Milano, Italia (Milan, Italy)

I have to go now! I will write a little about these things later.

X-Mas Time in Logrono

That's right. They celebrate Christmas in Logrono, Spain, too. We're not missing out completely. They actually just lit up lights all around the city early in December; so, we've been enjoying a little bit of extra shine in the nighttime lately. Abby and I went to the 'ceremony' of turning on the lights of the city in the Plaza del Mercado (Market Square) very near our apartment. There were a lot of little kids there having fun watching a marionette show, listening to music, and standing in incredible lines for free snacks. It was still entertaining for Abby and I, and we ran around snapping pictures at all the crazy Spaniards and the lights that eventually turned on without too much fanfare. Eventually all the lights around the city turned on, and so it does seem quite festive around here.

So, anyway, hopefully that video above works. If so, I will have to try to take many more short videos to share with you. Wow... it is taking a long time to load though, so I will have to see how long it takes in the end.

There is plenty of shopping in Logrono (and several large shopping centers), but we've been told that January is the best time to shop in the city. I suppose everything goes on sale after the holiday season is over. We're going to wait, and I might buy some new tennis shoes and some cool lookin European blue jeans.

They generally have two days in Spain when everyone gives and receives presents. These two days are Christmas and Epiphany. Spain celebrates Epiphany a little more than we do, and they have several fun traditions they practice. I will copy and paste some info from the the internet that explains it:

In Spain, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico and some other Latin American countries Epiphany day is called El Día de los Reyes (The Day of the Kings), i.e., the day when a group of Kings or Magi, as related in the second chapter of the gospel of Matthew, arrived to worship and bring three gifts to the baby Jesus after following a star in the heavens. This day is sometimes known as the Día de los Tres Reyes Magos (The day of the Three Royal Magi).

Spanish tradition, on the day of January 6th, three of the Kings: Melchor, Gaspar, and Balthazar, representing Europe, Arabia, and Africa, arrived on horse, camel and elephant, bringing respectively gold, frankincense and myrrh to the baby Jesus. (In Logrono, the three kings arrive in a helicopter and land in the middle of the soccer stadium to a crowd of screaming children and their families. Wild, huh?)

In Spain, Argentina, and Uruguay, children (and many adults) polish and leave their shoes ready for the Kings' presents before they go to bed on the 5th of January. Sweet wine, nibbles, fruit and milk are left for the Kings and their camels.

So, I've been told that very traditionally, Epiphany was the only day that children receives gifts in Spain. The kings were a little like Santa Claus in that they give rocks or coal or whatever if the kids are bad and nice gifts if they behave themselves. Since Western culture is everywhere in the media and otherwise though, Christmas is now another time to give and receive gifts. I'm sure they don't mind much.

I am adding several other photos of X-Mas in Logrono to My Pictures site. You can find it in the regular place along the left side of this webpage. Click the link to go to My Pictures and then select the album.

To all friends and family who are reading this: Abby and I wish you all a very happy holiday season. Safe driving if you are doing so along icy roads, and take advantage of all those Christmas sweets and candies. We're missing out on some of our favorites, but we're making some new ones here in Spain. They have a large assortment of seasonal candies and chocolates, and we make sure we try something new every time we go to the grocery store. Rest assured, we are not starving over here.

Let everyone know that I will miss them this holiday season, and I wish them the best. Feliz navidad y ano nuevo tambien! (Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year too!)

New Haircut!

It's been a while (just about three months) since I had my last haircut... and I was beginning to look pretty shaggy. Abby and I found a place on our walk to work that advertised cheap men's haircuts. We went there one day and it was closed; but, luckily, we went to the place next door. The haircut was slightly more expensive but Pedro the barber did a very nice job. I didn't tell him, but I think that Pedro has become 'my' barber here in Spain. Abby took pictures of my haircut experience... which I will hopefully share with you sometime later.

We started decorating our apartment for winter! We cut out snowflakes and put them on our purple wall (it looks very nice, if I do say so myself). We also have up some cheap strands of garland and a 6-inch Christmas tree. I don't think we'll have presents under the tree this year... but that's okay.

So, anyways: Abby and I took several excursions out of Logrono this past weekend and we also went to a concert. We packed our weekend full because we hadn't really gone anywhere since our San Sebastian trip at the beginning of the month! It had been too long, so we needed to be busy again.

First, on Saturday, we went to the nearby city of Vitoria-Gasteiz in the northern autonomous community of Basque Country (Pais Vasco). It was an absolutely lovely little Spanish city, with cathedrals, museums, narrow cobblestone streets, and ancient walls, buildings, and other architecture. I took a lot of pictures, and I wrote captions on them so that you can know what you are looking at. Look at my pictures site and select my 'Vitoria' album.

Pais Vasco (Basque Country) is a autonomous community in Spain where the people have a very distinct culture. The Basque language is called Euskadi, and it sounds more like Russian than Spanish. Maybe I've explained this in a previous blog... I don't remember, but the Basque culture is very very ancient and distinct from every other European culture (or language). Because of this, they are very proud of their heritage, and some of them consider themselves and their autonomous community separate from Spain. They do share a lot of things with Spain, however, in that the Spanish language is widespread there (along with Euskadi). Basque Country reaches up to the sea, so they have nice beach towns there, and it also borders La Rioja (our autonomous community) in the south, so the terrain is similar to that of La Rioja, with rolling hills, small mountains, small pueblos (towns) all over the countryside, and wide valleys lush with vineyards and other crops.

Vitoria is about the size of Logrono, which is quite large, actually; and, so we didn't have time to see everything in our seven hour tour of the city. We visited several museums, ate lunch, shopped a little, and walked around in the cold rain all afternoon. Yes, we had the good fortune of taking our excursion during a rainy day. We got quite wet, but we were able to find things to do to keep out of the rain and cold.

Anyways, I write more about what we saw on my pictures link, so check it out.

We returned that evening to go to a benefit rock concert in Logrono. Last Saturday (it was the 1st of December) was actually the international day for AIDS prevention, or SIDA as it is abbreviated here in Spain. We went to see two bands that were performing: one, called China Latina, was a local band from Logrono, and the other was a band from Guadalajara (a city near Madrid) called the Despistaos. China Latina was good... a mix of rock, funk, and reggae (they played a cover of a Bob Marley song). We were very tired for the Despistaos' set, and their music was much louder and less melodic, so we left for home early. We figured we had already donated to charity, so we didn't feel bad about not staying for the entire concert.

The next day we got up and got ready to go to a small town in La Rioja called San Millan de la Cogolla. The special thing about San Millan is that there are two legendary monasteries there where ancient texts had been discovered and it is believed that it is the birthplace of the Spanish language (Castellano). Interestly enough, they believe that the Basque language (Euskadi) had its beginnings there also. So, it was the tenth-year anniversary of the monasteries becoming some kind of special program of the government... and the government paid to have buses bring citizens from Logrono to the monasteries for free. This trip also included a free tour of both monasteries.

We were excited to go, we had our cameras ready, our breakfast still digesting in our stomaches, and we got in line at the bus stop mid-morning to wait for the buses. It was a very cold morning, and to make matters worse, the government only sent one bus... one bus, which could only take about 70 of the 150 people waiting in line, could not take us either, because we were numbers 80 and 81. But I haven't mentioned yet that there was a bus scheduled to come later on that afternoon. So this next time we went an hour-and-a-half early and found ourselves first in line... a line that was much warmer, and much friendlier--since we met several of the other people in line with us and talked to them throughout our trip.

We made it on the bus, and it took us to both monasteries. One, the older one, was originally built out of a cave on top of a big hill in the forest. It was really a beautiful area, with snowy mountains within site, and the valley down below--where, later, they built a second, much larger monastery and, today, the village of San Millan de la Cogolla is located. San Millan is actually the name of Saint Emiliano, who lived in the ancient monastery on top of the hill. His tomb is in the ancient monastery today... that monastery is called Suso. The lower monastery within the village is called Yuso. Yuso is much larger... with a church, a sacricy, living quarters where nine monks are still staying today, and (believe it or not) they built a high-class hotel that is attached. Some people on our trip didn't like the fact that the hotel was attached... but, what can you do?

Pictures are going to describe the monasteries better than I am able to, since the Spanish tours were a little too fast to pick up everything. Look at my pictures site again and select San Millan de la Cogolla to check out my photos.

I have to go now... we have things to do things to do always things to do. But we're happy staying busy. I shall update again soon, as I we are leaving for Milan, Italy, this Friday and we won't be back until next Wednesday (at 2:00 am in the morning!).

More pictures coming soon. And Christmas activities start soon here in Logrono! Maybe we'll even get some snow... though it's doubtful. Everyone stay cool this holiday season... we'll be thinking of you.

November Times

So, November is almost gone and I haven't written much about it lately. We've been busy here in Logrono (as I'm sure you've all been back in the States), and we're even busier planning trips for this year and next year even. We officially have a place to stay in Sevilla (Seville as far as many English translations are concerned) in the southern Andalucia region of Spain during what's known as Semana Santa (Holy Week--the week before and including Easter). !!! It could potentially be the coolest thing we do on this entire trip: and we've got five nights booked in a hostel for Good Friday through the day after Easter. They have amazing processions through the streets, giant marionettes, music, decorations, festivities, parades, food, parties, yadda yadda yah hoo. And that is all going down in March of 2008... Click here to check out more about Holy Week in Sevilla. And click here for more on Sevilla itself.

Before then we have our Italy trip to Milan. We are currently trying to book a reservation to go see Da Vinci's The Last Supper in one of the museums. I had no idea that you needed a reservation to go see a painting in a museum... oh well; hopefully we'll get in. If not, I think we'll find plenty of things to do. I want to do some shopping in some of their famous markets. I need some sweet new European jeans.

Anyways, classes are going well. I should explain some more about them, but I'm going to leave that to another blog in the near future. I will tell you that I am submitting an article to the school magazine this month, and (though it's in Spanish--I need help with the many mistakes that still remain... eek!) maybe you can see it online or something later when the thing is printed and finished in January I think. I wrote a little about m opinions on learning language; I compared the Spanish students' learning English to my own endeavors learning Spanish. I tried to make it as inspiring as I could, though I don't know how it will transfer through the language barrier. Oh well; it is what it is.

I think that my students are getting the general message that I mean well here (although some of my efforts aren't really that successful in class). Classroom management is a science, especially in Spain.

Abby and I are doing well. We've just purchased a poinsettia for our apartment, ate some mushroom soup tonight, and shared a bottle of 'sidra' (hard cider). We're listening to Christmas music on my computer, surfing the internet simultaneously, and chattin about the upcoming work week. Pretty happy and relaxed here.

My mom always laughs when I tell her that we're busy and sometimes a little overwhelmed with things over here... but it's true. We're very occupied worrying about ourselves, our classes, our friends, our own trips, and the trips we're going to share with family and friends. I can tell as I'm writing this that I'm not going to gain any sympathy... Anyway, greetings to everyone from Spain! Happy Holidays to one and all. I hope that you all find time to relax! We're still workin on it here.

New Travel Plans

Hello all. It's been a while, so I thought I'd write an update about what kinds of things we've been up to lately. First of all, we have a long weekend coming up in December (specifically the 6th through the 10th--five days). So, late last week, we booked a flight to go to Milan, Italy <-- Click on the link to check it out. It's one of the largest cities in Italy. It's got great cathedrals, churches, monuments, museums, restaurants, and shopping. It's also home to Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece The Last Supper. We are excited. We're going to stay there from Dec. 7th through the 10th--which means we get to take off one day of school. The students will miss us a lot, I'm sure; and we'll be thinking of them while we're chillin in chilly Italy for the weekend. A friend from our program is coming with us also--Kara from California. She's already expressed dismay at how cold it's been in Logrono these past weeks; but, we try to assure her that it will only get colder in the coming months of winter here in Spain, it will undoubtedly be cold in Italy as well, and both are nothing compared to the cold in Minnesota and North Dakota. I don't know if we comfort her much, but it's entertaining.

We have also been preparing for Abby's family to come visit us for Christmas. Her mom, dad, brother Rob, brother Tony and his wife April are all coming to Spain from December 20th through the 31st. We're going to meet them in Madrid (where they fly into), and we've already got a place booked there for the first three days of the trip. We've rented an apartment with a couple bedrooms, bathrooms, pull-out couches, and a kitchen. It sounds and looks very very nice to me--as it is fully furnished and decorated in Spanish-Madrileno style. We are going to explore our little city our Logrono in the northern wine region of La Rioja after that... and we're going to try to make some day-trips to different cities around the area also. I'm personally excited that we'll have the opportunity to host her family here at our apartment for Christmas.

Yes, the streets of Logrono are already decorated with hanging lights. They haven't been turned on as of yet, but we think that after December 1st the city will be shining. I'm not quite sure how we'll decorate our apartment yet. We found that X-mas lights are very expensive here (probably since very few people actually own 'house' homes to hang them up on). Maybe we'll find some fake snow to dust the whole place with. It's likely to be a snowless Christmas here, since they usually only have snow a couple times a year here, and usually only in January or February. Oh well. At least it's sunny and cold.

We've been experiencing record days for dryness here so far this month. It hasn't really rained much at all since we've been here... an unfortunate trend that has kept up these past several years, I guess. But, rain is in the forecast for next week, so that should keep the meteorologists, farmers, and others alike happy, I hope.

Last night (Saturday) Abby and I went to a concert at the Forum / Congress Palace in town. We saw Bela Fleck (a world reknowned banjo player from New York) and Chick Corea (famous jazz pianist--also from the U.S.) perform. They played duet, and they were outstanding, as was the magnificient new Forum building. There were probably about 300 - 500 people there, I'm not really sure, but among them I suppose that about half or less actually 'got' the jokes that Fleck and Corea told in English (they were pretty cheesy anyways). But boooy could they play. My favorite I think was when Bela Fleck went into a bluegrass tune and Chick Corea dueled him with some twangy piano bits of his own. Very cool.

Let's see. I started a couple private lessons with some students from my schools these last couple weeks. I'm tutoring one boy who is twelve years old and I have another lesson with two nine-year-old boys the same day in another part of town. The twelve-year-old is very interested in trying to speak English, and though he has a very limited vocabulary, he'll try to speak English for the entire hour we have together. The nine-year-olds know less English, and they are happy to speak Spanish the entire time. They are interested enough to listen to me in English and a mix of Spanish, but it's clear that I'll have to have more things planned for them to do during our sessions. I need to get more private lessons set up. They are a great way to earn a little extra spending cash. Abby already has four lessons. If I find just a few more a week I should be in good shape. I've put some notices up at my school, and hopefully I'll get some more calls soon; otherwise I'll just keep lookin. We have to be careful not to pack our schedules too full though... we still want to keep time open to do some other fun things while we're here.

For shame, I haven't been taking a lot of pictures lately. I guess we've been busy doing some of these other things. I will be sure to load some good shots of Logrono getting ready for Christmas sometime soon.

Until later. And have a fantastic Thanksgiving everyone!

My Birthday Weekend

Hi everyone. Yes, I celebrated my birthday last weekend. I turned 24 on Saturday. We went out to a friend's party and had supper and a few drinks. It was a good time, and it was also quite an international party: a few Spaniards, a few Americans, a few Brits, a Scot, a French girl, and our Italian friend. We almost invariably talk about the differences between our cultures and the places we know and have visited. It's always educational, of course.






This is a picture of the cake Abby and her parents got me for my birthday (thank you, by the way, Steve and Linda; it's delicious). It's a chocolate fudge ice-cream cake. We are crazy about the pastries, the desserts, and the candy that they have here. We are glad that we have to do so much walking around our city (and climbing up stairs of our apartment). And Christmas is coming soon! So all of the markets have candy on sale; and they have so much traditional Christmas candy and pastry that we are, of course, obligated to try. How else will you all at home know what it tastes like? And if you come to visit, how else will you know what is good if we don't test it first? Don't worry... we're on it. I've already told the pan lady (this is what we call the baker lady on our street--pan, pronounced 'pohn' or 'pawn', means bread) that we want to try everything in her store. I guess she figures we're good business, because every now and again either she or her husband will throw in a creamy sugary treat for us. Our again, we are forced to oblige.



This is a picture of Abby and I eating lentil bean soup at our living room table. As you can see, since we've got the internet the conversation at mealtime has considerably decreased to leave use more time to write e-mails. We're much happier now to be connected in our own home.



This is a photo of some of the amigos of our group. They are all in the same program as us, and they assist in different schools in Logrono and the surrounding area. Left to right, we are: Stuart (the Brit with the red hair), Tim (the tall New Mexican guy behind him), Abby, me (on a particular night--probably at least six weeks ago--when I decided to bring a can of beer with me out on the streets: no not illegal, there are many bars in our city and Spain where the thing to do is order food and drinks and have them outside), Katarina (we call her Kadda: our blonde German friend; yes, she teaches German, but she also was an exchange student for a while in North Carolina and she speaks flawless English with us), Luisa (our Italian friend with the red glasses; she teaches Italian to students and occasionally to us when we're out and about; her Spanish is also very good since Italian is very similar, and she likes to practice her English with us), nevermind the random Spanish dude in the background, and last on the right is Marcos (from Florida, though of Peruvian decent. Marcos is the self-proclaimed Grandfather of the group because he's the oldest; I recently learned he's working on his Master's program to someday become a professor of English at university). There we are! There are several more of us not in the photo, and also several others who we aren't very close to in our nearby cities.


This is another photo of us out at Halloween.

And this is a photo of a meal Abby and I had sometime around Halloween. As you can see, we decorated our place a little with ornamental gourds. We are eating pasta here, with toast, Rioja wine, and some melon we picked up at the grocery store which was wonderful and very much like honeydew. We like to cook. Tonight we're actually going to attempt homemade pizza! We only have to buy a pizza pan and the makings... so we'll see. It's one of our favorite things to do, so I hope that our homemade pizza here turns out as well as it usually does when we make it back home.
Back to the birthday for a second: Abby gave me tickets to a jazz concert that is coming to town next Saturday! It's a jazz duet: a banjo player named Bela Fleck (who I know and am a big fan of) and a piano player named Chick Corea. The concert will be at the RiojaForum (the big concert hall in town). I am very excited and grateful to have such a cool hip girlfriend like Abby. I'll tell you all about how it goes later.
That's all for now. Everyone stay cool. We're anxiously anticipating Thanksgiving here, as we'll likely be doing many lessons about it in school. Hasta pronto (until soon).

San Sebastian, Halloween, School Stuff, *pant pant... so busy

So I have been very busy doing a variety of things. Some of these things include relaxing, watching television, cooking suppers, going out with friends, and not writing too much.

I just started a famous Spanish children's book today called Manolito Gafotas. Manolito is a little boy (the main character) and gafotas refers to his glasses--it's also his nickname. I just started the book, but already I can tell that the reading is a little above my level of Spanish--which is perfect. I need to look up a lot of words in the dictionary to understand all the sentences. But that's what you have to do when you're learning a foreign language.

I went to a class tonight to learn to play a sport called Paddle. Paddle is like tennis (it's played with tennis balls and it follows many of the same rules and scoring) but the raquets are more like wooden padels with holes built into them to act like the strings (and help with wind resistance and whatnot). There are four walls that are used, and so it is a little bit of a mix of both tennis and racquetball (no ceilings, and you only play doubles). I won't get too specific right now, but practice was very fun. My Spanish friend Juan invited me to play, as the courts are located in his residence area. I learned about the rules and the technique of the sport and practiced drills with the instructor, and then played some games with Juan and a few other people who were there for the lessons. Juan and I did very well. I'm very excited about going back next week.

I posted my pictures from San Sebastian on My Pictures page. Again, you can find the link on the left side of my blog-page. I describe a little bit our adventure there and what the pictures are. I need to describe more though, because it was a crazy weekend. I was sicker than a dog, and the weather was not very helpful for my cold. I'll write more about it soon.

What else: my school wants me to write an article for their bi-annual magazine. I have just started to write it now, and you will all be informed about how it goes. I wrote a brief description of myself for the school webpage also. Here is the link for you to see: http://www.iesbatalladeclavijo.com/departamentos/dein.swf. You should be able to find a scroll bar to the right of my picture so you can move down and see what I wrote. If you look around the website and get lost or simply want to return, you can find my section in "Departamentos" (departments) and then "Ingles" (English) and then "Auxiliar de conversacion" (Assistant conversation specialist, aka super qualified expert, aka The Man) you'll find me.

The Halloween play that my sixth graders put on for their school was very very cute. They were all dressed as zombies, zombie killers, mad sisters, mad servants, and one Queen of the Dead. All the students from the school dressed up also and came to see this Halloween play in English (the teachers help to translate a little bit for them!). They gave away candy and sang a Halloween song. It was actually hilarious: some of the very young children were soooo scared! A few boys started crying, and a few other children wouldn't go in! The teachers and I just laughed! (we're very cruel).

Cute, huh? They're just like sixth graders in the U.S., with some cultural differences of course. They still like to pretend they're zombies and cut each other up and they like professional wrestling and soccer and television and music and cell phones and friends. And they're very loud and obnoxious at times and very quiet and shy other times. Ahh to be young again.

I need to go to sleep. I'll write again soon. It will likely be another busy weekend... even though we're staying in Logrono this time. It's my birthday on Saturday. I'll be 24 years young. Yes, I still consider myself a young man... and hopefully when I get back from Spain I will be a young man with a lot of good experiences under my belt and a lot of knowledge to pull out of those! That didn't come out right... I'm tired... going to bed. Buenas noches amigos!