So after spending a day in Madrid I figured that just one more day would pretty much be enough. So on Monday I took the train to a place called Segovia, north of here. It sounded like it would be this quiet little place that nobody really knew about or went to for that matter. Well, I was rather wrong about that which I noticed when I boarded the train and heard everyone speaking English.

But despite that it was actually a really cute little town. It´s actually up for being European Capital of Culture or something, which I can imagine. The location is beautiful, and you can see for miles on a day like the beautiful one I had. It´s a little bit mountainous though, so even with the bright sunshine it was rather chilly. But then after walking around the town I started to get sore feet, and half an our later every step was self-inflicted torture. So I limped over to the tourist information office and did what every self-respecting Dutchman would do; I rented a bicycle. And when I heard it was actually free to rent one I was truely overjoyed. And on top of that I could rent an electric one for three hours for just 2 euros. I took it.

And man was it good. Segovia is on a three hundred meter high hill, which I raced down at about 45 km/h. My eyes started watering beyond anything I had ever imagined, and at the bottom of the hill I looked like I had earlier this week when I went to the movies and saw ´The Reader´ (really good movie, kudos on the Oscar). Then, I flicked on the engine and cycled up the hill the other side around. It was like going downhill with the wind in your back but you´re actually going uphill, I love electric bicycles! Then I did another lap of the city but this time went downhill with the engine on too! It was probably kind of reckless racing down at that speed but well, you only live once.

Today I went to the Museo del Prado (which was a big yawn, to be honest. Only seeing Goya´s third of March was good). And one of my favourite things to do in any big city: go to the Botanical Gardens! They were gorgeous (although I was there probably a bit too early in the year), and they had an entire exhibit dedicated to the most exquisite Bonsai trees I have ever seen. Writing this down I feel like an incredible nerd though. Museums, gardens, Bonsai trees. Ah well, there´s of course more interesting stuff going on but I want to keep this blog kind of PG rated, you know.

Too bad the fucking Modern Art museum was closed again. It has impossible opening times. What kind of museum is closed on a Tuesday? Monday I would understand, but Tuesday! Ah well, that´s Spain for you.

Ah yes, Spain. Tomorrow I´m unfortunately flying back to Holland. Well, it will of course be nice to see family and friends again. And Spain and the wonderful people I met here will have ´a special place in my heart´ always. I wonder how long I can resist coming back…

One thing has to be said for Madrid, it looks magnificent. The huge old buildings with the most marvellous statues on top are second to none. The wide avenues, the immaculately kept grass and clean streets are unlike any I´ve seen. It is a beautifully designed city.

It´s cold here right now, in Madrid. It´s at least been dry but it´s not only to do with the weather. The beautiful buildings seem to just be cardboard cut-outs standing there. Not in one building can you finally see inside to what is probably a cavernous marble-filled space. It all remains behind closed doors. They stand there towering over you with their gold-leaf and gorgeously iron-wrought gates, looking down their nose at the mere tourist. I would compare them to American girls, they´re pretty, but without content, meaning or identity. Or is that going a bit too far? The city feels distant and cold.

It´s what people had been telling me all along though, but I guess I just had to see for myself. It´s really just a big city like any other. Not that I regret coming here, at least not yet. Tuesday if all goes well I´m going to go to the modern art museum (I walked all the way there today to find it closed at one) to see Picasso´s Guernica, possibly one of the most critical paintings of the 20th century. If I´m not mistaken it was about the slaughter of an entire Spanish town during Franco´s reign. A fun fact about this painting is that a copy hangs in the building of the United Nations in New York. When the US announced they were starting the war on Iraq the painting hung there on the wall behind Colin Powell, but the US had it covered up with a veil because of sensitivity related to the subject. It may not sound funny, but I just like how a painting can have such power.

And tomorrow I´m going to take the train to a town not far from here to see the biggest remaining aquaduct in the world. Doesn´t that just sounds terribly exciting if I say it like that! Apparently it really is supposed to be very good, and there´s other stuff to do there too.

(But if I had known Madrid would be like this beforehand I would have just stayed in Sevilla a few days more, hehe. It is just so much more intimate.)

I´m sitting in an internet cafe in Madrid writing this. I arrived here about 2 hours ago, did some exploring, got really wet and cold and decided to flee inside for a little bit and get this sorted. Thankfully, there´s plenty to see here so even if the rain persists I can probably keep myself quite busy.

Why I´m in Madrid? Well, the TEFL course is done and I got my certificate! And it was way cheaper to fly back from Madrid than from Sevilla so that decision was easily made. The six hour bus ride from Sevilla wasn´t even all that bad, they even let us out once for a toilet break. Though I must admit it got a lot less exciting to see a hill full of olive trees after the one millionth time. And the driver didn´t seem to mind the cliffs on either side of the bus.

I´ll miss Sevilla and the friends I made there (though of course, we´ll stay in touch) though. It´s a rather easy city to grow fond of, in my opinion. I´ve spoken to a lot of Americans/Britons/Whatevers that went there for a little bit and never left again. The people, to some degree the food, the atmosphere, the weather were all fantastic. And thanks to everyone that contributed to making my stay that enjoyable, you´ll be missed a lot and you´re all welcome to stay in Holland, of course.

So, if the weather picks up a little bit this´ll probably be my last post from España (until I go back, hehe). If it doesn´t, I´ll probably be spending some more time in these kinds of places to warm and dry up. But next on the agenda is finding a nice little café or something somewhere and have some coffee, because I feel like a wreck after that busride. And then I´m going to have a look and see what the Madrileñan nightlife is all about.

Ah damn, just as I hit post it all got stuck and I passed an hour. Now I paid for 20 extra minutes and I´ll be damned if I don´t use them.

I just realised I never mentioned my trip to Doñana, the national park near Sevilla. It´s absolutely gorgeous, albeit being a little bit clumsily handled by the Spanish government. The country´s biggest producer of pesticides is just outside one of Europe´s biggest national parks. But that´s Spain for you, a little bit odd like that. It was just a gorgeous day there, though. The temperature was perfect, not too hot, not too cold. A wonderful sunset from el Rocio and just the delicious, tangible peacefulness that was in the air. If you spend three weeks in the city it´s never really quiet, but you don´t really notice that until you´re out of it. Anyway, here´s some snaps of that. Too bad cameras can´t capture silence, isn´t it?

So, the grammar and the phonology tests are back. A 79.3% for grammar and 85% for phonology. I was kind of slacking on the studying, though, and could have scored higher if I tried. It especially sucks in the case of the grammar, because if I had scored only 0.7% higher I would’ve been able to skip the review. Damn my inherent laziness! One day that’ll be my undoing.

Anywho, after passing both of these tests with relative ease this pretty much means that my TEFL certificate is in the bag. There are no more major tests, no more teaching practises for me (they’re all done) and only tomorrow and Thursday left. Which is largely to get your ‘portfolio’ in order for it to get checked, and get yourself organised and all that stuff. Then, Thursday, we have Graduation (and there will probably be some alcohol involved, but I’ve been getting good practise building resistance to that, hihi).

Overall I’m pretty happy with the whole course. Even though it’s just a month it really gives you the tools to get out there and start teaching English. I know the grammar and the phonology now, which are both crucial to proper usage of the language. It’s funny though, isn’t it, that something you use every single day needs to actually be taught to you. Which is something that particularly amazed me of my fellow students; in England, the United States and Australia they do not learn the grammar for their first language! I remember endlessly drilling Dutch and English grammar in high school (but always thinking: what’s the fucking point?). And even though I have hardly any experience teaching yet I now do feel kind of confident to try.

And it was certainly never boring. It’s quite a lot of information (I use a fountain pen which is refillable, and had to reload it 10 times from just taking notes) but still it was never really boring. I guess that’s thanks to the two very enthusiastic teachers we had, Marta and Shelia. Shelia is a wild one, usually hung over but always in a very good mood.

Anyway, that’s all I can come up with right now without resorting to talking superficially about the weather (which sucks today as it’s raining, but I’ll leave it at that). I’ve always got something to complain about, don’t I? But no, that’s just silly. At the moment I’m quite happy, thank you.

I can´t see an English sentence anymore without semi-automatically looking at the sentence structure and the word classes. It´s driving me crazy, and I´ll be glad when the grammar test is over. But I´m afraid it´s not going to go away any time soon.

Anyway, here´s some new pictures. Two sunsets (the first one is at the Cristóbal Colón statue which is a big egg), wow, that´s so cheesy, I´m sorry. The second one is of someone doing vertical dancing (the ground is on the left side of the image). It´s so weird to see, but thinking back it would have been much better to take the picture from the top. Also, the format I use for the pictures doesn´t help convey what is actually going on. The third one is a reflection in a pair of sunglasses. And the fourth kind of speaks for itself, dunnit?

Well, I´ve finally found an hour between one thing and the other. Though doing some other stuff already cut the time down to 45 minutes, but here I go! There´s quite a lot of stuff to tell, yet just brush over the more interesting things to read. I´ve got some new pictures too, of course, but that all takes way too long to update so I´ll do that another time.

Week three of the TEFL course just ended and there is just one more week to go. This week was fairly hefty with a lot of teaching practise, theory and studying. The most interesting thing this week was probably the phonology lessons. Phonology is basically the study of how we speak. Phonemes are the sounds people make when they´re speaking. Like /w/, /b/, /a:/ and stuff. There are I think it was 42 letters in the phonemic alphabet versus the 24 in the regular one. You use them every day, yet you learnt them completely unconsciously. Odd huh? Also, we did some analyzing of my English accent and it´s an odd mix of American pronunciation and British pronunciation. And I write ´colour´ with a u too. Which I thought was pretty funny and interesting.

I´m quite glad that this week´s over. Because now it is finally the weekend. I´ve finished pretty much all of my work so hopefully it´s gonna be a fun-filled weekend.

In Sevilla itself I´ve pretty much seen the touristy stuff. It really is a lovely and lively city, and I could definately see myself living here. Except for the temperatures, because I´m fairly certain I would simply melt away. Yes, it is always something, isn´t it? First it´s too rainy and cold, then it´s too hot. I´m hard to please like that. Unfortunately, I haven´t seen the maid do my laundry anymore. So I´m afraid I will have to go and do that myself today. I´ll have to squeeze it in somewhere, because I´m meeting Antonio – a friend and one of the few locals that speaks English – to hang out along the river at seven. Seven in the afternoon, that is, which is what I would call evening. But I guess in Spain, that´s the afternoon. I still don´t really have the hang of this rhythm. It´s kind of like jetlag but the whole country has it.

But it´s not like I´m bored. On the contrary, there´s a ton of things to do. Either I hang out with some of the friends I´ve made over the last few weeks (there´s a few of em), or just lie in the park relaxing and chilling. And then I have to try to find time to get this updated too!

I´m kind of sad that my time here is coming to an end though. I´m starting to think that I would really like to spend some more time in this country and city. And learn Spanish, enjoy the sunshine (until it starts to hurt), meet more people. It´s just so nice and relaxed compared to a lot of the places I´ve been. I´ll just wait and see, I´ve still got some days left to think about the future.

For not really having much time to update this. I don’t have much access to a computer and there’s a lot of things going on right now and it’s fairly stressful. However, I’m still having a wonderful time, so no need to worry about me. The course is going well, and I’m meeting tons of interesting people here.

It´s not often I´ll post images this big, but this one just really stood out. Last night I went to see a flamenco dance thing with Dan, and I had low expectations of the whole thing. Having low expectations is generally a good thing, because you don´t end up dissapointed. The flamenco, the peculiar building it was in, the atmosphere, it all just meshed together very nicely.

I won´t pretend that I actually understand what flamenco is about, because I really have absolutely no idea. And of course, any singing is done in Spanish. Which, despite improvement, is still not particularly without its flaws. But the raw emotion and the rhythm of the whole thing just transcended words. I know that sounds rather tacky and makes you want to gag, but it is kind of true. The big image is of the flamenco dancer, a rather butch but I suppose in some way elegant woman. Overall it was an excellent evening.

Besides that the TEFL course is rather starting to pack a punch. The days are getting longer and especially in the upcoming week there is a lot of teaching practise. There is a lot of stuff I have to get done this weekend, as I´m teaching grammar on monday. The problem is, the subject I have to teach is way too easy! I think everyone will pretty much grasp it right away, and the class has to last 90 minutes. So that´s going to mean a whole lot of filler.

But I won´t protest all that much. Today I mostly just lounged in the park, where you can by the way really see spring coming in, and worked on the lesson plans for the upcoming week. I´m getting a tan, too! Isn´t life just a struggle sometimes?

Imagine trying to entertain around 7 people for 45 minutes without being able to directly communicate. Using only images, gestures and drawings. It´s a very odd way of teaching and different from anything I´ve ever experienced (except my lesson in Polish).

That´s what I did tonight. I tought my first class to a bunch of beginner English students that spoke hardly anything but English. Some of them spoke a few words, but for one of them it seemed like it was the very first attempt at English.

What you try to do is contextualize the lesson. Your lesson has a topic and with images, gestures and pictures you try to convey the meaning of your six line dialogue. And it´s tricky, there are a lot of steps and it is very easy to forget some and screw up your train of thought. I had honestly expected it to be slightly easier than it was. But on the other hand, I did have the feeling that at the end of the lesson they picked up most of what I had tried to teach them. They are not stupid people at all, but they can sometimes simply not grasp the meaning.

If at the end they improve their pronunciation, know the new words and understand the meaning of your dialogue they´ve made some very good progress. It´s a long and tedious process, that´s for sure. But also very rewarding.

Overall I really enjoyed it.

Besides that things are just kind of going along, really. I booked my ticket from Madrid to Brussels for my way home yesterday, which really is not very exciting, ¿is it? It´s Madrid because I´m going to be there for a few days after I’m done with the TEFL programme.

So now I got back the ‘evaluation report form’ (they love their forms) and it’s not too bad, actually! I have good rapport with my students and a confident approach. My creative games and sincere encouragement of my SS made for a fun and interactive lesson.

Though, on the downside, apparently my shoes which I find quite classy myself are not particularly teaching apparel. And they told me that I should come in clean-shaven. I think I’m just gonna be a bit of a rebel and miss out on those.

And now it’s three in the afternoon. The sun is shining, the weather is gorgeous and this stuff’s been updated so I am outta here! Class is out for the day.

1 me teaching my first class, photo taken by a classmate (and it shows…)
2 a gorgeous full moon in a clear sky
3 and the setting sun seen through the silhouetted trees

Finally we see some sunshine here in Sevilla! About damn time. It rained for four days last week and it was cold and nasty. Basically, it was like back home, which is not what I came here for. Clear blue skies all around and the sun was really really hot. I probably should have bought sunscreen, but I´m stubborn so I didn´t. But it´s not that bad, through the red I can actually see some tan.

When I just arrived in Sevilla I was exploring the city. At the great cathedral some woman came up to me, thrust a twig of rosemary in my hand and starting blabbering in whatever language it was. She was probably like blessing me or whatever. Well, I didn´t really know what was going on so I kinda just let her work her mojo. Then she goes ´cinqo, cinqo (five, five)´. Of course she meant five euros, but I wasn´t about to let that happen. So I gave her five cents and said something along the line of ´there you go, cinqo´.

She didn´t like this much.

So now I think this gypsy woman cursed me. Today I woke up and my right eye was swollen. It didn´t hurt or anything, it just made me look retarded. That´s all gone now though, but last week I had like something in my eye and it wouldn´t come out and I had to get one of those eye bath things. And on top of that the bad weather… It´s the curse I tell you, the evil eye. Le ojo malefico (I made that up, might not actually be proper Spanish).

Hence the picture of my eye (doesn´t it look like a sunflower?), in case you hadn´t reached that conclusion yourself. Here´s some more.
This poor man´s internet cafe (where I was starting to become a bit of a regular, now I´m not so sure) was ravaged last night, and they stole my favourite computer. I´m on one of two left (out of five). And he doesn´t really look like the kind of person that would get insurance. I´ve never looked closely at his shop by the way. But now I noticed that he sells stuff like chandeliers, carnaval costumes, waterpipes, incense, fireworks and scarves. Seems like an odd combination, doesn´t it?

Anyway, I should start wrapping this up. Only got about 8 minutes of time left and I really don´t have a whole lot of new stuff to tell. All´s well and probably going to hit the town tonight!

So, that’s nearly the first week over with. Today we’re ending a bit early (though it’ll be smack in the middle of the siesta, so everything’ll be closed) at three in the afternoon. But the sun’s out and it’s nice and mild so it should be pretty okay.

This morning was actually pretty hilarious. It’s around 7 AM when suddenly there’s a knock on the door of my room. Still half a sleep I’m like ‘¿Si?’ and a cleaning lady comes walking in. Talking rapidly in Spanish she goes around the room picking up dirty laundry, gathers a whole bunch, walks off with it and goes and puts it in the washing machine! Leaving me there entirely confused but very happy. I really wasn’t too excited at the prospect of laundry.

But anyway. This week of school was pretty good and actually over pretty fast. That’s one week down already. I have nearly all my homework neatly taken care of and the rest I’ll do this afternoon somewhere in a park with a nice cafe solo. Then I’ll have to find something to do for the weekend, and I’m not entirely sure what. I’ve seen all the sights for as far as I know. Ah well, I’ll think of something.

Next week I’m thinking of going to Cadiz or Granada. Cadiz is pretty close but Granada is about 3 hours by bus and 2 and a bit by train. And one day there wouldn’t really be enough I imagine.

And if you haven’t yet, scroll down to the post below this one to see some more pictures. Sorry they’re all pretty small by the way, but I kind of need to save space and bandwith.

The terrace in the apartment I´m staying. It goes around the corner where the photo was taken and runs for another 8 meters that way. It´s huuuge.

The people that own the apartment have some pretty weird stuff in their possession…

The street seen from the apartment. It´s all lively, truely all sorts of people come walking by.

The art museum, in which the art isn´t all that but the building is gorgeous.

Some more details of the building.

Beyond that I don´t have a whole lot to tell. So I´ll just leave it here, and just type up some more when I feel I´ve got some more interesting stuff to say. But! The sun is coming!

So, the TEFL course has now been going on for two days. And it´s quite a big load of information, actually. Anyway, it´s not very interesting but I´ll give a breakdown of what we´ve done so far, so you´ve got a bit of an idea of what the days are like.

At around 11 the class starts. On days where there´s teaching practise they´ll start at 10, but we haven´t had that yet. My apartment is fairly close to the school so no need to get up too early. Then we have classes until around 14:30 at which time we go out and have some lunch. Then it´s generally back to work until around 18:30. So pretty long days, actually. And there´s homework too. But that´s not all bad because there´s a ton of good little bars all around Sevilla where you can just sit and do your homework and drink some beer or coffee.

The funniest thing yet was the language class we received in Polish, to give us an idea of what it´s like to be taught in a language we don´t speak. Today we had the second lesson and it´s amazing how much of it sticks without being actually communicated in language the student understands.

Besides that there´s a lot of theory with examples. Especially in how to build a lesson clearly and establish goals and such things. The lessons are actually pretty interesting, and the Polish class really helps put it into perspective. So overall, I´m rather happy with the whole thing so far.

Oh right, the title. Well, I went into a supermarket the other day and was looking for some stuff to put on my bread for lunch. I saw some (well-priced) chorizo which was in a pack that could have fed a family of twelve for two weeks. It was, however, only a little over a euro. But now I´m stressing to finish it before it goes bad (there´s a fridge, of course, but still), but I think I´m going to give up on it now, as I can´t stand it anymore. And besides, as a title it sounded pretty cool. Also, I put my lunch in my bag and now everything smells like chorizo, chorizo, chorizo.

Unfortunately I don´t have a whole lot of new pictures though. I guess I don´t want to make pictures that have a cloudy grey background. Today it didn´t rain though (because man was it pouring last night), and thankfully the forecasts look quite good. I plan to take a couple pictures of the apartment soon so y´all can see that because it really is quite nice. But I haven´t had the place to myself yet, and it just seems kind of odd to take pictures of their house while they´re around, which I suppose you can imagine.

I´m planning to start something called an intercambio also. Basically, people that want to learn Spanish are matched with an equal-level speaker of English and just go out for a drink or something, and try to break through the language barrier. And of course, it´s free (which the good things in life always are) which is always good and a nice way to meet some of the quite handsome locals, hihi.

That´s it for now. Off for a beer and some coffee (which is always incredibly good here, hmmm).

Is about to start! And it’s raining again so I really don’t mind either. Anyway, more to follow.

short update:
Well, halfway through the second day now. Weird being at school in a Spanish rhythm. It starts really late (11:00) and doesn’t end till about 18:30.

Well, this internet cafe is a whole lot better. Though it has some kind of nasty smell I can´t place. Anyway, no long story this time, just some quick photos.

The light here was so strong that I could capture this picture of waterdrops from the fountain at Plaza España.

The gorgeous giant windows at the Plaza de Armas.

Drag queen flamenco. It was bad, really bad. Funny though.

This bar I came upon had lights above the bar with fish in them, how cruel yet cool is that?

Two ‘crazy Americans’ (picture removed on request) I met the other night. They were hilariously funny, and invited me to dinner somewhere in the coming week. Apparently the dude, Dan, is an excellent cook. And if you know me, I never decline a free dinner.

Sorry for the sizes by the way, any bigger than this and it would just entirely clog up my webspace and bandwith. I actually have some more but my time is up already and you can only get it by the half hour here. Keep reading!