Cosas

The pics here will be again Geneva

I won't say how sorry I'm any more for not writing regularly....There goes my New Year's resolution (who remembers it anyway?!). With the 3rd work things have been a little crazy around me -- less time for myself and writing. And it is not so much about time probably as desire to write. I feel that the few people that read stay in touch and the rest....

Ah well. So here is an update on the university. I have 2 groups -- first and second year students. My first-year class is 24 students and the other one around 14. Quite a few. Try standing in front of a room full of students! I have much more appreciation not only for my school teachers but for the uni professors as well. Not easy. With the new students now I have close to 100 students total from the 3 jobs!

However, they are fun and nice and I enjoy the experience. Very different from the school. Actually all my 3 places have nice people and things that I enjoy (I teach my kids not to use "things" and here I am....). So if I have to choose next year (because I can't work all these hours next year too) it will be difficult.

My business classes are fun! The group with the five men is still (and even more) funny and sometimes we can't stop laughing -- mostly due to the language of course. My little kids are still a nightmare but I take it easy now. Give them things to do and time goes. They are actually learning which surprises me and of course makes me very happy. Preparing my teens for the FCE (kinda like TOEFL) is not an easy task because I want them all to succeed and push them but we will see. Try not to show my perfectionism in the classes.....

What else is on my mind?! Friends coming, arranging trips -- pretty much just travelling... Saving some money for travel. That is the goal. Enjoying! :) More serious trips in my head but will let you know when everything gets more concrete. Well, my friends there you have it. 2 posts one after another. Enjoy and thanks for reading! Hopefully see you soon somewhere!!!!!!!! Rxxxx

I forgot to mention that in Geneva the birds look like from a horror movie -- run!

They are chasing me!

Geneva

In front of the lake

Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate! :) This is my description of Geneva. Nice, small city, with beautiful parks, a fountain which has strange working hours, many apartments, beautiful old neighborhood, and lovely mountains. You can visit it for a day and see everything that there is to see. Unless you want to explore the gorgeous mountains and do some hiking. Or you have great friends that you want to spend time with :).

The girls are growing :)

Eli and I being in a romantic mood ;)

This post will have to contain tons of pics and less writing otherwise I can't fit them all. And there are so many more...... 

CHOCOLATE!

More......

I haven't traveled much in the EU but am curious to see some other cities. Maybe I'm comparing to BCN and not sure which city will beat it. Paris? London? Berlin? Geneva is nice but......

Lovely dessert

Delicious breakfast

Nice cupcakes

The cupcake place was very nice! But GT cupcakes (even though they are smaller and expensive) are gooooood!!!!!

Walking around

Everyone in front of the lake :)

Center

The city is also very expensive! As per my friends, every 3rd person is a millionaire. Maybe I should have stayed longer... :)

The flower clock -- it works!

More clocks - you gotta know the time

My trip made me realize (not that I didn't feel it before) how much I miss my friends and how lonely BCN feels sometimes....

There is the fountain finally!

In the old hood

Cupcakery

To sum it up, I had a lovely time entirely thanks to my friends who I'm waiting to come and visit me in BCN very soon!!!!!!!! Miss u all!!!

The Chair -- a reminder of tragedies caused by land mines (across form the UN)

The UN

The lake

I almost forgot the Alps! My first view -- gorgeous! From the plane for now but hopefully will visit soon.

 

Catch up

Beautiful girls at the beautiful BCN beach :)

Hola! Again catching up and if you are reading regularly, are probably getting used to it by now.....Sorry friends! It's not that I don't want to but these past 2 weeks have crazier than ever. No excuses though. Problem is that I want to write somewhat meaningful blogs about stuff that's happening and put pics and so on. Well, that doesn't happen all the time and sometimes time is so scarce that...But enough! :)

In Sagrada Familia

Montjuic

The good reason I've been busy the last 2 weekends is that I had my first guests!!!! :) A great friend from BG with a friend of hers. So I was able to show them my skills as a guide. Did some walking around, some drinking, tons of sightseeing and most of all -- quality time together!

Park Guell

I'm waiting for the next person to come over and visit! Hurry up before I change my mind again and decide to move somewhere else. Not that I'm thinking but might have something in mind.....We were very lucky and managed to get into Sagrada Familia for free and without waiting! Amazing considering the ticket is usually 12eu and for the free days people were waiting in line for 3 hours....

Dressed up to go out

It seems that people fall in love with BCN very easily so before you come be prepared to leave your heart here :). Or just move to BCN. The profession of an ENG teacher has its advantages -- the biggest one is that you do not need Spanish!

Streets of BCN

Aaaaaa, the beach and the sea...

OK, will leave you now and try to post another blog very very very soon!!!!!!!!! Besos to all!!!!!Rxxx

Calcots Day

I can't wait to tell you about my interesting weekend! :) More Catalan traditions....

First on Saturday, it was partying with my good friends in BCN -- my UK and USA teachers :). It was also a little temporary goodbye for my bro who needs to visit motherland. BTW the apartment is so empty without him....It's deadly quiet (no DJ music until the early hours of the morning) and the stove and oven are taking a big vacation. I have to make sure to wipe the spider nets from time to time :). Kidding of course but it is true that they will be in use only a few times...

Decorations on the main plaza

So Sunday was an organized day to visit a town nearby and participate in a Catalunian tradition. It was through one of the meetup groups and I was debating until the last minute to go or not because I had to get up at 7:30am! Now that hasn't happened to me in Spain at all, let alone on a Sunday! Especially when the night before I went to bed around 1:30am.... It's good I had prepaid; otherwise I'd have missed it.

Our guide explaining how to drink the wine

Managed to get to the bus station on time and it turned out that many people had done the same. Our group was about 40 people. Now you are supposed to mingle around and meet people but it's close to impossible and as usual I gravitated around some Americans. Very cool people from San Francisco ;).

One of the plazas with calcots (that smoke was lovely!)

Getting to Valls was fast and easy. From there we had a lovely local guy (head of the tourist office :) who seemed to be making friends with everyone, especially the girls. So what are calcots?! Basically that's griled green onion. That's it. The big secret is revealed! The calcots are thicker and bigger that regular green onion and they are eaten with special sauce called romesco. 

Tons of calcots

Grilling the calcots!

The way you eat a calcot is: be prepared for messiness and black hands; hold the calcots straight and peel down the first layer which is burnt and comes off fairly easily; dip the calcot in romesco and ...bite. Follow with wine. People don't usually use glasses but drink from a glass container with a long pouring outlet (please look the picture with the guide; this is too complicated to explain....). So you hold it high in front of you and pour into your mouth with touching the container. The trick is when you let go to not spill anything on yourself. :)

Making fresh romesco :)

We also tried fresh romesco. Made of tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, parsley, almonds and some spices -- all grinded into a delicious sauce. There was the contest about the most beautiful calcots (apparently they have to be green and straight and some other things known only to the judges), who can eat the most calcots in 45 minutes (285 -- believe it or not), the castellers and the dances -- Sardana is close to "horo" but much slower with easier steps.

Sardana dancing

The contest (won by the big guy #1 on the left)

Castellers

We had to line up to get our bag of goodies -- 12-14 calcots (didn't count them), romesco, wine, orange, bread and a big bib. The line was impressive but moved fairly quickly. The only negative experience that day was the freezing weather, especially when you stand in one place! Oh and the fact that on the way back the train broke, we had to wait for 2 hours and as a result was in BCN around 9pm instead of 6pm....But that's normal here. Getting used to it. 

A small portion of the line

My calcots bag :)

The orange is the traditional dessert after the calcots. I have to admit that it was pretty good. The wine is also special and supposedly 14% alcohol. Good that people had brought wet wipes otherwise there is no way you can clean your black hands with just paper napkins. Sitting in the sun felt great and the calcots are actually not that bad. Apparently their season in only now through beg of March because it is still cold and they can't develop some regular ingredients that later develop in onions when the weather gets warm. I think that's what the guide said. All in Spanish. I hope you were able to get for only a few minutes with me here in Catalunya and experience calcots!

The bottle of a good size

The proof -- I ate calcots!

Teaching

Hm not sure if we are losing readers on the way but will keep writing. Even if just for me...I know 1-2 people still reading so that's great! :)

This week has been a great teaching week. And it is going fast! My kids actually seem to be enjoying the classes. They still drive me crazy and after 1 hour of shouting and working on the discipline I feel like going home. But then I have the teens who need to be entertained and taught at the same time -- kinda like the kids but in a different way. It's been fun though! :)

My in-company (business) classes have been good too. We died laughing today! They know how to make jokes even when we discuss things such as politics, China, Wikileaks, etc. Now one of the funny (and somewhat embarrassing moments) today was when talking about Wikileaks I told my students (who are older men -- 40 and above) that I read on CNN about the creation of a new task force in the CIA, called WTF. Yeah. It means Wikileaks Task Force but it's WTF :). Another example of my thinking that these grown-up men, whose level is intermediate (some maybe a bit higher), would now wtf. Nice try but not really. Once I said WTF and stared laughing I saw their bewilderment and had to explain. Well, how do you actually explain "what the f&^%%"?! I had to write this exact thing on the white board and then a few got it! Yay! But only a few! Because some didn't know f^&*. So the rest helped with some good Spanish translation! Go figure! And some say the first words in a language are the bad ones...

I've had other embarrassing moments with that same group. Like me trying to draw a flip-flop on the board and ending up drawing something which looked like a penis! Don't ask me how......But standing in front of these grown-up men with that drawing (which took me a few seconds to see; they had already started laughing..).....Perfect moment for my red face!

Anyway, the important thing is that we are having fun. Like today me playing the bull and a teenager the bullfighter in my teen class but I got him in the end. :) Or jumping like a frog with my kids or pretending to be a monkey.....All kinds of interesting moments. Days like these make me happy and I feel like I'm doing something (even teaching "wtf"). Parents meeting coming next week so we will see what they say!

Quick update on running: today it was 35 mins with no break!!!! And some of it on the sand which is haaard! Weather is getting colder here -- I just have to see how I will run in the cold! Stay tuned, comment if you can and join if you are reading and haven't done so yet! Love you all!!!!!!!!!Rxxxx

Running and more

Running path :)

Well, there goes my regular blogging....Last post was 6 days ago....Hopefully there are a few out there still reading. We are getting very spoiled here in BCN. I woke up this morning to no sun and that was no fun :). Sunny, warm, no-coats, gloves, boots, etc weather makes you forget about winter easily. To my delight, it took the sun only an hour to come out and now it is shining brightly as I was used to seeing it.

Believe it or not but I haven't put on my winter coat and accessories since I came back from BG. It's all spring clothes. That, however, doesn't mean that the locals agree with me. In the middle of the day when the sun is actually strong and it the weather is short of hot, you can see people dressed as if they are on the North Pole (or South) -- coats, gloves, hats, big scarves. Now don't get me wrong. I lived in DC where I have seen people wear flip-flops in the winter and I am a firm believer in seasonal wear but wearing flip-flops when it is freezing or hats and gloves when it is spring temperatures is a little off. :)

Sunday on the beach

Anyway, here is my report on running -- on Friday (day 3) I ran for 20 mins straight, then a walking break and then another 20 mins :). Today I can proudly say that I ran for 30 mins with no break (some of it on the sand), then did some exercises on the beach and then ran another 10 mins. Yay!!!!!!!!! :) I have to admit that my running is prob more like jogging for some but it's the best for now. I am nicely surprised at the ease this happened considering I've never run and I hate it. Or should I say this in the past?!

Running doesn't seem to be so scary and hard. It really is more a mindset than anything else. Once you start going, then you just go. And keep going. As I said before -- running by the sea makes it so much better. Put me in a gym and we will see if I will think the same. I have to figure out a way to bring a camera or the iphone with me so that I can take some pics and show you. It is lovely!

I'm still trying to get into the routine after the long vacation and it's been a little hard. The weekend was lazy with walks on the beach, coffee and some movies. Friends too! :) It must be the spring lethargy (I know it's early but you can't tell here) or something but I feel like hibernating.....And teaching.....Aaaaaah, who has time and energy for that?!?

Some people played volleyball while I enjoyed the beach

OK, gotta go teach some ENG. Stay in touch! :)