Spain de nuevo :-)

So, I fell through completely on the blogging thing last year, with my whopping three or four posts. This year, I'm turning over a new leaf! I've been back in Spain for a couple weeks now and although I have yet to find a permanent apartment, I already feel like I'm back at home. I'm staying at my apartment from last year with three of my good friends, which has been a lot of fun. Going to all our favorite places from last year and eating the foods I missed over the summer has been great. Sadly, this really only includes sunflower seeds (mainly, a specific flavor we don't have anything close to in the States), chorizo, cookies that have more butter in them than any human should consume in one cookie and Spanish tortilla. Madrid isn't really known for its awesome cuisine, but I love it nonetheless. Oh, and how could I forget the deliciously inexpensive wine! My absolute favorite!!!

I am, however, at a new school this year, which is a bit different from my school last year. I work with first and third graders at a school called Mozart. My school last year has had the bilingual program for six years now, whereas Mozart has only had it for three. So, it's a bit of a difference to see a school that hasn't quite fully developed its bilingual education program and frankly, a bit frustrating at times. But I'm getting used to it. The kids always help make it better and the other teachers and staff have been nothing but wonderful to me. We're actually doing a "secret Santa" gift exchange in the next week or so. Literally translated they call it "invisible friend" and instead of just having one gift exchange you give small gifts for a few days that serve as little clues leading up to one big present on the final day - the day of the reveal. It should be a fun way to get to know a few more teachers.

Speaking of Christmas though, I'm fortunate enough to be able to come home for about two and a half weeks over the holidays, which I couldn't be much more excited about. Madrid, and places I've seen in Spain in general, really go all out with Christmas decorations and I LOVE it!! There are lights and big trees everywhere - the only thing I'm really missing so far is Christmas music and movies, which we have been trying to find a lot of online. At work I've been putting Mix 101.5 on in the background since they play Christmas music all the time now. Dorky, I know. :-) I can't wait for my mom's Christmas goodies that she'll have ready when I get home. I know she's going to try to fatten me up as much as possible while I'm there (I usually lose a little weight here from walking everywhere and having tons of free time to exercise). And I'll probably get some collards while I'm home too. Yum. Spaniards aren't too big on the veggies and I doubt they even grow collards anywhere around here.

Other than being excited to go home for Christmas, not a lot is going on in the next week or two. This past week we had a few days off school for Spain's Constitution day and Immaculate Conception, so my friends Kelsey, Eric and I went on a trip through Andalucia in southern Spain. We started in Jerez de la Frontera which is the home of sherry. There, we did a vineyard tour and learned how sherry was made. Then we did a tasting and had tapas - true to Spain form, of course. This was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip.

This is the Tio Pepe symbol, which is very popular throughout Spain and is seen in the heart of Madrid - right down the street from my first apartment last year. This vineyard was made by Tio Pepe's nephew in his honor. In English Tio Pepe means Uncle Joe.

This is one of my favorite parts of the tour! Apparently, a long time ago one of the guys that worked here set out this glass of wine for a mouse he had noticed around the cellar and they have now kept it for years as tradition. And, for the mice as well, I guess. :-)

Here are some of the wine casks with signatures from the likes of Steven Spielberg and Orson Welles, who have visited the vineyard. I think our tour guide said parts of Empire of the Sun were filmed in Jerez. There's your fun fact for the day.

Our trip continued onto Cadiz, a city on the coast of Spain and were it not for the tiny strip of land leading out to it, it would be an island. To be honest, it's not my favorite place I've visited, but it was fun for a day. The best part was a tower you could climb and see a camera obscura of the whole city, which was pretty cool. I'd never seen one of those. And I just had to take a picture of some of the fishermen for my dad.

We assumed that because we were on the coast, seafood would be a good choice for lunch. Boy, were we mistaken. This was the first meal of fish I've ever had to decapitate before eating.

Our trip continued to Sevilla and Granada, both of which I will post about soon. For now I must get onto my Sunday activities of lazing about the apartment and maybe doing some light cleaning. Un abrazo a todos!