THIS POST CONTAINS ADULT THEMES AND PERHAPS A SHOUT OUT TO THE BAY AREA

Good afternoon, and happy Friday the 13th.

Emily's mom sent this bottle of Cholula 3 days ago. After month long withdrawals, I relapsed, and it was exactly what they say will happen if you hit the bottle. And I hit it hard. Mom, is the tapatío on it's way?

I did not work today because... well, I never work Fridays. My weekend usually starts on Thursday at 14:30 when the bell rings but teacher's have been out sick and for that I get sent home as a rest day or play day or just another free day. Technically, my work week began on Monday at 10:30am and my weekend began on Thursday at 10:30am. So, after careful calculations it's clear that I only worked part-time this past week.... 8 hours.... of my usual 12. I know this sounds ridiculous and at times I really feel like I'm cheating or something. My work isn't hard but sometimes it is challenging. Spanish high school students have the same hormones as American students and are facing the same peer pressures to fit in, test the boundaries and try to catch the tall lanky American doing something worth gossiping about. And speaking of rumors, popularity and fame, well... the media has detected me on their radar. I was enjoying an adult beverage at the local Australian Country Pub when a boy-man started small talk with me. What's your name? Where are you from? And of course, why are you here? These answers usually just spill out of my mouth in the same order having answered them to probably a couple thousand residents of Calatayud, but this guy really threw off my flow by interrupting me after only telling him I was from California. Dialogue goes like this:

"You're the blonde American teaching the whole town of Calatayud English?????"
"Um, yes. That's me.... Do you know one of my students?"
"No."
"Do you know one of the professors?"
"No."
"Oh, I get it, town gossip, right?"
"No. Well, yes. But I heard about you on the radio."
"THE WHAT?"
"The Calatayud radio station."
"HAHHAHAHA, ok, lies."
"No, I'm not a liar."
"Why would they talk about that on the radio?"
"BECAUSE NOTHING ELSE IS HAPPENING IN CALATAYUD."

I've started looking over my shoulder for paparazzi at every corner.
Naw, I'm kidding, but isn't that just too funny? I'm really looking forward to start making some weekend trips outa here because I need to change it up a little. I'm getting into a routine, especially on the weekends. But hey, this weekend will be a bit different. There was a town-wide children's drawing contest and the results are in with a scheduled awards ceremony on Saturday at noon. Free snacks!
Well the three Americans have started planning Calatayud's inaugural THANKSGIVING FEAST. We've somewhat assembled a guest list comprised of co-workers and various friends who we think will mix well with our superiors at school. Also, we are going to visit a few butchers this weekend to find the best deal on whole turkeys. Thing is, turkey isn't a fan favorite in Spain. Pork, beef, lamb, seafood, chicken, baby beef, baby lamb, rice, duck, seafood and seitan basically all come to mind before Spaniards are like, "hm I've really been craving turkey meat. A whole one with legs and wings and everything. Oh I could just baste it and slow roast it in the oven, what a meal we're gunna have!" They're too lazy first of all, I mean c'mon they close the whole country down for two and a half hours every day to eat, sleep, smoke and drink coffee. Secondly, white meat? They eat blood sausage for breakfast and drunk munchiez. SNAP. Anyways, we're hoping to be able to pre-order a turkey to arrive for our big day. Then we're going to have a video skype session with all of our moms because how the F do you cook a whole turkey? And speaking of food...

Check out what 14 EURO got me at the store:
butter 250g
box of fiber flakes cereal
block of gouda cheese 500g
milk 1 liter
coca cola zero, 2 cans
asparagus spears 350g about 15 spears
hot chocolate mix 500g
3 bananas
1 large grapefruit
1 loaf of fresh baked artesan bread
1 bottle of water
sack of potatoes 3kg
tomato/pasta sauce 1 jar
broccoli 400g

A friend we met in Zaragoza (the city) is making the trek out to C-town for a couple nights. I'm excited to take someone new up the mountain to play at the castle AND start a dance competition at the Australian with the locals.. which I am, too. OH and I'm hoping there's a few people reading who will appreciate this.. The Americans have assembled a large music play list to submit to our friends at the Australian because they only have about 50 songs on repeat and the one's they do have in English aren't very good. I VERY STRONGLY DISLIKE KATY PERRY. So as bad as I feel about infiltrating a very authentic Spanish town's "club" more or less with American music, it must be done. We tried to keep it more Tiesto-ish and less Eminem, but like I said, for those who would appreciate this... I snuck in a few E-40, Too $hort and Mac Dre songz...keepin the movement alive! Actually, I'm feeling neutral about my decision. It's possible they won't play them, because these are only suggestions, but.. a little hyphy never killed anyone. I'll be sure to only get stupid in the confines of my room, where I'll also be leaving my thizz face on Saturday.

With that, ¡Que tengais un buen fin de semana!

P.S. My students asked me what "freaking" meant. I received supervisory consent to tell them that it's "a nice way of saying 'fucking,' " which they understand as the FU word, pronounced in Spanish like FOO

TRUCO -O-TRATO

Happy Halloween from Espain!

WITH MY STUDENTS

As a writing and vocabulary exercise, I had some of my 4th years write some Halloween poems, mostly for my own personal pleasure. Of course I was also thinking about sharing them with you all, because I'm a proud profesora AND because some of them worked very hard.

They do celebrate Halloween here, but mostly as a reason to fiesta, underage drink and chain smoke. Some little niños go "truco-o-trato"-ing but I still couldn't convince my too cool high schoolers to wear costumes. Shame. If they could only experience a real Halloween celebration in an American city like, Santa Barbara perhaps. I hope one day they get to live the true American dream, however; Hamburgers, house parties and lots of naked hoes on Halloween.

Cheers!

HALLOWEEN!
By: Paula and Ana
In Halloween very strange thinks
Happen, now we're going to see!
The cat is red...
The spider flies
The skeleton speakers English
Another vampire doesn't like
the night...

THE DAY OF HALLOWEEN
By: Carlos and Rubén
The day of Halloween is very, very mysterious.
One day a family have lunch in the forest.
They find the ghost in the river.
They are scare run, but they find a graveyard in the forest.
The ghost was not there but a bloody vampire it will.

UNITITLED
By Marina and Irene
Today is Halloween
Let's look for some candy.
If you are frightened
you need a jack-o-lantern.
I'm a mummy
and my friend is a goblin.
We go to the cemetery
to look for some zombies.

POEM
By: Melisa and Merche
One night in a city there was a ghost that scare people.
It was terrible, he killed the children.
Whenever it came the werewolf howls.
Then the people knew that they had to go.
The Halloween day a lot of spiders, witches, monsters, zombies, mummies and creatures went to cemetery, when the moon go out.
It very scary.

FOTOS TO BE POSTED AFTER THIS EVENING.

In other news: La Familia Kephart has a special greeting for you.
PLEAZ ENJOY BY CLICKING HERE

TENGO UVAS

I'd just like to literally translate a quick exchange I had with the mother of a student who I tutor privately. Her name is Ana.

Ana: "Do you want something? A beverage? Do you need to use the restroom?"

Karli: "No thank you, I have grapes."

Ana: "Oh, grapes."

Karli: "Yes, Marta's mom gave them to me."

Ana: "Well I hope you enjoy them."

Karli: "I hope you enjoy the grapes too."


WHAT???!!!!

Well, I had literally just finished tutoring for 4 hours straight and I was kind of wanting to sprint home to cook, so hungry! So when she asked if I wanted something, I just told her that I'm ok, I have grapes. I'm such a weirdo. Then she wished that I enjoy all of them. And when someone says to me in Spanish, "Que las disfrutes" or with a different article, I'm just so accustomed to responding with "igualmente" which means I wish the same blessing for him or her.. to enjoy my grapes. Now, I'm sure she thought nothing of it, however for me, not being a native Spanish speaker, I really enjoy literal translations of phrases/words and especially realizing when I probably used the wrong verb or word, but that the person still understood, even if I said "dream well" instead of "sounds good." I had to get out of there, I was so hungry. For an hour and a half Marta and I talked about baking and custard and bagels and donuts filled with custard. MMmm.. bagels.

WHOA, I just missed America for the first time.

Shame on Spain for not having bagels and for making Spaniards think a bagel with garlic and queso cremoso smeared all over it would be an awful way to start your day. Oh well, chocolate croissants for a few months will suffice.. ADIÓS

PRANKS TO PULL ON A PICK-POCKETER

I was thinking back on a time when I accidentally got robbed while exiting the Barcelona metro. It was SUCH an uncomfortable feeling, especially the jitters I was left with.

Later, (back to Calatayud time), during one of the many free hours of my days and weeks, I was thinking of ways I could trick the thieves while "in the act."

My trick goes like this..

Confused looking Americana, chattin' with her friends on the metro, wearing a(n empty) backpack, perhaps unfolding a map of the city...
Out of no where, this seemingly normal looking Spaniard is screeching and hollering and everyone else on the crowded metro is definitely irritated because he's bumping into women and children and business men with newspapers, THEN, as the crowd clears and the metro is obviously coming to a stop because, after he stole your wallet and i-pod he was most certainly planning to jump off at the next station...wearily some folks brace themselves to exit if these damn doors ever open! The man's face is turning red and he's holding his wrist, he looks like he's in pain...The doors finally open at the 3rd stop on the Red Line and on the ground, where the hootin' and hollerin' (injured?) thief stood as he reached his greedy hands into your Jansport backpack was...a gigantic mouse trap.

My flatmates humored me and laughed at my scheme, but Emily suggested... why not just fill your backpack with tiny particles of glitter?

She's right.. Way less of a chance I'd accidentally bump someone and set the mouse trap off, if not reach in there myself and really screw up my plan. With glitter, it's way easier, probably cheaper, millions times prettier plus everyone could go decorated to work and school, and in the end, it's just going to turn into an underground fiesta! Stuck on the metro with 200 close friends, celebrating the failure of another Euro-thief...So who's with me? And who's bringing the boom box to blast MIKA when the glitter party starts?

WHO LOVES SPARKLES??

(we are not what you think we are, we are....CLICK)

GLOWING VIRGIN

An overdue blog with more photos and videos than words. Let me start with Calatayud:

Every week I like to explore my city just a little more. And because it is a SMALL city, I've taken my time getting around so I can make the excitement last a few months. I can already tell it's going to take a lot of effort to keep myself busy, thus the reason I'm searching for hobbies; this city is almost a ghost town at night, except for the weekends and combined with the fact I have one Spanish friend who hates living here, well I'm just happy it doesn't take much to keep me entertained. I finally got up to the top of the mountain where the Castillo de Ayud sits. It is one of the biggest and oldest Muslim fortress in the Iberian Peninsula and it is gorgeous with an equally amazing view. It reminded me however, that Calatayud (who's name comes from Qal`at 'Ayyūb, Arabic for Ayub's fortress) is surrounded by mountains but still, in the middle of nowhere. The walls are still standing from the year 716, not to mention abandoned towers, dungeons and stairwells are excellent for climbing and photo taking. Please enjoy:

El Castillo from my balcony



El Castillo from my balcony in the PM

View of my cute little city atop the mountain where El Castillo sits



360 view, ok!
(still regaining my voice!)

El Castillo



Castle walls

I also made a trip to the Santa María church, one of the attractions Calatayudians are most proud of. Not only is the Mudéjar (Moorish) style religious center a very popular (the only) place to get married in this town, it is stunningly beautiful. To me, the most notable characteristic is the sparkling church organ on the 3rd story open balcony. Thanks to good timing, when Sara and ventured inside the Santa María, a few of her students from the elementary school were practicing for their choir performance that evening. Obviously the natural acoustics made their little angelic voices ring ever so sweetly throughout the church, but it was difficult not to notice their pronunciation of "hallelujah" as "jallelujah." Very cute. And hey, I stole their souls on video, so enjoy and do keep in mind, they are a group of 9-13 year olds.

Also the Santa María church.
Ceiling art done by Francisco Goya. (Ya'll familiar with him?) Well, his work is all over Aragón because he was born in ZGZ, holla!

Next up, just a few more photos of my hood...

my balcony, my city.

Calatayud has wild royal turkeys and the city highly encourages the public not to feed them. Perhaps because they're river bank dwellers, and do you remember what the Jalón River looks like? Anyways, royal turkey in Spanish is "pavo real" so it's just a literal translation, but really they are peacocks. "Royal turkey" just sounds way more majestic and no one can deny their beauty, that is until they screech. Adam has childhood horror stories from summer camp of peacocks shrieking and apparently it's very frightening. Because I'm not stuck with that memory, I'm very alright with walking to school and crossing the street with the royal turkeys, they are outsiders in this town just as much as I am...and the Romanians.

Meet piano man.
On a typical night, he usually plays to 3-5 guests taking coffee or an adult beverage on the patio of the hotel. One special Saturday night however, the hotel hosted a wedding reception (I'm sure they host most of them in the city) and to much personal surprise, piano men provided the entertainment for the evening, I guess he is the permanent house band. Yes, band. Horns, Bass, Drums, Keys, all the while chain smoking cigarettes with one hand; a talented man indeed. You're probably thinking, WHAT IS THIS CRAZY BLONDIE AMERICAN TALKING ABOUT, well you can thank me now because I have a gift (proof) for you. Please party people, enjoy:
P.S. The fedora hat is not just for occasions to match red carpet events, no. He rocks it every night. And even when he isn't playing (because sometimes, I'm sure his fingers are just too cold to press a couple keys here and there) he's still chain smoking somewhere on the patio. I guess he's just the hotel lurker/house band.

On to Zaragoza.
My lovely ladies and I ventured to the city for the fiesta weekend of Pilar, their virgin saint. It is a community celebration as well as a tourist attraction because there were visitors from all over Spain mostly, others from Europe in general and even travelers from across the globe (me). A spirited and loud weekend filled with fireworks, free concerts, botellón (public drinking and general chillaxing with homies), food, friends, overalls that look like carpenter outfits, flowers, fruits, costumes, dancing, parades and paranoid tourists digging into their underwear and chests to retrieve passports and credit cards hidden in their money belts. We started out the first afternoon by accidentally participating in an animal rights rally across the street from the plaza de toros. We really just need a sunny place to eat our pre-packed chorizo bocadillos and chug our boxed wine when an onslaught of counter-culture youth generally dominated our plaza with antitaurina (bull fight) signs, pamphlets, paraphernalia, etc. As spectators arrived for the 6pm bull fight, they screamed and picked fights, flipped the middle dedo and made the police shake in their little booties. I took some vid.. The most popular signs read:

"La tortura, no es arte ni cultura" (Torture is not art nor culture)

Others included:

"Si quieres ver sangre, cortate las venas" (if you want to see blood, cut yourself)
"STOP"
"VIVO"
and my personal (un)fave:

(Welcome to Spain, enjoy our traditions)

Videos:

So the weekend continued with a 2 day parade on Monday and Tuesday. Monday's parade began at 700am and finished around 17:30h with the different barrios and towns of provincial Zaragoza marching through the city, ultimately concluding in the central plaza of Pilar to honor her with flowers. The build a wire pyramid and fill it with flowers that each persons carry and it is transformed into a heavenly smelling shrine. I think literally the whole city walked in the parade because it took 10 hours for each person dressed in traditional Aragonese garb to add their bouquet to the ofrenda. Moms, dads, grandparents, children, babies, infants, those who could or could not walk, ALL took part. Representing their neighborhood, region, organization or city, different groups performed along the way in form of song and dance, chant, etc. What remained constant between these groups was their spirit, purpose, flower offering AND awesome shoes.

This little bugger reminded me of my older brother circa baby-Cables, right???
WHAT A CUTIE PIRATE!










Pre-ofrenda


Post-ofrenda! Que bonita, eh?



Nuestra Señora, la virgen Pilar



Full frontal of Pilar's Basilica, (haha)



Backside of Pilar's Basilica with el Río Ebro en frente



Hey, I know you!



Plaza Central in the PM



The ladies and I in the plaza central, AM- holy day



The ladies and I in the plaza, PM- botellón with wine and a free concert. YES



Inside Pilar's Basilica. That sounds bad..
But, "what red-blooded American male doesn't love a glowing virgin?" -dk

One more thing to note about the fiestas de Pilar..
Besides the costumes that the paraders wore, all the onlookers and drunk high schoolers were gallivanting around the calles and avenidas and paseos in group color oriented overalls signed like a yearbook. Say what? Right, well we kind of just accepted it until we were botellóning in the plaza next to a group of walking rainbows and asked a very uncomfortable, hormonal teen Spanish boy trying to play it cool for his lady friends. I think I was expecting some great historical reason but what we could get out of him between glances to his peers and awkward position changing is that it's just random tradition for teenagers to wear them all weekend during Pilar. Basically, some Aragonese business makes a huge profit the beginning of October, kind of like costume manufactures do in America for Halloween. One girl later told us that colors usually reference a certain barrio, city or group that the person "belongs" to and the most useful information we got was how to say overalls in Spanish. The end.

It's "Petos"

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO THINK WE'RE FROM NEW ENGLAND...WELL, WE'RE NOT, SO...

Time to share an LCD Soundsystem song with my students.
HAZ CLICK HERE.


(special thanks to twinzy)

LEO de CHAB

I just wanted to quickly reflect on the academic week before my FIVE day weekend. I LOVE BEING HERE AND DOING THIS. As much as spreading the English language is a bit obnoxious, slightly ignorant and perhaps lazy of us, the world is moving that way and thus for the opportunity to connect to more people, I'm in. Plus, I like to think I'm doing my part by learning a new language and absorbing the world around me when I'm not in the safety net of California. And for personal satisfaction, I am very happy to live in Spain PLUS I'm getting more out of this experience then simply learning a new language.

I was nervous to be placed in a high school, forgetting however that teenagers are way more uncomfortable and insecure then I am in my position. I'm speaking my native language and they are not. They are dealing with peer pressures, fitting in and all that icky teenager stuff I would never want to go through again. Either way, this week was a blast. Who knows how I'll feel at the end of May but I am very seriously considering doing this program next year...I just have to find something to do during the summer months!

Anyways, my first day of school I spent some time with the secretary signing papers, touring the campus and other introductory stuff. While I was filling out forms, José Luis, the secretary, said that before I arrived in Calatayud, he and the English department staff googled my name. They found all of the basketball write-ups and pictures from high schools and couldn't believe that was me. He doesn't know how small town the Auburn Journal is and I'm not going to tell him because he thinks I'm a star! Not only did they google me, they saved the articles and pictures on his computer to show me! He said I looked like I was 12 in the photos, which is true. One of my classes guessed I was 15 today thinking I was a braniac child who entered college at 11...??? Well I'm surprised I am still served glasses of wine. Wait, no I'm not, this is Europe. Can you see over the bar? Ok, you're of age.

So, the English department is made up of 5 ladies, I've only met four and 2 speak excellent English, 1 speaks alright and the other speaks enough. I work with all of them in various levels once a week per class. High school is set up like this:

1st cycle
2nd cycle
3rd cycle
4th cycle
1st ctcle Bachillerato
2nd cycle Bachillerato

They enter at age 12 and graduate age 17/18. Many of them understand English very well and others don't. From my experience in a foreign language class, there will always be at least one person who understands. So I like to put that person on the spot and have him or her attempt to explain WHAT THE HELL THIS CRAZY BLONDIE IS TALKING ABOUT in English. They think it's a bummer to be the one that always understands but really I think it benefits everyone. For the one person because they learn how to articulate and explain because speaking is always the hardest part. I hope it benefits the rest of the class because in my experience, I have always learned the most from my peers.

Anyways, first week was mostly introductions. Each teacher had the same routine: I introduce myself and give a little background and they write 3-5 questions to ask me. They are all very general, obviously and sometimes personal:

How is California?
How are the parties?
Do you uh like ehSpanish boys or American boys?
How old are you?
What music do you uh-like?
Where do you stay in Calatayud?
Why did you come here to ehSpain?
Do you like uh Hannah Montana?

I've gotten pretty good at turning questions around on them, making them think on the spot and explain themselves because if I don't make them speak, they never will. It might be scary but I honestly can't see why... there are 20-30 of them and 1 of me. Not to mention the English professors usually just use the translate method which is of zero help. EXPLAIN EXPLAIN EXPLAIN until they truly understand. I've picked up drawing, acting and improv so I'll be a changed woman when I come back to the states. Ha.. Anyways, they all want to visit New York the most, but the boys all want to meet a Hawaiian girl.

Today in my last class we played a word game. First person says one word and the next person says a word that starts with the last letter of the previous word. Ex: dog, grass, soda, apple. I was blown away with the vocabulary when Jorge said "acrobatics," others said "astronomy" and "achievement," and of course Adriano said "fuck." I was surprised because they were all very shy at first, didn't respond to any yes or no questions and just gave me that glare like WHAT THE HELL IS THIS CRAZY BLONDIE TALKING ABOUT? Probably didn't help that I sounded like a 75 year old chain smoker (Adiós voz...) but my voice will be recovered by next week and we'll see what other surprises they give me.

I get stared at in the halls and the rumors are flying. Half of them don't know I speak Spanish which is fun for me and in the future will be embarrassing for them. Today I met my last class but they all already knew who I was so I was greeted with "hallo Karli from California."

I have a really sweet deal here only 'working' 12 hours a week but for now it's my job and I'm getting by just fine. I'm meeting a couple mom's from the other high school to work out private tutor lessons for their kids. Also, other professors at my high school, Leonardo de Chabacier, are interested in having a teacher's English language session once a week. They are just waiting for funding so they can officially pay me for the extra lessons. It's seems too easy for me to get paid for speaking English but so far everyone seems very appreciative so I guess I'm doing some good. Hopefully some of them will come to California one day and I can offer them just a little more than language.

My five day weekend has officially started so away I go. I wish everyone had a blog so I could keep up with life around the world. Miss you all, but not so much the U.S. Have a beautiful weekend....

LOS RUMANOS

It was a good day... 7th floor penthouse started the morning off right with a little Stevie Wonder. They'll totally rock my world if I hear ELO to start the day.

In other news, the flat-mates and I spent a mini-afternoon with José, The old man from Plaza de Fuerte... We had to shop around for internet but we met back up with him in front of his fave cafe at 7:45. (I'll be switching to 24 hour time soon by the way, just a little heads up) Anyways instead of havING a coffee with him as intended he asked us to go to dinner with him. We already had dinner plans so we took a walk with him to a wine store and he bought a bottle which we thought was going to be from “his vineyard” but the lady behind the counter shook her head like he was crazy. Perhaps José has an imagination... Anyways he also promised us grapes straight from the vine so he brought us back to his retirement home which which we passed all his amigos and they just congratulated him for bringing back 3 young girls. Then it felt creepy. He invited us into his tiny room to drink some wine but we declined because it really was getting weird. He sent us away with a huge bag of grapes, some cookies and a rotten apple. Oh not to mention he gave Emily a smack on the booty (old people and babies get away with everything). We don't sit on benches in Plaza de Fuerte anymore and we try to make friends from our own generation.

Speaking of Emily (flatmate), she works at the elementary school in the oldest part of town. Most of it is surrounded by the original Roman walls. In saying that, it is in the lower-income part of the city and thus many of the students come from families of gypsies or, Romanians. For the first few days we heard everyone pointing out the Rumanos and were confused when we realized they used it as a synonym for “gypsy.” Emily was inspired to research Romanian immigration into Spain because the profesora of one of her classes actually gave Emily an enrollment sheet and had her but an “X” by the gypsy kids and a star by the “well-behaved” children. Just by looking at the names it was obvious that the “well-behaved” students were all native and pure blood Spanish and the “X's” were Romanians. Not only are Calatayudians proud, they are bluntly racist. Romanian immigrants make up 14% of the current population of Spain as a country. They are the largest minority here and Spaniards stereotype all of them as illegals without papers who work for less and are basically filth. This is why our friend José compared us to the Rumanos (as a joke) and every time we walked by a “gypsy,” José would point his finger practically in their face and whisper, “Rumanos, Rumanos.”

One reason why there is such a huge influx of Romanians in Spain is because just recently Romania was admitted into the European Union. I've heard before that many eastern European countries do not belong to the EU because they don't have drinkable tap water and now Romania does, thus they are a part of the Union.

This is how it all ties together: When we were inquiring about internet at a phone store, the employee told us we must have a bank account to contract an internet provider. To get a bank account, we assumed we needed our NIE or our identification card for foreigners. We haven't received our NIE's yet because the police station hasn't been able to consult the program they use with the computers and I'm sure they are just confused (they certainly are not the only ones) why 3 American girls up and moved to Calatayud for 8 months. So, the employee at the phone store said, “you only need a passport to get open a bank account because the Romanians are all illegal and they have accounts with just their EU passport.” I shouldn't quote because it wasn't in English and isn't word for word but you get the point. Then the other employee said, “No, you need an NIE.” Then a different customer said, “Romania is now a part of the EU so they only need a passport because they are all illegals working without papers.” Then the conversation continued until it was decided that Romania just joined the Euro Union and they only need a passport AND they are all most likely illegals working for less but we probably still need an NIE to open a bank account and then to buy internet. This morning I got the number of my NIE but they still haven't been able to process my documents and other information SO I opened a bank account before school and today after siesta, we will contract an internet provider and FINALLY WON'T HAVE TO STEAL INTERNET FROM “MOLINA”!!!!!!!!!!

Last couple things: This weekend is the huge festival de la Virgen PILAR in Zaragoza. We are hoping some other auxiliares will house us for the weekend as there is a lot happening as far as music, food, parades, etc...and probably the whole town of Cala is going. The director of English at my high school plays the guitar in a traditional Aragonian band so I hope to catch the music competition (I think it's like a talent show) on Sunday. It should be very fun and super authentic. Her “band” of 30-40 people including dancers is called Estampa Baturra and if you HAZ CLICK here you can see videos of music, dance and traditional dress. Baturra refers to traditional Aragonese from the campo, casi las montañas o algo así.

Entonces, one more day of school this week and hopefully an adventure this weekend. If you'd like to read a little more on the festival de la virgen Pilar, HAZ CLICK here. ¡Que lo paseis un buen fin de semana y besos!

THREE MEN AND A...

Every day entails more exploration of the city. For some reason, even with my sleep schedule finally adjusting to the time difference, I still seem to be missing the synchronization with 'day in the life' of a Spaniard. For starters, I sleep too late so when it's time for “breakfast” I am too early for their grande meal of the day or lunch. Then when I'm hungry again, this time for a huge meal (around 8pm) I just miss dinner time and am the only one in the restaurant as I'm sure you all probably know, they eat around 10. Luckily, having just moved into my own place and stocked the place with groceries, it's easier to avoid this problem. On Sunday, however, there's a totally different time schedule: no siesta to plan my day around, instead everything is just closed. Every store except the more local, hometown like bars and cafeterías are open and of course the tienda China. A tienda China is a euro version of a dollar store. Both fun cheapie things and necessities can be found here. So with a failed attempt of looking for at least one little convenience store open to buy some crackers, cereal or even just an ice-cream around 2pm I headed to 'the Chino' in Plaza del Fuerte for some good buys for the house; a trash can for my bathroom, a towel perhaps, some cheap house slippers, wine bottle opener, outlet converter, etc. As noted earlier; I'm still out of synch with the Spanish daily and of course, the tienda took a siesta of it's own and I just missed it by a few minutes. As I was waiting around reading Tom Robbins' Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas when an old man in a discount sweater (we are super-homies so I know where he shops) stops to chat, tells me how studious I look. Old Spanish men are difficult to understand. José, like all other residents of Calatayud don't believe that I live here. He does however think it's fabulous that there are 3 American girls in his presence and gives us all a lemon-honey “candy,” aka cough drop. He tells us we should definitely not go to the tienda China to buy things rather the store right around the corner from his living arrangement, I do believe he meant an equivalent of a retirement home. The only other understandable sentences we got out of him were to stay away from where the gypsies mingle, (then pointed at every gypsy that walked by us; there really aren't too many in this small town) and continuous jokes about how he's going to call the police and have us hauled away for not having legit papers to work in Cala, just like the gypsies. We assume he was kidding because he asked us to stop by the Milenium Café to enjoy a coffee together some afternoon. This was right after he asked us to guess how much he bought his discount sweater for.

Our 'L' shaped apartment building is connected to a 4-star hotel with a grand patio 6 floors down where the visitors and even locals take coffee and cocktails. Every night around 8pm, a certain piano man in a fedora sets up his keyboard and speakers on a mini-stage. He then commences the “entertainment” of the evening by lighting a cigarette and pressing the on button. It is one of those keyboards that if you just press one key it plays a whole recorded song. He's got the same play list 4 nights in a row now. Did I mention the balcony connected to my room looks down onto the stage? I know we've heard the cha-cha and the tango. Last night we decided to shake up is world and give him an “encore” shout out, which in Spanish you just “otra!” or “otra, bis!” At this point he had no guests on the patio. Instead he just pressed the off button and continued puffing on his cig. Perhaps one night I'll bajar the 6 stories and dare him to dance his tune, conmigo of course.

Our flat has wood floors, no rugs, nothing on the walls and very modern décor..thus the noise echoes throughout the piso very easily. I didn't realize how thin the walls were however until 2 mornings ago when 7th floor penthouse blasted his or her morning mix. My eyes opened around 9am to Bob Marley's “I want to love you,” and the jams kept coming with: Lou Reed's “Take a walk on the wild side” followed by “Take on me” by A-Ha. As much as I thought small town Spain would be the perfect place to escape English and American culture, besides the fact that 12 hours a week I am teaching both of those things with the possibility of a few additional hours a causa de we truly are the only 3 English speakers here thus everyone and literally their moms are requesting private lessons...what is means is more euros for me, but escaping seems impossible now. Every morning will bring new surprises (I hope) unless penthouse's morning mix is on roto like piano man downstairs. As for my year here, well...I am in need of Spanish friends pronto. The only numbers in my móvil are the profesoras from the English department, my landlord named Jesus and my American flat-mates. Actually I just added two more, the ladies who are requesting private English lessons. Perhaps they'd like to get coffee with me during their off time, ha.

Well, fotos as promised... I have only had 2 days of work so we'll see what the rest of the week brings as well as my 4 day weekend...a puente to celebrate my first week in Spain, can you believe it's only been that long? Besos.


THE MAIN PASEO THAT I WALK EVERYDAY TO SCHOOL. BEST PLACE TO TAKE A CAFÉ, SO FAR...



VIEW OF THE CITY



EL RÍO JALÓN. IS IT SAD OR FUNNY?



VIEW FROM MY BALCONY OF EL CASTILLO MAYOR AND THE ROMAN RUINS

HOLLA-TAYUD

ORIENTACIÓN

A quick update as my hectic first week continues.

I arrived in Madrid on the 29th after 18 hours of travel, as did all of my luggage. ¡Que suerte!
I tried to nap in my hostel, did so for a couple hours but woke myself up so I could try to sleep at night. It was a pretty loud hostel and I stayed in a 10 bed-room so, to no surprise I only slept about 4 hours the first night. I did however make contacts with some folks all around Europe so there's a good chance I'll be getting around to some of those cities: Bruges, Santander, La Rioja, San Sebastian and others. My second day in the city I tripped around a bit, took coffee with some Spaniards, got a new phone number for my móvil and other little things. I successfully hauled my junk across town to Hotel Convención where our program orientation was held. I almost fainted in the metro from heat exhaustion combined with sleep deprivation so I napped from 3-7 that afternoon followed by group dinner that evening. That night I went to bed at midnight but opened my eyes at 3:30am and was wide awake for the rest of the night. I really thought I'd be adjusting better but the city was loud, my diet is still off and I just recently got rid of an ongoing headache that changed location in my brain every few hours. Sleep will come later, however. After a night of 3.5 hours of sleep we had orientation from 9AM-6PM...

Basically, the Spanish government pays for a certain amount of “auxiliares” from all different countries to be teaching assistants in schools, beginning with infants all the way to pre-bachelor programs or basically the high school system. The autonomous communities of Spain have the option to bring in more “auxiliares” but must fund the teachers separately. So this year Spain is hosting almost 2,800 “auxiliares”. The introductory meeting consisted of a member from each embassy of each country that participates in the culture-language exchange with Spain. They are: USA, Italy, Canada, France, UK, Germany; Belgium, New Zealand (1 person), Australia, Iceland (1 person) and Ireland. Obviously, there are more English speakers than all the others combined but it was a pretty cool experience to be in the middle of such a grand fusion of cultures and languages. Each representative from their respective embassy gave an introduction speech, and each attempted it in Spanish but for the most part stuck to their native tongue. Have you ever heard an overweight, pink faced Brit speak really awful Spanish? At least I stayed awake during that part of orientation.

So the adventure continues...

The next morning (Friday), the two chicas also going to Calatayud and I caught a 2 hr train ride to our city and checked into my 3rd hotel in 4 days. A few teachers and directors from the elementary schools around town met us at the train station, drove us around, showed us the hot spots, etc.. They gave us numbers to call for apartment searching because there really isn't much online, so finding a new place basically goes by hear-say. Because Calatayud isn't really a big city kinda town, there isn't a lot of people-traffic going to and from so I couldn't find just a single room to rent out of an already inhabited flat full of Spaniards, as desired. Well lucky for me, I happened to know 2 lovely ladies also looking for housing. We looked at 3 pisos and unexpectedly struck gold on the 4th. I am happy to say I'm no longer switching residence every other day and have a home! Master bed, private bath and balcony...It is a precioso piso moderno in a quaint little Calatayud. My landlord's name is Jesus. Jesus Melus, hahaha. We've also sworn to each other that the only friends we make are Spanish speaking. We live on the other side of the river, which, really means just that. I can walk anywhere in 5-10 minutes. Oh and our barrio is called Galapagos. Holla.

Speaking of the river, it runs along the southern part of the city and answers to the name Jalón. It's great when nature meets city but Jalón is the color of café con leche, and more café than leche, that's for sure. Our first night we ate shwarma, of course. Had an adult beverage at the Buddha bar, followed by the Australian pub which played disco spanish music all night long. What's great about this town is that no one believes that 3 American girls just up and moved here because let's face it, there's no migration to Cala, and peeps my age leave because there is no university here. Luckily, Zaragoza is not too far, maybe an hour by car and an hour and a half by bus. Tourists are mainly Spaniards and I'm guessing most of them are probably here to visit their relatives. Chances are good I'll be having a very authentic time here, minus the fact that I'm “not supposed to speak Spanish” at the high school. Guess we'll see on Tuesday.

So, lots to do this week. Today, probably a hike to the Castillo Mayor which I can see from my window, along with all the surrounding mountains since buildings here aren't taller than 7 floors. Monday I have to: do paperwork at the high school, make copies of the keys for the flat, grocery shop so I can eat on my own schedule's not Spain's, call the internet company and get some wiiiifiiii installed, buy a towel, buy sheets, answer some emails, ask mom to vacuum pack and send my my down comforter because I don't want to buy a new one and it's cooling down fast here...

I'm sure I've forgotten many details. And I promise that fotos are coming soon. My camera's been dead for a while and I've been distracted, ok?

Well tomorrow I'm off to IES (instituto de educación secundaria) Leonardo de Chabacier. I've been taking note of the high-school looking kids I pass on the streets and telling them to "remember this face" because it's game time October 5th. Any funny phrases I should teach them?

I need to see more names on Skype also, where ya'll at?? Talk soon...

P.S. FELIZ SUPER CUMPLEAÑOS HERMANO MAYOR, TE AMO CALEB!!

EL AMANECER

28F window seat, Sac Town-Chi Town. Local time 6:22am, time to chase the sunrise, and I have premium seating.
See ya'll on the other side of the pond
ADIOS CALI

Adeu, Barcelona

I have 3 more nights left in my new/soon to be old, but definitely favorite, city. As Adam plays the guitar, my mind and thoughts just keeps racing about the 11 months that I've spent in Barcelona.

It's unreal to think about everything that I've accomplished and every opportunity of new experiences that have been presented to me. Before August 16th, 2007, never had I left the United States...I've never even been to Mexico, shame. Before August 16th, 2007 the world seemed to me a huge unknown mass, now after traveling through Europe for 11 months, it seems even bigger. I am more certain than ever that travelling has to be and will be a big part of my life. I've only now had a small taste of what's out there, of what's waiting for me, but it is enough to keep me exicted to continue moving on with my life, and growing into the person who is: Karli

Claro, I've been blessed with the opportunity to live over seas, but more then anything, with an extremely supportive family who has financially sacrificed their own desires to see the world and instead live it through my stories, blogs and fotos. I hope that with everything that I have learned and gained while being in Spain for a year, as a daughter, sister and friend, will be able to give back some piece of something to benefit those who have supported me thus far.

Now, I will just re-cap a few incredible memories that still seem so unreal to myself...

All of the amazing places I got to see this year...
France: Paris
Italy: Rome, Florence, Milan
Spain: Barcelona, Madrid, Zaragoza, Valencia, Dénia
Balearic Islands: Ibiza (Ibiza City, Cala Vincent), Mallorca (Palma de Mallorca, Alcúdia), Menorca (Ciutadella, San Tomas, Mahón)
Portugal: Lisbon, Sintra
Andorra
Hungary: Budapest
Austria: Vienna, Salzburg
Germany: Munich, Füssen
Czech Repulic: Prague
Netherlands: Amsterdam

Sky diving over the Mediterranean

Snowboarding in the French/Spanish Pyrenees

Primavera Sound music festival: Seeing Swell Season, Portishead and Cat Power live in BCN!

Taking classes at a Spanish University

Learning how to (sorta) cook

FC Barç-Euro Fútbol matches (2!)

Surviving in a different country without my family on speed dial

Writing over 100 pages combined of essays in Spanish

And much, much more.


Thank you Barcelona, for everything you've given me...
lots of new friends, Xibeca, mullet appreciation, new acquired tastes for things like: ham, olives and pretty much everything lacking a strong flavor, Shwarma, Bicing! Nap-time in the middle of the day but mostly, inspiration to continue taking every opportunity to travel and see our world, it is here for all of us to explore!

Next Euro-trip will definitely be devoted to Spain travel because as I think back now, I was so excited with all the places to see that I sort of forgot to explore my own country! But now, I have a better idea of how to do it and am looking forward to coming back to utilize Spanish again, and of course, be in Barcelona once more.

Until then, GO SPAIN EURO-CUP 2k8!

Adeu, Barcelona, i bona nit.

Las Islas

My last trip: Balearic Islands (Spain): Ibiza, Mallorca, Menorca

our intention: small group backpacking through the islands.
what happened: 8 people urban camping/being homeless for 6 days, this is our story.

June 13th, 2008-Day 1
6/8th of our group went to a Radiohead concert on the 12th and didn't return until late that night, so getting up on the 13th at 5am sucked, especially because I was in charge of the troops, mom status. Anywho, we rallied the troops and made it to the bus station by 630am or whatever time it was and fell right back asleep on our 5 hour journey to a town south of Barcelona named: Valencia... rad city. We spent the afternoon hangin out in the cool park and picnic-ing and all that, until catching another bus at 9pm to a city 2 hrs south of Valencia called: Dénia. This night was interesting, basically we just needed to find a place to sleep for a few hours until our boat left for the first island: Ibiza. (Still following me?) If you didn't know already... Urban Camping=WAY TOO HARD with 8 people. Three troopers ended up on the beach illegaly and the other 5 of us found a sketchy little spot, on unoccupied land in between 2 houses in the middle of a bush. literally. Adam and Josh had found this place and when they came back to get us they tried not to freak us out too much but did mention that we might have some neighbors, aka bums sharing the bush or the next one over. well, paranoid as ever, I didn't sleep much and clutched my passport and wallet in my hand all night.

Flag on top of the Valencian castle. Just showin some love to my favorite country ever =)

That's my friend Elyssa.. This is a really cool, oversized slide park, for adults! Super fun way to pass the time!

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this already, but Europe really knows how to build parks for kiddies. I'm the queen of the playground, claro.

Arts and Sciences Museum in Valencia, really neat building!

Urban Camping. Sitting around on the sidewalk with all of our stuff while Adam and Josh searched for a "campsite." I'm sure no one suspected anything..

And that is where we ended up in Dénia the 1st night, middle of a bush

June 14th, 2008-Day 2
Waking up to sun and a wet sleeping bag isn't the most pleasant thing, UNTIL you make it to the beach and get to see this:

and this is me enjoying it:

Continuing on with day 2... We still had about 3 hours until our boat left so we got some much needed coffee and 8 lack of sleep zombies made it to our oversized and horribly utilized boat just in time....Boat ride was about 5 hours to Ibiza, we attempted to sleep a little, since we were 2 nights behind really, but only got a small nap. Here is our boat:

Unfortunately, once the island came into view, my camera's life ended. It was a sad moment, but I realized it is time to move on, just like my latest venture in life is slowly approaching it's own end. (So from here on out, these fotos are stolen from Deja, Adam and Ross) Back to cool things: Ibiza is a rad city. We contemplated doing the clubbing thing, if you don't already know about Ibiza's reputation, go look it up. So we took a bus to the other side of the city, less populated and city-like and again, the sun was setting so Josh and Adam had to hurridly (word?) find a place to sleep. This time, we got lucky, real lucky. We also got to do some rock climbing to get there... 18 years of living in Grass Valley and river hiking has repaid itself. Looky:


So we ended up camping on the top of an abandoned concrete house. Notice the pool of still fresh water, a mosquitos dream, right? so jokingly, over a bottle of tequila and some wine, the 8 of us had a silly bet of who would have the most bites in the morning..

June 15th, 2008- Day 3
Some people didn't think much of it. However, I woke up the next morning very groggily hearing Deja, Alex and Adam saying things like, man in the iron mask (like the movie with Leo-love) and elephant man. Then I decided to open my eyes......

campsite

And poor little Deja won the bet:

THANK GOD she was laughing not crying, because, for 5 hours I couldn't NOT laugh, know what I mean? The swelling went down that day and she looks more beautiful then ever, but it sure gave us one hell of an ab workout. So, finally, we got a day to relax instead of waiting around to move to a new place. We ended up camping that night on top of that house, right? Turns out we had an incredible ocean view.. so we hiked back down for another sunrise, then made our way to the beach below and spent a lovely day in the sun, where we all got pretty toasty (now people believe me when I tell them I'm a native american). So the beach was beautiful:



And that is 4 of us on a little zodiac put-put boat.. we rented one and went deep sea diving, just kidding but we nervously "cove" dived out in the sea. It was incredible and the mediterranean was blue-er then blue. Here are some fotos of us on the boat. Adam and I were both going for the wet dog look:

Hey mom and dad!

That same day, we took a night boat from Ibiza to Mallorca, which was amazing because we got a solid 5 hours of sleep INSIDE and gave our faces a safe break from the open air buggies.

June 16th, 2008-Day 4
Yet again, another amazing sunrise as we stepped off the boat in Palma de Mallorca:

This was just another day of exploring really, because we didn't really have an intentions of staying in Mallorca. It is the biggest of the 3 islands, and more big-city then the others too... we were trying to avoid big-city due to the sketchy "campsite" in Dénia (remember or are you already lost?) Anyways, Palma turned out to be a really cool city. Big, but really cool still. I took a nap on a park bench. Went to an open-air market, got some green SEEDLESS (hard thing to find in Spain) and a mango that cost 5 euro which was pretty delicious and we spent some time doing this because it was a beautiful day and we were tired of lugging all of our home around, sabes?..

So, our final boat ride left the city of Alcúdia, Mallorca at 5pm and we finally arrived in Ciutadella, Menorca a las 7:40pm. Here we had some minor complications that worked out just fine. Starting the night we were leaving Ibiza, Alex hadn't been feeling so well. So in Mallorca she stayed near the bus station and napped in a park as we explored. Then we took a bus from Palma de Mallorca to the other side of the island: Alcúdia where we had a few more hours to waste as well, so we got a weird American-Mexican meal at some place where everything on the menu had an American State attached to the end: Nachos South Dakota, and things like that. Well unfortunately for Alex she had been literally having the worst diarrhea of her life and was starting to get a fever in about 88 degree weather, so while we finally found her some shade, we were able to find an internet cafe, go purchase our last boat tickets, and email our dad's because we had all missed Father's day that Sunday. After an hour-ish at the beach, we collected our things, boarded the boat and 2.40 hours later landed in Menorca, like I already told you. Our plan was to catch a bus at 7.45 (the last bus) for a town called: San Tomás where 2 of our other friends had been camping for 4 nights, instead of traveling through the islands like us. We lost 2 people along the way so the 6 of us were on a mission to find Ross and Marc. Well Alex was starting to get really sick, so we booked her a hotel (which turned out to be a good thing, she slept for 2 days straight, her fever broke twice and she had a bathroom all to herself). We missed the last bus at 7.45 so we alternatively took a bus to a differente town that started with an F and from there took a taxi to San Tomas where Ross and Marc were waiting for us. Then, as the sun was going down, they took us on an 1.5 hike through the mountains to their perfect campsite. They kept explaining to us how awesome this beach was (beach camping without tents= perfectly legal in menorca) because it was pretty much their private beach minus a few hikers throughout the day and yadiyadi. Finally, an hour and a half later, tired as hell and sweating like a beast, we arrived to our final destination. But at night time, we really could only see the cove by moonlight:


June 17th, 2008-Day 5
And so happily we all threw down our things and went night swimming in the beautiful waters. Then in the morning we woke to a surprise of how beautiful really, our cove was:



That day was nice and relaxing finally, a day without travel.. We snorkled and rock climbed and rock jumped and swam out to the deep depths of the Mediterranean. No one got sun burned too bad, we are all just a little crispy now. We spent one more night there with a campfire and all. Here is our campsite and fire:

June 18th, 2008-Day 6
We packed up shop, hiked back into the town of San Tomás, had our first cup of coffee in a few days and caught a bus to another town called: Mahón where we were to fly back to Barcelona. We tripped around, ate some lunchy and stumbled upon a gin distillery where you could take shots and taste all their flavors (chamomille, cinammon, peppermint, chocolate, coffee, etc...) for FREEEE so we did that. Looky: (That's Alex in the glasses with her tongue out, she was feeling better by the last day thank goodness.. Sebastian is the one with the gnarly beard, he is Adam's friend from home and on the other side is Hillary and then Me of course)




Lastly, Deja took a "parents" foto for me since, (if you remember) my camera's life was over. So here's me with a view of the Mahón port in Menorca.


Our plane didn't leave Mahón until 23:55h so we hung out until nighttime in the city, watched a little of the Greece/Spain EuroCup game and finally boarded our plane around 00:30h, damn airlines always running late. And by 3am we were all in a bed again, sleeping without fear of buggies landing on our faces and giving us a make-over to look like the elephant man or the man in the iron mask.

So quick review, in chronological order, here are the cities we traveled through on the Islands:

Valencia
Dénia
Ibiza City (Eivissa as they spell it)
Cala St. Vicent
Palma de Mallorca
Alcúdia
Ciutadella
F-name city
San Tomás
Mahón

The End.
4 more nights and then, as Mason Jennings says, "And there's a feelin in my heart, I can't explain, I'm coming home, I'm coming home, yaaaaaa"