ahhh! to be a teacher...

Teaching is interesting, to say the least. My first unofficial classes here in Spain were for a second job in which I am the "main" teacher. I, in the usual manner that I do things, arrived to class unprepared but not altogether clueless. I knew that, because it was the first week, I could just chat with the students while trying to get to know them and determine their levels in English. The academy where I work has just opened, and there are about 4 teachers that cycle between the different groups of students every couple of weeks. We do this so that they can grow accustomed to different accents: U.S. (me), Irish, Russian-American. I teach a couple of classes with 11 year-olds and some with 9 year-olds, but others with kids between 4-7. Those are the worst. I am totally inexperienced with children, for those who don´t know already, and got torn apart quickly. pero bueno, 3 weeks along and I am learning to barter, threaten, and play with them better. I am also getting accustomed to making lesson plans before each class and recognizing the needs of different students.

All of the preliminary obligations of moving to a new country are finally over. I now have my bank account and debit card, library card, health insurance card, a blackberry (someone was kind enough to lend me one for the year), and finally a place to call my own!!

I took a while, but after too much deliberation, I just said F-it and moved into a place that I thought would be cool. The flat is in the center of the city, on one of the main streets, on the second floor of a classic looking European building. It's 5 minutes away from the beach and bars and restaurants, and I'm pretty excited to live there for the next 7 months. My roomies are two Spanish guys, one a sound technician and the other a light technician, which is pretty cool, and they seem laid back. One plays guitar and I think that we will all have things in common. It will be great for my spanish as I've been talking too much english with the woman I'm living with now. It's just too hard to stick to spanish right now when i want to tell a story, so I end up just switching to English. I won't be able to do that with these guys, though. I don't think, at least.

Jetlag and Tapas

     I've been in Spain for 2 weeks. Two weeks, already! I've decided to take this blog in a new direction. I intend it to be solely a place to store my observations and experiences with my friends and family back home. That's you, humble lector. No more painstaking attempts to be artistic and/or philosophical. No more boring, mindless banter. I don't think my paltry 7 posts deserve this many adjectives, but here we are. I'll go ahead and start from the beginning now and try to describe the last 2 weeks the best that I can. I'm lacking in photos, but I'll reconcile that in the next few days. Vamos...

The Arrival

    The actual traveling was a bit boring. I ate chinese food alone in the Chicago airport while watching the hustle and bustle of the hard-workers from around the world. I later found an outlet underneath a payphone and seated myself to try watching an episode of Dexter while I waited to board the plane. The battery on my Mac has already died (of course), and so I made my way to the boarding area and took a seat there. I overheard a girl saying her final goodbyes to someone, and I quickly inferred that she was part of the same program as I am. I inquired afterwards, and it turned out that she is living an hour away from me, in Santiago. We chatted for a bit and decided to meet in Madrid at the other end of the 8 hour flight. The flight was uneventful. I sat next to a dark-skinned Frenchman who did not speak much. I managed to spend my time reading and sleeping, and we landed in Madrid before I knew it. I looked out at the city lights and the long line of cars making their way to work in the early hours of the morning. "I made it," I thought to myself, "Spain and Europe, at last."

I met Wendy, my fellow ex-patriot, soon after entering the airport. We smiled at each other, knowing we had made it, and set ourselves to figuring out where to go in that huge airport. Customs was surprisingly easy for both of us, and we were boarding a train to the opposite side of the airport in no time. She walked me to my gate, because she had time to kill, and we exchanged info and agreed to meet up sometime over the next 8 months. The flight to La Coruna is primarily a business flight, and so I found myself surrounded by stiff suits and briefcases, while I had my shorts, straw hat and 3 bags to keep me company.

I landed. It was overcast and a bit rainy. "Well, at least I know what I'm in for already," I thought. Soon after, all of my "brilliant" arrival plans began to fall apart. There was no wi-fi in the airport for me to confirm if I was being met by someone from my school. There was no currency exchange in that small airport. I was gathering my thoughts and my luggage when a security guard approached to ask if I was Luke. Gladly, I said yes, and followed her to the three people waiting for me. My first lucky break. The director from my school had come to pick my and another guy up. The other guy never showed, but we stood there a while and waited while I shook the rust off of my Spanish abilities. Wow the accent is different from Mexico! A lot more "sh" sounds, although that comes from the influence of the other language that they all speak, Gallego. I felt relieved, but drained, as we left the parking lot.

We went directly to the school that I am working at. Two big double doors let you in from the sidewalk. The school is old, with 2 main staircases that lead to the upper two floors where the classrooms are located. We went to the teachers lounge and it begin to sink in that I would actually be a teacher, and working, not just living it up in Spain. I soon met, Irene, my saviour. She's a 36-year-old espanola, new teacher at the school as well. She speaks English well, with a British accent. She agreed to show me around a bit and we went to get tapas and a beer. It was 2 o'clock in the afternooon. We went to a small place and she explained to me that you just walk up to the counter and take what you want from a variety of freshly prepared tapas set in a glass case. The tapas ranged from fresh fish and roasted vegetables on a piece of french bread, to a cheesy, meaty, basically cheestick on a piece of bread as well. The first one that i tried had a bit of "pulpo", or octopus, on it, but i forget what else.

Seeing that I am still recounting the first day, I guess I should speed things along a bit. Irene helped me to meet with the random local who was willing to let me stay in his empty apartment for 2 days. Second break. I basically went there at about 8, watched some episodes of Dexter, and fell asleep at 9:30. I woke up the next day at 12ish. Jetlag had set in and I had not anticipated it. I walked around a bit that day to take in the city and also bought a cellphone. That's it. Slept early again.

They city is nice. I was in the heart of the Zona Vieja (Old District) which is composed of many pedestrian streets, small alleyways, cafes, bars and shops. The ocean is always present. The port is on one side of the bottleneck that leads to the peninsula, and the beach on the other. Around every corner one can find a pleasant park, plaza, or bench to sit on. Every single cafe has a tap that serves the regional beer, Estrella Galicia, which basically has a monopoly on the industry. It's very common to have a "corto" (short one) with tapas at the midday meal. All of the coffee comes in small concentrated cups, and with steamed milk if you want it. Everyone lives in apartments; the city is covered with 5-to-8-story apartment buildings. I wouldn't know how close to the ocean I was at first until i turned a corner and got hit by the fresh breeze blowing through. The weather has actually been perfect. It's has been unusually sunny for this time of the year, I've been told, and it feels like springtime in Louisiana with an ocean nearby. It was great...and then the weekend began...

Nightlife in Spain, and particularly in this city, is pretty intense. It´s a lot like New Orlenas in the sense that the party doesn´t usually end until you want to go home. This is a mid-sized city, though, and so the streets feel more crowded and it has a more communal feeling. The routine is different as well. One can stay in their house with friends until 1 or sometimes 2 in the morning and then decide to go out until 6 or 7. I have yet to do this, though, and usually head home at about 5.30. The streets are quite lively at this hour and it is nice to walk by the ocean so late at night. Friday night I met with Diana, the local girl that I met on couchsurfing.com, and she and a friend brought me to a local place called La Bombilla (the lightbulb). It is a long-standing restaurant that sells cheap tapas and beer to be eaten in the street. One can sample tortilla (classic egg and potato dish), filete (breaded steak with a red pepper slice and thinly sliced potatos), croqueta, and chorizo at the restaurant and then wash it down with an Estrella. It is nice to socialize in the street and watch the wide range of people gathered together. From there we walked across town to a an international mixer where Diana wanted to meet a girl from Belarus that she had also met on couchsurfing. We couldn´t find the girl, but eventually got into a conversation with some Brits, which was my first extended contact with any since Funland. It was nice, and my second job blossomed out of that conversation. Later we met some Spanish guys, thanks to the lovely Diana who draws attention, who turned out to be pretty cool. At about 1 o´clock the place shut down, Diana went home, and I continued on with my  new friends. We went to Orzan, the main drag, and hopped around for a bit. We enlisted some girls, by promoting that I am American, and all went to a bar together. We danced for a while, but i got tired around 4:30, and went outside for a breath and ended up seeing a large, enraged and bloody Spaniard get arrested. People were hanging out of their upper apartment windows to see what all of the noise was about. It reminded me of my days living on the strip, and I noted not to look for apartments on these streets. Irene eventually met up with me and we took a taxi home.

I slept until 2 o´clock on Saturday and Irene suggested that we go to a small beach side community outside of the city for lunch. It was quiet and beautiful, and we had lunch overlooking a small inlet. For the first time I tried pulpo and a shellfish that they call zamburinas. I met with Diana and her friends later that night and we repeated the previous night, only in a different part of town. Her friends are cool, and the weekend was productive, if for nothing else, in that I met so many people. Everyone is interested in speaking a little English, and if I encourage them a bit, they become all the more comfortable and friendly.
   Sunday I went to the beach with some of them before meeting with Irene to find the girl from New York that had just arrived. I had agreed to meet her on couchsurfing and to try to help her as best I could. Yet again, I met another beautiful person ( in all meanings of the word), and counted myself lucky to have met so many unique and interesting people in a short span of time. Her name is Bridget, and she made a change-of-life descision to quit her job and come to Spain, all without knowing any Spanish. She seems like a very motivated person and we share many interests. She had planned to view an apartment already, and after some ice cream and a trip to the beach, we all went to see the place. It was a superb apartment, with two lovely spanish girls and a german exchange student as roommates, and she immediately decided to live there. Here I am 2 weeks later still without a place of my own. I´ve been lazy, though, Mom. Thus, the weekend ended with all of us having dinner together and the hopes of a great year ahead...

time turnin', tockin' and patiently walking

flashback last 3 weeks, go! Denver trip Dushko, Viktor, and myself doing the city and burning the wick. Mexican omelets and the smell of the city at night.

10 people successfully sliding through the crack and 14 climbing Long's Peak.

business trip with Brett, and the old persuasively unconvincing sound of business ventures.

Marshall beating me at mini-golf.

first volunteer English class ever.

learning folk rhythms on the guitar.

rock climbing outside on some amazing formations and loving every minute of it.

becoming a British citizen.

Funk Nasty

It's hard to be philosophical. I guess it doesn't come easy-- at least not for most people. It's also hard to write on a regular basis, at least for me anyways. I seem to manage to squeeze one of these out every 3 weeks or so, only after I've forgotten all of the interesting stuff that was worth writing about. Let me just make a list of the most recent interesting experiences that won't mean much to anyone else without further detail:

--2 rowdy camping trips, one Turkish and one American, that both ended with minimal sleep and a long day of    work.
-- I was the drown victim, in order to test the lifeguards, for a crowd of maybe 50 in our public swimming pool (thanks Caleb)
--My car broke down in the middle of the rode and myself and 3 Colombian girls had to push it a quarter mile down the rode, one was in high heels. I didn't get completely angry and dejected, success.
--completed my longest and highest climb yet, Twin Sisters, 7 miles and 12,000 feet.
-- ate at the Indian buffet, had a charming encounter, and appreciated certain aspects of life more thoroughly than usual.

I'll leave this one short and boring because I'm feeling unmotivated. Cheers and chocolate raisins. Next time a short story me thinks.

Pretty Lights

This is a picture I took in Guanajuato, Mexico. I think it pairs well with this pretty chill song by Pretty Lights. More universally, though, it brings up the theme of memories for me. I don't have strong memories of childhood, and those that I do are just solid images and not streams of remembrance. There are also times in my life that I thought I would never forget, but that have quickly faded because I don't revisit them frequently enough. This is one reason that I have begun to make more of an effort in the last couple of years to document my life in words and pictures, however sporadic and inconsistent it may be. These things, along with friendships, I believe are some of the only real ways to truly conserve the past and all its sentiments (duh). I bring this up because I have recently been in contact with some old summer friends in hopes of having a reunion of sorts during my time in Europe. Talking with them has made me reminisce on times in my life that I thought I would never forget, but that are already surrounded in a cloudy haze. I still get that nostalgic, happy feeling I when firmly grasp one of those moments, but I also wrestle with a touch of sadness knowing that that time in my life is over, as well as that way of seeing the world. I suppose these feelings tie in somewhat with the pre-college/post-college sentiment that I have now, but i can't help thinking that life will never be that way again. This makes me exceedingly excited about spending time with those people that I shared such golden moments with, so that they can polish and restore some of my older memories that have lost their luster. There is something new and interesting about seeing people again for the first time in 5 or 6 years too. It borders on rediscovery and realization. I'll throw this in now to put this paragraph in a nutshell: 

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
          That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
          When all at once I saw a crowd,
          A host, of golden daffodils;
          Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
          Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

          Continuous as the stars that shine
          And twinkle on the milky way,
          They stretched in never-ending line
          Along the margin of a bay:  
          Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
          Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

          The waves beside them danced; but they
          Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
          A poet could not but be gay,
          In such a jocund company:
          I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
          What wealth the show to me had brought:

          For oft, when on my couch I lie
                                In vacant or in pensive mood,                             
          They flash upon that inward eye
          Which is the bliss of solitude;
          And then my heart with pleasure fills,
          And dances with the daffodils.
                                                              1804.

 My home in 4 months...