So our most recent trip was a road trip to Madrid to drop my roommate’s mom off at the airport. After only one day of rest from the last trip, we headed out a little before 4 a.m. to Madrid. We made it there around 8:30 and stopped at a random little restaurant to have breakfast. The guy who owned the place turned out to be from Orlando. He moved here, married a Russian woman, had a baby and vowed to not return back to the U.S. He talked with us the entire time we were in there and was telling us how we should stay here and not go back either. He was even telling us places that we could possibly work. He was really cool and I want to go back to his restaurant next time I’m in Madrid. After that we headed to the airport. We then had to make the decision to return straight home or take advantage of having a car and go somewhere else. So our next stop was Segovia, a town about an hour northwest of Madrid. Turned out to be an excellent decision because I had never been there before and it was an amazing town. We drove around and found the area of town that it was known for. It had a lot of small touristy stores along with your normal shopping. There was also an amazing cathedral that we went into and an aqueduct that the Romans built. The castle there is Walt Disney used as an outline for Snow White’s castle and for another story too, I don’t remember which one. After that, we ate and hit the road again. I would also like to add that it was really warm in Segovia, even warmer than Aguilas. Once on the road we decided to stop in Toledo, another town that is on the outskirts of Madrid. I went to Toledo the first time I was in Spain and loved it so I was looking forward to seeing it again. We arrived, parked and walked around for just a little bit. The sun had gone down by now and it was cold and windy so it wasn’t the best conditions for walking around. We really didn’t do anything there but we did get to see a nice view of the castle and cathedral on our way out. So about 3 or 3 ½ hrs later we make it to Murcia and somehow end up on a different route to Aguilas than normal. We guess that it would work out anyway and continue. So we didn’t get gas in Murcia because we had to return the car in the morning and it is supposed to be empty. Little did we know we would hit a stretch of I don’t know how many miles without not only a gas station, but any signs of life period. So we finally come to a toll and the lady tells us how to get to Aguilas. Turns out I should have asked where was the nearest gas station was. Maybe 3 or 4 minutes after going through the toll the car stops. It says we have gas but the car isn’t doing anything. We were officially stuck on the middle of nowhere. I figured we were pretty close to Aguilas so I called a friend to see if they had the number for a tow truck that we could call and take us to a gas station. Turns out we weren’t anywhere near Aguilas and I called the roadside assistance. There were absolutely no signs around and the one sign that was there, when I told the lady what it said she told me that that mile marker and highway didn’t exist. I thought that was funny. So after several calls with the roadside assistance lady and the towing company, we finally figured out that we were in Mazarron, a town about 40 km from Aguilas. In the end the roadside assistance lady was really nice and so was the tow truck driver. He came, loaded up the car and took us to a gas station that was literally 1 ½ miles away. We almost made it. After about another 45 mins to an hour of driving we finally made it back to Aguilas. I think I’m done with road trips for awhile. In the end, we put almost 4,000 km (over 2,000 miles) on the car in 4 days. These trips were exhausting but fun. I got to revisit places that I went to the first time I was in Spain and places that I went to two years ago when I was here. I was ready to relax tonight but I just got a call from one of the teachers and we are going to eat in 30 mins and I have to shower too. Oh well, adios and happy New Year a day and a few hours early!

 

Lamborgini Gallardo in Granada. I ended up driving behind it later

So while eating lunch on Christmas we decided to head to Granada for dinner. Once we arrived in Granada we walked around and found a nice restaurant to eat at. During dinner we discussed the fact that Seville is only a 3 hr drive away and the possibility of heading there next. So we finished our dinner in Granada and began walking back to the car to continue our journey. We arrived in Seville around 1 a.m. and found a hostel to stay in for the night. We woke up the next morning and discussed traveling to Lisbon, Portugal since it wasn’t that far away at all. Seville is about an hour away from the Spain/Portugal border and 5 hrs away from Lisbon. We finished our breakfast and began the next leg of our journey. Right before reaching the border, we stopped for gas and I decided to put some air into one of the tires. Little did I know, the hose had a massive hole in it and in the little time I spent attempting to add air to the tire, it went flat. I went and told the attendant that the air wasn’t working. He tried adding air himself. Same result. We began inspecting the device and the hose and that’s when he found the hole, which was badly duct taped. Fortunately, they had another one and we were back on the road. We took a very scenic route by accident that took us through the mountains and a lot of small towns. We were grateful for this because we got to see the countryside and enjoy the ride and view even though it took almost 2 hrs longer. So we finally arrive in Lisbon around 7 p.m. We had an excellent dinner; Portugal has never let me down for any meal. We then went next door to this famous bakery spot that has these great little pastries. There we enjoyed the sweets and decided that we were going to go ahead and drive back that night. So by 9:30 p.m. we were back on the road heading home. We started out making really good time and then all of sudden it seemed to slow down exponentially. After a long 12 ½ hrs we made it back to Aguilas. So, that was my Christmas this year. Hope everyone had a great Christmas! I really don’t have any pictures because we really didn’t see anything. We just drove and ate. The few pics that I do have are of cars and motorcycles and I will definitely put the pic of the Lambo that we saw up.

Just spent 11 euros on contact solution, that is $14. Very expensive

 

Me and the boys from a few weeks ago

 

Angel

 

Victor

Thanks mom and dad for the Christmas card and post cards.

finally got PAID today!

 

Here is the link for the pics again

http://picasaweb.google.com/jamal424

Right now one Euro = $1.33. And while we were in Morocco, 10 dirham = 1 euro. Pics are up too.

So our journey began on Friday with a two-hr bus ride to a different city to catch our flight to Madrid. My roundtrip flight to Alicante to Madrid only cost 25 Euros after taxes and all the fees. Roundtrip to Morocco only cost 80 Euros. It should have only cost me 40 Euros but the price went up right when I was buying my ticket. Once in Madrid, we began to walk around and look for a place to eat dinner. We found this Caribbean restaurant where I had a good Cuban meal. After that, we walked around for a few hours and then called it a night and went to our hostel.
There also happened be a massive strike by the Spanish air traffic controllers that turned into a huge fiasco. They went on strike when there was a 5-day weekend, costing Spain millions of dollars, well Euros, because they had to cancel so many flights. I don’t know if it made the news in the US but it was a big deal. Hundreds of thousands of people were stuck at the airport. Once seeing all this on the news, we were extremely happy that we made it in.
We walked around all day Saturday and I actually remembered quite a bit from when I went to Madrid in 2006. That evening, we met up with some of our Spanish friends that came to Madrid also. We did some more walking around and then headed in to get ready for our trip to Africa. We had to keep watching the news to see the status on the airport and the flights. In the end, the military had to come in and take over until they apparently made the controllers come back.
The flight from Madrid to Tangier was only one hour. In the span of about 5 minutes we went from flying over the Spanish coast right onto the landing strip on Tangier’s coast. We go through customs and get our money changed before starting our adventure. The taxi driver could only read Sanskrit, so I had quite a task of attempting to explain the address and where we were going. We made it after all and the apartment we rented was incredible. It was without a doubt the most interesting place I have ever stayed. The living room looked like it was from a palace. We all had our own massive couches that we referred to as our thrones. Once we got settled in, we headed out to find a taxi to take us down to the port area. Once we got down there, it began to rain so we decided to find a restaurant to eat at and wait out the rain. We then had a massive meal that was quality and cost 1/3 of we would have to pay in Spain. During the meal, I received a text from one of the teachers at my school who was supposed to fly to Morocco on Saturday and he told me that his flight got canceled and he was heading back to Aguilas from Madrid. After eating, we began asking questions to our waiter about places to see and things to do but he really didn’t understand us so he got these two older guys who have a store across the street from the restaurant to talk with us. They spoke Arabic, French, Spanish, English and I think German also. They then hooked us up with a taxi driver who spoke Spanish. This was the biggest blessing of all for the trip. This man, Mohammed, was literally the nicest person ever. He drove us all around the city for almost an hour and half showing and telling us everything for only 20 Euros. We were even going to ride camels but it started raining kind of hard then so we passed on that. He also took us to the area where all the kings and princes of all the Middle Eastern countries have their vacation palaces. We couldn’t take any pics of them though. We then went to this famous cave that is called Hercules’ Cave and then he took us back into the city to have dinner. After that we went back to the apartment and chilled for the night.
So Monday morning Mohammed came and picked us up and drove us to a beach town that was about 30 mins down the Atlantic coast. This place was called Asilah and we spent a couple hours walking around and exploring. Mohammed then took us back to Tangier and we walked around for the rest of the evening.
Tuesday morning Mohammed picked us up one last time to take us to the airport. We thanked him for making our trip incredible and he thanked us and told us to come back and visit him and the country. We changed our money back and got ready for our flight back to Madrid. When we went through customs 2 of the guys asked me if I spoke Arabic since my name was Jamal.
Once back in Madrid, we walked around some more before eventually getting caught in a heavy downpour. The only bad weather of the trip, besides our turbulent flight back to Madrid from Tangier. Headed back to the hostel and the trip was pretty much over. Spent a bunch of hrs at the two airports and had over 4 hours of time to waste in Murcia while waiting for the bus to Aguilas.
We were extremely blessed to have such a great trip when they were so many opportunities for things to not go in our favor. Madrid was cold and crowded but we had a great time there and I even like it now. I wasn’t too fond of it in the past. Morocco was incredible. The food was great and so cheap while the people were extremely nice. I couldn’t have had a better trip.

My trip:
Friday: fly from Alicante to Madrid
Saturday: Madrid
Sunday: fly from Madrid to Tanger, Morocco (i'm going to be on the continent of Africa, how cool is that?!?!)
Monday: Morocco
Tuesday: fly from Tanger to Madrid
Wednesday: back to Aguilas

I just saw that it is snowing in Tennessee while today is the first day that the sun has been out in a week and its decently warm.

I put up some new pics on the google site. Madrid and Morocco this weekend/next week even though we still haven't been paid...

Just had a class of only karaoke in my last class. Not trying to imply anything but the boys didn't win any until I sang with them and then they won every song after that. I might try to put a video up.

It's been raining 5 out of the past 6 days. BOOOOOO!!!!!

 

The Thanksgiving dinner we prepared for some of our Spanish friends. Spaghetti, two completely hand made pizzas and home made chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Everything went decently. We only burned a few cookies that we forgot about while working on the other things. I also might have accidently thrown a pan of cookies across the kitchen.

Day #3 in a row of rain. Here is a link to one of the teachers photos. He has a couple pics of me from the mountains.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12666552@N06/

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Disfrutalo! (Enjoy it!)

 

Here is a pic of my own tennis racket that I got on Thursday. When I showed up to class the teacher had it for me. 120 euro tennis racket but I will only have to pay 50 euro for it. And even though my shirt says that I have game, I don't. But I will...

here is the new link to my pics.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jamal424

Tennis class was horrible. I took a stop forward after the first class and about 3 steps backwards after the second class. Oh well. It's raining today. Only the second time that is has rained since I've been here. I can't complain about that.

The pics are up but for whatever reason it only loaded maybe 1/4 of the pics. I am having too many problems with webshots so I will try to find another place to post my pics. Hopefully by the end of the week I will get all of the pics up.

So my second tennis class went a whole lot better than the first. I didn’t hit any balls out of the court and into the woods like I did the last time. I think I am finally getting a feel for what I am supposed to be doing. I have another class tonight so we shall see if I am actually learning something.
Friday was the beginning of the camping trip I was talking about. Five teachers from my school, two that used to work at my school when I was here two years ago, Cal and myself were the participants in this adventure. We went to some mountains that are in the next region over, Andalusia, and called Sierra de Segura. In all, the trip took about three hours with the majority of it being us driving through small villages on the way up through the mountains on two-way streets big enough for one car. Upon arrival we quickly noted that we weren’t in Aguilas at the beach anymore. We picked our rooms, settled and ate dinner. Around 1 in the morning, we decided to take our first excursion. We ventured out in the woods that were right on the other side of a stream that ran beside our house. Needless to say, we got lost on our way back. We spent probably about 20 minutes just roaming around trying to find our way back. It was pretty funny because we could see the lights from our house but couldn’t get back to it. I took a couple videos of the night adventure but I am not going to post them because everything said is in Spanish and you can only see something every now and then because we only had 2 lights. Once we made it back, we just chilled out and eventually went to bed.
Saturday was our big day. We got up and had a big breakfast in preparation for our hike. We headed out around 11 or 12 in the cars to a spot that was closer to the particular area we were going to be hiking. We parked the cars on the side of the road and began the hike. The hike up took about 2 ½ hours to reach the top of the mountain. The views along the way were incredible. If I have enough time I will put up my pictures today or tomorrow. They said the area we went to has the most greenery in the entire south of Spain. Once at the top we chilled and had lunch. The vultures noticed our presence and kept flying around and checking us out. When it was time to head back down, three guys who were familiar with the area decided to take a different route back that would take four hours. The rest of us returned the same way that we came. Once we made it back down someone finally had coverage on their cell phone and got a call from the other guys saying that they got lost and were heading to a different town that they found. One of the teachers headed to go pick them up and about 90 minutes later everybody was back at the house. At the end of the day the three guys who went on the other route walked/hiked around 30 kilometers and the rest of us did 20 kilometers, which is around 12 miles I think.
Sunday was our chill day. We got up, ate breakfast, packed, cleaned and then drove to the next village to see this museum that was an old house typical of what the people in that area lived in in the past. After that we headed out. We stopped at a restaurant to eat and watch the last Formula1 race of the season. I think that if Fernando Alonso, a famous Spanish driver, won or came in 2nd place he would win be number one for the entire season. He lost. After that it was back on the road to continue down the mountain and back on the highway to Aguilas.
Everybody had a great time and enjoyed the time out in nature. It was also good to see some old friends who aren’t at the school anymore. I think everybody was ready to get back to the warmth of Aguilas. In the pictures you will see that the weather was incredible. Very hard to believe it was the middle of November and we were walking up a mountain in t-shirts and sweating. Good times

I just booked my flight to Morocco for the first weekend in December!! I'm going to the Motherland.

We also may be getting internet today so I might start calling everybody soon.

Tomorrow I'm heading to the mountains with a group of teachers from school and Cal. It should be pretty interesting and cold.

As of three hours ago, I am a legal immigrant in Spain for the next 365 days.

 

Yep, this is where I live

Finally got the Granada pics loaded and they took forever. There aren't any descriptions because I have 24 mins left on my battery so they will come later.
http://travel.webshots.com/album/578945299fWYiHg

So the first tennis lesson didn't go so well, at least in my mind. Even though it was the first time I had really picked up a tennis racket, I feel that I should be halfway decent. I am far from it. I felt like Barry Bonds out there because I hit a decent amount of my balls completely out of the court and they will never be seen again. This whole concept of learning to play a new sport is going to take some getting used to. I have to make myself remember that I don't know what I'm doing and that I haven't been playing for years. It was my first day and I was as hard on myself as I am when I play basketball. I did have fun though and I will get better.

Here are a couple things that I have been meaning the bring up and I haven't. First off, the Daylight Savings over here happened this past weekend so now I am only 5 hours ahead of the Eastern time zone. Secondly, I have been talking with some teachers about taking tennis lessons. My classes begin tonight, so by the time I return home I will be coming back as the black Rafa Nadal.

So here is the rundown on our trip to Granada this past weekend. Once we began to search for a hostel to stay in, we quickly found out that apparently everybody travels to Granada when there is a long weekend. There weren’t any hostels that we could book. So Thursday night we started looking into hotels. We found one and booked it and within 2 minutes they were calling us back to say there was an error and that they didn’t actually have the room. At the exact same moment I was talking to one of my friends at dinner that lives there and she told us that we could just stay at her place even though she was going to be in Aguilas for the weekend.
So we head out at 6:45 am on our way. As soon as we get to the bus station in Lorca, the next town over where we are catching the bus, 3 cops approach us and ask for our passports. In the 14 previous months that I have spent in Spain, I have never had a cop ask for my passport or any type of identification. So of course we don’t have our passports with us so they took our drivers licenses and called them in. Everything was fine of course and they left. Two hours later we are in Granada and exploring the new city.
On Friday we pretty much just walked around for a little bit. That night we went and chilled at one of Cal’s friend’s apartment. Cal has a bunch of friends that are over here right now. Everywhere we go we always seem to run into someone that is from the Boston/Philly/Jersey area or from LA, never anyone from Tennessee. Haha, oh well. Pretty much everyone at the apartment was from Boston and three people were from LA. We ate dinner and chilled there for awhile then headed to the apartment to go to bed.
Saturday we got up and began walking around again. We ended up walking to the Alhambra and proceeded to see if it was sold out. We were hopeful that there would be tickets left since it was cloudy and raining. We finally make it up there and the tickets are sold out BUT there just happened to be these four girls from Italy who had bought tickets but had to leave right then because their bus was leaving and they weren’t going to have time to go in. So we bought the tickets and spent the next almost four hours there. The Alhambra was quite impressive. I do feel that I enjoyed the Alcazar in Sevilla more though. I don’t know if it because I was visited it first or because when I went there it was sunny or what. I just liked it better, contrary to the rest of the world. After that we headed out for an early dinner which consisted of tapas. In Granada, whenever you buy a beer, glass of wine or whatever they give you a small portion of a food of your choice. We went to a couple tapas bars and then headed back to the apartment. We had a Halloween party to go to so we found a store and bought some random things to wear for the night. We met up with everyone from the previous night at the party and then left later on to meet up with one of Ana’s friends that also happened to be in Granada. We went to another tapas bar and then chilled with them the rest of the night.
Sunday we started out walking around again. We went to eat lunch in this restaurant that had mainly all Middle Eastern food. I had lamb with rice covered in curry. I don’t like curry but I ate it anyway because I was starving. After that we headed back to the apartment to pack up our stuff and head back to Aguilas, where it is warm and always sunny.
Overall the trip was really good. Got to see some amazing things and meet some cool new people. I enjoyed the city and the Alhambra but did not fall in love with them like everyone else. I love watching movies so I have to draw a comparison to this trip with a movie. A movie comes out and everybody loves it and hypes it up and by the time you go see it you have pretty high expectations. Most movies might be decent, but don’t live up to the hype. This was the case with Granada for me. I should get some pretty interesting reactions this week at school from everybody when they ask what I thought of Granada and I say it was alright. Deuces

So I was talking to this guy last night and he asked me my name. I said Brandon and he said, "ah, like Punky Brewster!" I'm pretty sure my mouth just dropped wide open. I was so excited that someone would know that, especially here in Spain. Good times, that made my night.

Spur of the moment trip to Granada with the roomies. Hopefully I'll take some pics

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMS!!!

 

My name written on a car. Maybe there is another Brandon roaming the streets of Aguilas.

 
The roomies: Cal (far left)and Ana (middle). They guy in the red is one of my teacher's friends

The twins can't say Brandon so they call me "An-Don." Every time Angel has them in the Plaza he points at our apartment and asks them who lives there and they say An-Don!

Ana, the other roommate, got here on Sunday so we are all finally here.

 

I was thinking last night about how lame it is that we don't have internet. Then I remembered that 33 miners had been trapped underground for 2 months. I then realized that I can deal with not having internet. Much props to all involved in the rescue of the Chilean miners!

pics.. http://community.webshots.com/user/jamal424

Finally all settled in the apartment with one roommate, Cal. He is from New Jersey. It will be 2 or 3 more weeks before Ana, the other roommate, gets here.

Finally made it here to Aguilas Thursday night around 8:45. It only took 9 hours flying, 7 hours on a bus and 7 hours of waiting for planes and buses. Angel and his family picked me up and I have been staying with them since. The twins are getting big and used to having me around but I found an apartment today so I will be leaving their place. Angel and I went to the beach this morning for a second and the water was a whole colder than I expected but I got in anyway. I went to the school yesterday just to say hi to everyone and ended up staying there for 4 hours. I talked to the teachers, students and of course played basketball with the kids. I'll put up some pics shortly.

Just bought my ticket. September 29th I'm leaving on a jet plane...

I said I would probably only go back if I got placed in the same city and at the same school.I recieved an email today asking if I wanted to return back to Aguilas and to I.E.S. Europa, my school that I worked at. I said yes. So, esta hecho (it's done). Just have to get my acceptance letter so I can then get my visa and finally buy my plane ticket. Let the process and journey begin... again.

So a couple months ago I went ahead and applied to teach again. They accepted me a few days ago and I finally just said yes to them. Looks like im heading back after all...