It is only Tuesday afternoon and I already know one thing: by Thursday morning I will have taught one class all week. Why, might you ask? Here’s the scoop:
Yesterday I got to come to school later than usual because my 10 o’clock class won’t be around for a few weeks. This meant I got to sleep in (yes!) and take a train at around 11:30 to make my 1 o’clock. Oddly enough, this very train (which, may I remind you, I would not have taken had I had my normal schedule) just happened to have some electrical cables fall on in while it was rolling along. The noise from the cables banging on the side and roof of the train was slightly frightening, but otherwise we were fine. However, it stopped a mile away from my train station and we sat around for another 2 hours while the electricians checked it out. Then they had us get out of the train and walk down the tracks a hundred yards where a bus was waiting to bring us where we needed to go. So, of the four classes I have normally on Monday, one was cancelled ahead of time, two were cancelled while I was watching Scrubs in the cold train, and I made it to one.
Today: student/parent strike. Okay so it’s not a strike in the sense that they aren’t the ones working, but needless to say none of the high school kids are here in protest to some changes they are making to the schools. As teachers, we get to go to the empty classrooms, take attendance (or lack thereof), and hang out until it is time for us to leave. My day hasn’t ended yet and therefore I, in theory, don’t know if any students will show or not. However, I can say confidently that I will have none of my four classes.
The explanation for tomorrow is a little less exciting: my contact teacher finally agreed to change my schedule slightly so that instead of seeing one class every wednesday I see two classes every other wednesday. Tomorrow is the off day.
All in all that makes the record 1 for 8 in three days. Now, back to the Spain trip before I forget it all…
There are three awesome things about Granada.
Since I love food, the first and possibly best part of the town is the free tapas. There is an actual law in the city that requires bars to provide free tapas with every drink you order. What this means is you can have dinner (if you like eating lots of fried finger food for dinner, that is) and drinks for the price of the drinks. At one place we got to our fourth round of drinks and passed up the free tapas because we were already full… Needless to say the guy serving us (the owner I think) was severely taken aback and brought us a plate of olives anyway. Then when we were leaving he gave us all shots of some sugary liqueur. He didn’t speak a word of English but I understood when he pointed to the shots and said “para nosotros” (from us). Then I was proud of myself because when we asked him for a picture and he thought we meant of just us, I was able to pull out “no, con tigo!” (no, with you!). Needless to say we left there happy and full.
The second awesome part of Granada was the walking tour we took with some British ex-pat. He knew alot about the city so we ended up learning alot about it. The older area is all on hills so there are lots of neat little winding roads and passageways all the way up. If you go far enough north and up the big hill you eventually get to the caves, where houses are literally built into the side. Back in the day, and to some extent now, it was gypsies who inhabited these wierd hybrid homes. However, since the 60′s there are apparently alot of hippies who live there now in coexistence with the few gypsies that are left. Anyway our tour guide lived right next to the caves so he took us up there after the tour and showed us where to go.
Finally, the third awesome part of Granada is the most popular tourist attraction in all of Spain: the Alhambra. Basically it is an old Moorish palace/fortress built in the 14th century which was eventually repurposed as a Christian palace. For more historical information just go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Hambra
Anyway, the whole thing is on top of another big hill across the valley from the caves and can be seen pretty well from most open parts of the city. The walk up that hill is pretty intense, and the path we took around the walls of the fortress made me feel like we were in Middle Earth. Needless to say I just had to whistle the Lord of the Rings theme while walking up.
That’s all for now. Next time: from Granada to Sevilla.
Over and out.
thanks………that was great!
LOVE YOU, Mom