Frohe Weihnachten!

That's Merry Christmas in German, and as my mother may remember, it was a spelling word in 6th grade! I just came back from freezing cold Germany. We had snow, we had ice, we had negative temps. (although that is in Celsius...) but the mountains were beautiful!!

The best part was definitely the Christmas markets, the Germans are crazy about Christmas markets. Each town we visited had a Christmas Market set up with food and decorations and sweets. We travelled through a few places, centralled around Frankfurt--one of Europe's largest and also most modern cities--and Heidelberg, where our friend lives and goes to school. Frankfurt has been mostly rebuilt and remodeled entirely since WWII and is now a huge financial capital of Europe. We spent a few hours there, walking through the skyscrapers and plazas and the slush! Heidelberg had the University feel to it, there was a river, and a castle, and mountains. Beautiful.

Most of our time we spent outdoors, touristing the towns we went through, eating at the Christmas markets, visiting the cathedrals and bridges and mountains. A very nice time spent with friends and exploring southwest Germany! Definitely good to be back in Madrid, it's a little warmer here...

Christmas Eve tomorrow, Feliz Navidad to all!

i ate Milan

Spent the past weekend in Milan, Italy...It was awesome! The main attraction was definitely the food...pastries and cappucino for breakfast...pizzas for lunch and dinner, gelato in between...we were so busy eating pizza, we didnt have time to try any pastas! Besides that, Milan is the fashion capital of the world. Dolce & Gabana, Prada, Chanel were all around. We weren't allowed in, but you know. it was there. It is also the home of Leonardo da Vinci...The Last Supper is there, but you have to book months in advance, so we didnt see that. We did see his painting San Giovanni Battista which is on loan from the Louvre. There were some canals and shops, a riverboat playing Italian music, people with accordians, pigeons, old churches, mopeds, all things Italian that you typically think of.
The best part was definitely the Duomo...the large central cathedral of milan, and the biggest gothic cathedral ( i think...or maybe the biggest in italy). The inside was beautiful...but the main attraction is that they let you walk on the roof! So cool! You're walking around between the spires and looking down on the central square and up at the golden Madonna on the tallest spire. It was amazing!

by the way...ive been meaning to mention this for awhile now...the song "chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." actually has meaaning. In europe, chestnuts roast on an open fire on every street corner, and have been since november, and people sell them! i havent tasted any yet..but they smell good.

last week of work for awhile! the spanish take their holiday-ing seriously, and dont want me around until january 11...
Thursday i'm off to Germany to visit our German friend (we met her in Madrid, she was doing a translation internship--she's amazing, speaks German, Spanish and English fluently) . its going to be cold, wish me luck!

Espiritu de la Navidad

Not many lessons this month...basically a month of fun and travelling, and I am reminded how lucky i am to be here following my dreams. this has been absolutely amazing so far what with the people ive met through my class and through work, and being in beautiful Spain. i enjoy my work and my students, i am learning as much from them as they are from me, i get to travel, and im living again in Spain. I made this happen for myself, and i'm very happy about it. A friend of a friend was visiting last weekend and was completely blown away by our lives here--we work few hours a week but make enough to pay rent and enjoy living here. the culture is so much more relaxed compared to the states. don't get me wrong, the spanish are opinionated, loud, and irritating. but i love them. they are a passionate people. a marathon was going on in Lisbon when we were there, and we stopped to watch for a few minutes. there was a group of spanish people standing near us singing and chanting loudly , wearing spanihs flags like capes. i love to laugh at them and make fun of their bizarre ways, but it is only because i love them. their language is beautiful, and their ways admirable, even if different than mine. at first siesta time everyday is irritating (everything in the city shuts down for 2-3 hours each afternoon) but you get used to it. some days all the shouting and the lines for the lottery (theyre obsessed with the lottery!) and the woman with briefcases on wheels make me so angry, but other days i smile and laugh, because its spain.
Our explanation for anything bizarre here has become "well..its Spain." A random toilet in the middle of a street..."It's Spain" or restaurants not opening for dinner until 830, people wheeling their kids in strollers around well after midnight, people trying to sell you socks and used containers of shampoo at the market, an hour wait at the grocery store because they only have one person working checkout...all of these things have a simple explanation. I'm in Spain...and the Spanish are crazy.

Feliz Navidad! just 2 days of work this week(tomorrow and Thurs) and then off to Milan on Friday...where i will be stuffing myself with pizza!
Ricardo brought Shaz and I a weird pudding cake type thing from Northern Spain , i'm eating some now..its ok, kind of sweet and milky.

ciao!

LISBOA

Still vacationing for the next 2 days after a great weekend in Lisbon, Portugal! THe city is located on the water...very beautiful with lots of sites--cathedrals, castles, watch towers...the city is built on 7 peaks and so there is many different levels and look out points. it sort of reminded me of san francisco because of the steep slopes and there was a bridge that easily could have been the golden gate bridge, except for the huge Christ statue on the other side. Shaz says they have built the same statue in Brazil as well. it also rained the whole weekend,adding to the SF feel.
We just spent the weekend touristing around, walking up and down and eating portuguese pastries--they are very famous there. the language is bizarre, looks like Spanish but sounds more like dutch or something.
today it is also raining in Madrid, so im just passing the time getting reorganized for my last couple of weeks of classes before christmas! the job is going well, and i am so happy to be doing this, to be making this possible.
a friend of a friend of mine was visiting last weekend and was so impressed with our lifestyle and the opportunities we have...working little, but making enough to travel a little and enjoy a new city and culture. i also enjoy teaching and my spanish students so much more than i could have imagined and im happy knowing that this is exactly what i want to be doing.
all for now...enjoy the pics!