Canary Islands

hiiiiiii!!
Since, I had to yet again miss Easter with the family, I decided to have a little vaca of my own! The Irish and I headed to the Canary Islands!! We met one of Irish's friends there, so three made a party! ha.
There honestly isn't to much to report because we literally sat at the beach or pool pretty much all day/everyday! The pool was perfect and almost no one else used it, so if we wanted a break from the VERY crowded beach we could just go there and it was right outside of our bungalow. Or the beach was about a 4 min walk away. Both ideal!
We went for an entire week, so we decided a hotel room would be to crowded and decided to go with an awesome bungalow. It worked out great, we had all kinds of space and a kitchen, so we could save money and just cook at home.
Probably the most fun thing we did was ride camels! It was hilarious. It was kind of like riding a drunk horse because you just sway back and forth, back and forth. Pretty awesome.
Other than that we saw some really pretty beaches and the town of Las Palmas is really beautiful. It was a very, very awesome vacation. I got super super tan and ate lots of amazing seafood, does it get any better!?



Here's a few photos, the rest are on the photo website ;).

Looking out over the beach...The Irish's relationships with the camel...

My relationship with the camel...(the darn thing wouldn't stop peeing and pooing. it was nasty) ha, there's a hooters in the Canary Islands. ps. Hooters will forever remind me of our trip to San Diego ;).

Our sweet home for the week, notice the proximity to the pool! Its obvious an English speaker translated the rules, ha!! (click on the pic to make it bigger)

This was probably one of the best things ever. The crossroads our bungalow was on is Spain and United States...uh could that be anymore ironic to my life!?

Hello man in speedo walking through the desert. that's normal...

I won the who can get more tan contest!!
You can see the rest of my sweet photos here,
http://michellesjourneys.shutterfly.com/.

Peace, Love and Bungalooooos!

Michelle

More Easter at school

I got SOOO excited to tell you about the Easter Eggs we made at school I forgot mention all of the other fun things we did.
In most of the classes with my younger kids we played "Don't Eat Peter." If you have or work with small people I highly recommend this game, they loved it! You have groups of 3 or 4 and each group has a piece of paper with 9 "numbered Peters" (Peter is a rabbit FYI) and you place a piece of candy on each "Peter." One person from the group goes outside and then other members of the group decide what number "THE Peter" is. Then the kid comes back and starts eating the candy and once they start to eat the piece of candy the group designated as "Peter" the kids yell 'Don't Eater Peter!" Ha it was awesome and the kids got really into it. Just imagine little Spanish people yelling "Doun e peyer," it was HILARIOUS!
Photos...

--notice bad kid in the corner that tried to steal candy...ha I taught him!--



With my really little kids, the 5 year olds, we made bunny ears with cotton! This is a relatively mild photo of them, they are crazy!


Oh and one more cute photo I found of the 6th graders painting their eggs...


And lastly, here are some of my kiddos out with their "pasitos," their mini pasos, the week before Semana Santa. I'll put more of these on the photo page.



Ok, sorry to bombard you with three posts in one day. But, time is running out and I got lots to say! Next week Canary Islands and the Wedding!! wahoo

Peace, Love and Spanish Easter Bunnies!
Michelle

Easter Dinner

Hi again!

Like how I celebrate all of my holidays here in Spain I went over to my friend Vicen's house for Easter dinner! It was delicous they made stuffed chicken, corn, some other vegetables and of course BANANA PUDDING!! hollar
After dinner their son John and I painted Easter eggs. Then we had our own little Easter egg hunt with their chocolate eggs! He loved it. Here's a few photos of my easter evening!

Easter!

Hey ya!

There is so much for me tell you about! First, I will start with celebrating Easter American style in Spain.
Last year I brought food coloring (aka egg coloring supplies) from America to Spain. But, last year the weather was really poopy and Easter kind of snuck up on us, so we didn't have time to do much. But, this year since Easter was practically in June we had all of the time in the world.
So, I introduced the little kiddies to the wonderful world of egg coloring and it was a blast. They all went home with purple, green, red and blue fingers and were thrilled. The 5th and 6th grades colored the eggs and the sixth grade had an actual egg hunt with their stinky eggs (apparently dying them on friday and letting them sit out to dry until monday makes eggs stinky, who knew?). They loved it and I totally got to play with one of the classes, and let's just say some hot/cold action was needed to find my eggs. HA! I win!
The only tricky thing about dying eggs here is that our eggs are brown! It's a light brown so they were able to finally turn color, they just had to sit in the color for like 5 minutes! The kids didn't really mind waiting they thought it was like magic. Everytime we would take an egg out they would say ohhhhhh waaaaaa ahhhhhh. It made me feel like I was holding some golden ticket every 5 minutes and of course I loved it!
Here's some photos of the action...





Notice that she decided the paint her entire egg gold....after we had it soak in the food coloring for 5 minutes. oh the way an 11 year old brain works is quite interesting!

Two for the price of one!

Hey ya!

I am going to give you insight on a little thing that has recently come to my attention. Drum roll please...I no longer talk/write like an American!! These damn British words and spellings have been cemented into my brain, and I am now using them without thinking. NOT GOOD! The culprits of the this change are my school and my roommate. We teach British English and my roomie is Irish, therefore her English is pretty much British English. Here is a small list of the insanity that now comes out of my mouth/fingers...

Elevator...Lift
Awesome...Grand
Roommate...Flatmate
Mail...Post
Grocery Store...Supermarket
Mall...Shopping Center
Apartment...Flat
Parking Garage...Car Park
Movie Theatre...Cinema
Movie...Film
Tennis Shoes...Trainers
Pants...Trousers (not happy about this one)
Sweater...Jumper
This girl/that girl...your' woman (that's Irish)
Trash Can...Bin
Trash...Rubbish
Cookie...Biscuit
Line...Queue
Period...Full Stop (um seriously, what is that?)
Eraser...Rubber (this is not a joke, I teach 5 years olds to say "Do you have a rubber?")
French Fries...Chips
Potato Chips...Crisps
Soccer...Football

Spellings...coloUr, favoUrite, skiLful,centRE, agEing, licenCe, memoriZe, prograMMe,travelLing, yogHurt.

This is a pretty brief list, it's all I could come up with on the spot. Moral of the story, I came here to learn one language (Spanish) and am walking away with two. Good/Bad, I can't decide?
But, now when I come back in a couple of months and sound like a freak you will all know why! Crazy Britz!

Peace, Love and being Trilingual!

Michelle

Living Big time

Hiiiiiii!

I know it has been a long time and I apologize. To make up for my absence I am going to have an obscene amount of blogging going on the next couple of weeks ;). Today we are going to talk about the awesome dinner/banquet I went to with a couple of friends. My friend Vicen here is married to an American that plays in a dart league in Rota (a town about 45 min from Lebrija). And each year they have a large and intense banquet dinner. This year they invited me to join, so I could see what it was all about. It was SUPER great times. My friends husband and I were the only non-spanishers in a crowd of about 300, so that's always fun. My dead give away is my "blonde" hair, by Spanish standards my hair is blonde because it isn't black or dark dark brown...so I'm blonde. whatevs. The second is my eyes, they're not brown, so people know hey weird green eye girl....American!

I think the best way for you to understand this amazing night is for me to just give you a time line...

1:00pm...arrive in Rota and check in to hotel

2:30...eat awesome pizza lunch

5:00...ciesta, duh

8:30...leave for party!

9:00...arrive at party!

9:02...first drink (Lambrusco or beer)

9:03...first cocktail hour appetizer. I think it might have been shrimp

9:03-10:30...drink lots of drink and eat lots of sea food and chorizo appetizers brought around my waiters and served on tooth picks with the cute little napkins. love it

10:30...let in to banquet/dining room

11:00...now we start in on the wine

11:30...first course, an entire plate of shrimp (unpeeled). I'm talking 20 huge shrimpys. My hands were super messy.

12:15...second course, another type of shrimp and some small white fish you have to peel off the head and skin (I only ate one of those, it was to much work).

1:00.AM, entree is served: pork, green beans, and potatoes. DELICOUS!

2:00 AM, Dessert, it was an assortment of lots of things. I was in such a food coma at this point I have no way to remember

2:30...Open bar opens. trouble.

3:00am...award ceremony begins 4:00am...award ceremony over, time get our boogie boogie on

5:30am...open bar still open

6:30am...the most delicous chicken sandwiches (note the plural) I had ever eaten were once again brought to us by waiters and they had toothpicks.

7:15...Head back to hotel (don't worry we had a designated driver)

7:45...In our very clear states of mind we logically decide we should eat the hotel breakfast now, because 1. we knew we weren't going to be happy about getting back up in 3 hours, 2. it would be fresher now and 3. we hadn't eaten enough in the past 12 hours.

8:30..sleepy time

12:00...check out of hotel and head home!

Evidence of a good time:

The crowded Banquet Room.

My friend, Vicen and I.

The dessert plate

Some kid dancing like a nut at 5:30 in the morning. It's one of those things that all you can do is say, "Only in Spain." Plus, doesn't he kind of look Manny from Modern Family!?

It was a true Spanish experience, that's for sure! Probably one of the best nights I have had here, all good times! Until next time.

Peace, Love and all nighters!

Michelle

Flying Solo

Hola World!

The last weekend in February we had yet another holiday. It was Andalucia Day! Pretty much the equivalent to Kansas Day; but, our schools, banks, grocery stores, and well everything closes for four days. Gotta love it!
I decided since my time here in Spain is starting to come to an end I needed to take advantage of the days off, so I went to Lagos, Portugal for some intense relaxation time. It was my first ever solo vaca, and I actually loved it! I was on my schedule...slept when I wanted, went to the beach when I wanted, ate when I wanted, took a nap when I wanted. It was grand!
It was an amazing weekend. The beaches were absolutely gorgeous. I have seen a number of beaches in my lifetime, but these took the cake! There were beautiful hikes and walks around the cliffs, that made for some great photo ops. It was about 85 degrees and the perfect sun/wind combo...couldn't have been any better. I absolutely enjoyed myself to the max. And I came back 100% rejuvenated and with a tan. HOLAR!

Here's a couple of my favorite pictures...

This is how the entire coast is, just random small beaches in between the cliffs, amazing!

Pretty

Obviously the Portuguese have the same mind set as the Spanish when it comes to construction...run out of money, no problem, we'll just stop building and let people jump six feet to get on the stairs, no biggie!

Ok, ok...yes I was the person that put her camera on a timer and took a self portrait. I only did it once and I made sure absolutely no one was around to see it. It was very difficult for me to build up the courage to do this, because I make fun of the self portrait people all the time. But, I decided I had to have proof I was actually there and didn't just steal the photos from the internet. It took about 5 tries before I got a good one. I almost had it in this shot!

I had my mind set I was going to get a picture of this sunset with the water, and after a two hour walk, up hills, both ways, I finally found a good spot.

Holy fabulous! Look what I found in their super market, absolute best find ever! Lots of English people have their second homes in Lagos so they had a huge super market with loads of English stuff. This beauty cost me 6 euros and I would have paid 100!

If you have time check out the rest of the photos on Shutterfly, there are some goodies. And maybe it will take your mind of the rain/unfun weather you have at home :).

Peace, Love and Tan lines!

Michelle