The last week in October I taught my classes about the joys of Halloween. I was able to find a very small, ugly and barely orange pumpkin that I was able to carve and bring to my classes to show what a jack-o-lantern is. My students thought that I was crazy but laughed and thought it was cute. I put a little candle inside and we turned off the lights to get the full affect. It was quite amusing. They seemed to like Halloween and some of them really surprised me with the amount of information they knew about the Holiday. One student was even taking her little son and daughter trick-or-treating around her neighborhood.
My pumpkin
It really was the tiniest pumpkin I had ever seen
One day with some of my new friends we hiked up to the top of one of the mountains to take some pictures and spend some time enjoying the sun and nice weather. I had already done this a few times but decided to take advantage of the opportunity and spend some time getting to know some of the girls I work with. The day was gorgeous and it was really fun.
Stefanie, Katrin and Mylene
The view of La Concha from the top of the mountain
A couple weekends ago a few friends and I went to a small town on the French/Spanish border called Hondarribia to have lunch and take a walk. I had already been a few times but had nothing else to do so I went along. We arrived in the town and went to the tourist office to get a map where after I went inside to ask for a map, I was locked inside with all my friends outside. At first we didn't know what was happening but then I figured out that the tourist office was getting ready to close for siesta and they didn't want to let anyone else in. All I needed was a map because I had already been there a few times before and knew most of the "must-see" attractions (believe me, there aren't many) and a few other people had asked for a map and then left. So I decided to follow in their footsteps and went to the front of the line to ask for a map. I was then yelled at by a scary Basque lady who told me I needed to wait my turn and that everyone else had waited and that I needed to find some patient and wait also. I tried telling her that I didn't need the whole explanation of where the one and only pintxo (tapas) bar was and that I only needed a map but this just infuriated her even more and she refused to just hand me a map. I decided that I was not going to give up and asked again and she finally gave in, only because I'm sure she was tired of me being there. I re-joined my worried friends outside with a map in hand and we continued on our journey.
Marisol, Gesse and Jesse in Hondarribia
While in Hondarribia we ran into a student of mine and we asked him where we should have lunch and he took us to this restaurant that was owned by a friend of his. Everyone at the restaurant was really cute and came over to say Hello to us and welcome us to the restaurant. They were very excited about having 4 Americans come to eat lunch in their mom-and-pop style restaurant.
A couple days after the day trip to Hondarribia I started to get a cold that turned into a very nasty cold. I ended up completely losing my voice and had to cancel all my tutoring classes and just stayed in bed for a couple days. It really sucked and I'm almost completely over it now. I still have a bit of a nasty smoker's cough but it's much better.
I also joined a gym. It's this new gym in this new shopping complex in the center of town just a block away from where I just to live. I go to aerobic-like classes every morning and it's always interesting. My very first morning was quite overwhelming. It was an intermediate step class and there was only one other lady and myself. The other lady obviously had more step experience than I did and instead of the instructor slowing down a bit for me, he just kept going faster and yelling at me in Spanish to hurry up. Since then I have decided to take Basic Step instead and it's a little more my speed.
I have found another job also. Well I didn't necessarily find the job, rather it found me. It's giving English conversation classes three times a week at a technical school. It's also in Irun and it's a pretty big school. 95% of the students are males so it should make for some interesting classes. I start on Tuesday and I'm really excited. The only bad thing is that the class starts at 8:00 am so that means I have to leave my house no latter than 7:00 am every morning to be able to catch the 7:15 am train. But it's only three days a week and they are paying me 25 euros an hour so I decided that it was worth it.
Everything else is going really well. I still love my job and my students continue to amaze me. Every week I feel like they are getting more and more comfortable around me. And every week I get a little more comfortable around them. This week I had two of my classes tell me that they looked forward to my class every week because it was so much fun and that during this hour they could relax and laugh. Right now, that is the biggest compliment anyone could give me. I'm off for now but I'll be back to write more in a few days. Un besito.
