Holy Week and Easter

This last week I was lucky to have a week off (Spanish version of Spring Break) during Holy Week before Easter and I went to Almeria in the south of Spain with my friend Fernando and his flatmate and her boyfriend. We stayed at Fernando´s family´s house in San Jose, a small, beautiful beach town about 25 min away from the city of Almeria.check it out on the map in the south east corner of Spain. It is a desert that suddendly converts into coast.
We stayed in the loft, which is an old garage that the family converted into a great 1 bedroom apartment (think IKEA) and its really modern and new. It has a kitchen, bathroom, etc. We went to the beach a lot (various beaches), but the weather was not very good. I met Fernando´s mom and dad, Toñi and Fernando, and his little sister who is 10, Marian. I had already met his other sister, Elia, who is 22. I had a lot of fun with Marian, playing with her on the beach and at home. She and Fernando (young Fernando) are always messing with each other and tickling and fighting and its funny to watch. The beaches were marvelous, like nothing I had ever seen, but to go out on them in just a swimsuit was impossible! it was too windy, and I wore a sweatshirt the whole time (boy, did I bring the wrong clothes with me to the beach!).
On Easter Sunday, in Spain they dont do much but go to mass, and Fernando and I were headed back to Ciudad Real, so the day was really unspecial. I really missed the celebration at home. Here it was such a normal day, and in the States, its one of my favorite days of the year. I´ll add some pictures and let them tell the story even better. I think to understand something very well its important to see it.



We also ate typical Spanish Easter foods, which are Potaje (a stew with potatoes, garbanzos, spinach, garlic, and cod) and Torrijas (like french toast with more sugar and cinnamon.

Marian and I doing monkey faces.
The town of San Jose.
Marian and Fernando and San Jose.

10k

Pictures from 10K race this morning. I finished in 52:09. Yayyy!!! A new way to see my city.

Hello all! Last weekend, I went to Cuenca with my friend Jaclyn Sat and Sunday. Its a town in the same region Castilla la Mancha, but abotu 3 hours away. We went by bus. We saw the most famous things to see in Cuenca, including the cathedral and the hanging houses. Cuenca is a very beautiful city because the whole thing is created in a canyon of a river and the whole city is full of cliffs and hills, but also very low land around the river. It reminded me of Arizona with all the cliffs (save the river..)
Here are some pics.


In other news, today I had the privilege to go with my 3rd level students to the Tablas de Daimiel which are some natural lakes made my the Guadiana River when it overflows. The river is really interesting because it begins a couple hundred kilometers away and then goes underground and you cant see it. They began to use all that groundwater for irrigation, and the tablas (the lakes) dried up.. Finally they realized it was all one big river but it just had a huge underground deposit. So the river starts, goes underground, then comes back up as the sea level rises and the land level lowers in Daimiel (a town about 30 min away).
Here are some pictures. One is with some of my third level students: Estrella, Ana, Laura, Juan Carlos, Alarcos, Rainy, and Raquel.


Next Sunday I am running in my first race!!!! The Ciudad Real Carrera Urbana is Sun at 11:00 AM. Luckily I have some good friends who will come cheer me on although you dont know what I'd give to have my family there :(
On the sign up page online, you had to enter a FIRST LAST NAME and a SECOND LAST NAME, because people here have two last names and no middle name. Their first last name is the last name of their father (edmonston) and their second last name is the last name of their mother (chalcraft) sounds like a pretty good system to me however on no official paper in the world does it say that my name contains Chalcraft, so I wasn't going to write Bryn Edmonston Chalcraft. SO, I wrote Katherine as my first last name and Edmonston as my second....WELL, on the list of people running (and the way it will be seen on RACE DAY on my number) is Katherine Edmonston, Bryn...so after I had a pretty good laugh I emailed them and explained that I was American and only have one last name but that it wouldnt let me finish the registration without entering a SECOND LAST NAME....OH SPAIN! Here's the funny list of runners..

Domingos

Today I had a great day! Sundays are always great days because they allow you to do things you wouldnt be able to do the other days in the week, and the fact that nothing is open allows you to invent things to do. So, this Sunday, I had the opportunity to go with my friend Fernando and he taught me how to drive a stick! We went to this parking lot outside the city, and I did really well!! Yayyyyy. I drove for about 30 min! Later I'll put up pictures. Then we went to get my first ice cream in Ciudad Real, which was GREAT, but immediately after went to my friend Francisco's house to play Paddle (its like tennis but with different racquets (rackets?)) I was horrible!! But obviously all the balls I accidentally hit OUT of the tennis court provided us with lots of laughs. I was so bad...
A day of firsts for me in Spain! Lots of fun!

Yesterday I went with Jaclyn and Fernando and many of the professors from my school hiking! We did 10 kilometers in the middle of La Mancha crossing rivers and stopping next to this pretty lake to eat lunch. Later pictures. The teachers at my school have a club and they go out hiking about every month. Fer and Jaclyn also enjoyed getting to know a lot of the people I talk about constantly. Lots of fun.

Lisbon

This yankee in La Mancha had the luck to get to go to LISBON for the weekend with 5 other friends from...yep you guessed it! All over the world. There were 2 french girls, one american, and 3 spanish guys. It was an amazing trip. I had been to Lisbon before but this time it was much better because we went by car (5-6 hours) and we had the independence because of the cars to travel around the city when we wanted to. In addition to seeing all the important monuments, I mostly enjoyed sitting in the little cafes and having the typical pastry from there, a Belén, a cream filled little bowl pastry. We had such luck with our hotel. The rooms were small but with spacious beds and tall ceilings...and views of the whole city! At only 17 euro per person per night. We were blessed the first day by good weather, but then later it started raining..but alas, we saw a double rainbow shoot out of the city (looked like it was coming out of a building) and across the sky. SO BEAUTIFUL.
One of the other days we went to Sintra, a small town near Lisbon that is home to two very famous castles. One is from the 18th century and is very colorful (see pictures). The other is from the 12th century and looks like the wall of China made out of all stones and rocks. Both on top of a mountain from which you can see the entire Portuguese countryside and the Atlantic ocean. We visited both these castles, then drove to a Cape to see some beautiful coastline called Cabo da Roca. Well, we got lost but we ended up at the most goooooooorgeous beach I have ever seen in my life. I think it was actually the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. As the sun went down over the beach, the waves in the Atlantic were HUGE, and they were crashing against the rocks and foaming onto the sand. As the sun got lower and lower, it peeked through the clouds and you could see the rays poking out as though they were trying to break free from behind the cloud. Absolutely breathtaking.

Lisbon, in its city center, is very historical and veeeery hilly. Its windy little streets are full of intrigue and details that remind you how special a place it really is. You also see many more cultures there than in Spain. My Spanish friends think that there were many people from South America (many from Brazil) and Africa. Although Portugal is a small country in the shadow of Spain, it is a gorgeous place worth visiting. The people we encountered were also very kind and willing to help. It was a trip full of making mistakes and getting lost, but in the end we always saw something more beautiful than if we had not gotten lost. The pictures speak for themselves..it was incredible. :) I am so thankful to have the opportunity to see and experience so many different cultures and have so many new experiences. Sometimes I take a step back from my life here, and just think..."This can't be real."
But it is! I'm living it to the maximum, and getting to know as many corners of the world as I can. La vitta è una celebraccione! (thats italian i'm learning)
HOPE EVERYONE IS SAFE WITH THE SNOW IN MISSOURI!

Sunset over Ciudad Real

the lights you see are ciudad real!

Single Ladies

Teaching my friend Fernando the dance to the song "Single Ladies" in my living room.