So how does one start walking for 600km? One step in front of the other. We woke to the rustling of plastic bags and muffled whispers between pilgrims at 5:20. I willingly hopped out of bed after a night plagued by dreams of failure of the camino. Seriously, I dreamt that I was getting off of my bunkbed and knocked them over creating a horrific domino effect of the rest of the bunkbeds in the albergue. We filled our waterbottles in the early morning darkness and set out for our first 30km (18.5 miles or so) hike. Feeling a little nervous we see our first pilgrim walking and squeak out a shy “Buen Camino” (“Good Walk”). To which he replies, “Buen Camino”. Within in the fisrt 10 minutes we run into a hoard of bikers, around ... read more

Greetings from in-transit Danielle. I’ve just embarked on my first long-distance train trip in Spain. I’m on my way to Barcelona from Bilbao on a 9-hour journey to spend my Easter vacation. I usually take the plane for convenience purposes as it only takes an hour and costs a mere 30 euro more, but I thought that this time it might be nice to see some of the country side between the Basque country and Catalonia. Anywho, I’ve taken short distance train trips before, no more than 2 hours. The trains that are usually provided for such distances somewhat resemble a city bus, standing room and hard plastic benches. The train that I am is well-equipped for long distance travel all the way down to reclining seats. The only thing is that it looks like ... read more

So here it is. A quick summary of what the heck I’ve been doing for the last few months. Right now things are going really well at the elementary school that I’m working at. My mother sent me a book of various nursey rhymes in English paired with different interesting activities for kids. They’re all geared at native speakers but I changed them a little bit for my audience. For the last two weeks we worked on “Hickory, Dickory, Dock”. I know you’re thinking, “What the hell are you teaching them? Definitely not practical English. No one says Hickory, Dickory, Dock. In fact, you probably couldn’t even say it in classrooms of some conservative schools because of its similarity to certain explatives. What kind of teacher are you?”. Ok, well the nursery rhyme in itself isn’t ... read more

It’s been a few weeks of craziness. But now as it is all slowing down a little bit I figured that I would write another blog for you all. I left Barcelona almost 2 weeks ago. After spending a lovely last night and watching the sun set on Barcelona and the lights begin to illuminate the city, I realized that I have to go and that someday I’ll live in Barcelona. Until then, I get the privilege of living in Cantabria, a province in Northern Spain. After leaving Barcelona, I spent 2 days and nights in Madrid for a meeting for my program. I had hoped that at this meeting, we would be told exactly what we should be doing at the school and how to do it. In the spirit of Spanish disorganization, we ... read more