Photos of Irun

Here are just a few photos of Irun. I will try to get some more as soon as possible. Enjoy!

Things I have learned in the last couple days

1. The power company of Spain doesn´t care if you have electricity or not.

2. It takes 3-5 days for said power company to restart the electricity in an apartment.

3. Wine+beer+champagne+vodka=one horrible hangover

4. I have friends here that will let me shower at their house.

5. I am getting older than I thought...2 days of drinking and very little sleep is starting to take it´s toll.

6. Spain supposedly is in a "crisis"

7. I need lots of patience to live in Spain (not necessarily something I learned this weekend rather something I continue to learn)

8. Life here is improving a little more each day.

9. Love and relationships are very tricky. Every time I think I have it all figured out, it throws me another curve ball.

10. It´s best if I stay busy, this way I don´t have too much time to think about things that really aren´t that important.

11. These next 8 months in Spain are going to be full of ups and downs and I am looking forward to experiencing them all.

So it´s Wednesday afternoon and my first week of teaching is finally winding down. I have only one more class to go to and then 4 days to recuperate from this week. It has actually been a very good week...incredibly busy but good. I had 4 classes on Monday, 7 yesterday and 3 today. Thankfully I did the same thing in all my classes so it was easy to prepare and execute. The only bad thing was that by the 5th time of saying the same thing it became a little boring. But the students are very enthusiastic and that makes it fun for me. I have at least one student that I know in every class so that has been very nice. It´s nice to walk into the classroom and see at least one familiar face instead of having 40 eyes staring back at me thinking "Whose is this girl?"

The weather here has been typically Basque Country weather. Today the sun is shining and it is gorgeous outside. Yesterday it was rainy and cloudy all day. Tomorrow...who knows? I know I should be used to it by now (and even more so growing up in Nevada where you can experience all 4 seasons in one day) but it still baffles me. I just try to enjoy the sunny days and not complain too much about the rainy ones.

Tomorrow I don´t really have too much to do. I will probably spend the day sleeping and doing housework. And then tomorrow night I am going to cook dinner with a new friend that I have made here in Irun. Her name is Katie and she is from Missouri. She is teaching here also in Irun in the same program and we have become fast friends. It´s really nice to have another American to be able to hang out with and get to know.

Friday I am having dinner with some students and then the rest of the weekend I have no idea what I am going to do. Life here in Spain always seems to be interesting and full of surprises so I never know what will be thrown my way. But I´ll let you all know next week!

2 weeks down...30 more to go

So I have been here exactly 2 weeks. It has been a long 2 weeks...honestly, longer than I expected. I already feel like I have been here 2 months.

These last 2 weeks have been filled with ups and downs...moments of increible happiness and moments of sadness, lonliness I guess I should say. The truth is that I think that I have had way too much time on my hands. I haven´t technically started teaching yet so I have had a lot of down time. But things are picking up and I am becoming busier every day. And really I should be enjoying my time with nothing to do. I know the day will come when I will have too much to do and will be wishing for a day spent lounging around the house doing nothing.

Today and tomorrow will be spent in San Sebastian doing a training course. It is a little repetitive from last year but it was better than expected. It´s a lot of teaching methods and how to be the best teacher possible but considering that is my job, I´ll take all the points I can. And in an incredible turn of events, the lady that is giving the class is the wife of a professor that I had when I was studying in San Sebastian. For all you that know Iñaki, it was his wife!!! And she is so nice!

Last Friday night I had dinner with some students from last year. It was really nice to see them again and spend time talking and laughing. Here are some photos from the dinner:

And then on Sunday I had lunch with a family that has a brother in the USA. I´ll explain. This summer I worked at the golf course in Battle Mountain. My boss there, Tammy, used to work at another bar in Battle Mountain before running the golf course. Well the husband of her old boss at the bar is Basque. The husband is named Fidel and he has a sister that lives here in Irun. This summer I met Fidel and his nephew (Orkatz), who was in the USA visiting one day at the golf course. So before I left to come back, Fidel called me and gave me his sister´s phone number. So I called her after being here a few days and she invited me to have lunch with her family on Sunday. Her son (Arkaitz) comes to pick me up on his moto and we go to thier house. I meet Fidel´s sister, Feli, and then I meet Fidel´s other sister, Marian, and the whole family. And they are all the nicest people ever! They welcome me into thier house like I am a member of the family and give me food and drinks and, well, get me a little drunk. :) After lunch, we went to go have another drink and at 9:00 pm I finally returned home. And they invite me to have dinner with them last night and then lunch with them again Sunday. And Feli is an amazing cook and wonderful mother. I really hope they become great friends.

Ok, so I have to cut this short. I will write more hopefully this weekend or next week.

Kisses to all!