Swimming in a CELTA Sea

Well, I'm one week into my course in teaching English as a second
language, and I am enjoying it immensely. They definitely threw us in
the deep end, with an "orientation meeting" on friday last week, which
was actally to teach us the icebreaker games that we would be teaching
our students on Monday, our first teaching day, which also happened to
be the first day of the course. Of course, my big question was "who
are these suckers that have agreed to learn English from teacher
trainees?". I learned very quickly that, no they are not crazy
masochists, but actually a group of 14 wonderful adult students, who
jumped at the opportunity to get english lessons catered to their
level for 2 hours every day for a month at a hugely discounted
rate.... I mean huge. They pay about the same as most language schools
charge for 1 or 2 of the same lessons. It even includes some lessons
from tutors - our teachers who actually know what they are doing!
One of the first things that was done was that we were put into TP
groups (no, not toothpaste or toilet paper, but Teaching Practice).
Unfortunately, our group is missing one person, as Christopher the
mountain-climber was a no-show for the course. I am in a group with
Kate, Amanda, Caspar and Nives. The five of us spend a lot of time
working together, as we teach the same class, and are together for the
teaching and feedback. We don't teach in groups, but rather each of us
is respnsible for a 30- or 40-minute portion of the 2-hour class.
Our mornings are occupied with seminars and videos, followed by a
feedback session from the teaching practice the day before. Then
lunch, and the afternoon is spent teaching, reviewing how it went, and
preparing for the next day. So far so good.... must go. More to come!

In Barcelona

We arrived on a bus at 6:15 a.m.
Disoriented, stiff and tired, we decided to take a taxi instead of the
metro to the apartment where I am staying for the duration of the
course.
We got in the taxi. I couldn't find the card where I had written the
address. I rummaged around in my bag, and in my pockets. Nada. So I
decided to call the lady who I am staying with, and get the address.
Rummaged in pockets again - no cellphone! Geesh! Vi had the brilliant
idea of taking the taxi to the other bus station, where the bus was
going next. Our taxi driver, a Spanish driver with clear streets at 6
a.m., in a city where red lights are more of a guideline than a rule,
managed to get us there in record time. I ran downstairs to where the
buses were, and found our bus. It was being cleaned. The driver let me
get on and look. I checked our seat, and under it, and the seats in
front and behind. Nothing. The sweeping guy asked what I was looking
for and I explained that my phone was missing. He checked the seat,
then he did something I thought was crazy, he felt under the seat. Not
in the space on the floor, the underside of the seat. Hooked in a
really weird way that totally obscured it from view, was my phone.
There is no way I would have found it otherwise! Wow! So a few minutes
later we were in another taxi headed for my new home for the next
month....
Barcelona is beautiful. Just as beautiful as I remembered. The people
in my course are great, and I'm looking forward to the first day
tomorrow. The only bad thing is that Vi's foot is really badly injured
and she can't walk very well. We managed to get to park guell today
and will see things little by little :o)
Oh yeah, and i lost my wallet friday night.... internet time's up
though.... Next post....

A Day and a Night in San Sebastian

Violetta arrived yesterday. We had planned to meet in Irún, where her train was arriving, and since she was arriving a day earlier than originally planned and organised with her host in Bilbao, I was going to meet her there and spend a night there, and then come back to Bilbao together today. Thing is, when I read the Lonely Planet about Irún, it basically said there's nothing to see here. The only information it gives is how to get out. This lack of interesting things was reaffirmed when I mentioned to a couple of people that I was going to Irún. "¿Irún? What are you going there for??? There's nothing there." If I needed more confirmation, I got it as the bus drove through the city/village when we got there. No problem. I met up with Vi and we hopped on a train that left for San Sebastian 2 minutes later. San Sebastian is said to be the most Basque City of the Basque Country. It was originally a fishing village, and then a century or so ago it became a really popular resort town for rich European holidaymakers. Now, with the old city containing more bars and restaurant per square metre than probably anyplace in the world, it's party central on weekend nights. It's also the host of an International Jazz Festival in July. Anyway, we hung out in San Seb, sampling tapas and mosto in various bars, played backgammon with churros y chocolate in a family-type churreria-cafeteria, and continued the backgammon game in a really cool cafe with some mint tea. Very nice. The plan was to go back to our nice (and cheap) room and rest before taking on the dance scene later that night. As I've already mentioned in a number of places in this blog, everything in Spain works on a different schedule. I have been told that clubs don't really get going until about midnight or so. When we went out at 10 or so looking for somewhere to hang out and dance, we proved this rumour true. We stopped at a few different places, they were pretty empty, just a few people hanging around, no one dancing. Not surprising, since at 10 or so, a lot of people are just having dinner. Some restaurants don't open for dinner until 10! Anyway, Vi was tired and suffering from a case of uncomfortable shoes so we went back to the room with plans to come back out later. However, the travelling must have taken it's toll and she had no inclination to get up at 1 in the morning and go party. So I went myself and checked it out. It was all I thought it would be. Every single place had people dancing and each place was, as they say in Bermuda, RAMMED. I didn't stay out long though, since it was weird all by myself.
We got up at about 10 and went for a walk by the water. The weather really wasn't good for taking pics, windy and rainy... so we went for croissants for breakfast and the ncaught the bus to Bilbao. Now we're here in "my city" and for the next few days I will show her around. I really hope she likes it! She's already addicted to Mosto.

Engrish

I've seen a lot of Engrish here in Spain. So much so that I have started ignoring it. I've really gotta start carrying my camera. The menus in "English" are the best. Meanwhile, if you want something to laugh at occasionally, take a look at www.Engrish.com. I'm sure as a future ESL teaher, my Engrish days are just beginning.....

The Bus Community

I live in Bilbao. Greater Bilbao (Bilbao and the many suburbs surrounding it) has a population of about 500 000. It's pretty small for a city. I've lived in smaller, and I've lived in bigger. To get some perspective, I was sitting on the bus this morning comparing the population of Bilbao to the populations of the other places I've lived. Bilbao has (according to my memories of the populations of these places and some sketchy mental arithmetic):
almost 10 times as many people as Bermuda,
1/18 the population of Istanbul,
about twice as many people as Barbados,
half as many as Trinidad,
1/6 as many people as Montreal, and
2 and a half times as many people as Haifa.

As far as cities go, it's beautiful. As I showed Serene around last week we were talking about this. It is big enough to have everything you need, and is small enough that you know where to find it.

So generally in a city this size, taking public transportation you would find a random assortment of people every time. Well that's what I thought. But I don't live downtown. I live in a small residential area called Artxanda, known for its hilltop location overlooking the city, and with the beautiful views the restaurants where many couples go to get married. When one says "Artxanda" though, it's not the views or the restaurants that come to mind. I've come to realise that "Artxanda" is synonymous with "lover's lane" in Bilbao. From sunset, the road leading up to Artxanda is lined with parked cars. If the people in the cars were to look out of their steamed-up windows, they would have a beautiful view of a city surriounded by mountains, with a river running around the edge, the buildings lining it, a mixture of old and new.... but they're otherwse occupied.

Artxanda has very few residents. Probably less than a couple of hundred, I don't know really. It's more of a neighbourhood than a town or suburb. There is one bus between Artxanda and Bilbao. It runs a circular route, once an hour. I've never seen it full, and I've gotten used to seeing certain people getting on. I know the regulars, where and when they get on and off.... Obviously, so does the bus driver. Today we had a driver who I haven't seen in a couple of weeks. I guess he was either sick or on vacation. Either way, there was a regular who got on a few stops after me, and she was happy to see him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. How cute!

There's a lady who comes on the 2 o'clock bus with her daughter who has Down's Syndrome. The daughter talks to everyone on the bus and always has something to laugh about. She never wants to get off when it's time, and usually another passenger has to come to the mother's aid to gently push and slide the daughter from behind while the mother pulls her by the hands out towards the door and out of the bus.

There's a lady who comes on the bus in the morning and the afternoon. She seems to have problems with her neighbours, and the bus seems to be the only place she feels comfortable shouting at them and venting her problems. When she gets on, I usually make sure I have my walkman on and headphones in place.

There's a guy who catches the bus in the evenings. He looks Arab. I want to say hello to him in Arabic and talk to him a bit, but I always lose my nerve.

A girl who lives next door catches the 9 o'clock bus most evenings. She never talks to anyone. Yesterday, she nodded slightly and acknowledged my presence for the first time. I feel like I'm making progress.

David, the neighbour from 2 doors down, and a friend of Neisan's who I helped with preparing for his English exam comes on the bus periodically. We usually chat for the whole trip home.

There are various old people (there's an old-folks' home opposite our place) and young people (mostly students at the culinary academy near the end of the route). Not many people in between, I suppose they all have cars....

VI'S COMING!!!!

A week from now, I will have spent a whole day and be well into my second day here in Bilbao with Violetta.
She arrives at 5:45 a.m. on Sunday and will stay with me until February 17th, when we will both head to the beautiful city of Barcelona, and spend a few days together there. I am so excited!!!! As I walk around Bilbao, I try and see things the way Vi will see them. I can't wait to see this city that I've fallen in love with and come to think of as home as described by Violetta.
She's arriving by bus, so I know she will be tired when she gets here, but it will be Sunday morning, perfect for checking out the bizarre bazaar that is the flea market in Plaza Nueva in Casco Viejo. That's the place where you can buy things that most people would call junk. It's kinda scary sometimes, you look at the stuff arranged on a table and you know this guy is selling the contents of a house he robbed recently. One guy was selling used car radios... come on! Cellphones without sim cards? find them at the flea market! However, this flea market is also a collector's dream. There are stamp collectors, gem collectors, coin collectors, old book collectors, dirty magazine collectors, and whatever.... In the `plaza itself, groups of people congregate to trade trading cards of different types, other areas contain makeshift pet stores selling birds, turtles, goldfish and other pet paraphernalia, and near to them you will find people who are owners of new litters of kittens or puppies, looking for adoptive parents. I go there looking for books in English, and sometimes I even find them! The atmosphere is really fun though. I am sure most people aren't there to buy. Just to drink in the crowd while sipping at their red wine or a glass of mosto in one of the jillions of barras that line the plaza.
Speaking of mosto... I discovered it a few months ago. I have yet to find out what the difference is between mosto and zumo de uva (grape juice). Mosto is grape juice. However if you go to a bar and ask for grape juice, no one has it. If you ask for mosto, they always have it. It is served in a tall glass with ice and a slice of orange. Always. And it's always the cheapest thing on the menu. If a coke or nestea is 1.50, the mosto is almost always less than 1 euro, often 80 cents. I don't get it. But I like it :o)
So tip for non-drinking travellers in Spain who want to save a few centimos... drink mosto.

My Blog Is Boring

I'm bored of my blog. I can't believe you're even here reading it. It is totally lacking in substance, interest, humour, depth, and pretty much everything.
It's not that my life is devoid of substance, interest, humour, depth etc, it's just that I haven't felt like writing about it. There's a lot of stuff I'm going through as part of moving to a new country, learning a new language etc. Most of it is fun, but hard to describe. The stuff that is easy to describe is the stuff that is not necessarily positive, and borderline backbiting, and that's a border I want to stay away from. So for now, my blog will probably remain boring and dull....