How can you even start to describe a love that started less than a week ago and left such an impression on me?
How can I explain what it was like to have my grandparents travelling a foreign country with me "on a whim" without making any hotel reservations etc?
In a few words, absolutely wonderful.
Oma and Opa arrived on Thursday afternoon after having driven across the border from Lisboa, Portugal and spent the afternoon in Villanueva exploring.. and then asking for a city map from a cleaning lady since the tourist office was closed during their walkaround (The
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Spanish are very serious about their siestas, nothing is open between 2 - 5PM). They found my apartment okay and met my roommates Jessica and Veronica, who entertained them while I finished work in Don Benito and made my way back by bus at 9PM. I checked them into the same Hotel I stayed at during my first night here for 2 nights and we all slept well.
Friday morning we decided to go to Las Cruces, wander around Don Benito for lunch/tapas and then visit Medellin - a medieval town 6km away from Don Benito, where the conquereor himself Hernan Cortez was born. It was a windy day, but we thought nothing of it... until we started climbing the mountain up to the castle. We made it to the castle, only to find out that we were a half-hour away from it being open so we walked around the castle walls and tried to take pictures in the wind and of the amazing views from there. As soon as we had paid our entrance fees, the rain really started to come down and we were forced to stand in archways, tour the towers and underground chambers before finally deciding to hurry back down the hill to the car. Well, we didn't come prepared with rainjackets since the weather was clear in the morning, and so we were walking fast on cobblestones (yikes) and Opa jimmied a raincoat out of a garbage bag... thank goodness there was no garbage in it at the time. Once in the car, we decided to head back into Villanueva to have a relaxed tapas dinner and head out early for Cordoba the next morning.
Saturday came along and we had our umbrellas and rainjackets at hand, no more weather surprises for us. The drive into Cordoba, since we didn't take a main autovia, was beautiful even with the rain! We drove through the flats of Extremadura and made it into the mountains of Andalucia, driving through small towns of whitewashed buildings clinging to mountainsides.. must be incredible to see when the sun's out too! Oma and I were enjoying the views while Opa drove, including when we got to Cordoba. Unfortunately, the weekend we chose to travel on is a long weekend here in Spain (Dia de los Santos) so all the hotels we could find were booked, the traffic was awful, and we were all anxious from having been in the car for 5 hours.. In the end we decided to skip Cordoba, spend the night in a locality close by then head on to Sevilla which was only another hour away. We drove along the highway and found Ecija, a town of about 40,000 people, but since we were there around siesta time, all was quiet. The hotels downtown were booked so we ended up staying in a hotel right near a gas station but with small, clean rooms. We got two rooms, one for them and one for me since the rooms only had 2 single beds, and enjoyed an amazing Andalucian dinner - lots of pork again, roasted vegetables, beer and cold red wine - played some competitive games of rummy in the room then slept.
Sunday morning we made it to Sevilla. I am in love with Sevilla, and just got the strangest feeling even when we were just driving around, a feeling that I could very well see myself living here for a time. We bought my train ticket first, then found a hotel and booked a room, then we had the rest of the day to sightsee in Sevilla in the Santa Cruz district where La Giralda, Real Alcazar, Cathedral and Jewish Quarter are. If you ever look at a map of Sevilla, we spent 6 hours in only one small square... I can't imagine how long it would take to truly 'see' all of Sevilla! Monday morning we woke up early again to have breakfast and then go back to Santa Cruz, tour the bullring, poke our heads into a few more churches, and enjoy a lunch in a square where an old man came to busk by singing and play flamenco on his guitar, while we ate tapas... I really felt like I was in Andalucia at that point.
Having Oma and Opa in Spain felt so natural, even though I had to 'navigate' on the trip and wince at the near-run-ins with cars in Cordoba's crowded streets, I loved having them here and have realized how lucky I am to have a pair of such adventurous grandparents! Everyone here was so surprised that they would venture this far, let alone want to go on a roadtrip in a foreign country... my roommates have settled on having them as their 'adopted grandparents'. Not only that, but their few Spanish words that they spoke seemed to make them friends with the front desk agents at the hotels and with people who didn't speak a word of English... I have so many pictures from this trip it'll take an eternity to put them up but I will put them up soon.
As part of the bilingual program at IES San Jose, the students in 1o and 2o ESO learn about "English" traditions such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Guy Fawkes Day, etc. and part of their classes included a pumpkin-carving contest, and decorating the front hall of the school with big hallowe'en posters of bats, haunted houses, and ghosts! These students are in the 1oESO Bilingue and are so eager to speak English...and pose for photos! :)
As much as I miss my little blue hatchback Mazda, which is biding it’s time in Canada in the driveway, I didn’t think I would be able to get around as much as I have without a car here. Luckily for me, travelling in Extremadura has not been at all what I expected it to be. I read before coming here that it would be difficult to get around, as the railway systems are not that extensive and the buses are limited, not to mention the number of main highways are also limited. Not to mention that Spanish drivers are like offensive hockey players – a little intimidating …
IES San Jose has been buzzing this week. This whole week 18 German students, and 2 accompanying teachers, have been hosted by students and their families at the highschool, and are working on a trilingual project together for the European Union, on the topic of the transition from school to the working world. My only day available to help was on Friday when I helped correct their compositions and even helped make audioclips to put on the website when it’s finished (My voice will be famous, haha). It was a very interesting atmosphere in the classroom that day because the common language between the German students and Spanish students was English, a foreign language for both groups! The two Spanish and English teachers from Germany were Ana and Patrick – both married to Spanish-speakers (a Colombian and a Galician) and feel more comfortable speaking Spanish than English. On Friday Ana, Patrick and I were invited to dinner at Inma’s house (an English professor at IES San Jose). Maria-Jose (another English teacher) and her boyfriend drove the three of us and we enjoyed a meal completely prepared by Inma’s marido Manuel… and often visited by their cat, the Queen of the House herself Luna. It was such a fun night, I really hope to go for dinner with Maria Jose and Inma again sometime soon! 
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