So I just decided that I am way more Basque than I had previously thought. Basque people are very cold when you first meet them. They don´t smile at you on the street. They don´t usually return a "Hello" when you get on the bus. It takes a long time to get to know them. It might take months for them to open up and tell you a small detail about their life.



I have always been quite the private person. I would rather hear people talk than engage in conversation. I usually have a million questions for people when I first meet them but freeze up if they turn the tables and start asking questions about my life. Truth of the matter is, is that I have given too much information in the past and it has come back to haunt me later in life. I guess it is just easier to take in details of another´s life than to give out your own.



I just had a moment of self-discovery in my last class. I have had this class now for over 3 months and it is quite a small class (only 6, or sometimes 7, students). They are all females and the ambience in the class is really comfortable so we get to talk about a lot of personal things. Or maybe I should say, they get to talk about a lot of personal things. I feel like I know quite alot about their lives. Some are married. One is divorced. One is a doctor. They have traveled all over the world. A few have children. Over all, they are just really great students and I hope, one day, even better friends.

So today we were talking about blogs and keeping journals or diaries and if any of them did anything like this. One student did have a blog-type web-site that she used to post photos and write about her life. I had been playing with the idea of telling them about my blog all day and wondering if it would be worth it. Do I really want my students knowing about my personal life and reading about the things I write there? More importantly, Do I want them to know more about me than the small bit of information I give them in class? I just didn´t know if it would be worth it. This would mean openly inviting others to know more about me and and ask questions...something I am most of the time terrified of.

At the last minute I decided to tell them about my blog and proceded to lead them downstairs to the library so they could all check out my blog on the computer. After we arrived in the library and they got logged-on to the Internet, they started reading. And then they started asking questions. You have sisters? What are their names? How old are they? This is your newphew? Where are you from again? What do your parents do? Why did you come to the Basque Country? Have you already finished with the university? Who are these people?

I started to realize that I knew quite a bit about them but that they knew hardly anything about me. And then I realized that even though I had been very sparse with the details of my life, I had felt like I had already told them too much. How could they still have questions?

And that is when I connected the dots and realized that I am much more like a Basque person than I had thought. These Vascos don´t usually freely give out much information and it can take years and years to move past aquaintance status with someone here. I suppose I am not as different as I had previously believed. Maybe I really do have some sangre vasca (basque blood) in me...it seems a lot of people here wish I did.

And as I´m sitting here writing all of this I´m thinking that maybe not just me and the Vascos, but people all around the world, have more in common than we like to believe. I mean, we all have secrets. We all have a past. We all have events in our life that we are proud of and other moments that make us cringe. We want love in our life and acceptance from others. Maybe, instead of focusing on the differences, we should concentrate on the similarities.

Maybe we all are really Basque.

I think they would agree.

Just a quick photo of Elliott and me on Christmas Eve.

I'll write more when I get a chance.

Merry Christmas to all

So once again I have been horrible about up-dating my blog. But life in Spain has been really, really, really busy and I now have a moment to sit down and write.

I am currently back in the USA for the Holidays. My parents bought me a plane ticket home about a month ago and since then it was just a countdown of the days before I got on a plane. I am really excited to be back in Nevada. It just feels like home here and so comfortable. I arrived late Saturday night and have been spending my time catching up with friends and family and eating lots of yummy food. I spent a couple days in Reno but am now back in Battle Mountain. I'll go back to Reno on the 28th and then fly out at 6:00 am on January 1! I am going to be exhausted after enjoying New Year's Eve with all my friends but it will be well worth it. I fly back into Paris and will stay there for a day to see some of the city and then will go back to San Sebastian. I will have a few days to recuperate and work on my classes before I head back to work.

I started the new job at the technical school and it has been really fun and entertaining. I only work there 3 days a week for one hour each day and I have to get up really early but I do enjoy it. All my students are males, between the ages of 18-24 so it makes for an interesting classroom. My job is to make them speak in English for that hour and as long as we do that, my job is done. We talk about anything and everything and they make me laugh with the things they say. One day I asked them what they wanted to talk about and one student told me he wanted to talk about why Americans are so weird and why we all have guns. This is a common theme I have been coming across lately and it always makes for a great conversation.

My other job is going great and I can't wait to get back to work. My students are finally starting to open up and talk more. My last week at the school before Christmas break we had little parties in each class and we talked about the holidays. I brought a bottle of cava (Spanish champagne) to each class to do a toast to Christmas and The New Year and they all just thought that was the coolest thing. Apparently no other teacher had ever done that before and they really enjoyed it. I figure that if I can get them liquored up a little bit the conversation may flow easier. Hell, I know it always works for me.

Two weeks ago we had a long weekend off from school so 2 friends and I went to Bordeaux, France. It was a quick trip...we left early Saturday morning and returned Sunday afternoon but it was a lot of fun. We basically just went to eat French food, drink French wine and do some shopping. It rained the entire time we were there but the city is really cute. Maybe one day I will go back when the sun is shining.

Gesse and I in Bordeaux

The night before I left to come home we had a dinner for the school at a very fancy restaurant in Hondarribia. The food was really good and not the typical Basque food I eat every day. It was fun to be able to spend time with the other language assistants and other professors, some of who I had never really spoken to before. I was so tired throughout dinner because it was at the end of the week, but I'm glad that I went.

Mylene and me at dinner in Hondarribia

That is all for now. Elliott is dying for me to pay some attention to him. Merry Christmas to everyone!!!!!

Long time...

So I know it has been almost forever since I have written on here and I'll just apologize in advance. The last couple weeks have been surprisingly busy with school and everything else. So I'll try to remember what I've done and make it as painless as possible for you and for me.

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.

I just wanted to let everyone know why I have not up-dated my blog recently. My computer has been sucking big time and sometimes decides to connect to the Internet and then other times decides to be super lazy. So I have some photos ready to up-load and as soon as I get a chance I promise to do the blog-thang. Also, I am starting to get sick and it doesn´t exactly put me in the mood to sit at a computer. And I don´t feel like anything terribly exciting has been happening. I´ll probably get to the blog and the photos sometime later this week..maybe Thursday or Friday. Hope everyone is doing well. I miss you all lots and lots. Besos a todos!

I don't really have too much to report from my side of the pond but I wanted to share with you all this little jem that I learned last night in one of my classes.

In England they call bachlorette parties "Hen Parties." Yes, that's right. As in a chicken. Our topic for the night was Special Occasions and I was asking them to give some examples of special occasions. After one student said a funeral was a special occasion (seriously, she did) another student said "Hen Parties." At first, I didn't think I had heard her correctly so I asked her to say it again. Yup, she had said Hen Parties. I just started laughing because I had no idea what a Hen Party was but it sounded hilarious. They then explained to me that it is what we call a Bachlorette Party. I could not stop laughing. I probably laughed for a good 2-3 minutes. Then I asked what they call Bachelor Parties and in England they call them "Stag Parties." I've always thought that the Brits were crazy but now I'm completely convinced.

Oh, and they also call silverware "cutlery."

Sometimes I feel like I should be sitting in a desk and not standing at the front of the class.

Also, for all of you who don't remember what San Sebastian looks like or have never seen pictures, I will post some below. I haven't taken too many photos since I've been here only because I have about 500 photos of the city already. This past weekend I did take a couple photos and I'll get them up here ASAP.

Ok, so apparently it won't let me up-load any photos today so I'll try to get to it tomorrow.

1 week down...30 to go!

I completed my first full week of teaching on Wednesday night and the feeling was quite fulfilling. I was completed exhausted at the end of the day but I felt so accomplished that I couldn't wait for Monday to come and do it all over again. I only have class 3 days a week (Monday-Wednesday). Monday I have class from 7-9 pm and then Tuesday and Wednesday I am at the school all day. I have 11 classes in all and each class lasts for 1 hour. So that means I am only really working 11 hours a week! Yes, you can all be jealous.

I have a little prep-work outside of class but my teachers prepare basically everything for me. I just have to show up and execute the lesson. But there are a lot of other things that I want to do and teach so I'll do those on my own. I have come up with some different things using music and articles from magazines and TV shows but haven't figured out all the details yet. Not next week but the following week I am going to do something for Halloween. Right now I am searching for a pumpkin to carve and bring to class. Wish me luck!

I have almost 300 students and only see them for 1 hour each week so it's really hard to remember their names and to which class I have told certain things. I mostly remember the student's faces but only have been able to remember about 10 names so far. A handful of my students have been to The States and one even studied in Reno this past summer. It's really fun to get to teach them about Nevada or the U.S. I brought a map of the U.S. with me to each class to show them where Nevada is and I asked them if any of them knew where the state is. I have gotten the correct answer (Next to California) quite a few times but then I have also heard that it's next to Nebraska or Colorado or Texas. I just smile and show them the map.

My students also range in age from 16 to 60-something years old. It creates a really interesting dynamic in the classroom. I've noticed that a lot of the younger students will let the older ones talk over them and sometimes just don't say anything at all. So I really have to try to get them to talk and ask questions to them directly. Some of the students (especially the boys) just stare at me. I don't know if it's a good thing or not yet. Most of the time I don't want to even know what they are thinking.

I am the first American that has ever come to the school so it's been challenging for them and for me. They have learned or been taught British English their entire lives so it can be really difficult for me. For example, in one of the higher level classes I was helping them with a worksheet and after answering a couple questions I realized that I was telling them the wrong answers. The answer key was at the bottom of the paper and I had to look at it to see what the correct answers were. To me, what I was telling them was corect but in British English it was wrong. It's really hard for them also because they are accostumed to a British accent and I have a very American accent. I have to remember to slow down when I talk and really chew my words so that they can understand me. Some of the students have told me that I am the first American person they have ever spoken with. It's incredibly flattering and scary all at the same time.

In the intermediate classes this week we did a survey about physical appearances and if the students take pride in their appearance and if they are vain or not. It was very similar to the kind of survey that you would find in "Cosmopolitan" or a magazine like that. After they took the survey they got into little groups to discuss their answers and the description at the bottom of the page. I then went around to all the groups to listen to their findings and answer questions. I had to try to explain what "grunge" means and the expression "It won't do you any harm!" It was much harder than I ever imagined. In one of my classes I had a student (a male probably in his 40s) tell me that he thinks I am a very vain person! I started laughing and told him that he could think that as long as he gave me a vaild reason why. He just said something about how I am always very put together when they see me and that he could tell that I was someone who cared a lot about my physical appearance. I thought it was hilarious because I am probably the least vain person I know. Most days I run around in flip-flops with my hair in a pony-tail and no make-up. But I do dress-up more to go to class so I can understand a little why he would think that. It still makes me laugh just thinking about it.

In other news, I have found a couple other little jobs to earn some extra cash. I am going to tutor an American girl in the USAC program for Spanish and then give English lessons to a 12 year old girl in a suburb of San Sebastian. It'll bring in a little more cash and probably pay for groceries each week...by far the biggest expense I have here other than rent. I also had an interview at a different language school in Irun on Friday. It went really well and they want to hire me. I am still trying to figure out if I can even work here at another company being a foreigner and all. Hopefully this coming week or the next I can get everything figured out.

That's about all the new stuff that has been happening here. It's a lot...I know. I'm sure once I get into more of a routine life will be a lot less exciting. Hope everyone is well back on the USA. I miss you all lots and lots.