Romantic weekend in Segovia: castles, churches and...military bands? Music: Goin' to Acapulco - Calexico & Jim James version Segovia, about 30 mins northwest of Madrid by bullet-train, definitely deserves its status as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Anne-Laure and I went there while she was in Spain for a romantic weekend retreat from the hustle and bustle of the capital...and what a trip! Here are some of the highlights: The old town is perched up on a hill and, from afar, looks like a ship with the Alcázar (castle-palace) jutting out as the prow, the Gothic Cathedral [View Full Entry]

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Fulbright Update! Madrid - Sep. 27, 2009 music: “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” - Fugees’ version Drumroll...for a Fulbright update!: I will be helping in all four years of my Spanish “instituto” (ages 12-16, roughly). I assist both English and Social Science (history/geography) teachers in a total of 16 classes each week. Nine of these are English classes and the remaining seven are Social Science. These classes are all taught in English as part of the innovative bilingual program which Madrid has implemented in several of its p [View Full Entry]

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Tourist time...finally! 20 Sep., 2009 10:44 p.m. - Madrid Music: Citizen Cope “D’Artagnan’s Theme” Hello everyone! I apologize for the absence from blogging, but I finally had the opportunity to be a tourist for a couple of weeks while my girlfriend, Anne-Laure, was visiting me in Madrid. Before launching into our adventures, I must give a big thanks and kiss to her for a) helping me paint my room (more on that later) and b) making some amazing food MacGyver-style with little more than a ceramic baking bowl and a wire whisk! An [View Full Entry]

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2 Sep., 2009 - 11:10 p.m. - Madrid “Mi casa es tu casa.” Now, don’t get your hopes up. Just because I’ve posted two times to my blog in less than a week doesn’t mean you’ll be getting updates on my adventures Twitter-style. Pues nada... It’s time I tell you a bit about where I’ll be living for the next 10 months. Home sweet home is on a street called “Sorzano” in the northeastern corner of Madrid’s central zone (just outside the M-30 highway loop that encircles the city). I’m very close to a Catholic [View Full Entry]

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Aug. 31, 2009 Madrid OK, so it is safe to say that i am a very bad blogger. If this was a newspaper, I would’ve written something every day. Alas... Let’s start with the CELTA course, since I have just finished it and, I might add, received a Pass B grade! More on that later. CELTA stands for Cambridge English Language Teaching to Adults, but to accurately reflect the arduous nature of the course, i think it should be renamed AMOM for A Month of Madness. Honestly, I didn’t work as hard or as long in four years of college as [View Full Entry]

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My First Week as a Madrileño Aug 1, 2009 5:21 p.m. The First Week: Sitting here in the middle of el Parque de Buen Retiro (Retiro Park), I finally have some time to sit down, relax and collect my thoughts on what has to be one of the fastest passing weeks in my life. My experience with transatlantic plane flights has been, in general, that you get what you pay for. In this case, the price was right: >$400 and no baggage fees (even for my enormous golf/fencing/oh-shit-I’m-spending-a-year-abroad-and-need-lots-of-clothes bag)! Could this really be true? To [View Full Entry]

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