and hopped on a plane again, this time headed north to the famous city of Barcelona, home of the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi, and the Catalan language.

We didn't actually make it to the hotel until nearly midnight, whereupon we dropped our bags and promptly went down to reception to ask if they knew of a late night bar where we could have a drink to unwind after a long day of travel.  The next morning we made our way into the city and met up with a group of people to go on a bike tour through Barcelona.  We had a big group of people, proabaly around 30 of us tooling around on bikes, cutting off pedestrians, and trying to avoid being run over by cars.  But it was a great way to see the city, the back alleyways, and enjoy the sunshine.  We stopped by the Sagrada Familia, the infamous cathedral of Barcelona that has been under construction since 1882 and still has a ways to go before it is finished. Designed by Gaudi, from the front it looks like a fairy tale castle, but from the back is much more linear and geometrical.  We didn't go inside the cathedral because you have to pay an exorbitant amount of money and truly, the interesting stuff to look at is on the outside.  

For lunch, our tour stopped at a cafe on the beach where we enjoyed sandwiches and wine while watching the sailboats float by on the waves.  Biking through the city is the ideal way to see the sights I think.  We got to see the Arc de Triomf, the old Roman walls, a building torn down by Hitler and then painstakingly rebuilt stone by stone, plus we got to hear all the stories behind the buildings, the little stories that make up the essence of Barcelona.  

After the tour, Lucia and I made our way north to Parc Güell, a garden designed by Guadi which was originally meant to be a housing project for the elite of Barcelona, but due to its ecclectic design, never gained much popularity as a place to live.  Located at the top of a hill, on the way up to the park it felt as if we had blundered into San Francisco.  We even had to take a few escalators to the top.  We wandered around there for a bit looking at the plaza, the houses, and the famous benches, when we ran into a friend of ours from Cordoba!  Sometimes life just surprises you.  Veronique was in Barcelona for a reunion with some friends and we had no idea she was going to be there.  What are the odds that we would be in the same place at the same time in a city as large as Barcelona?  So we walked around with Veronique and her friends for a bit before heading off on our own again.

Me, Lucia, and Veronique

Our next stop of the day was the Palau de la Musica, a concert hall which has Guadi-esque overtones, but was designed by an entirely different architect.  We bought tickets to watch a concert of Catalan music complete with traditional dances.  It was very fun to see and listen to and we snuck a few pictures even though technically pictures were prohibited.  It was just too tempting not to.  When the concert ended we quickly made our way across the city to the Magic Fountain of Montjuic, an enormous fountain which has a lights display complete with music twice a night for spectators.  We didn't get there in time to hear the music, but we did get to see the lights on the water and it was very peaceful to sit on nearby steps, just watching the colors play across the water.  Then it was back to the hotel for some chill time.

The next day we got up early and went off to search for some more of Guadi's famous houses. We saw Casa Battlo, a house which looks like its balconies are made from large skulls and the supporting columns look like bones.  Then we saw the Mila House which looks as if the stones were frozen in the midst of a ripple, with cave-like balconies.  It was astounding to see buildings which look as if they came straight from a child's storybook.  Then we stopped by the Olympic Park from the 1992 Summer Olympic games and toured around the area for a bit seeing the stadium and the basketball arena.

After that we went back to the beach for some delicious paella followed up by some gelato before making our way back to the airport for our flight back, which was an adventure.  We thought we were early when we got to the bus station, but then discovered we were at the WRONG bus station and had to go 20 minutes across town to the other one.  We barely made it on our bus to the airport before it pulled out of the station.  We cut it close and I seriously thought we were going to miss our connections, but we were successful!  

Here is the web address of my Facebook photo album for some more pictures.  

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2052886&id=11400089&l=f0c9a5c289

Karibu Kenya

How does one begin to describe Africa, to describe Kenya?  It is a country filled with breath-taking beauty at every turn, with exotic animals, endless savannahs, cleansing rains, and a sky so vast it fills you with awestruck wonder.  And yet, at the same time, it is a country that is very familiar with poverty, with pain, with the realities of life that we don't experience in the United States.  It is so hard to put into words the experience of Kenya.  To describe the little things like driving where there are no stop signs or lights, where most of the roads are so full of potholes that people drive on the shoulder instead so their teeth don't rattle out of their heads, and how speed bumps sneak up on you out of nowhere.  There are always people on the road, walking to and fro, driving in organized chaos that I couldn't seem to figure out.

Even after only 8 days in Kenya, it has a special place in my heart.  The kids at Dagoretti Feed the Children with their soul-melting smiles, sparkling smiles, and laughter.  I have never been more aware of the color of my skin than when walking in the market or driving down the street.  At church with Tiffany, the congregation recognized first time visitors and made them stand up...naturally, I didn't really want to do that, but really it's kind of hard to blend in when you're white as a ghost...in fact, it's pretty much impossible.  Haha, but I never felt more welcome somewhere, especially when I was invited up to tea after the service with the rest of the visitors.  

I found out that I'm horrible at bargaining in the markets because it's a long process and because I couldn't for the life of me remember the conversion rate between dollars and shillings.  Makes it rather hard to be a shrewd bargainer when you can't remember something as simple as that.  However, the vendors are friendly and more often than not, by the end of a purchase I knew his or her name and we'd had a nice chat as businness mixed with conversation.  

The week went by so fast that I couldn't believe my time was up Sunday night when I walked into Nairobi airport.  I wanted to stay another couple weeks at least because it was great to see and hang out with Tiffany and because I wasn't ready to leave Kenya.  I wanted to spend some more time there chatting with Kenyans, drinking chai, and going barefoot all day.  

For more pix of Kenya here's a link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051921&id=11400089&l=aeee217ddf 

March is almost over?!

It seems like I was just writing a blog about Belgium and all my adventures there and now, I look at the calendar only to realize that March is almost over, which means that my time in Spain is rapidly coming to an end.  I only have 2 more months over here, but I'm going to milk it for all it's worth.  oh, I booked my ticket home, and I'll be touching U.S. soil Monday June 15th. 

 This last month was great.  The weather was gorgeously warm, sunny and in the 70's, so I spent countless afternoons outside playing tennis with Ellen, reading in the park, or picnicing on the hill at the edge of town enjoying the mountains and olive trees.  Sadly, we're now in a cold spell, and the temperature dropped 20 degrees so I'm back to my winter coat and huddling under blankets in the apartment to stay warm. Luckily, I'm leaving in four days for warmer lands.  Semana santa (holy week) begins here in Spain at the end of the week, as Spaniards start preparing for Easter with parades and festivals.  I, however, am catching a plane en route to Kenya in four days!  I'm giddy with exciement because it's my first time to Africa and I get to see Tiffany, a friend from Hope who has been there since mid-September working in an orphanage outside the capital of Nairobi.  I get to spend a whole 10 days with her experiencing life in Kenya and I couldn't be looking forward to it any more than I am already.

Anyway, quick recap of the month.  Mid-month I got some wonderful visitors.  Abby came to visit during her spring break from med school and brought two of her friends, Crystal and Dana, with her.  After meeting them in the airport in Madrid, we bussed to Toledo.  Toledo is a quaint little town on the side of a mountain.  The Jewish, Moorish, and Christain cultures all meet there, each leaving their own indelible mark on the town in both custom and architecture.  We spent

 two days exploring the town, wandering through streets and only glancing at the map when we felt like we needed to find something to eat or make our way back to the hotel.  Let me just say that walking through Toledo was my exercise for the month since the streets go up and down all over the place.  My legs were feeling the burn a week afterward.  Here are some pics of Toledo.

We made our way back south to Baeza because work was calling me.  So Abby, Crystal, and Dana did some solo touring of Baeza, Ubeda, and Granada during my work week and I introduced them to the wonders of tapas.  We celebrated St. Paddy's day at a pub here in Baeza, playing darts and talking with the locals.  I was impressed.  Dana, who knows only a handful of words in Spanish, had absolutely no problem making friends with Spaniards and managed some pretty good conversations when one considers the fact that neither participant in the conversation understood the language of the other.

Thursday afternoon we caught the bus to Madrid for a couple days of sightseeing around the city.  We laid low for the night in our hotel, and set out early the next morning to the city center.  We started the day right with a delicious breakfast of pan tostada (basically toast) fresh orange juice and a tortilla espanola (an omelette of egg and potato, which is my favorite Spanish food).  Then we hooked up with a free English walking tour through the city.  Now this was the most interesting part of the whole day.  Apparently the tour guide guild in Madrid is boycotting this company that gives free tours, obviously because if there's a free tour, people are going to take it instead of paying a ridiculous amount of money for another guide.  So about six guides were harassing our party, talking through the entire presentation and holding up signs in neon colors with slogans like "stop lying" and whatnot.  It was kind of annoying, but I was very impressed with our guide because he was very polite to the hecklers and continued his tour through it all.  He did an excellent job and knew lots of little stories about different sites in the city.  And those kinds of stories are my favorite kinds.  The company is called NewEurope Tours and they do the same thing in all the big cities in Europe including London, Amsterdam, and Edinburgh.  

Then we took a lunch break which lasted for a good 2 hours in the true Spanish style, lingering over sangria and dessert.  Afterward, the girls did a little bit of souvenier shopping and we walked across town to the Parque del Buen Retiro, a park with el Palacio cristal in the middle of it.  Basically the palace is a huge building made of glass situated next to a lagoon with a fountain in the middle of it.  From there, we went to the Reina Sofia, an art museum which houses works by Spanish artists such as Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, and Miro.  The museum is huge and we only covered one floor before we were out of time and had to leave because it was closing time.  That night it was dinner and to bed because the girls had to get to the airport bright and early for their flights.  

The next day, back in Baeza, my roommate Ellen and I went to a nearby town called Cazorla with our friend Miguel Angel where we went hiking through the Sierras de Cazorla, the mountains there.  It was so good to get out of the city and just walk around in nature for a while.  We sat next to a waterfall and I just reveled in the joy of being outdoors without being surrounded by dozens of stone buildings.  Later in the day we stopped by a paddock and rented some horses for an hour and took them for a trail ride through the countryside.  Even though it rained on us twice in the course of an hour, it was seriously one of the best things I've done in a long time.  

Since then, I've just been relaxing and saving some money for break.  

Upcoming events include:  Dan's birthday on April 1st (tapas here we come!)

Easter lessons with the kids :)

KENYA!

And TIFFANY!

Heading to Barcelona with Lucia, my first foray into northern Spain.

ok, signing off.  I promise to tell you all about Kenya and post some pictures.  Did I mention we're going on safari?

It is what it is...

Surrounded

and yet, alone.

Laughing but sad.

Outwardly confident

but falling apart.

A brave coward.

A silent screamer.

A doubting believer

(or a believing doubter.)

A cynical romantic.

A shy comic.

Eyes filled with thought and hope,

with worries, and humor,

and plans for the future.

Embodying a youthful spark

and an elderly weariness.

Belgium: Home of Fries, Chocolate Waffles, and Delicious Chocolate

Sleeping on the airport floor in order to save a bit of money by not renting a bed at a hostel sounds like a great idea.  The execution of said idea is a bit more complicated when you factor in bright lights all night long, cold tile floors, and chilly breezes wafting in through the automatic sliding doors every time someone walks past them, all complimented by the announcement over the loudspeaker every half hour telling everyone what they already know… “Do not leave your baggage unattended.  Do not accept anything from a stranger…”  So, after about 4 solid hours of sleep at the airport after I finally fell asleep, curled in a ball with my coat draped over my head to make myself think it was both dark and warm, the Baeza crowd and I got on our flight from Madrid to Charlevoix, Belgium where we caught a train north to the famous (or infamous) city of Amsterdam. 

In Amsterdam we discovered that it is not a place where using a bathroom is a right, but rather it is a privilege you must pay for, and even then you are not allowed to brush your teeth at the sink.  Oh no, the sink is only for washing your hands.  A horrible discovery when one has been traveling for over 24 hours and desperately needs to clean the grunge off one’s teeth.  After that we stashed our backpacks in lockers at the train station and headed out into the city where bikes rule the roadways and there are canals on every block.  Amsterdam is an amazingly picturesque city full of great architecture and cute little shops.  After wandering around for a bit we made our way to the Anne Frank Museum, housed in the flat where the Frank family hid for years during World War II before they were discovered.  I can’t even describe how powerful it was to walk through the empty rooms imagining living there in secrecy day after day, afraid that someone would find them.  Walking through the quiet rooms, up the creaking stairs really made Anne Frank’s diary come alive.  People spoke in whispers, in testament to the struggle and terror the place had witnessed, out of respect for the people who had lived out their last days within its walls. 

Afterward, we found a little restaurant where we had dinner, walked to the Van Gogh Museum and discovered that it was more expensive than we expected and decided to bypass it.  So instead we went to a café where we coincidentally met some Andalucians on vacation like us.  We then walked through the Red Light District of Amsterdam, an area guaranteed to embarrass you if you pay any attention to the advertisements or the windows where girls pose provocatively in skimpy clothing.  And yet again, we didn’t rent a bed at a hostel so we spent the night moving from pub to pub, to McDonalds, to Burger King, buying a beverage here and a sandwich there in order to secure a table so we could sit in out of the cold and drizzle.  When the train station opened at 5 a.m. we actually found a couch to sit on in the waiting room there and sat in an exhausted stupor for a few hours, drifting into sleep only to be awakened by station employees who were under the impression that we thought the train station was a hotel.  We were well aware of the fact that it wasn’t, but I’m sorry, when you’re running on 4 or so hours of sleep in 48 hours, you sleep when you stop moving.  And we’d stopped moving. 

So we caught the train back to Belgium, to Ellen’s (my apartment mate) house in Kortemark, a small sleepy little town where we finally crashed and slept for a solid 7 hours.  It was heavenly.  That night we traveled to Ghent, the town where Ellen went to university, where we met up with some of her friends and got to experience the nightlife of a university town. 

The next day we piled into a car and drove to Bruges, about 45 minutes away.  We walked around for a bit.  Then we made our way to a local brewery where we took an hour tour of the old brewery, a very informative tour made more enjoyable by the guide who had a wickedly dry sense of humor that caught you a bit off guard if you weren’t expecting it.  At the end of the tour we got a complimentary pale ale, which we enjoyed in the pub there.  Then we decided to take a riverboat tour of the city, through the canals throughout Bruges.  It was really neat to see the city and its buildings from the water and to listen to the guide talk about the city.  Justi and I decided we were going to live in Bruges someday.  Then we drove back to Kortemark where we had another delicious meal (Ellen’s parents were wonderful hosts who introduced us to great varieties of scrumptious Belgian food), watched a bit of TV, relaxed, and went to sleep.

Our last and final day in Belgium, we took the train to Brussels, a 2 hour trip made longer by the fact that we accidentally got into the bicycle car where there weren’t many seats and thus had to stand for most of the trip there.  We visited St. Michael’s Cathedral where you could go down into the basement area and look at ruins under the church.  Then we stopped by a famous statue/fountain called Manneken Pis.  There are many different legends about its origins but essentially it is a statue of a small boy peeing.  If you are interested in the legends take a look atit on Wikipedia.  They’re actually pretty funny.  The boy has several hundred different costumes that he wears throughout the year.  Hunger drove us to find anywhere to eat and we got lucky because we found a cute little sandwich shop which reminded me a bit of Subway, but with gourmet ingredients and having to order in French.  The next stop was the European Union Parliament where we got to tour the parliament building for free with an audio commentary.  It was really neat to see such an important building and to hear about what goes on there.  Then we hopped on the metro and took it to the outskirts of town where we walked to the Atomium, a huge sculpture of an iron crystal which was created for the Brussel’s World Fair in 1958.  Then it was back to Kortemark for dinner and sleep before we got up early and began a solid 14 hours of travel back to Baeza. 

The long weekend was absolutely fantastic although I spent last week recovering from all the travel and catching up on sleep a bit.  More pictures are soon to come.  Oh, also, my dad’s birthday was two days ago!  So Happy Birthday Dad!  Hope you and mom are having fun in Australia with Steve!