A day in the life of...

a Mexican restaurant we found. yeah.

CARNAVAL 2012 is around the corner...

My Saturday evening drive in to Cadiz from Chiclana. A wonderful way to pass 30 minutes!

Buying tuna jerky on the side of the street on a busy late Sunday morning

 The random parks in Cadiz...

First of all, it’s the half way point! Oh no! haha this is actually bittersweet. Actually, my exact return date to Corpus Christi is June 11^th

Today, a second grader successfully asked his classmate IN ENGLISH for a pencil J

Fernando: May I borrow a penciiiiiil? (they love to draw out the “i”…)

Paquito: You can borrow my penciiiiiil but not my Pokeman cards. No.

I thought Bob Esponja was the cool thing now with 7 year olds, but I guess other things will always hold a certain title. With that said, Dora the Explorer’s Circus Extravaganza has come to town.

 

I have become a soup-maniac, thank you local fresh fruit & vegetable Mercado! I told you I was obsessed with this place. My roommates and I started out American style, reaching for carrots and potatoes…then we ventured out over the past few months to new spices, foreign veggies with bright colors, and some brown sugar just to mix things up. I love my tiny little Spanish kitchen with a gas stove and an oven with dials that MAKE NO SENSE.

This job is so rewarding, there’s just no way to go into detail on the stories I have about the various children that I work with! My tutoring classes after school are going well and it never gets old when they run up to hug me tight every time I get to school.

My new favorite past time is running out to the salt mines by the river. At one point, when you’re gasping for breath and quite frankly you’re over it haha, you turn around and see the entire town behind you with its cathedrals and Moorish-inspired buildings amidst hundreds of little apartments. I love it.

Trip planning is in order, most importantly: my mom’s! She’ll be here in less than a week with a friend and we’re still hoping to get to Paris. Fingers crossed. Aside from that, I’m planning for Greece, Portugal and Italy more than anything. The second half of this adventure has me soaking up the local town more, so we’ll see.

I leave you with this, some great advice that the 6^th grade teacher gave one of my students today, “(talking about her exam results) You look for perfection and you just don’t realize that you’re never going to find it. You’ll stumble upon it when you least expect it. Trust yourself.” It’s sooooo much more moving in Spanish!

Reason #2736 I have to go back to Italy <3

“Dear Elizabeth,
Thank you for your email and interest in Caffè del Doge, I am sorry for the delay in responding to you.

If your travels bring you to Venice in the future, please let me know and I will arrange to meet with you in our coffee bar. We are located in the heart of Venice, near the Rialto bridge, and the coffee bar showcases all of our blends and single origins.

It sounds like you are enjoying a wonderful experience in Spain!  I came to Venice many years ago...only intending to stay about 6 months. Those six months turned into 16 years and counting!  Living abroad is a fantastic experience and I hope you are enjoying every second of it.

Kind regards,

Jill

Caffè del Doge srl
Via Mattei 11/E
35020 -  Due Carrare (PD)
Cell: +39 340 6805096
Tel. +39 049 9126188
Fax +39  049 9129532
http://www.caffedeldoge.com”

Barcelona had my undivided attention

"You can't miss forever.

No matter how close forever feels right now.

You can't hurt forever.

Even if your heart whispers in your ear and tries to convince you otherwise.

You can't bleed forever." - www.iwrotethisforyou.me

 

My life in Spain is near perfect, short of calling anything that in this world. I have every intention of leaving and getting back to the Texas I love so much, but every day that goes by lately makes me realize how much I'm going to miss Europe. I've just learned SO many things, opened my eyes with conversations & people I never would have met, and feel such peace. I am SO grateful for this opportunity and my supportive relationships.

 

With that said, back to living in the moment: MY MOM IS COMING TO SPAIN! I've known this for a few weeks now, but seeing the plane ticket email makes it official :-) She wants to go to Paris (where neither of us speak the language?! haha) and then we'll spend the second half of that great last week in February in the south of Spain I currently call home.

 

So back to Christmas break...

I had the opportunity to go to Belgium and visit Bruges & Brussels with 2 great women who work with me in the Andalusia school district...I still don't know how to word that in English from Spanish haha. The train we rode to the center of the city opened up to large windmills on stunning green fields and beautiful slanted roof (for the snow that wasn't there that weekend..) homes. Bruges was a small town that you couldn't believe with your eyes! It was a Christmas storybook full of horse drawn carriages, lemon mayonnaise covered fries, really good famous waffles made with buttermilk and a layer of sugar in the middle (I thought everyone should know what the real recipe is!), chocolate shops, a Belgian beer brewery and outdoor stands that sold delicious local foods, like bratwursts and broccoli soup. Brussels was another train ride away and it was a huge city, so take everything from the previous quaint little town and put it in a New York City-style setting. As usual, there certainly wasn't enough time to explore :)

 

Madrid happened right after that, as mentioned in my previous blog - followed by LOTS of rest at my piso. I even missed my cold shower and 4 flights of stairs during my travels! I visited the fresh fruit/veggie/spice/bakery/olive/meat market almost every day and ran to the salt mine outside of my city. Christmas break going in the new year really brought on another appreciation of everything I'm blessed to enjoy.

 

Finally, in my travels, I went to Barcelona with my roomie Jackie this past weekend. It is hands down the top 3 places I've ever been to!!! Hawaii and Italy are on their own level, but I just really love how positively overwhelming that amazing city was. The tapas were unique and piled high with half the ingredients I didn't recognize, Catalan language was everywhere: a fascinating combination of Spanish & French (sidenote: eventhough I haven't seen Harry Potter, it felt like I walked into the whole changing stairways thing when I heard the "Spanish" in this area, and I loved learning about it!), Gaudi's passion for Catalonia was beautifully apparent in his buildings AND in the design that the city celebrated all over from the ceramics to the newer buildings, the run on sentences are endless basically...the first night, Jackie and I checked out a restaurant across from the hostel where we tried Cava Sangria for the first time, with a cinnamon stick as the stirrer and differet fruit from the typical recipe. Our bartender was a good sport with all our questions and even let me ask if he was really a Barcelona Futbol fan or if he secretly like Real Madrid (blasphemy haha).  We checked out the Dow Jones Bar afterwards, which is set up like Wall Street, where customers control the prices with purchases of certain brands and had a lot of fun meeting new people! Saturday morning, we crawled out of the coral colored walls of our room and stumbled upon a great coffee shop. I LOVED the advice he gave this coffee nerd :)

 

me: what kind of beans do you use?

50 year old man: it doesn't matter. it just doesn't matter. i don't care if it's a 50 euro bag of beans, or a 5 euro cheap one. though the brazil colombian blend i had once was good...but it doesn't matter.

me: oh... is it the grind?

him: no. not that either, yes you could grind it too coarse or fine, and burn the flavor in the latter. but that doesn't ultimately affect the drink.

me: oh okay...this coffee's just really good.

him: that's because someone who cares made it. that's it. that's life; have passion - have success. in every little thing, you have to know what you're doing and want to do it. that's it.

me: got it :) Pablo Neruda?! haha

him: you're welcome. i mean, they do say i'm pretty great at making coffee too and i know my stuff :) but still...

 

We then took the metro to Park Guell and walked past a lot of cactus that were "tagged" by people from all over the world, along the climb up to a view of Barcelona. It's amazing how their must see places REALLY stand out! Park Guell brings people together, out in the open and it makes sense: EVEN TIME TAKES A BREAK. I loved it, family, couples, friends...everyone was just enjoying the time together. We thought it'd be a good idea to walk to Sagrada Familia after that....and ended up covering amost half of Barca haha but it was worth the walk! The basilica had the most beautiful stained glass windows I've ever seen and a great museum underneath. It reminded me of this, I am so thankful for the order of things so far: going to Malaga first to visit Pable Picasso's museum with 66 million euro worth of work and quotes from those who encountered this artist. It led up to seeing the Guernica piece in Madrid weeks later, when I was able to explore the Reina Sofia museum and the sketches/video leading up to this creation. It was a very cool similar experience with Gaudi's work here. The museum showed all the research he did and made the visit so much more meaningful. Even his house was very creative!

 

We went over to check out the Olympic Stadium and another angle for a view of the city with a sunset. The magic fountain was not running when we got there, but it was all the more reason to go back. I can't wait to go back! The malls were in the coolest locations (one was an old bull ring and the other was on the port), the plazas were huge & exciting, and Las Ramblas were a fun location to lose yourself in.

Okay I've rambled as usual, so thanks if you made it this far and know that I miss a lot of people back home!

 

twentytwelve

EVERYBODY participated in the dress up game for New Year's...

Listening to: The Big Bang by Rock Mafia because it's STUCK in my head



I’m sick with some kind of cold again. Only this time, I don’t mind, as it serves as a reminder that Shea Elizabeth Woods, Kristeen Gonzalez and Josiah Toepfer were REALLY here! If the homesick blues plan to hit me someday while I’m here, it should happen soon because I am equipped haha. They each brought a piece of “me” to me, Shea with her priceless sense of humor& finishing my sentences, Kristeen with her Texas style & Spanish language proficiency, and Josiah with his positive attitude & TALL height. My friends visited for New Year’s and we spent it consuming our 12 good luck grapes at midnight at Plaza de Sol in Madrid. WHY you would ever want to put your body through something like that more than once in your lifetime is beyond me…they’re not kidding when they warn you that you’re stuck in the crowd! It was a once in a lifetime experience, where conversations in about 12 different languages must have been going on around us and the energy was on another level. More on this later…

the famous Spanish tortilla everyone must try!

the smiles I was so happy to have visiting from Texas!

I love how Spaniards decorate their apts with climbing Santas and wise men :)

I’m sitting here in my boyfriend’s hoodie (thank you delivery service in the name of Shea!), cozy and happy to be “home” at my piso here in Spain. I think my resolutions began in September with this move, and they're still something I'm working on: my 20384 flights of stairs to the piso have my work out covered, but I could add to it a bit more...I suppose... I'm still debating the whole "what to major in if I got my master's or should I get another degree to major in business as well?"... my brainstorming continues for the coffee shop & this is the one that gets me passionately excited about the most (just look at everything that came from this!)...reading more (finally getting the chance!)...Anyways, three months in and for once, I know exactly where time went:

-I spent a month learning to LIVE in a foreign country, all leading up to receiving my Espana resident card (and you thought your driver’s license was a big deal!)

-Another month was spent planning for the first trip to another country: my dream location of ITALY. I hope to hang on to the pounds I gained in gelato/coffee/cannolis/pasta and lose all the other ones as I do the usual resolutions gimmick this new year…

- A few weeks were spread out amidst the whole thing: my brother and I emailed each other A LOT and it was incredible, my parents’ love was emphasized more than I thought possible with their supportive words over the phone, my 4 year old niece kept forgetting I was actually in Spain but that’s fine haha, and overall I saw true relationships strengthen. There’s a Christmas card now hanging over my bed sent from home that I will frame when I settle back in the states. P.S. my mom might visit in February and wants to see Paris!

- Finally, a month was spent realizing how important this job has become. I didn’t really know what I was getting into with teaching, much less a foreign language (even though I’d already spent most of my life doing that with my family) and I now realize this is something I needed to experience in my life. I may not go on to be a professional educator, but I will forever hold on to the memories these kids have given and the lessons they in turn have taught me.

Now, I’m standing in front of the last 5 months. With 5 countries under my belt and 3 more in mind for the rest of the stay, I feel a kind of euphoria that only one thing can bring: stepping outside of your comfort zone. So with that said, here’s to the resolutions we’ll all set & forget. Focus on yourself, it pays off – no matter the cost, no matter the sacrifices, no matter the hard work it takes: do it for yourself and watch how the people who truly love you become happy with you, that’s how you know it’s real - "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." ~ Mark Twain.

Updates coming soon on holidays spent in the Christmas Wonderland that is Brugges, Belgium (and their INSANE food of course, yes their waffles are worth the hype), driving 8 hours across Spain & visiting Madrid, and soon to see: Barcelona! 

soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy for this haha and can finally appreciate the fresh markets' stand on only serving what's in season:

i made this guy stop to pose & make a silly face, reminded me of a good friend back home!