So as you can see I arrived safely in Chartres, France last Tuesday to begin my 9 months as a teaching assistant for the French Embassy in two elementary schools here. I've been here less than a week and it's already been an action packed several days. I was met at the Chartres train station by my contact person, Catherine Ferant, at 2:30 after 19 some hours of traveling - 3 planes, 2 buses, 1 metro ride, a train ride and an empty stomach, who then said "I hope you don't mind I've arranged a meeting for you with one of [View Full Entry]

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Well this past weekend was a busy one for me. Friday, I went on the SPU trip to Peñíscola, a beach town an hour and a half away from Valencia, then the next morning I headed with my jiu jitsu teammates to Madrid for the Campeonato de Grappling de España. In Peñíscola there's the beach and the castle and that's about it, so if it happens to be a rainy day like it was, the beach time is not as great. I did not know it would be a beach trip though, so I neglected to bring my bathing suit. The [View Full Entry]

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Hola todos! This past week and weekend was full of family visits for me. My sister Christine came through Valencia on Tuesday with her high school Spanish group. They only got to spend half a day here so I met her at her hotel Tuesday night, took her around the city for a little while then was invited to eat dinner in the hotel with her school and then we went on the "Walking Tour" with "Alberto the guide." The highlight of the walking tour for me was when Mrs. Cleveland (my old Spanish teacher) had me come before the group [View Full Entry]

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My long overdue Easter Vacation Blog. . . which should be a fairly short one. Mom asked to see lots of pictures of the house, so I did my best. I spent Thursday through Monday of Easter Vacation at my Spanish family's country house located 45 minutes away in the town of Al Baida. The house is over 300 years old and Juan (my Spanish father) owns 2/3 of it and his brother the other 1/3. Marga, Juan, Sara the dog, myself and Grayson all made the trip to the country, Grayson was supposed to go to Barcelona with friends, but [View Full Entry]

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As promised here is the Fallas installation of my travel blog. Since everyone asks me "what is this thing called Fallas?" and then after an explanation I get "how is that allowed during Lent?" I will answer both of these questions for you. :) Fallas is celebrated every year March 13 - 19, the week before St. Joseph's Day. Falla means fire in Valenciano and every neighborhood and sometimes street spends hundreds of thousands of euros in the construction of various sized fallas - which are papier mache creations that they then display in their neighborhood. The theme changes every year [View Full Entry]

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Two weekends ago I went for a long weekend to visit my favorite French friend Charlotte Robert who is studying in Dublin. As I’ve had requests for more pictures, I’ve done my best to try to add more despite the unstable Internet connection we have here. Wednesday night before I left (with a belly full of practically free tapas and Agua de Valencia, which I enjoyed with my old roommate Margaret who was visiting for Spring Break yea!) I was somewhat concerned about where it was I was actually going once I arrived in Dublin. Internet had been down at school [View Full Entry]

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This blog arrives a little late because the internet has been down at school this past week, I've been recovering from lack of sleep as a result of my amazing trip to Sevilla and as well as midterms being this week, but hey better late than never. (there you go everybody - a reference to classes and school :)) Somewhat in celebration of my 21st birthday and really just because I wanted to go, I spent last weekend in Sevilla located in Andalucia (Southern Spain). I left Thursday (my birthday) on "that midnight train to Sevilla," but not until after a [View Full Entry]

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Well I have officially taken my first European/Spain trip this past weekend and survived (no I was not near the fire in Madrid). Three other girls and I piled on a bus at 8 AM Friday morning headed to Madrid. Half way through the ride they put in the movie Hidalgo which was nice, but they didn’t put it in soon enough because right as we got to the most exciting part we arrived in Madrid and they turned it off - oh well, I think I can pretty safely assume the main character wins the race. From the bus station [View Full Entry]

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Hola to everyone - hope you're ready for another long one This past Friday I went with the Spanish Program to Bocairent, a town an hour and a half away from Valencia for the day. Friday was the last day of their "Cristianos y moros" (Christians and Moors) festival, for which Bocairent is famous in the Comunidad Valenciana. As soon as we piled out of the bus, we got the feeling we were in the middle of a war zone. Just as all of Spaniards love fireworks and loud explosions, the Bocairentes are no different. Almost all the members of the [View Full Entry]

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Well this past weekend found me once again in Valencia, but this Friday I’m headed to a pueblo outside of Valencia City called Bocairent and then the next weekend I’m planning a bigger trip to Madrid or Barcelona. My exciting news from the past week is that I've found a jiu jitsu school here in Valencia, that's about 10 minutes walking distance from my house. When I first went to the class I don't think they knew what to think of me or my attempts to communicate with them in Spanish. So I sat and watched the class and then after [View Full Entry]

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