What the...?

What kind of yummy deliciousness is this?

It's like a crispy strudel with the flavor of ham and cheese

Or, or a ham and cheese sandwich with the sides melted together. I, I don't know. It's so good, so I just don't know what to write. It's a ham and cheese patty. Yay! When I came home tonight, I thought it was fish, but when I cut into it and ate it...yum! It's called a sanjacobo.

And then the cinnamon flavored custard with added cinnamon. Wow!

Pura Vida!

My students make my social life possible...

I say this because most of my outings happen due to invitations from my students. Haha. It reminds me of ASU...

Friday, I had dinner with my basic 2 students in Haro, and it was fabulous.

All of them are older than 40 and so are really committed to learning English. They want English for their own personal development and not for a job. That's how I feel about learning languages. I want to be able to communicate with different people from different cultures without the stress of having my paycheck depend on my language level.

Before dinner, I stayed a student's house and planned my holiday trips. She gave me cookies, tea, and supplied with me a scarf because my silly self went to Haro without one. We then headed out to a bar to have some coffee.

Eleven on the students were at the dinner. They thought it would be funny to test me. They asked me if I remembered all of their names and , of course, I did remember them all. I have almost 300 students so it's a bit difficult at times.

We had a nice three course meal, and I was lectured on the history of wine in La Rioja. Because they don't know very much English, I was able to practice my Spanish for a long time. They did want to practice their English sometimes but not the entire time. They shared their English woes and made a proposal to me to help them improve their English for the A2 level test at the end of at the school year. I will try my best to help them.

After dinner, we went to a discotheque and danced for a little bit. By this time, I was too tired to dance anything. At the discotheque, I saw some of my advanced 1 students. They had invited me to dinner on the same day, but I went with my basic 2 students because they had asked first. At this point, I spoke less English and less Spanish. Every one tried to get a word in with me to practice. That's what I love about being here. I can English lessons for many things. I wonder if the dance teacher will take English lessons for dance lessons. Hehe. We'll see.

Anywho, after the discotheque, I stayed at my student's house and fell asleep on a nice bed with a layer of memory foam. Aaah. The next morning, she took me back home and told me that I was welcome anytime in her house. She's so sweet!

Well, I'll catch up with you all later.

Pura Vida!

10 common mistakes in learning English

Just something posted at la escuela oficial de idiomas. Richard Vaughan has the leading English program in Spain. I would say that Americans make these same mistake when learning languages.

An ecuadorian meal

Hello all.

Last night I ate dinner with my Ecuadorian student and her friends (Ecuadorian, Colombian, Spanish, and German). They had a farewell party for German co-worker. The German girl has been in Spain since July doing an internship at a hotel for her tourism studies. We talked for a while about our difficulties with Spanish. She told me that she barely spoke or understood any Spanish when she came. After 5 months in Spain, she speaks fluently. There's hope for me!

For dinner we had tortillas, carmelized apples, pork, cranberry sauce, lettuce, and filled aguacate. And ice cream for dessert. It was yummy. I will be making this meal one day in Logroño.

After we ate, they exchanged some lovely gifts. Although I didn't know about the exchange, my student included me. How nice! She gave me a bracelet that is meant for good luck. Apparently, I'm supposed to be married after one year. Mmmk. For some reason, everyone is trying to marry me off to random Spaniards. A ver.

After the gift exchange, we played a round of a game called Parchís and then headed out to the discotheque. I had my ear plugs. :)

Since the last bus leaves Haro at 8pm, I spent the night at her apartment in a room with a her cat who was likely abused by a former owner. He didn't want to be touched. :( He just slept under my bed, and I let him be.

So here I am, tired out of my mind and preparing holiday plans. My break starts in two weeks. I'll tell you about it afterwards. ;) Some pretty spectacular things are going to happen.

Chau!

3 hours in an egg factory?

Yes.

Yesterday, the headquarters of an egg store, La Floreta, opened its doors for tours. The family that I live with thought it would be a good idea to take the boys to see the chickens.

This place is in the middle of nowhere in Uruñuela (La Rioja). Kids were playing in the mud, throwing sticks, and picking grapes from the field. We waited in this line for an hour to see the process after the chicken lay the eggs. We walked around in plastic jackets as they showed us all this fancy equipment and explained the care of the eggs.

The main attraction was supposed to be the chickens. The kids came for the chickens, but we only saw 4 chickens. They kept the others back until after the tour. At the end, we were treated to tapas, wine and candy. Then is when we saw all the chickens...on the screen. I guess they thought that the children would be rough with them. Oh, well.

Pura Vida!

Oviedo, Asturias

Hello again...

So today is the last day of my long break. I had Friday through Tuesday off and then Thursday through today. I went away last weekend, but I had to return to go to work on Wednesday.

So last week after I paid my rent, I had no money. Well, I only had bus money and a little extra. I thought that I wouldn't be able to travel for the long break. I came to Spain so that I can travel around to all the autonomous communities and to some neighboring countries. I was a little bummed until someone invited me on a trip to Oviedo, Asturias. Oviedo is the capital of the province of Asturias. Asturias is also the name of the autonomous community. It's like my region. The community of La Rioja only has one province: La Rioja. Some of the larger communities have more than one province.

The Asturiana that invited me was visiting home so it wouldn't be a problem for me to ride along. After thinking about it for a little while, I decided to go. I waited to give her my answer so that I wouldn't seem so anxious. I packed my bag and my whole 15 euros and left Logroño behind for 5 days. I was eager to see something different.

Oviedo is my new favorite city in the north of Spain. I could notice the difference of the soil. Due to the large amounts of rain, everything in Asturias is very green.

During the day, we just walked around so that I could learn the streets and some important sites to visit. At night, I had dinner with the Asturiana and her 13 friends. All her friends were older than me but they were very friendly and open to speaking to a foreigner with broken spanish. :) Some of her friends even taught me some insults. Everyone thought it was funny when I took out paper to write them all down.

After dinner, we went to a discotheque and danced for a long time. I kicked myself of course for forgetting my ear plugs. I may look like a loser with them in, but at least my hearing won't decline rapidly. Once the ear's cilia are gone, they're gone. I'm sure my friends who read this will call me a dork. Either way, I had fun.

Downtown Oviedo

La sidra is cider. A traditional drink of Asturias.

The next day, we had lunch in a tiny village outside of Oviedo called Quintaniella. The landscape reminded me of Costa Rica, because of the houses and random sheep and cows scattered along the mountains. In La Rioja, you can drive for long periods of time without seeing anything but fields.

Used to walk on the farm

A typical Asturian storage house. It's design keeps the mice out.

I spent the next couple of days wandering around Oviedo and window shopping. I will be window shopping for a long time. Sigh. Well, at least I'm in Spain.

A nifty invention for clothes created to defeat the rain of Asturias

Against cutback of public services
An old government building now used for cultural activities

I also met with some English assistants who are teaching in secondary schools. Thanks to Laura from contacting them for me. One is from Germany (Sara) and the other is from Texas (Ryan). We exchanged some idiosyncrasies of the English language. Ryan and I shared our loathe for combination of "have-got". If I don't have to use "get", I don't. I've noticed that I use it a lot more, because my younger students use it a lot. It's ok, because it's informal English and we are mostly in informal situations. It just irks me. But anyway...

Sara pointed out that the problem of asking native speakers questions, because they will give you several answers. There is more than one way to construct a sentence and language learners just want a definite answer. It's the same for any language.

After leaving them, I walked some more. I was not able to go to all the places that I wanted to visit. I'm not very disappointed, because I will have another chance to go when the Asturiana returns. Next time, I'll hit every important place, travel to Gijón, and go rafting.

Chau!