Final Two Months

 

Everyone said it, “before you know it, you’ll be done”, and I didn’t believe them. But, here I am, with but two months left wondering where the time has gone. Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to heading back to the States and continuing with “real” life, but I just can’t believe my days are numbered. It seems like just yesterday I was planning my trip to Spain, celebrating Thanksgiving at my apartment, cooking pizzas on Christmas morning, ringing in the New Year in Budapest, admiring the Lisbon coast, and eating pasta in Italy. While I feel like my time is short, I do have TWO months left, and I intend to make the most of them.

The other day I made a Madrid “Bucket List” which I’ll share with you all. In no particular order, here are some things that I will do before my time is up.

• Go to Cuenca
• Cuenca is a city in the south of Madrid famous for its hanging houses
• Go to El Escorial and the Valley of the Fallen
• El Escorial is a palace and a city in the northwest of the Madrid community. The palace is supposedly beautiful, but I also want to go to see the Valley of the Fallen. The Valley is a monument made during the Spanish civil war that is still controversial.
• Go to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
• One of the famous art museums in Madrid
• Return to the Prado
• The most famous museum in Madrid
• Museum of America
• A lesser known museum but I want to see how the Spaniards look at the discovery of the New World
• See a bullfight
• While I don’t think I will enjoy it, given the history and the cultural impact bullfighting has had on Spain, I feel like it’s something I must do
• See the San Antonio de la Florida
• The San Antonio is a lesser known church that contains many works of Goya and it was recommended by NYTimes as something you must do
• Eat churros and chocolate at San Gines
• San Gines is a Madrid institution, especially popular at 5/6am when people start to return from a night out
• Visit the Royal Palace
• Something extremely tourist that I have not gotten around to.

I don’t have a bucket list for my time in Spain/Europe but one is forthcoming. Looking ahead I have a trip to Marrakech, Morocco May 18-20th which I am very much excited for. After that, I don’t have any trips planned but I can promise at least one more trip before I return home.

Speaking of returning home, my flight home is July 3rd; just in time for Independence Day.

Hasta Luego

Spring/Easter Break and Law School

Friday, I leave for my "Easter" break. Here in Spain, Easter break is really a combination of spring break and the Easter holiday. Normally, we'd have off for the week before Easter and the Monday after Easter. However, this year we also have Friday off and tomorrow (Thursday March 29) is a country-wide strike, so my vacation started early. I'll be travelling from Madrid to Milan by air, then going throughout northern Italy by train. After Milan, my next city is Venice, followed by Bologna, then Florence, then Pisa, then Genoa, and back to Milan for my return flight on Easter Sunday. Here's what my trip will look like:

In addition, today I decided to accept an offer to attend the University of Illinois College of Law as a member of the class of 2015. Now, I have the difficult part of trying to find housing from thousands of miles away.

Where have I been???

 

As one of my friends rightfully pointed out, I haven’t been so good at updating. But, here is a new one for today.

The second week in February marked the halfway point of my time in Spain and as of today, I have a little under four months left. Given this, I think it might be helpful to reflect over the last 5 months I’ve spent in Spain.

What I’ve done:

• I’ve been in a foreign country for 162 days, and counting…
• I’ve increased my list of visited countries from 2 (Canada and Mexico) to 7 (Canada, Mexico, Spain, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Germany).
• I’ve applied to 30 different law schools, all from abroad. So far my record is 12 acceptances, 6 denials, 4 waitlists, and I’m still waiting on 8. Included in these are 8 scholarships, including 5 scholarships of over $10,000 per year.
• I have visited the three coasts of Spain and have taken countless buses and trains to these cities.
• I’ve managed to avoid private transport throughout my entire trip. This seems amazing since there was hardly a day in Michigan that I did not drive somewhere.
• I have, hopefully, improved the English of my, roughly, 300 students. In addition, I’ve spread the knowledge of Valentines Day, Christmas (in the States), and Thanksgiving to Spanish children.
• I have picked up some of the British English, which I so despised in the beginning. I now find myself looking for the rubbish bin, spelling some words differently (mainly the double “ll” as in travelling), and also using have a lot more (as evident in this update).
• My Spanish is much better than when I first arrived. I now feel confident enough to pay exactly with change, as opposed to the beginning when I used to only pay with big bills, to avoid paying the incorrect amount. I can also give directions in Spanish to the occasional lost Spanish tourist. But, most importantly, I can recognize when my students swear in class and yell at them.
• I’ve been a tour guide of Madrid, both for one of my friends who visited after New Years and my family who was just here a few weeks ago.

What I will do:

• I will make a decision about which law school to attend in the next month. This decision has been driving me crazy, but I know it’ll all work out fine.
• I will be visiting some more countries before I come home. Later this month, I’ll be spending a week in northern Italy for our Easter break. I also have a trip to Morocco in the works. I hope to visit Greece, the U.K., Paris, and more of Spain, in the next four months.
• Continue to improve my Spanish.
• Learn more about Spanish cooking. I’ve been pretty good with learning some traditional Spanish foods, but I can definitely do more.
• Explore and take more pictures of Madrid. I’ve clearly spent most of my time in Madrid, but it’s the city that I have the fewest pictures of.
• Send some postcards out. I have about 12 that I’ve been meaning to send but keep on forgetting to do so.
• I’ll work on updating more often.

Family

The family is safely here in Madrid, and I come down with a nasty cold. Figures... Expect pictures and an update soon.

Winter Trip

Hey all,

I'm leaving today for a 12 day winter vacation. First stop is Budapest, Hungary. Followed by Prague, Czech Republic. Finally ending up in Berlin, Germany, with a possible stop in Dresden, to which I will return to Madrid on Jan. 8th. Expect a post about this, my trip to northern Spain, law schools, and my job here in Spain, when I return. In the meantime, here's a approximate map of my winter journey and a picture of my favorite pintxo from San Sebastian. Hope everyone had a great holiday and has a happy new year!

Sun-dried tomato with a balsamic pearl onion.

Thanksgiving Abroad

Tomorrow marks not only my first Thanksgiving abroad, but also my first Thanksgiving away from my family. Now Thanksgiving of course is an American holiday, so while my friends and family back home will be enjoying their turkey dinners, I’ll be busy working (in full disclosure, by the time you’re enjoying dinner, I’ll probably be asleep given the 6 hour time difference). But do not fear, since us expats stick together for the holidays. Tomorrow, besides working, I’ll be getting my haircut (should be interesting), preparing some croquetas de jamón for the apartment, and enjoying some Turkish kebab with my Madrid family. Since we are all working tomorrow, we are going to have our real Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. I’ll be preparing the Tyrrell family stuffing recipe, and I’m also in charge of trying to find a turkey, which is a little more difficult than going to Kroger and grabbing a Butterball. Most likely, tomorrow I’ll be going to my local butcher and placing an order for a turkey for Saturday (which reminds me to look up the Spanish words for “take out all the guts, please”). Expect some pictures of my Madrid family tomorrow enjoying our kebabs and of course the Spain family (some of my friends live outside of Madrid) and the real dinner on Saturday.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I do want to share what I am thankful for. I am thankful for all my friends in Spain, without whom I would surely not have made it thus far. The government of Spain for offering me this once in a lifetime opportunity. My fellow teachers and students, who have made my job so much easier with their compassion and understanding. And of course my friends and family back home, for all their love and support while I’m abroad.

Longer Trips: Malaga and Barcelona, Spain

So in my haste to post pictures, it turns out I forgot to post about some of my trips. Well near the end of October, the Madrid schools had a break (puente). Given this opportune moment, a group of 10 of us decided to embark on a 6 hour bus ride to Malaga, in the southern part of Spain. After the harrowing 6 hour, did I mention SIX HOURS, bus ride through tight roads, mountains, and one of the nicest rest stops I’ve been to, we arrive in the oasis that is Malaga. While Madrid wasn’t too cold at this point, 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit, Malaga was a pleasant 70-80 degrees; it even had palm trees!

I enjoyed spending most of time on the beach, as well as getting to explore the city. While not as culturally significant as Madrid, Malaga had it’s fair share of history, including being the birth place for Pablo Picasso and the world-renowned Antonio Banderas. Along with laying on the beach, days before Halloween, we visited centuries old castles, a museum with the strictest security I have ever encountered, an outdoor party in the plaza on Halloween night, and a quick trip to Nerja to see the caves.

Two weekends ago, a few of us went to Barcelona for three days. Rather than taking an even longer than Malaga bus there, we decided to fly since it ended up being significantly cheaper than the train (which is unbelievably quicker than flying). I think I can sum up my thoughts on Barcelona in one sentence, “Barcelona, being the second most populous city in Spain, is huge!” In those three days, we didn’t even cover a fraction of the city, but from what I saw it was quite an amazing place. Being on the coast, the weather was more humid and temperate than Madrid. Since we had such a short amount of time in Barcelona, we focused our attention on the coastline and seeing the different Gaudi buildings. Just these two things easily filled our three days and we could have spent another week just on Gaudi. His work just reminded me of how us humans are capable of such incredible, and destructive, things.

Well my next trip will be to Bilbao, in the north of Spain, thus concluding my visitation of the center, south, east, and northern parts of the country. We are leaving for Bilbao in just over a week and a half, so you can expect new pictures then. Following Bilbao, I’ll be embarking on my Christmas/New Year adventures, which will surely take me to places outside of the land of jamón.