Going, going, gone...

Yes, sadly, the amazingly warm (and supposedly unusual) weather that we were experiencing here in Santander appears to be gone for good. :(

Today, instead of being able to run around in shorts, or go lie on the beach, I had to stay bundled up in a sweater.. It was down around 13 degrees Celsius (hang on, let me convert that...) which is a chilly 55 degrees fahrenheit! I don't remember what it normally is back in CT right now, but it was nice to finally feel winter on its way!

Tonight, I went on an "intercambio" with a professor named Maria. An intercambio is basically where two people practice speaking with one another. For one hour, we spoke in English, and for the second we spoke in Spanish. Needless to say, her English was much better than my Spanish, but I learned a whole lot more. And then tonight during dinner, Teresa and I started talking about casinos, and I somehow got to explaining that casinos are not allowed in CT, except on Indian territories. Now try to imagine explaining what a sovereign nation is without using complex words, and without knowing how to say sovereign! After about 5 minutes, I think I had gotten the point across, but it only took 10 seconds after dinner for me to type it into wordreference.com and find out that I should have just said "nacion soberana"! Oh the joys of learning a language by submersion.. ;) Hasta pronto!

Ultimate Frisbee - - What! What!

Okay, so we figured we needed to find something to fill our free time. So when a few of the other conversation teachers went walking through the university here in Santander, one of them found a notice asking for more players for Ultimate Frisbee!!

Needless to say, ultimate frisbee is an awesome game, but I never realized how hardcore it is until now!

We showed up the first day, thinking we'd be okay. All of us can throw and catch a frisbee. And all of us understand the basic rules of ultimate frisbee.. Boy were we surprised!

First thing we learned at the first practice was that there are only two correct ways to throw a frisbee. Lucky for me, I am very good at throwing one of the methods. However, I had never even tried throwing this other method (and it's complicated, so I'm not even gonna try and explain!) and it was, and still is very hard!

After about an hour of practicing throwing and catching and some defense/offense drills, they decide to start up a scrimmage. Here is where the real fun began..

Imagine going to your first ultimate frisbee scrimmage, and your teammates trying to teach you all the offense and defense strategies really quick before the first kick-off. Now, imagine that you barely understand their language!!! That, my friends, was the exact position I was in.. They were telling me about vertical and horizontal lines down the field, blocks towards certain sides at certain times, and who knows what else, and ALL IN SPANISH!

Needless to say, that was a workout both mentally and physically. I was able to make one awesome catch (dove for it, then summersaulted and somehow ended back on my feet), almost dove and caught one in the endzone, and made a few good passes. Afterwards, I was exhausted, couldn't breath from all the running, new a heck of a lot more about ultimate frisbee strategy, and had learned a couple new Spanish words relating to the game!

Tonight was our second practice.. Needless to say, I'm really enjoying it! I'll take some pictures at one of these practices.. Oh, and that's one more thing.. They practice 4 days a week! Mon,Wed,Fri 4 - 7 and Saturdays 12 till who knows when!! I think I'm gonna be in pretty good shape soon!

Okay, it's bedtime for me. :)

Cena Mat

I just wanted everyone to see how awesome my host mother is. Every night, when I come home, and she is either not home, or has already gone to bed, she leaves out my dinner.. Usually, with a nice note on it. (And yes, she thinks my name is spelled "Mat")

I love her. 

Mañana, yo marcharé..

or... for all you English speaking folk, Tomorrow, I hike..

Tomorrow morning, I'm going with my host mother (Teresa) on a hike in some mountains in a nearby town called Liérganes. You can actually read all about the hike at this site that Teresa showed me.. It shows all about the mountains, and the route, etc. Check it out..

As for the pictures, they don't look too promising, but I promise to take some while I am on the mountain! I'm sure it will be amazing!

A weekend of adventures...

(Dazed? Confused? Never!)This weekend, a family friend came to visit me here in Santander!! Many of you may know of her, Dr. Hoch. She is my first official visitor here in Spain from the U.S.!

So in an attempt to show her a little about our small part of Spain, myself and a few others attempted to show her around. We planned a busy weekend of museum hopping, city touring, and even squeezed in some local meals!

I started the weekend off by having her come with me to school on Friday morning. I only had one class to teach, and it was my best class yet! There were about 20 twelve-year-old kids in the class, all eager to try to speak and understand some English! After some time at school, we headed back to Santander. A little while after arriving, my host mother, Teresa, called to say that she could give us a driving tour of the area if we wanted. Of course we were more than happy to accept, and headed over to meet up with her.

She started the tour off by bringing us to an AMAZING beach... (Shown below)

(Click on any photo to enlarge)

After that, we headed on to "El Sardinero", which is the main beach in Santander. Oh, and by the way, even though it's late October, it's still beach weather here!! After El Sardinero, we headed on to "el faro" (the lighthouse). The lighthouse is perched on the cliff that separates the Atlantic Ocean and the bay of Santander. All of these pictures are views from the lighthouse.

(Click on any photo to enlarge)

After the lighthouse, we continued with a driving tour of Santander, and sadly, I forgot to take pictures.. :( But I promise I will eventually document my beautiful city for all of you! :)

Overall, this awesome driving tour lasted over 3 hours! Teresa was an awesome tour guide!! During the tour, Teresa invited us over for a Spanish "Cena" or dinner on Sunday night. Of course we were both excited and eagerly accepted... I accepted mainly because I know how great of a cook Teresa is!

Saturday, Dr. Hoch, myself and 4 other English assistants went for the day to Bilbao, mainly to visit the Guggenheim.

(Look closely, and you'll see Dr. Hoch in the bottom center of that photo, climbing the stairs)

We happened to visit Bilbao on a weekend when the Guggenheim was free (something about their anniversary). So not only did we get to see an amazing museum, we didn't have to pay! (Which is very important for poor, roaming, recent college grads.. like myself!)

Here is a picture of the whole crew on the escalator leaving the metro..

(From left to right: Dr. Hoch, Lauren, Kate, Supy and Leanne)

And yet another photo of the outside of the Guggenheim.. Possibly one of the most interesting buildings I've ever seen! (Sorry about no photos inside, but they weren't allowed..)

(Yet again, click on the photo to enlarge..)

On Sunday, Dr. Hoch and I mustered up enough energy (don't forget that she was fighting an unyielding battle against jetlag!) to make a really short afternoon trip to Santillana del Mar.

It is a very beautiful town located about 45 minutes from Santander by bus. Here are pictures of Dr. Hoch and I in the center of town.

(Click on any photo to enlarge)

After walking around the town for about an hour and a half, we found a small bar and both had a well needed drink, and chocolate con churros which is a hot chocolate pudding with fried dough sticks. Only one word, amazing, can describe it.

Que sed nosotros tuvimos y Que rico!

We then took the bus back to Santander, as we had to get to Teresa's for dinner. There, we had a Spanish omelette along with bacon and some ice cream (helado) for dessert.

After dinner, we headed back to Santander as Dr Hoch needed to get a good nights rest for her long return trip back to the states on Monday.

Overall, her visit here was great in my opinion. Although short, we made the best of it. She really started to get to know Santander by the end of the weekend!!

Thanks for the visit Dr Hoch!

Teresa y yo..

So I just wanted to let everyone see the lady I am staying with (my host mother). Her name is Teresa, and she is a geography/history teacher at the school I work at. She has a very nice house outside of Santander in a small town called Muriedas. When I first got here a few days ago, her eldest son Miguel took me out to a local bar, "La Huerdas", for drinks with a few of his friends. They all introduced me to my new favorite drink here in Spain, Calimocho, or wine with Coke in English!! (It doesn't sound that good, but with the right wine, it tastes amazing!!)

Tonight I'm going back out to Santander to a tapas bar for dinner.. Tapas are simply appetizers, but are usually very cheap, and very good!

But on the topic of Santander... I GOT AN APARTMENT!!

Hello Mr. Neilson...

So I just had my first class! Wow... I never thought I would be so nervous! But the students were good, spoke decent English, asked plenty of relevant questions, and even taught me a little about local culture!

Now I have three more classes spread out over the next three hours...

School here is awesome. They are out by two, and the longest I ever have to be here is 4 hours! The head of the English department was able to arrange my schedule so that I have Mondays and Tuesdays off most weeks, giving me four day weekends!! Europe, here I come!

The school I work at (I.E.S. La Marina) is very nice. It's only six years old, and all the teachers here are very friendly. Chema, the head of the English department is a great guy. One thing I really like about coming to school here is that while I am here my job is to speak ENGLISH!!!! So it is a nice refuge from the constant immersion in Spanish.

Ok, the bell is about to ring, so I must prepare... Oh, there it is.. Time for another class!

Hasta luego!

Mi piso.. (My apartment)

That's right.. I have an official apartment here in Santander.. It's really nice. It is a centrally located, three-bedroom apartment with a newly renovated bathroom. So far, the only thing we can really complain about is the size of our T.V., but then again, we're not in Spain to watch television! I'll give you a quick tour..

This first picture is of my bedroom. Granted, it is extremely bare as I haven't even moved in yet! I've got plans to help cover the walls...eventually.

This picture is of our kitchen, which is also newly renovated with appliances. Many of the apartments here in Spain have gas water heaters that you have to light before you can get hot water.. Luckily, we have an automatic water heater! Our landlady said that this apartment was renovated a year ago for her late mother who passed away a few months ago.

This last picture is of our "salon" or living room. It's the perfect size for the three of us, and we have a very nice small balcony! We overlook a beautiful garden at a school across the street.

I'm really excited to eventually move in there! I'll let you all know what that happens! If you want my address, just drop me an email.. I'd love to get a letter! :)

Essen -- Essen What?

Just a heads up... This is a photo-intensive blog-post! :)

So we took the train yesterday from Munich to Essen, and it might have been the nicest train I've ever been on! The seats were comfortable, there were little displays over your seats telling the conductor where you got on and where you were getting off, and last but by far not least, there was a power plug at each seat!

This meant that during our 5 1/2 hour train ride, we got to watch a movie on my laptop. That was of course, after we got it to work again. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that my laptop broke. Something is wrong with it, and on the train, the only way I could get it to work was by smashing it on the floor. Needless to say, the couple sitting opposite us on the train stared at us a lot as I continually dropped my laptop from about a 1/2 foot from the ground! ö

So Jenna and I enjoyed V for Vendetta during the train, which was fun. Neither of us had time to watch any tv, let alone movies up until this part of the trip.

Once we got to Essen, we found Matt Schröeder waiting for us at the platform. We jumped in his car (it looks like a little German taxi!) and headed to the Schröeder home.

When we got there, we met Mrs. Schroder, and saw his house, and even met his dad who came home from work just to meet us.. They all thought it was funny to "arrest" the American.. ;)

Matt started telling us all about what he had planned for our stay. It was quite elaborate! We started by going to a German club the first night, which was a lot of fun. It was an abandoned factory.

We got back to his house around 2am and headed to bed, as he had another big day planned for us the next day.

When we woke up, we went and visited this gas tower which people can go inside (www.gasometer.de) and went to the biggest shopping mall in all of Europe. It was fun. We found the Jagermeister store, and met up with one of Matias' friends too!

(The Gasometer from the inside looking up!)

We returned to his house for lunch where we ate some of the codfish that his dad caught during his yearly fishing trip to Denmark! We also finally got to meet his brother, Martin. Although he barely spoke at all, it was nice finally meeting him.

After lunch, we continued by going to an abandoned coal mine that had been turned into this huge public park / art gallery.. I didn't think it would be that cool... Boy was I wrong.. We walked around the coal mine for a good couple hours, took lots of cool pictures, and even found a break in the fence where we could go into this building!


After all this, as we walked back to the entrance, Matt mentioned that there was a Dunkin Donuts in his town... Immediately, we were all craving iced coffees and iced lattes! So this became our new destination.. When we finally got them, Matias wanted me to get a McDonald's hamburger.. I don't know why.. But I think it was to complete my image as a "fat american who eats only McDonalds".. So I did, and we got a picture of me; in an "American's" glory.. with my Dunkin Donuts in one hand, and my McDonalds in the other!!

After all this, we headed back to Matt's house to get ready to go out that night. Matias had us going to this strip of bars outside the mall we had been to earlier. All I can say about them is that they were AWESOME!! I had this drink called the Oriental Dream which was absolutely amazing! It tasted like some Hawaiian fruit cocktail, but supposedly had a lot of alcohol too! After a long while at that bar, we moved down a few bars to this bar where Matias wanted me to try a Mai Tai. I did, and wow. There was sooo much alcohol in that drink!

It wasn't long before Matias and I were both trying to sing the United States National Anthem.. Oh man.. Needless to say, we had a great time out that night!

OKTOBERFEST... One more time!!

So, we survived Oktoberfest, though I don't know how!

Yesterday, Jenna and I decided to do a little (emphasis on little) sight-seeing. It consisted of getting off the subway at a stop (Odeonsplatz) and walking to the next stop (Marienplatz). We passed a couple famous brew houses, the once-royal palace, a Starbucks which we got drinks at (thank you globalization!) and a very angry German man yelling and flicking off a slightly enraged driver!

At that point, we figured we had seen enough and that the only logical thing to do would be continue to Oktoberfest and start drinking.. So that's exactly what we did.

We got to our normal tent (Haufbrauhaus - on left) and found my favorite waitress (Tina). We ended up at a table with 6 guys from Munich on our end of the table. They were all flight attendants, so they spoke english which was nice. I finally found out what the story of my favorite German drinking song is.

Listen/Download here - Sportfreunde Stiller

It's a song about how they thought they were going to win the world cup in 2006, but now they know they are going to win in 2010.

But everytime that came on in the beer tent, everyone went crazy singing it! It was as if Sweet Caroline came on in a Boston bar..

We had a great time, drinking, making new friends from all over the world, and singing tons of songs. Needless to say, time flys when you're having fun.. Before we knew it, it was 9:30. Jenna and I both left so we could try and find my friends who were supposed to meet us there, but had no luck.

One good thing that came out of last night, was the fact that Jenna and I somehow managed to get 3 more 1-liter drinking mugs out of the tent. All together, we made it out with 5!!

Now we are packing our things up and getting ready to check out of this beautiful hotel. Today's destination: Essen, Germany

Until later, Pröst!

OKTOBERFEST!!!

Munich, or München as they call it here, has been amazing so far!

Last night, we headed out to the party, which I understood to be a big tent, but come to find out, is more like a HUGE carnival, with about 15 beer tents that are about the size of a football field!

We found one we thought looked fun (no scientific method for determining level of fun, other than finding a lot of drunk people our age outside the tent) and went in. Inside was a completely different world.

Imagine a room, full of long tables, row after row, with thousands of Germans standing on their benches, holding 1-liter glasses (or steins as they call them here) rocking back and forth, cheersing eachother, while singing along to German drinking songs. That was what our eyes met as we walked through the doors. I was soooooooo excited!

We walked around for a little while unsure of how to get beer. Women were walking around carrying sometimes as many as 10 liter-glasses around but they were all being taken somewhere. It took us one whole walk around the inside before we got the courage to ask someone how we get beer. She told us we had to be at a table to beer served, so she brought us to the closest table, and told us to just stand at the end, and that she'd be right back with two beers..

By the time she came back (about 2 minutes), the people at the table had told us to get up on the benches along with them and start singing and dancing. Then, when our beer finally came, we were in heaven.. Having a blast, drinking, singing, and dancing..

We went table to table for a while, found some cool Australian friends, some kids from California, and some from right here in Munich. I was drunk after my second beer. Keep in mind though that each beer is 1 liter is just over 2 pints, and that german beer is stronger than american beer!

When we left the beer hall, I took a glass with me (on right..), and somehow got it past the security guards that were frisking people. They took Jenna's from her. Oops. I was hungry, so we headed over to a food stand and I ordered a half chicken. It was so good. At one point, some girl came over and just started talking to me in German and taking some of my chicken! I didn't know what was going on, but I just kept on smiling..

We met up with some kids while I was eating my chicken from New Zealand. They were a lot of fun, but sadly were leaving the next day.. Oh well! I think I'm going to go back to sleep now.

Arriving in Munich, Germany

So today, after another train ride from hell, we arrived in Munich Germany. While the train ride had potential to be exciting, as it was Jenna's birthday at midnight, and we had alcohol with us, we were to exhausted to do anything, so we started to doze off. We had to share a compartment with 2 other semi-sketchy old guys, but it wasn't the worst. After I fell asleep, it seemed like every 15 minutes i would wake up, and check my watch, and look around. I was antsy, and I couldn't get any good sleep. Finally around 4 am, I stopped trying. I just sat there and waited for our stop in Munich at 6:30am.

When we arrived in Munich, I was exhausted from 3 nights of terrible sleep on trains, not eating well, and not knowing how to speak German.. Things were looking pretty bad. So we went to the information booth and asked if they knew where our hotel was. Luckily, practically every german knows a little English.. ;) She told us how to get there by subway, so we headed on our way. The subways in Munich are very clean, but some of the cars are really old. And for some reason, no one has to pay to use them! We got to our stop, and walked toward the hotel.. It looked like paradise!

We got inside and they said our room was ready, we marched upstairs, only to find the MOST comfortable beds in the world, with down comforters and amazing feeling sheets.. We decided to go down and use the gym, try out the saunas, and then sleep from 9am till whenever we woke up.. And that is exactly what we did.

We woke up about an hour ago at 5:30 pm. We've just finished showering, changing, and getting ready and now are about to head off for the Oktoberfest Festival... Munich, here I come!!!

A diamond in the rough!!

Scilla, Italy - Sept 17th
Today was our last day down in Reggio de Calabria, and one of Jenna's cousins, Enzo, said he would take us to the beach! So we hopped in his car and went for a 20 minute ride to this small town called Scilla. Only one word can describe this town, Beautiful!

We swam and sun bathed while Enzo went spear fishing! He was crazy. All decked out with his wet suit, weights, flippers and spear. He was gone for about an hour while we lay there. After he came back, it had started to get cold as it was around 6:15pm, so we got in the car, and drove to a lookout in the city. Believe it or not, where I'm standing above the city is actually the center of town!! Below is just the part that caters to tourists. Oh, and when I say tourists, I mean Italian tourists! No Americans vacation here!!! This is where Italians go for vacation, and you could tell!


Here is a picture of myself, Jenna and Enzo in the train before we left Reggio for Rome..

Scilla, Italy

I just had to share this picture of the beach we went to. Words cannot describe it!
(I loved it sooo much I had to add it as a part of my blog page.. It is now the footer!)

Cannes, France.....Amazing

So we arrived in Cannes this morning around 8am. We got off the train, and were immediately lost. Not only did we not speak french, but we also didn't know where our hotel was.. Luckily, we found a map right outside of the train station that had our hotel listed on it.

As soon as we got to the hotel, we took a nap.. We were both exhausted from the train ride. The room was small, but nice.

After snoozing for a bit, we headed out for the beach, and oh what a beach it was....

The small streets were cool, the food places were great, and shops were even cooler. We went down to the beach and lay down for a bit soaking in the rays. It was beautiful.

Another day of travel :-/

Santander, Espana --> Cannes, France - Sept 10th
We left Santander at about 7:30 am on Sunday morning for Cannes, a small city on the southern shore of France (many celebs vacation there!!). The train ride was a 24-hour trip from hell... or so I thought.

It started with the world's longest local train ride from Santander to Venta de Banos which was in the middle of nowhere.. (pictured to the right). Then, we hopped on a train to Hendaya, France. That ride took until about 6pm, about six hours. Not too bad, just cramped in a train, the terrible part was yet to come. When we arrived in Hendaya, the language was now, for the first time, foreign.. French!
Although we were stressed over not knowing anything in French, all the train stations in France play the coolest noise whenever an announcement is made... It still rings in my head.
We finally got on our final leg of the trip in Hendaya.. an overnight ride to Cannes. This was the bad leg of the trip. Not only was the train absolutely packed, the seats in the French trains for some reason allow you to recline as far back as you like, so I had some random hippie-backpacker in my lap the whole night.. Not Comfortable! Add to that a loud black girl sitting behind me who refused to hang up her cell phone. She got so bad around 1am that someone went and got the conductor to make her hang up. She complied only until he left the car... :(

The trip so far...

Wow.. so I haven't been able to post at all because I haven't really had access to a computer long enough!! I figure this can't wait any longer! I want to tell you all everything I've experienced so far, but obviously there is not enough time to tell you everything about the last week!
So... I will give you a brief recap..

Send-off & Plane Ride - Sept 7th
I thought this would be terribly sad, but with my parent's calm composure, and my surreal feeling for the day, it was fine. Once at the airport, Jenna and I hung out with our parents for one last time... for the next 3 1/2 months anyways..
The plane ride was pleasant, but short. Here, I was thinking I would have a great 8-hour plane ride to sleep and dream about this new experience awaiting me, only to find out that the first 2 1/2 hours would be utter chaos while trying to get food, and spend our last remaining American dollars on as many alcoholic beverages as possible (i.e. as many times as the beverage cart came by..) We then dozed off for about 2 hours, only to be awoken for breakfast! An hour later, we arrived in Barajas International Airport in Madrid.. All I could think was, Wow, it has begun..

Madrid, Espana --> Santander, Espana - Sept 8th
When we got in the airport, it really hit hard when we approached customs and the guy just sat there and rambled on in Spanish.. I'm screwed!! Oh well, we grabbed our bags and headed off into Madrid.
Our first task was finding out how exactly we get to Santander.. We knew we had a Eurail Pass that we spent a crap load of money on, but no idea how to use it.. So we headed to the Chamartin Station in Madrid where our train would leave from. We took the subway there, which by the way is the cleanest subway in the world probably, only to arrive at the station, three levels below the main level with NO elevator!! I had to drag my two bags (about 40 lbs each) along with Jenna's two bags (about 70 lbs each (no joke.. she had to pay extra for both to go on the airplane!)) up three flights of stairs.. and these were not short flights!!
Once we got to the station, and bought our tickets, we started around Madrid..
We walked for about 4 hours around the city and then returned for our overnight train to Santander..








Santander, Espana - Sept 9th
The trip to Santander was fun. We saw a really cool castle on the way, and then started dozing off.. We woke up multiple times to find the train stopped at a station, sometimes for up to 45 minutes per station. Later, we found out that was so that the train, which only takes 5 hours to get to Santander, arrives at a decent hour, 7:30 am. Nothing was open!

We finally got in touch with Chema, the head of the English department at the school I'll be working at, so that he could come pick up our bags. He agreed to hold half our bags with him so we didn't have to drag them across Europe..

We explored Santander all day, and went out at night. I have fallen in love with my new city. It is everything I could have hoped for! We went out to an awesome Spanish club that night, and danced until 4am!! It's going to take some getting used to before that will feel normal!

I'll write more as soon as I get a chance! Today we were in Rome, but you'll find out about that soon enough!
I hope everyone is doing well! If you haven't already, send me your address to get a postcard!

Besitos,
Mateo