I´M IN PORTUGAL. I came to Sevilla last night, after 9 hours of riding on the bus, and spent most of today there too. I went to this place called the Alcazar and it was amazing. I took around 100 pictures so they will beup soon. After that, we left and headed Portugal, which was only around an hour and a half away. Right now we are in a town called Faro, which is right on the Atlantic Ocean. Tomorrow we are heading to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Enjoy the last day of 2008!

The rest of the Valencia trip went smoothly. Sunday, we pretty much walked around a good majority of the city. We went by my old apartment on the way to the beach and even ran into my landlord from almost 3 years ago.We shared a room with an Australian girl and a guy from El Salvador in the hostel. We also befriended a couple Australian guys, that didn't speak Spanish, from the hostel that went out in the city with us. Monday, we rested in the morning and then went to the aquarium in the afternoon and that was a wrap on that day. On Tuesday, we headed back to Murcia. We stayed in Murcia to have Christmas with our few friends that were still here in Spain. That night we went to a light show that took place in the main plaza. It was a show about the birth of Jesus and it was all displayed on the cathedral. Christmas Eve is known as Noche Buena here and is probably more important than Christmas Day. We had our dinner, sang Christmas carols in English and French and then went back to the cathedral at midnight for the service. Of the 6 of us that went, only 1 was Catholic so we really didn't understand what all that was going on. After that hour long service, we went to bed. Christmas morning we had breakfast then exchanged gifts and walked around the city some more. That was my Christmas in Spain.

Feliz Navidad!

So the almost 5 hour trip from Aguilas to Valencia was fine. We got here and were able to find the hostel pretty easily and I still know my way around. I did not bring my passport though because I figured I didnt need it. Wrong. Apparently now you have to have your passport or national identification card to check into a hostel. Not a problem though because I keep a copy of my passport in my backpack. Oh yeah, I took it out. Thats ok though, mom and dad have a copy and they can tell me the info. Oh yeah, they are in Florida. So after a few costly international phone calls and Imo running over to our house to get the copy of my passport, I got the info I needed and now had a place to sleep. After that, we went and ate and walked around a little bit. It feels good being back in the VLC.

So my school had a dinner tonight and I had not planned on going because it was 40 euros, but when I went to tell one of my teachers goodbye and Merry Christmas he relentlessly insisted that I go since I had nothiing else to do so I said that I would go. The food was good and plentiful, but not worth 40 Euros to me. When I went to pay, I was told that my dinner had already been paid for by one of the head guys. I think that I truely work with the best people imaginable. I am always hearing horror stories from other people that I know about the teachers they have to work with and have nothing but compliments about my teachers, All the teachers then began to call me spoiled, like someone else I know, MOM. I really do work with the best people imaginable and I think that they are just as appreciative to have me.

The concert was really good. It was a group a called B-Vocal and they did everything a capella. Their whole show is a comedic version of the history of music from cavemen to present day music. The show was in Spanish but almost all the songs were in English. They actually talked about gospel music and even sang O Happy Day and sounded really good. I wish there was some way I could have recorded it. They also sang Yesterday by the Beatles which was really good. Overall, it was a good show and both the students and teachers enjoyed it. They have been on TV here so I will try to find some clips of them from youtube and put them on here. Valencia tomorrow!

Today is the last day of class before the Christmas break. I dont have class but I am here anyway beacuse we gave gifts to each other in one class and this afternoon I am going to go to a concert with some classes. I received a basketball with all the signatures of the guys in the class who I play with. Yesterday, all the teachers gave gifts and I received a Nike Barcelona bag.

Today Julien is heading back to France for the next 3 weeks. Tomorrow, I am heading to Valencia with Laura, other roommate, and some friends from Murcia. We are going to return to Murcia on the 23rd and stay there until the day after Christmas. Im excited to go back to Valencia and see my old stomping ground and how it has changed over the past 2 1/2 years.

I have more pictures of Aguilas to put up, hopefully soon.

This week has been kinda crazy because the teachers have been handing out the final grades for this session of classes. Grades aren't a private thing here. After each test, the teachers read the grades of each student aloud. Overall, the kids do pretty horrible on the tests. They have a 10 point grading scale here and usually the average of the test scores is maybe a 3.5 out of 10. If a student gets a grade above a 4, they usually scream, shout and get all excited. And if they do really bad, it seems like it doesn't matter to them. I still really don't understand the process of moving up to the next class here. Everything is Pass or Fail so normally the students only need a 4 or 5 to move on to the next class. After receiving the final grades, if they don't have a high enough grade to pass, they get to take the test one more time to see if they can pass. The students are getting their grade back this week and it looks like a lot will be taking the test again. A lot of the kids don't work that hard and treat class as a joke. So when they get their bad grades they like to complain about everything. The majority of my day today was spent listening to the students complain about everything to the teachers. They fail to realize that the minimal effort they put forth isn't even enough to get a 4 out of 10. And in return, they blame it all on the teachers. I noticed all of this from the beginning and was wondering how it was going to play out. Most of the time I side with the students, but on this subject I am with the teachers.

The funeral for Isaias, my student in Cookeville, was on Saturday and all the students went. Francisco, the other student in the wreck, has now left Vanderbilt and is back in Cookeville recovering. His brother owns store and a taco stand that I used to go to and buy tacos and burritos. Speaking of my students in Cookeville, I received a Christmas card from them yesterday. I really look forward to going back to Cookeville to talk with and see how their English has improved throughout the time I have been gone.

So Friday I finally went and got a haircut, my first one ever in Spain. Last time I was here we all avoided the situation by simply not going and letting our hair grow. We had seen the crazy hairstyles that the Spaniards had and along with a few horror stories about trips to the peluquería (hair and barbershop) we decided not to go. This would not work this time since I have a job and feel that an afro wouldn't be appropriate. I probably had to wait about 45 minutes before I got my haircut and it was rough. I was sitting there all nervous, contemplating getting up and leaving. I was even sweating. It turned out to be okay though. Once he started cutting I knew it was no turning back and I just had to wait it out to see the outcome. This was also the first time I had ever had anyone use clippers, a razor and scissors to cut my hair. He did a decent job, it is a little bit shorter than I wanted but its all good. I am going to continue going to him and I think he will get a little better each time.

Here is a pic of the entrance of my school

Julien, Laura and me

I forgot to say that I bought a new laptop on tuesday too. Now we just need to get internet...

I got an email bearing bad news this morning from the teacher I used to help teach the English as a Second Language class back in cookeville. Two of our students, Isiaias and Francisco, had a wreck on I-40 and Isaias was killed and Francisco was severely injured. So say a prayer for their families and friends and one for the health of Francisco. R.I.P. Isaias

Now that you have been updated on the events of the past 2 months, I can talk about the people that I live and work with. My two roommates are Laura and Julien. Laura is from D.C. and Julien is from France. We all get along very well which is good because there is nothing to do here and we spend a lot of time together doing absolutely nothing. There are 3 secondary schools (ages 11-18) here and we all work at different ones. So between, the 3 of us we know the majority of the kids in this town. Aguilas can best be compared to Florida because since there isn’t a university here, there are only young kids, people in there thirties and forties and a lot of senior citizens. My school is a 15 minute walk from our apartment. I enjoyed the walk at first, but now it is cold and windy in the mornings and I am getting tired of it. Spaniards are never on time so I am always the first or second teacher to get to the school in the morning. All the teachers are really nice and the ones that I work with are incredible. I help with English language classes in all 6 levels of the school and also with a math, music, science and computer class in English. I usually play basketball once a week with some other teachers and at least once a week I play basketball and/or soccer with some of my students. Even though they are very energetic and never stop talking, I have a good group of kids. They actually usually listen to me more than the teacher. Well I am tired of typing now and the movie Troy is on so I’m going to watch it. Have a good day.

November was a whole lot better but still filled with plenty of drama. I wasn’t making weekly trips to all these offices so I actually finally got to work and get to know my students and the teachers that I work with. On the other hand, we were supposed to receive our first check on Halloween and we didn’t, go figure. The next week passed and still no money. Every week we were promised to get paid the following week but it never happened. Each week there was a new reason why we weren’t paid and something else that we needed to do so we could get paid. This trend continued until the first week in December when somebody went to the office and see what the deal was. She was told that maybe we would get paid this week and if not, it probably wouldn’t be until the end of December when we got paid. After hearing this, people starting getting together and talking about striking. After many emails between all of us teachers in this region, everything was organized and the strike began on Thursday, December 4th. Needless to say, we got paid on the 5th and the strike was over.

The month of October was rather hectic overall. I spent at least one day a week waking up 6:30 in the morning to catch the 7:00 bus to the Murcia, the capital of the region, to try and get all my papers taken care of so that I could be a legal foreigner in Spain. These trips consisted of an hour and half bus ride and hours of waiting and standing in lines at Foreigners Office. For the first trip we waited in line outside for 2 hours to be told we were in the wrong line event though we asked before we got in line if it was the right one. After 30 minutes of waiting in the other line, we were told that we need to go to the line we were previously in. Once we told the man we had already been in that line and the guy told us to come here, he said that he doesn’t know what to do with us and sent us away to someone else. This lady was nice and gave us a number to wait and talk to someone else. After 2 more hours of waiting, the new guy told us that we needed different papers and that we needed to go to an office in a different city and then come back to this office afterwards. So the following week one of my roommates went to the office in the other city (Lorca) which is a 30 minute bus ride, with one of her teachers who knew someone who worked there and got her paperwork taken care of. I went 2 days later and had to stand outside in line for an hour in constant wind and once I got to go in, the man told me that I couldn’t do anything here and that I needed to go back to the office in Murcia. I then told him that I had been there and they told me to come here and that my roommate came here and got her papers taken care of 2 days ago. To which his reply was that I still had to go to the other office to do anything. The next week I went to Murcia again to go to the office but this time I was going to go with the director of the program for our region. I went to her office and we were going to go, but the person we needed to see wasn’t in so there was no need to go. So I left my papers with her and left again. Sadly, this was the most progress I had made at all with the situation. The following week I went once more and finally got everything taken care of after 2 hours of waiting. It was so much easier last time in Spain when I didn’t do all of this stuff and just lived here illegally for a few months but this time I’m getting paid so I need to be legit.

I would like to give an update on why I have not been adding any posts to my blog. First off, we don’t have internet. Secondly, we had not been paid until this past Friday, which was December 5th and without a paycheck it is kind of difficult to get internet. Thirdly, my computer crashed. After being here a little bit over a month, I had decided one day while I was in the shower that even though we didn’t have internet I was going to start typing posts for my blog on my computer and saving them so I could post them later. I decided to start right away so I wouldn’t forget to do it and once I went to cut on my laptop, I received a message that my computer’s hard drive had crashed. So this was another setback for the blog but now after another month of nothing, I am getting around to doing some work on it.

I got my passport and visa back today, so now it's just waiting until my plane takes off from McGhee Tyson on September 29th.

Well, it's official. I will be returning to Spain 3 months from now to teach English. I will be in Aguilas, which is in the Murcia region. My school is only a 1/3 of a mile from the beach, so I have been blessed to be on the Mediterranean Coast once again.