Blogs from Lleida, Catalonia, Spain, Europe

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Europe » Spain » Catalonia » Lleida » Lleida July 8th 2011

¡¡A punt de sortir nois!! ¡Només falten 2 dies per a començar l'aventura! El diumenge al matí la Claire sortirà d'Anglaterra direcció Brusel.les. Allí ens trobarem tots dos després de que l'Àlex surti demà cap a França i el diumenge agafi un TGV direcció Paris i més tard Brusel.les també! Des d´allí, començarem el nostre viatge direcció sud-est Fins aviat! About to leave guys!! Only 2 days for our adventure to start! On Sunday Claire will leave England towards Brussels. We shall meet there after Àlex leaves for France tomorrow and catches a TGV from Perpinyà to Paris and later Brussels. From there, we are south-east bound! Speak soon! ... read more

Europe » Spain » Catalonia » Lleida » Lleida November 20th 2010

Today marked not only my last visit to the beautiful La Seu Vella, but also my last day living in Balaguer. I have had a rather ignominous departure from the school and my final pay was grudgingly handed over accompanied by a dual language double tongue lashing. Further outrage was sparked by my refusal to sign the formal letter presented to me due to the fact it was written in Catalan. After ducking a heavy Catalan dictionary launched across the desk at me by the director I insisted on being allowed to write my own letter in English, or at least Spanish. I left the school rather sadly, unable to say goodbye to any of my students or offer my apologies or explanations to them, but at least armed with the class registers and the wonder ... read more
Carvings
The tower
Window in the cloisters

Europe » Spain » Catalonia » Lleida » Lleida November 9th 2010

Lleida is the capital of the province by the same name and has probably been my most visited location during my time here - mainly because I have passed through everytime I have gone anywhere in Spain. I have become intimately aquainted with the train station and spent too much time shivering on platforms and wandering around trying to pass the usual hour-long wait between trains. Lleida was once a chief city of an Iberian tribe, the Ilergetes and defended aginst the Romans. Eventually, under Roman rule, the city was incorporated into the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis. During the Great Civil War the Battle of Llerda took place within the city, as in June of 49BCE the Spanish army of Pompey the Great, led by his legates Lucius Afranius and Marcus Petreius, held out against ... read more
Lleida
On the tower
La Seu Vella

Europe » Spain » Catalonia » Lleida » Balaguer September 12th 2010

Today marked my first real weekend in Balaguer. I have made it through the first week and despite the late hours I actually started to enjoy it by the end of the week. It is very different from Mexico. The easy camaraderie between teachers is missing due to a timetable that sees one class walking into the room before the previous has left and each teacher working to a different schedule so all I ever see of the other classes is a closed door. There is also the fact that I only see students once or maybe twice a week and I am struggling to even put names to faces let alone remember anything about them. Despite all this by Friday I started to feel much more comfortable with the school. It is a relief to ... read more
Castell Formos
View of surrounding farmland
View of the city walls

Europe » Spain » Catalonia » Lleida » Balaguer September 7th 2010

The new school year is seeing me settling to a new life in Spain. It has been my plan since studying in Spain to return to teach. I loved Spain the last time I was here and want to be able to explore the country further. The added incentives of being able to practise my Spanish, being closer to home, and most importantly seeing my Spanish friends again encouraged me to start job searching from Mexico. I found a job in the city of Balaguer in Catalonia. While not the most ideal location for visiting my friends in Barcelona and Girona it is still within weekend travelling distance and I am excited about the prospect of starting work here. Balaguer is a large city in the province of Lleida in Catalonia. It is situated by by ... read more
Balaguer
Archways
Church

Europe » Spain » Catalonia » Lleida July 26th 2010

I tako mi zavrsismo u Lleidi, nekom tu na prvi pogled ruznom gradu, tako da odlucismo da ni ne ulazimo nego nastavljamo sa stopiranjem. Ali prvo smo ispesacili 5.5 km do autoputa za Saragosu. Posto smo tu proveli ostatak dana sa utrnulom rukom u vazduhu vec smo poceli da sumnjamo u nase stoperske sposobnosti, otvaramo sator odma pored i odlazimo na spavanje. Ujutru nastavljamo de smo stali i posle 10 minuta nam staje lik ali onaj kome je posao da nas otera i posto je zabranjeno uopste postojati na auto putu kao pesak. Na svu srecu nije bilo policije u blizini koju je zvao preko radija, i na nekom nasem spanskom (posto evo nedelju dana koliko smo ovde sreli smo samo par spanaca koji pricaju engleski, ali bar tako mi ucimo spanski) dogovorimo se da mi ... read more
Nakrali smo se voca
Potpuno izgubljeni

Europe » Spain » Catalonia » Lleida November 9th 2009

Now without looking at your atlas or opening up Google can you say exactly how many kilometres it is from Barcelona to Lleida and in which direction from Barcelona is this city nobody has ever heard of except those that live there??? We have been watching the weather forecast for the past couple of days and rain has been predicted for the next several days on Spain’s Atlantic coastline.So we have started to have second thoughts about travelling in that direction as we have avoided any sustained periods of rain for the past 7 months and we would like to try and keep the record intact. We have left these thoughts a bit late as this morning we are supposed to be heading in a general northwesterly direction to the city of Lleida.And to add to ... read more
Pointy peaks,Montserrat
Vista towards the Pryenees
Ollie Opel at Monserrat hills

Europe » Spain » Catalonia » Lleida September 23rd 2009

Blog entry dated 18th September Luscious Lillie here, we are in a strange part of the world, for those that were in India last year it has that same end of the world feeling. As if everyone knows something you are unaware of and have taken refuge from ‘It’. We are about as far south as you can go in France around Perpignan, at the edge of the Roussillion region, which is basically a salt water marsh lying just behind the beach. It forms ‘Etanges’ which are brackish lakes behind the coastal dunes, and are often below sea level, it has a strange otherworldly look to it which is oddly beautiful. I’m only telling you this so you will get some sense of the place in order to empathise with us. (Hard to do when you ... read more
Narbonne Cathedral
Narbonne Cathedral
Narbonne Cathedral




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