Bike Freestylers

 

cousins

 

summer scrimmage

 

Nick and the bridesmaids

 

dock at Carl Cowan Park

 

My uncle's 58 Fairlane

 

My grandmother's flowers

Not doing the 365 Grateful project yet. I am going to post some pics first and then get to that later.

I have been back in the US for a week now and have decided to start a project I just read about. It is called 365 Grateful and pretty much it is just taking a picture of something that you are grateful for and writing a short little comment for it. I love photography, just bought a new camera, already have a blog and have a million things to be grateful for so this seems like it would be something fun to do. Here is the website where I found it at. Thanks Alysia for sending me to this site!

http://www.digital-photography-school.com/365-grateful-a-photography-project-that-could-change-your-life

And here is the official site for the the project

http://365grateful.com

And the journey home begins...

Tuesday night after returning from taking Ana to the airport, a couple teachers called me up and suggested we go have a beer. So Cal, myself and the two teachers went to the plaza. Once we got there, they then suggested we got eat dinner. I again agreed. The place we were gonna go to was closed and they said, "well how about we go to Bar Las Aguilas? which is another restuarant." I agreed and once we got to the door I saw around 30 to 35 teachers from school all standin up and applauding my entrance. They planned a surprise dinner for me and I was not prepared at all. We had just gotten back and I needed to shower. I was in a tshirt and my bball shorts while everybody else was dressed up. So of course they made me sit at the head of the table and we had dinner. When they brought out dessert, the teachers pulled out a laptop and a projector to show the slide show that they made for me. They then all started chanting that I talk so when I finally stood up they passed me a gift. I opened it and it was a picture that they took at school with all of my students. I said thank you and began to talk when they handed me another gift. This time it was Spain's national basketball team uniform personalized with my name. They couldn't find it in any store so they had to get it from the actual store for the team and have it sent here. Next they gave me a watch, which I think they spent a lot of money on and an apron with the recipe for tortillas de patatas and my name on it. After that, I finally had talked for a quick second then walked around and thanked each one of them for everything. Yesterday Cal and I went to have lunch with Angel and Maria. After lunch, Angel went to pick up the boys so I got to play with them for a little bit. They gave me a tshirt with a picture of the boys playing and saying "Andon!" We then went and played basketball for 2 hrs with some students and other teachers. Tonight my school is putting on a music concert so we are gonna go to that. We head out tomorrow night to Madrid. We are taking a bus that goes directly to the Airport so we should get there around 6am on Saturday.

I went to cancel our internet this morning so this might be my last post until I get home because the internet is going to be cut off tomorrow morning. Adios mi gente!

 

Today Ana leaves, so we are losing the A of the ABC Gang (Ana, Brandon, Cal). One of my teachers is going to take her to the airport that's right outside of the capital city this evening and we are going to go too. She is flying from Murcia to London tonight and then 14 hrs to LA tomorrow.

It's soooo hot here but every time I check the weather, it's 5-10 degrees warmer in Knoxville. Can't wait to get back to that heat and humidity!

Just bought my camera and a new lens!

So my classes are officially over now. One of my classes yesterday had a little surprise party for me yesterday so that was pretty cool. My last class all made signs and cards for me and bought me Aguilas soccer jersey. I will post pics once I load them to my computer. It's crazy that this is almost over, just one more week here.

 

Cal got me! I'm usually the one getting pics of everybody asleep. It was just a matter of time.

I thought my trips were over but we decided to head to Granada for the weekend. Cal and I went with another teacher. He is from Granada so he has a house there and we stayed with him. All we did was eat and walk around all weekend. I seemed to like Granada more this time around. It has such a good environment and quite distinct from Aguilas. We had incredible, cheap food all weekend so I want to recommend Cafe Reina Monica and Terraza Albayzin to anybody that visits Granada and is in the Albayzin area. Both restaurants were amazing and the owner and workers extremely nice. Go get a kebab from The Kebab King also if you are in Plaza Nueva. Hands down the best kebabs I've eaten and I've an extensive amount of experience in that area. Some other teachers I work with were also in Granada so we hung out with them this weekend as well. Only 3 weeks left...

 

I was trying to take a pic Thursday night and someone ran into me. My camera fell and now it looks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa and obviously doesn't work. I have no choice but to get my camera now. It really feels weird to be without a camera. Cal is letting more use his old camera for now though.

I think the total number of deaths is up to 10 now form the earthquake. Everybody that I know that is from there, lives there or has family there is okay. However, there are many people who suffered damage. Some only very little damage while others houses or apartments are completely destroyed. I know it wasn't a massive natural disaster but it still did a lot of damage and lives were lost. Keep the town of Lorca in your thoughts and prayers.

I also happened to look at a map today and realized how close I was to Tunisia and Libya when I went to Sicily, Italy. That was kinda crazy as well.

Here is the latest article on the quakes.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42993156/ns/world_news-europe

They are saying that the first terremoto, earthquake, was a 5.1 and the second one was a 4.5 and as of now, there are at least 7 deaths in Lorca.

Just experienced my first earthquake, actually two earthquakes. They happened in Lorca, the next town over. It was a 4.3 and a church bell fell off a church there. The people are acting like its the end of the world because they have never experienced an earthquake before. I was half asleep when the first one happened and I thought, "man, the wind is blowing really hard. It just shook my entire room." Then Cal and I went to the plaza to have a coffee and the second one happened. We didn't know what was going on because it was both of ours first earthquake. It was pretty cool, but I can't imagine being in a big one. We were just sitting there and then all of a sudden our chairs and the table started moving. I then realized that it wasn't the wind that shook my room earlier.

 

Happy Mothers Day! I love you moms!!!

All my London pics are posted so go look at them!

On Wednesday we all went to different classes for the first hour to see how they had class. After that, we headed to the Mayor's office to see him and then headed to Windsor Castle. Windsor Castle was really cool and the Queen just happened to be there. We then headed back and packed our bags. That night we had a farewell dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Once again, all the kids were sad and crying. It was then time to go to bed because we had to get up at 5 am to take the bus to the airport.

It was a good trip but I was ready to get back to Spain. We finally got back around 5 pm which allowed me a couple hours to unpack and rest before I went to tennis. My next big trip will obviously be my return to Tennessee. Nothing but maybe a short trip or two and relaxing until then.

 

Here is the awesome family that I am staying with. Paula is a gym teacher at the school we are doing the exchange with. Alban is a French teacher at another school in the area and Eloise is the 3 1/2 year old daughter that provides non-stop entertainment. ALban is from France and came to England as a lector like what I am doing, but he never went back to France. Paula is a basketball player and Alban loves cars so we all have shared interests. The live in a nice neighborhood and have a wonderful home. I have my own room and bathroom. They have fed me well and treated me even better. Eloise is super funny. Whenever she doesn't remember my name she calls me "The Man." She is also insanely smart. Albans pretty much only speaks to her in French and she will respond in French or English. Its amazing how kids can absorb so much at such a young age. I can't think of anything else right now and I'm tired so I'm going to bed. One more full day in London before we head back down south to Spain and before you know I will be back in the U.S. Time has flown by.

Today we went to Cambridge. Its a really pretty area and a pretty chill little town. We walked around the town and then took a tour of one of the colleges. After that we had lunch and then had a little free time to wander around the town and go shopping if you wanted. We then headed back. Once we got back, I went and had Fish and Chips with Paula and Eloise, the mom and daughter I'm staying with, for the first time. It was decent, but nothing spectacular. Alban, the dad, had to leave for France this evening because his grandmother passed away. I haven't really talked about the family I'm staying with so my next post will be about them.

Monday I headed back into London for the day with the family I am staying with. We walked around for awhile just looking at all the stores and having a chill day. We eventually ended up going to Madame Tussauds. If you don't know what that is, its the famous wax museum that has actual-size wax figures of celebrities, athletes, musicians, world famous leaders etc. It was kinda expensive but I thought it was well worth it. I think I was most impressed by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jennifer Lopez. I had no idea that Arnold was as tall as he his and as for J.Lo, well I think its known what she is famous for. After that, we went to Buckingham Palace to see what the Queen was up to. We didn't see her. After the Palace the family headed home and I went to meet up with Sam, my Australian roommate from when I was in Valencia. He is working in London as an engineer for the 2012 Olympics. His project is the swimming pool and they literally just finished it. They began filling it up on Monday and it will take almost 3 weeks to completely fill it up. We had dinner at his apartment and then I had to head back because I had almost an hour train ride back to the house and I had to get up early for Tuesday.

Today was the trip to see the Chelsea Stadium and the Fullham Stadium with the boys. The trip went surprisingly well and everyone seemed to have a great time. Chelsea had an okay stadium but the staff there were really nice. After Chelsea, we headed down the street to see Fulham's stadium. We didn't take a tour though, we just walked around it. It's a smaller, lesser know team but they do pretty well still. Recently the team was in the news because the owner of the team was a close friend of Michael Jackson ans he recently erected a statue of MJ outside the the stadium. Here is a statement he made about the statue and the fans of the team: "If some stupid fans don't understand and appreciate such a gift this guy gave to the world they can go to hell.I don't want them to be fans.If they don't understand and don't believe in things I believe in they can go to Chelsea, they can go to anywhere else."

I posted pics and yes I have pics of MJ.

I'm going through my pictures right now so that I can upload some and literally almost half of my pictures are of cars. Sorry mom, I know how much you dislike me taking pictures of cars but there are so many nice cars here and I have to take pictures of them all. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take pictures of a few really impressive cars for whatever reason but at least I was able to see them. However, today we went to this place called Mercedes-Benz World which is like a Mercedes museum/showcase/showroom. We got to see all the new models and old ones as well. They even have several tracks for the brave, and rich, that want to take an extremely nice Mercedes out on the race track. Before we went to the Mercedes place we went to a little fair that was going down the street from the house. It was really nice and we all enjoyed being outside and the nice weather that we had today.

I just got finished uploading pictures of London so far. Camera 1 pictures are from my camera and camera 2 are pictures from the school's camera that I am using.

Tomorrow I'm going with one of the British teachers to take all the boys for a tour of the Chelsea stadium.

Thoughts and prayers to all those effected by the extreme weather that passed through the south.

The last two days have been incredible for me. Yesterday at the train station in London they had Krispy Kreme. The doughnuts were super expensive but I had to buy two. I have also been wanting some bbq so today at the driving range they had pulled pork. Of course I got it and was really good. Then for dinner, we had Papa Johns. Also really good.

Thursday we went to London. We had to take a couple different trains and after about an hour we got there. We had booked a bus tour were we could get off and get back on a different bus whenever we wanted. We also did quite a bit of walking and also had a boat ride down the Thames river. All in all we got to see just about everything. That also means that we were very rushed and really didn't get to enjoy the things that we saw. Once we got back from London we went and had dinner with one of the teachers. It was really good but I was ready to go home and go to sleep after having another long, exhausting day.

Today was the royal wedding so Alban, the husband of the family I am staying with, his brother in law and myself went and played golf. We actually went to a driving range that had these huge targets and you got points for hitting the different targets. It was a lot of fun and we spent almost four hours there. I even won a game.

We made it to London. One of the teachers took us to this extremely fancy hotel for tea. It was actually too nice, especially since I just had on jeans and a white tee. When we walked out the door there was 6 cars parked right outside probably with a combined value of almost $300,000. Well I'm tired. Time to shower and go explore London tomorrow.

Just talked to my niece for a second. Even though she is short with words, just like her uncle, it made me super happy!

Heading out to London in a hour. I'm going with two other teachers and about 20 kids. I have a feeling its going to be quite an experience with the wedding happening on Friday. There are gonna be so many people coming in and security is already insane.

 

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

Birthday was fun. It was raining so I laid in bed and watched Gladiator and The Godfather. It also rained all day today which is a big problem since my two loads of washed clothes are outside hanging up and I leave for London tomorrow night. I hope it is sunny tomorrow or I'm going to be in a interesting situation for London.

I posted pics from Italy on the Picasa site. Go have a look! Oh yeah, Happy Birthday to me! Sitting in bed watching Gladiator to celebrate.

HAPPY EASTER!!!

 

So I bought myself a Nike headband from the Nike store in the train station in Rome to make me feel better!

 

My beloved bag that has treated me so well for the past 14 years has finally decided that it has traveled enough with me. The zipper literally ripped away from teh rest of the bag while walking down the street in Rome. Sad to see it go but atleast it went out in style in Rome.

So while we are waiting to board the plane, which was delayed an hour, Ana realizes that she told her friend that was going to pick us up the wrong time. So we call and text him to tell him when we are actually going to arrive. So we finally make it back to Alicante, Spain at midnight and receive a message saying that our rides car is in the shop and can't pick us up. Alicante is almost 2 hours away from where we live so we are stuck. We decide to just get comfy and sleep at the airport. At 6:30 we get up and get something to eat and go ask about what time the bus comes. The bus comes at 9:15 so we still have more hours of waiting. In the end, we finally got back to Aguilas around 1pm.

This Italy trip was amazing. I am exhausted and broke but it was something that I will never forget. I got to see a lot of incredible places and met a bunch of new people. How many people can say they had dinner in Catania, Sicily, breakfast in Rome and the lunch in Pisa? The Italians were super nice and cool for the most part. Driving there would probably be one of the worst experiences of my life if I had to do it. I thought Spain was bad but they are nowhere near the Italians. It was insane.

Now I have two and a half days to rest before I'm packing up again and heading to London with twenty-some kids. Arrivederci!

Upon arrival, I fell in love with Rome. I loved everything I saw, however I did not enjoy our bus ride through the city with what seemed like 200 people crammed in on the bus. After receiving bad directions and having to walk about 15 minutes, we arrived at another one of Ana's friends apartment around 1am. She immediately takes us out to show us around here neighborhood and to let us meet some of the people she is going to school with. We come back to the apartment and start eating and talking and before we realized it, it was 5:30 am. So we slept for an hour and then got up to start exploring Rome's treasures before we had our 10:00 am train to Pisa. The first place we went to was the Colosseum which was #1 for me. I had always wanted to see it so I was really happy to finally see and touch it. We then went to the Trevi fountain which was also incredible. After that,we had a really expensive breakfast on some famous plaza and headed to the train station.

We arrived in Pisa around 2 pm after the four hour train ride. The only thing in Pisa is the Leaning Tower of Pisa so we headed straight to it. There is a really nice cathedral beside the tower too so I got some pics of it as well. The tower is pretty cool. one of the those things you would never think you would actually get to see and then all of a sudden you are with thousands of other tourists taking probably most cliched picture holding up or pushing the tower. We then went and had lunch, pizza of course, and then hopped on a bus to the airport. Finally time to come home.

We got up Tuesday morning and started exploring the city on foot. We had coffee and breakfast at a cafe and then walked around the beaches there. We didn't get to go as far as we wanted because it was blocked off, so we headed back to the apartment. We just chilled the rest of the day and I had more pizza.

Wednesday we had our breakfast at the cafe and then drove to the town of Siracusa, which was about a hour away. There they had Greek and Roman remains and a Catholic cathedral built on/with Greek pillars. We then headed back and went out for dinner. I had pizza.

Thursday we had breakfast again at the same place and then went and chilled at the beach for a couple hours. That evening we had our last dinner in Catania, guess what I ate? After that we headed to the airport because now it was time to head to Rome.

Quick summary of my trip to Italy. Sunday we flew to Milan which was very unimpressive at first. We roamed around on foot and on the bus and eventually found the hotel. After that, we headed out to explore more. Milan was probably the most diverse city I have been to. It seemed at any moment you would see people from at least 7 or 8 different countries. It was also really safe to be such a big city. I had my first Italian pizza Sunday night and it was really good.

Monday we went to see this cathedral that is famous for being old and huge. After that, we rented bikes and toured the city a little bit more. I ate more pizza. I also saw the only Ferrari of the whole trip here in Milan. We then headed back to the hotel to get our bags and head to the airport because it was time to head to Catania, which is on the island of Sicily. Once in Catania, Ana's best friend and her husband came and picked us up and took us back to their place to drop our bags off before we started exploring their town.

Buongiorno! Heading out for Italy.

Friday was the last day. The kids had class in the morning and then their graduation ceremony. After the graduation, we ate lunch and headed back to Aguilas. The kids had fun and were all sad and crying when it was time to go. We got back to Aguilas at 8:15.

I know have my 24 hrs of rest before I have to pack and hit the road to Italy. Tonight we are going to watch the Barcelona vs. Madrid game and then I will have to pack and go to bed because our bus heads out of Aguilas at 9 am.

Thursday
Today was another pretty chill day. We went back to Sagunto and went to the castle and walked around for awhile. I chilled with the kids for a little bit and then I took a 2 hour nap. Our boys won the soccer tournament and we will see tomorrow if any students got any individual awards.

Wednesday
I went to Sagunto today with a couple of the other teachers. We only got to stay for about an hour so we didn’t get to see that much of it. I played more basketball with the kids and volleyball with the teachers. Today was the first sub-par day for food in my eyes, just because everything had cheese. I pretty much just ate fruit all day as a result.

Tuesday:
I woke up at 7:40 this morning because I was told breakfast as at 8. Breakfast wasn’t until 9 so I had a whole hour of nothing to start the day off. Spent the day playing tennis, ping pong, basketball and even fit in some volleyball at the end of the day. I started off playing with the kids but they had to leave and then I played a couple serious games with the counselors. Today was a pretty chill day, besides the volleyball. I also have 3 mosquito bites. I haven’t had one of those in what seems like forever but in reality it was probably just last summer.

Monday:We had a pretty quick drive up to Sagunto (Valencia) today. In all it took about 5 hours and I was pretty much awake for it all. I thought the kids would get tired at some point and take a little siesta but it never happened. There are four different schools here and the teachers that came with the kids seem to be pretty cool so far. The teachers here at the camp are really good and only speak to the kids in English. The kids are happy and we have already had to talk to four kids for getting in trouble and we have only been here for ten hours. All I did today was eat and play tennis and ping pong. More of the same, along with some basketball, is on the schedule for tomorrow.

Spent the day at the beach today. Water is warm and it is super shallow at this beach, La Carolina. For several hundred feet, the water doesn't get deeper than your knees so I literally just sat out in the water and chilled and befriended some fish.

I'm pretty much finished packing for trip #1. We are heading out at 7 in the morning and will return sometime Friday evening. This should be a pretty fun trip.

Kind of a last second decision but I'm going on the Sagunto trip with two of my classes next week. Sagunto is a small town about 40 minutes outside of the great city of Valencia. The kids are going to a week-long English camp. This means that I will be in Sagunto from April 11-15, chill on the 16th, head to Italy on the 17th and get back on the 23rd. Birthday on the 24th. Two days to chill and then off to London on the 27th and back on May 5th. The next few weeks are gonna be busy but fun.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BROTHER AND AUNT!!!

Here is the the link for the English school's blog. Have a look at it and see how different their English is from ours.

http://collspain.blogspot.com/

Congrats to Chris Mullin and Dennis Rodman, two of my favorite players, being elected into the NBA Hall of Fame.

I started working this morning on a blog for our trip to London. Here is what I have so far.

http://europaaguilas.tumblr.com/

I'm about to watch Godzilla vs. King Kong which is by far my favorite and the best Godzilla movie.

I'm watching a special on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the reporter asked the taxi driver why he wasn't stopping for the red lights and he said, "If I don't stop, they can't rob me." Be grateful for your life and where you live.

On a lighter note, I love slingbox. I am finally taking advantage of Dan, Rack Room boss man, setting it up for me. I have been watching ESPN and Sportscenter non-stop all week. If you don't know what Slingbox is, it is a program that allows you to watch your tv from anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection. I have complete access to his tv but so far I have only only watched ESPN. Gotta have my sports!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42398625/ns/world_news-africa/

Article about what is going on in the Ivory Coast right now.

SO I have been sick for the past week. Turns out I'm pretty sure that I had strep throat because the medicine that I got did absolutely nothing for my unbearably sore throat. I finally got some amoxicillin on Wednesday and things got better. I just have to keep taking the amoxicillin for another week and a half. I think strep throat is #3 on my pain list, behind back spasms at #2 and kidney stones holding on to the #1 spot.

This week Cal shot a commercial for a contest for Pepsi so that was fun. I got to record, which was a lot of fun and made me even want my camera even more.

 

I just uploaded muchos fotos from last Friday to last night with the kids. Angel and Maria brought the boys to the party so there are a couple pics of them as well.

So the English kids left this morning. I spent the last two days with them showing them around Aguilas. Last night there was a farewell party for them and they all had a lot of fun. By the end everybody was crying and nobody wanted to leave. Overall, both groups of kids had a lot of fun and everyone is already super excited about our trip to London in a month. This was my first experience dealing with a group of English people for an extended period of time. They were nice and the kids were just as crazy as the kids here in Spain and back in the U.S. The highlight for me though was our that our principal let me use the school's camera to take pictures of the kids the last couple of days. The camera is the older version of the camera that I want to buy so I have been on cloud 9 for the past 48 hrs. I now realize how much I miss taking pictures with a real camera and I have zero desire to use my camera now.

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/21/6313764-family-mourns-american-teachers-death-in-japan

Article about a young American who was teaching English in Japan and lost her life making sure that the kids were safe.

Today is Father's Day in Spain so Feliz Día del Padre to all the padres out there!!

So the British kids are finally here. I went with another teacher on Thursday to pick them up from the airport. In all there are 16 girls, 4 boys and 2 teachers. They are all really nice and seem the be having a good time so far. However, yesterday two of the four boys were crying because they were homesick. I pretty much told them to go outside and play. You are in Spain with all this sunshine and new people to meet. I have been super busy with them the past two days so I'm looking forward to the weekend without them even though it has been fun. The kids don;t speak Spanish so that has kinda been a barrier but our kids are trying hard to speak English. I uploaded a couple pics of what all we have done so far.

We are going to pick up the British exchange students tomorrow. This should be interesting and fun. They are going to be here until next Friday.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12666552@N06/5524457042/

One of the teacher's pics of me in my parrot costume.

 

This is going to be my purchase fro the summer hopefully. I can't wait to start taking more photos with a real camera.

Carnaval is finally over. I'm excited to return to a somewhat normal life again. I planned on going to Valencia this coming weekend for Las Fallas but the exchange students from London are coming on Thursday for a week and we have activities planned for them. I am also broke. Electricity went up this past month so we had an insane bill.

Things I'm looking forward to coming home to: 1. Family and friends obviously. 2. Food (Chick-Fil-A is gonna happen as soon as I get back to the ATL airport and then some kind of BBQ). 3. My bed. I'm tired of waking up every morning sore from this "bed." However, I am not looking forward to coming back and trying to find a job, but I have to stay positive!

Thoughts and Prayers to those in Japan

 

Just a reminder of where I live

Today is supposed to be one of the biggest days of Carnaval. Everybody dresses up today. I just posted pics of everything so far. The first night (Thursday) my school dressed up as characters from Grease. Friday, we just threw on a wig. Saturday, Cal and I dressed up as females and Ana dressed up as a guy. That was an interesting night. Sunday was the parade and today is when everybody dresses up and there are awards for costumes. Today I am going to be a parrot. I will post more pics as I take them.

I got to sleep for an hour and a half last night. The whole Carnaval party is pretty much taking place in the Plaza de Espana, which is where we live. The party starts right below our balcony and literally 15 feet away from my bedroom window. This is good because we are extremely close to our apartment but also bad because we can't go to sleep until they stop playing music. That time happened to be 6:43 this morning and that also happened to be the exact time I finally fell asleep. I then got up at 8:10 to go to the bus station with Julien and Jeremy. I have a feeling I will need to take a nice long siesta today even though we are going to have more guests.

Carnaval starts today...

So, I have come to the conclusion that all I want to do is travel. If there was a way for me to travel the world for the rest of my life, I would do it in a heartbeat. I could also play the lottery, that would be the easiest way I guess.

 

The boys yesterday

 

Here is the Valentines Day card that some of my students made me in their French class

Forgot to say welcome back to my sister in law who just got back from 6 months in Iraq. Much love and respect for our military!!!

Internet has been messed up all week so I have been out of contact with everyone and everything. Our internet at the apartment has been really bad and the internet at school has been out as well. The cafes seem to have the best internet right now, when it is working. Anywho, Julien, my French roommate from 2 years ago when I was here, is flying down today to spend a week here. His best friend Jeremy is coming as well. He also was here two years ago, but in the next town over. From here on out the rest of my time here will probably fly by and be rather hectic. Carnaval starts here on Thursday, March 3rd and will continue until the 12th. After that , I will be making my return trip to Valencia for Las Fallas and then the next week the exchange students from London will be here for a week so I will be doing things with them. All of this is just March, I won't even start talking about April and May yet. Have a great weekend everybody!

So the funeral for my student was yesterday. I was quite surprised to find out that when someone passes away here in Spain, the funeral is held 24 hours later. The other teacher were also quite surprised when I told them that funeral services are usually 3-5 days later. There were so may people at the chapel that we didn't even get to go in. The students were taking it pretty hard and I think it will be awhile before things get back to normal with that class. Keep them and the family of Maria in your prayers. R.I.P. Maria Jose Gomez Rodriguez

We got news today that one of our students passed away. I had her two years ago when I was here and also this year. They said that she was feeling ill and eventually had a heart attack. So keep her family and friends in your thoughts and prayers. The school was taking it pretty rough.

Mailed my parents Christmas gift on December 23rd. The package arrived yesterday, February 12th. Oh well, I'm just glad it finally got there.

Bike ride was fun. We did 16 km (almost 10 miles) of biking with the majority literally right alongside the Mediterranean sea. I didn't take too many pics because we didn't stop that often and the terrain was pretty rough at times. I did upload the few pics I took to the google site so go look at them. They should be under bikes.

We are having a bunch of teachers over for breakfast tomorrow and then heading out on a bike ride with everyone. Should be a long day but fun with good weather hopefully.

I'm sad to report that my ipod did not survive its trip to the washer. I feel like I need to write my brother a $200 check for washing his Christmas gift to me. Well I'm exhausted. I was at school from 9- 2:40 and then 5-9:15 so I am going to sleep.

Just washed my ipod :( I have it sitting in a bag of rice right now to hopefully absorb all the moisture.

 

Saw a StingRay driving through the plaza.

Actually got paid on time this month, "the times they are a-changin'."

And I'm going to London for a week with one of my classes for two days after I get back from Italy.

Just bought my flight to Italy for Easter!

So we lost the game, but before I get into that let me talk about the rest of the day. I started out judging the karaoke in English contest which was pretty fun. I even got talked into singing Hotel California with one of my teachers. After that I went and played in the 3 on 3 basketball tournament with some of my students. We came in 2nd place and I got a medal. So after that was the grand finale, the teachers vs. students game. We started out hot and got a pretty big lead and at halftime we were up by 5. The kids came out hot in the second half and took the lead. We finally fought back and tied it up with about a minute left. They scored one last time with 5 seconds left and we didn't have time to get the ball in and get a shot off. I finished with 8 points, 6 assists and a couple steals. It was a lot of fun and way better than our game two years ago when we won by 20 points. So all of next week I am quite sure that 20 mins will not past without a student reminding me that we lost.

I also went and played with the twins this morning. Angel and I went to have breakfast and the boys ended up eating all of our toast and blowing on our coffees to cool them down for us. Then we went to the park like usual.

Tennis didn't go well last night but I have a chance to redeem myself tomorrow in class. Also tomorrow is a holiday and we are going to have activities all day at the school. I'm judging karaoke in English first, then playing on two different teams with my students in the 3 on 3 basketball tournament and then the grand finale, the teachers vs. students basketball game. We really don't have anybody playing for us on the teachers team and the students are pretty good so we actually might lose. I guess I will have to shot the ball, we shall see.

Finally got to play some basketball today. We had 8 so we played four on four. IT felt really good to be playing again but now I am tired and a little bit sore.

Finally got December's paycheck today. Now I can pay January's rent, 3 weeks late. My landlord was a teacher at my school when I was here two years ago so she is very understanding and knowledgeable of our situation and dealing with the Spanish government.

I'm really starting to like tennis. Slowly getting better also.

Oh, I saw that Knoxville made national news with the story about elephant trainer at the zoo dying. News-Sentinel wouldn't say what happened but the national article said what happened. Sad story but she died doing what she loved to do. Here is the link to the piece that was on the Today show.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/41103125#41103125

Keep Haiti, Australia and Brazil in your prayers.

Day 2 of bike riding was fun as well. The weather wasn't as great but it could have been a lot worse. We just kind of went in a random direction to see what we could find and ended up in a residential area of Aguilas. This area also just happened to be all up hill so that was a lot of fun. We found this one spot where we could leave our bikes and kind of walk around on this little mountain that was above the water. We chilled here for awhile and I got some pics of areas from a different angle than what I had seen previously. We also got to see ht Red Cross performing a search for a guy that went missing a couple of weeks ago. They were out in boats, kayaks and jet skis searching for him. After this we headed back down and had lunch before having to turn in the bikes. I put up pics, I think. If I didn't, I will do it right now.

Went to the park with the twins again this morning. At first they were mad because they had just gone to the doctor and had shots, but they got over that pretty quickly. When I got back to the apartment I told the roomies that we had to go do something outside because it was a ridiculously beautiful and warm day. Ana suggested we rent bikes. I agreed. Cal is working on a commercial so he decided to stay in and do some work on his project. So we went and got the bikes. I can't even lie, I was nervous about riding a bike since the last time I rode a bike was in the 8th grade. On top of that, I had never rode a 21-speed bike. In 8th grade I still had my huffy from back in the day. I got used to riding again and everything was fine. I even figured out how/when to switch gears. We rode all around Aguilas for a couple hours. I will put up pics soon.

 

Went to the park this morning with the boys

I'm getting better at tennis. I have a whole lot of room for improvement, but I'm making progress after 2 1/2 months.