Halfway

Well I have been in Spain since September now.

I have...

• lived at three different places (not counting my first weekend in Alcala).
• finishd 4 Masters classes.
• taught at least a solid 4 months of class to 3, 4 and 5 year olds.
• made amazing friends.
• hand drawn about 15 workshets (yes, ME hand drawing!).
• used wordreference about a million times.
• mastered the art of dinner (or a I call it, "throw stuff in a pot and heat) .
• been heartbroken.
• remembered the heart is a fabulous organ that luckily continues to heal and function.
• cried at a bank (twice).
• lost a passport.
• gone to Malta.
• been inside some of the oldest ruins!
• rocked Barcelona.
• visited the the lovely gardens in Aranjuez.
• hosted several lovely friends (and some strangers who became friends).
• filed a police report on behalf of a friend who was here for less than 35 hours.
• discovered you can board a plane without ID.
• rocked the Madrid metro (just give me colors not numbers)
• pretty much memorized the cercanias to Getafe frm Nuevos

and so much more!

I can´t wait to see what the next half of Europe brings me

Bad blogger

So, I've been in Spain for quite some time now and yes I stink at it.

Things are going well I am just SUPER busy


So that's Katie, Meagan, me and Juliet. They are all in my program and Katie, Juliet and I actually live together

Here's all of us for Halloween :) (Our other rooomie Chealsea is the one with black horns) and this is taken at our place.

We live near cuatro caminos and nuevos ministarios

This is us near Lauren (the curly haired blonde in the purple tights)'s place. She lives near Escorial which is where King's are buried and there's lots of great art! All the jumping lovelies are in my program.
Pretty
ooo Views!

Sorry I am so awful at updates I'll try to catch up :)

Earthquakes?

Jerry was helping me install my new TV and he went to put it above my bed. My first thought it, "yeah great...perfect for the earthquakes" and then I realized...

they don't have them here

groovy

:)

Next stop...Spain

Kathleen, a friend of mine whom I studied with in Madrid, let me know about a Masters program in Alcalá back in January. It is through a the Instituto Univeritario de Investigación en Estudios Norteamerianos Benjamin Franklin (Instituto Franklin) of the Universidad de Alcalá!

They have a program called the "Teach & Learn in Spain Program" which gives American students a chance to study get a Master´s from the Universidad de Alcalá while doing a paid internship teaching at a school somewhere in Madrid (or the surrounding areas).

I'm in the process of collecting the necessary paperwork, but the fact that I've been accepted at all means that hopefully in September I'll be in Spain :)

Dunkirk!

With news that I had a long weekend ahead I looked for events on couchsurfing. I quickly located a Carnivalle in the North of France. After finding a French speaking friend (YAY Bertold) we stuck out our thumbs and hitched down to France



Several cities later (including a ride in an ambulance) we ended up in a small city in the South of Belgium. One quick bus ride later and we met our host in Dunkirk and joined other couchsurfers in a local bar.






Now, in Dunkirk the festival lasts THREE MONTHS! Both in this small fisherman town and in other local cities. We went for this one to experience Band of Malo (more on that later).

This is a festival of reversal so be prepared for lots of men in women's dresses and women in costume (somne dressing as men, but most just wearing extreme colors and having fun!). At the bar they play traditional carnival songs and the surfers practiced linking arms and dancing.



This is us by Reuze Papa (he's a giant who the town people all love). He can be seen in the parades usually preceeded by a drum major dressed as an Imperial grenadier and the costumed carnavaleux, who carry coloured umbrellas and sing carnival songs.





After a busy night we rested up and the next day went site seeing around Dunkirk. You can see the stutue of Jean the pirate, the church and a big boat.

But onto more Carnivalle!










The "Bande de Malo" is one of the greatest moment of the Carnaval of Dunkerque, it begins around 3 pm.
All people who participate are called "carnavaleux" (see my French rocks it), they all walk together on the streets arm in arm singing random songs in French (or as I do not speak French ranodmly la-la-laing), and following the musicians with their yellow coats.
The most impressive moment is the "chahut": the fifes play, the first ligns of "carnavaleux" stop walking and basically its like a weird game of tug of war, you try to push forward and everyone else pushes back.

In the end there's a circle of death...(it starts at 1:26 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKHp2azHk0E). It looks really easy, and yet I almost died...my shoe was also trashed over the weekend.

Oh and right before the circle of death in the video they are throwing fish out the window at you....I didn't catch one this time, but maybe next year :)

December...already?

I have pictures and more to write, but quickly for now I will just say the last three months have been a whirlwind!

Here's an album from October: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2254765&id=24606699&l=d49f245926 bigger and better pictures later :)

I passed my course!

And absolutely ADORE my au apair family (YAY!)

The Netherlands also got the most snow they've had since 1981! So yeah just for me I guess :P

Hope all is well

Sinterklaas

So, what's going on? Carissa leaves the Netherlands and she becomes a perverted racist? Nooo, this is Sinterklaas! He is helped by his little helpers (Zvart Pete is allegedly black because he goes down the chimney...not sure why Sinterklaas doesn't turn black). Sinterklaas comes in on a boat and meets the mayor and all the kids realize how cool their town is! The zvart Pete's dance and run and throw candy and cookies around. This is all paid for by the local stores (like Santa is paid for by Macy's back home).

Not quite what we have in San Diego I can remember putting my shoe outside the door for Sinterklaas when I was younger. Christmas was always the bigger deal but Sinterklaas involved chocolate which made it good enough for me :)

Couchsurfing in the Netherlands has a tradition of throwing a rather large CS party in Rotterdam so Lauren and I found a host and headed off to make new friends.

The first event was a "speed dating event" now, couchsurfing is NOT a dating site, but speed dating is a rather effective way to meet a large number of people in a short amount of time. Since there are about 200 people it was a nice way to get some names. The way the game is played is everyone has a paper on their back; a bunch of cards with questions are passed around. You ask your question "If you really had to pee on a train but the next stop wasn't for 45 minutes what would you do?" and the person responds, "hold it, use a bottle, pee in between the train cars etc" you then write some form of their answer on the back for everyone to read, "He pees in bottles," then you swap questions cards with them and find a new victim



There were quite a few of us sleeping at Hamid's



But really really awesome people :)


The next day we went on a city tour of Rotterdam it was COLD so there was some impromptu dancing to stay warm :)





Some more walking around, and shopping and one yummy beer tasting! But in the end we all went back to Hamid's for dinner and then went onto the party!




All good things must come to an end

Brussels with Lauren

The first week Lauren arrived I had her on a train to Brussels where we connected in Ghent to meet up with Veronique. She made yummy pasts Lauren slept and Veronique and I went to a few bars.

The next way we meandered around Ghent found a great place to have a BIG soup and an apple for under 5 euros! We also found some great postcards and basically just soaked up the cuteness of Ghent.

From there we were on a train to Belgium where we met up with a host who had TONS of beer:



We also got a chance


Got a tour of the city including the manekin pis:


YAY for French Fries!!


And of course, porn and chocolate

Rubix Cube Party

So...life is crazy. The stupid class (CELTA is a great course going well I am learning a lot, but it is SUPER time intensive!) takes up ALL my time.

But not this weekend! No! I headed to Koln to meet up with some surfers in Germany :)

This is my host:


This is the BEAUTIFUL Kölner Dom Really really pretty cathedral according to UNESCO it is an "exceptional work of human creative genius" and visited by over 20 thousand people in a day. It was started in 1248 and took until 1880 to finish (though there were some breaks) It was the was the tallest structure in the world (for four years)....but that was a while ago and that is not now, still awesome to look at though.









Then onto a bar for a quick drink before the party

Back to Korea (pizza)

Before I left Korea Patrick came over one night and we ordered pizza:



The funness that ensued!

Where I am

My room is still being built.

So Cleo has moved into the girls room:


And I have stolen (ok...borrowed) her room


So, I have officially been living in Maarssen for a week. And it really is a great town. I live on the river Vecht. It used to be similar to the Hamptons. The place away from the city where anyone who was anyone would have a second home.

It is a smaller town, though larger than a thought. The kids schools are less than 5 minutes away by walking. There is a bakery, a fish shop, several smaller restaurants and a few stores so it isn't like the Camino where I would be in cities with one bar and that was it.

Be back to the Camino later...but for now...NETHERLANDS

LOTS to write but for now a quick post with pictures of the three little angels I'll be watching for the next 10 (or so) months

The oldest Cleo, she's is 5


Pippou (said kinda like Pepper) is 3


Pookie (no idea on spelling here people) is 3 as well

So yeah those are my precious little angels :)