Here We GOOOO!!!!!!

So we are off tomorrow morning for our epic 24 day odyssey around Europe! Dublin, Brussels, Vienna, Paris, and Berlin!

I am so unbelievably excited. I have great plans, great friends, and am looking forward to the -5 degree celsius weather! (oh no......)

I am not sure if I will stop in internet cafes or not on this trip, we'll see. Keep posted to the blog, because if we do find some internet I will update!

Hasta luego España, hello EUROPE!!!!

over and out. happy holidays everyone.

Portugal Photossssss

Buying chestnuts roasting on an open fire on the street in Lisbon.
Adorable cat at the Castelo de São Jorge.
Castelo de São Jorge, built in the 11th century!
The gorgeous view of Lisbon from the Castelo.
View and old canon. I love these colors.
This is the view from the terrace of our hostel in the Alfama, the old town of Lisbon. Great hostel!
European cities go ALL OUT with christmas lights. Insane!


Palacio Nacional de Pena, Sintra, Portugal. Coolest, funkiest palace ever.
See what I mean?




The famous trolley 28 in Lisbon.
This incredible old library we found in Porto. That's a staircase to the second floor!

Portugal para la Puente!

We have a puente the first week of December, which means we don't have classes on Mon or Tues, and everyone is going to be traveling. I will be gone for over 3 weeks traveling not too much later in December, so I wanted to stay close and not do anything too extravagant. WELL.....

Alan and I found flights from Madrid to Porto, Portugal for 5 (yes, you read that correctly and that was not a typo) euros! five! So we are flying to Porto on Thu Dec 3, and staying a night and day in Porto which is supposed to be a pretty riverside town with great free wine (well, port i guess?) tasting. Then we will train/bus down the coast to Lisbon where we have reservations for 2 nights in this cute hostel with a view of the ocean.

Yay year abroad travelingtodazzlingplacesallthetime!

:)

kicked butt my first day of teaching!

It went well! I am teaching two classes, two hours each, twice a week. My first class is 5 just-graduated nursing students, so early 20s. My second class is just two women, mid 20s.

I actually prepared a pretty good lesson plan for the short notice I had. I went in cold, without knowing how many students I'd have, their language level, etc. So I had to think on my feet a bit to figure out what would be good to start with. We ended up playing some fun games to get them talking in English a lot, I copied a short article out of a RyanAir in-flight magazine I had from when I went to London (the only English material I had in my room, haha) which we read through, found tons of new vocab words, summarized, etc. I also wrote an essay prompt resembling some SAT essay question, and gave them 20 minutes to answer, and I collected them and am going to correct and return them.

We discussed our goals for the class, what things they would most like to learn. Medical vocab, verb tenses, verb conjugations, conversation and reading and writing skills. Grammar is going to be hard for me, I need to study quite a bit before I can teach it.

Looking forward to this! It is fun work, prepping lesson plans and trying to keep them engaged and learning and focused for 2 hours straight. And I'm earning money too, which is glorious as I was starting to feel very frugal about my money which is disappearing fast here.

Should be a fun experience!

teaching englishhhhh

So a couple of my friends have been teaching english to small classes over at this business school, and I have been wanting to do it as well. Well, last night I was at an irish pub at the monday night trivia game when I got three missed calls in a row from the same number. I went outside, called back, and 3 minutes later I hung up the phone and had signed up to teach english to young adults 8 hours a week! Oh, and starting this afternoon. So I will be teaching Tuesdays and Fridays from 4-8 (ahhh! 4 hours of teaching in a row without a break...!).

The only material I have to work with right now is a book called "The Official Guide to the New TOEFL" (Test of English as a Foreign Language) that resembles the old SAT and AP test prep books I used back in high school. Eek!

So we'll see how it goes this afternoon! I really don't have time to make too much of a game plan, as I also have to finish writing an essay for my anthro of religion class today. Hopefully things will go smoothly enough and not too difficult the first day! I am excited for this opportunity to see what teaching english is like. I think I will learn a ton as well, as speaking english and teaching the ins ans outs of its grammar and such are two very different things, as I am about to find out! Also it will be nice to make some money, as I will earn 8 euros an hour. I am starting to feel pressed for money here as all I do is take out from my accounts all the time, so it will be great to put money into them as well.

Well here we go!

24 days + 5 countries + 2 great friends + cheap flights = Winter Break Traveling through Europe!!!!

So here it is. HUGE, awesome plans for winter break.

My two friends Garren and Alan and I are going to travel together from Dec. 17th to Jan 9th, 24 days, to 5 countries! I created this itinerary by finding the cheapest flights from one place to the next. I started in Malaga, Spain, and chose the cheapest flight and went from there! Here's the final itinerary:

DUBLIN dec 17-22

BRUSSELS (with visits to Bruges and maybe Amsterdam? xmas somewhere) 22-27

VIENNA 27-jan 1 (for new year's! there is a full moon on new year's eve. I LOVE that.)

PARIS 1-5

BERLIN 5-9.

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! how wicked is this!!?

So we got all of our flights for very cheap. The second step is where we are going to stay. We can always find some hostels, but we are trying to save money by couchsurfing as much as we can. We made accounts on CouchSurfing.com and have sent out lots of emails to people in all of these cities. So far we haven't been too successful, but we're still trying. Now that I have an account I get emails every day from people all over the world asking to sleep on my couch! What a crazy world huh?

It is going to be crazy insanely cold!! We have talked to some Germans from Berlin, and when they hear we're going early January, their response is always the same "hhoooooo dang. you are going to die of the cold". Genial! haha.

I am so stoked!!!

Internet and I are finally together again!

Yes. The rumors are true. I HAVE INTERNET in my piso! Finally, after waiting for 6 weeks! No more walking a long way to the internet cafe!

This means that I will most likely be posting more pictures and stories on this blog, since it will be at my fingertips! So be prepared to vicariously live more awesome adventures in Spain! haha this is fun. :)

There are lots of new posts below this one, and I know you haven't read them yet so check them out!

Hey guys, thanks for reading this blog. It makes it so much easier to share stories and pictures with all my family and friends by putting it all on here. And it's fun for me too, to go back and read these and remember! It's a great digital diary. Thanks for sharing it with me!

And remember that I love it when you make comments on my posts! They're fun for me to read. :)