Basking in Badajoz

This past Saturday, Patrick and I, along with a few of our friends, traveled to Badajoz.  Badajoz is the largest city in Extremadura, and only a short train ride away from where we live (not to mention the train station is right behind our piso...Score!). We spent the day wandering aimlessly around the city and happening upon many beautiful spots. The weather was perfect, and so was the company. 

While exploring Badajoz, we happened upon this beauty, Las Jardines de la Galera.

It's an enclosure around an old fortress surrounded by Arab gardens. Painters often come here for inspiration, and let me tell you, there is plenty of it to be found.

We also were able to visit the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist on Saturday, and being that it was the "Dia de los Catedrales" (who knew there was such a thing?), there was no fee for entry. We're budget travelers, so naturally, we took advantage of this. It's a very old cathedral, having been built in 1270, but not finished until the 16th century. It was beautiful in some parts, and pretty cryptic in others. We don't have much to compare it to at this point, but were slightly unimpressed. 

Some other highlights of the day were exploring the old Alcazaba, eating a solid breakfast of champions of churros and cafe con leche (serious craving right now!), and enjoying some  1 euro cervezas in the sunny Plaza de Espana.

King of the Castle

Something else we discovered on this trip...Contemporary Art is definitely NOT our thing. I mean, how are we supposed to interpret pictures of telephone poles and paint-by-number looking art? Seriously.

The Beach in October

On a whim, Patrick and I decided to take a little vacation on my 3-day weekend. Since the weather here has been unseasonably warm (I'm talking 85-90 degrees every day), we decided to take advantage of this and go to the beach.


We went to the port city of Huelva, in the south of Spain. Huelva is supposedly where Christopher Columbus lived for a year before taking off for the Americas. The town wasn't anything too special, but hey, we were able to go to the beach. In October!


Here are a few pictures from our little beach vacation:

Right near the port

Posing for the camera, such a clown :)

In Huelva after an uncomfortable (but cheap!) bus ride

There's nothing better than a day at the beach!

The shore was lined with thousands and thousands of shells

Locura

This week has been very interesting CRAZY, to say the least. Lots of ups, some downs, and a few "Are you kidding me?!'s". I'll try not to make this post super long, so I figured I'd break it down into days:


Monday: In my set school schedule I have every Monday off. Given that fact, my tutor (a teacher at the school assigned to help me make sure I live to see the end of the school year) decided she would go to the bank to help me open a bank account. Have you ever tried to open a bank account in another country? Word to the wise, be prepared. 


First we decided to go to BBVA that was close to my tutor's house. After waiting in line for 30 minutes, alas, in true Spanish style, we were told they couldn't help us and we had to go to the main branch. After making it there, we got a number and waited. And waited some more. Then waited longer. FINALLY my turn came up, so we ran over to the tiny little desk #7 so as to not miss our turn. After explaining to the not-so-nice (read rude) woman that we were sent over from the other branch, she said not so quietly under her breath, "Oh, how smart of them." Then she tried to tell me I couldn't open a bank account with the documents I had. After some arguing and lots of attitude from this woman, she finally stated I could open a bank account, but that it would cost me 45 euros. Are you kidding me?! At that point, I said thanks but no thanks, and left the bank. I wanted to cry. It's just a bank account. I'm 22 years old. I'm poor. Why on earth would you charge me almost $60 JUST to open a bank account?! 

(BBVA crushing my dreams of opening an account)

Tuesday: Tuesday was supposed to be my very first day of school, but here in Spain, you can never really be too sure. I went to the school, all dressed up in my teacher outfit and ready to go, only to get there and have my tutor tell me that she knew of a bank I could go to and set up my account. Okay, here we go again. I set off to this bank, and surprisingly, it was easy as pie. The guy was extremely nice and helpful, and alas, I have my very own Spanish bank account! After setting this up, I called my tutor and asked what time to be back at the school. Her response was as follows: You've had a pretty rough couple of days, why don't you just take today off and relax. You don't need to tell me that twice. I love Spain, especially the tranquila attitude.


Wednesday: Okay, now we're being serious. Today was the day I would start class. Well, not quite. I went to school, met with one class for 5 minutes -- they were completely silent. This should be an interesting year. 


Thursday: Turns out the students in Spain like to go on strike. I walked to school on two separate occasions, only to have the teachers tell me that not one student showed up for class. Are you kidding me?! Well, I guess I didn't really mind, because that meant I had a free day to do whatever I wanted, which turned into me buying a new pair of high heels. Que sera, sera. Thursday night turned out even better, as Patrick and I, and a few of our friends, decided to check out a dance class. It was slightly less than a disaster, but so much fun. We'll be salsa-ing and cha-cha-ing in our sleep by the time next June comes around. (Maybe just in our dreams...) 


Friday: I thought that maybe by today I would have started in the classroom, but no. One of my classes does an exchange with some students in Germany, and the German students arrived today. I was invited by my tutor to come to school early to enjoy some churros con chocolate, and once that was done, my tutor basically said told me to take the day off and explore the city with the students. This was certainly my lucky week! Walking around with the students was actually quite fun. when we stopped to take a picture, I told the students to say "Cheese", and it was the cutest thing hearing them shout out "Wisconsin Cheese!" in their Spanish and German accents. 


Overall, I'd say it was a pretty great week. We ended it with a potluck with some of our friends here, and a trip to the beach in Huelva (blog post & pictures to come soon!)

Hosting our first potluck!

**Some interesting things I noticed this week**

• Spanish people will sweep AND mop the sidewalk in front of their house, but refuse to pick up their dog's poop. Pick up the poop people, please!
• Many people here wear shirts with English sayings on them, but I don't think they know what they say. At least I hope my 12-year-old student wearing the "I'm a sex machine" t-shirt didn't know what it meant...
• The tooth fairy here is rich. Well, at least it is for Carmen and Dolores, the 5 & 6-year-old little girls I give private English lessons to. Carmen lost just ONE tooth, and got 60 euros for it (that's about $80). Madre mia!

A Day in the Life

Sorry it's been so long since we've put up an actual post; we don't have internet in our piso yet (we're hoping sometime this week). Until then, we're using the internet at the library, which is only about a 15-20 minute walk from where we live. It's a little inconvenient, seeing as the library closes for siesta everyday from 2-5, but we've been making it work.

Our time in Spain has been amazing so far; we really love it here! Our city is great, not too big but not too small, and the weather is at least 85 and sunny everyday (not to make all of you Wisconsin people jealous or anything...). One of the best parts is being able to see all of the 2,000 year old Roman ruins which are all over the city. They're so impressive that it's hard to even fathom how something so old can still be standing today. 


We've been in Merida for about a week and a half now, and have been quite busy! We were able to move into our piso after only being in the city for 2 days, which was a huge relief! After  moving in, we took care of all the little things, like getting a cell phone, getting a residence card, buying groceries, etc. We've also been exploring the city quite a bit, which has entailed A LOT of walking around! It almost feels like we're on a long vacation right now, as I haven't started working yet (I start on Tuesday of this week!)


Speaking of school, I met the teacher I'll be working with, Mari Fe, and she's very nice! I'll be working Tuesday through Friday every week, which means three day weekends! My schedule will vary from day to day, so sometimes I'll go in from 8:30 to 11:30, and other days I'll go in from 12:30 to 2:25, which is when the school day ends. I definitely can't argue with that! The only thing I'm slightly nervous about is working with the kids --teenagers can be ruthless!

To shorten this up a bit, here are some highlights from our time in Spain so far:

• Finding our favorite tapas place, 100 Montaditos (they basically serve 100 different types of little sandwiches - but the best deal is getting a jarra, which is a 17 ounce glass of beer, for only 1 Euro)
• Patrick trying (and hating) the Spanish jamon
• Finding a piso
• Admiring all of the old Roman ruins throughout the city
• Being able to enjoy siesta from 2-5 every day
• Learning new Spanish phrases like "Madre mia"

We could probably go on and on about things that we love here, but there are a few not so glamorous sides to life in Spain:

• No Packer games on Sundays :(
• Basically everything closing during siesta, making in thoroughly impossible to accomplish anything
• Everybody stares at us (slightly creepy)
• Hangers (of all things) are expensive (where's Target when you need it?)
• The Extremaduran accent -- virtually nobody says the -s on the ends of their words (adio instead of adios) and se comen las palabras, meaning they don't say complete words -- but it's getting easier to understand

All in all, we love it here, and it's one of the best decisions we've made! To close, here are a few pictures of our apartment and city for those of you not on Facebook:


The Plaza de Espana

El Acueducto de San Lazaro

Basilica de Santa Eulalia

A couple pictures of our piso:

Until next time, hasta luego!