Carnaval!

The wall outside the old town of Cádiz, during Carnaval

CARNAVAL!!

Hello everyone!!!

Sorry it has been almost 2 months (yes, 2 months!) Since I have written in my blog. Lately, things are going really well (minus the constant rain). Work is good, my friends are good and hopefully soon the weather will be good as well so I can start living on the beach! Normally, I guess during the winter in Cádiz is really good, lots of sunshine, a little bit of rain but mostly really mild. Well, obviously the year I come here we have been living with rain literally everyday for 2 months. Literally... every single day. I didn't realize how inconvenient rain is until I moved here. You have to bring an umbrella everywhere you go, all of your shoes should be water proof and forget about having dry, clean clothes (yah life without a dryer sucks too). And of course none of the apartments have insulation here so even when you

hang your clothes inside, it takes about 4 days to dry and at the end I have to get in there a little bit with a hair dryer- classy I know. My apartment is a piece of crap and we have to bleach our walls every 5 seconds because of the mold. The wood on our door swelled up because of the humidity and we started getting locked out of our apartment because it wouldn't open. We finally had to call some people to shave the door down so we could open it. So in conclusion, the mix between constant rain, no insulation, no dryer, and a shitty old ass apartment isn't a good one. Oh living in southern Spain!!

Anyway, as most of you know, during February in Cádiz is a festival called Carnaval. Since we live in the center, we were like in the middle of all of the festivities! They set up all of these delicious food stands everywhere, and people are allowed to just drink in the streets for pretty much the whole month. I guess a good festival to compare it too is Mardi Gras in New Orleans. However, a part from the constant partying, there is a deep rooted tradition in Carnaval as well. There are many singing acts and joke groups that go around the center performing for people. A Chorus is about 50 people and they go around on floats singing. There are also joke groups that go around singing and performing called Chirigotas. These are about 8 people in size and they sing and perform right next to you on the street. These groups also do performances in the theater in the weeks leading up to Carnaval and there is a big competition. When the last day of performances end (when the winner of the competition is announced) this is when the celebration of Carnaval begins! There are also groups called "illegales" (the illegals) and they aren't technically in the competition but they go around singing and performing anyway. They are aparently hilarious but you have to be very fluent in Spanish as well as be from Cadiz to understand them

(A Chirigota with a few of our friends... every group is a different theme, this group was roman statues!)

so I didn't really get much out of it but they are still very entertaining to watch. In the middle of all of these street performances is pretty much a huge botellón (drinking in the streets). The first weekend is the biggest one, and many people from all over europe come to enjoy it. Everyone dresses up in costume (as whatever you want!) and pretty much forgets everything else in the world and just enjoys cadiz! Carnaval is like nothing else I have ever experienced before and I feel it is probably best explained in a few select photos....

enjoying the streets! dancing apparently...

Abbey, Ellen, and me. Abbey is Marge Simpson ( they LOVE the Simpsons here!), Ellen is an Avatar, and I am ROSAtar! (Like a pink avatar... Rosa is pink in Spanish for all you English speakers... and I really just wanted to wear my pink wig!)

Rosatar and Marge... the hosts of 13 (yes 13) of our friends for the weekend!

Abbey and I on our terrace... getting ready for day 8 I think? We lost track

All of the streets are lit up with different lights for Carnaval... this is one of the streets- the lights look a lot cooler in person.

The streets on the first Saturday... the biggest night

Mel... my good friend from Ronda and the other Avatar!

More Botellón on Saturday

Carnaval. After.

Life After Christmas...

Hello again everyone!

I am officially back to teaching and living life in Spain. I must say, traveling here was a bit of a challenge. I got stuck at the Dublin airport for about 6 hours all because there was like an inch of snow and they decided to close the airport. Seriously, people here like freak out over ANY sort of weather... it is pretty humorous until you have been traveling for 20 hours and find out that you have to sit at the world's most boring airport for another half day. On top of that, I flew in to Malaga and had to take a 4.5 hour bus home to Cadiz. Needless to say, I was a little bit over traveling at that point so the past week I have just been taking it easy. We have a long weekend coming up at the end of February and my friend Sophie and I are thinking of going to Paris. I even bough a self-study French book so I could remember the 8 years of French I seem to have forgotten!

The weather this week is absolutely gorgeous! There isn't a cloud in the sky and the sun is out. I can't wait until it is full on beach season because that is where I am pretty much going to live when it gets hot enough. This weekend, my friend Mel from Ronda is visiting so that should be really fun. She and Abbey are planning on taking surfing lessons and they asked me to join but to be honest, I am not sure that will be happening for me. It just seems like the sort of thing I would be so terrible at that it would almost be embarrassing so I think I might pass on that little adventure.

On a side note, I just want everyone reading this post to take a minute and be so thankful for how lucky all of us are to have our health and happiness and family. I cannot even fathom what the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people in Haiti are going through- it really breaks my heart. The kind of despair and destruction that country has suffered is unimaginable. An entire city- completely destroyed in only a few minutes. I think we all need to realize how lucky and blessed we are. I have donated $35 dollars to a charity called Domes for Haiti (or something of that nature, I got a free shirt too! haha). They are currently building relief domes for people to stay right now and money will go to help the eventual re-building of the city. If I can spare some money to donate, I KNOW each and every one of you can. This amount may not seem like a lot but if I can convince 10 other people to donate this much, then it can definitely make some sort of difference. SO... I am encouraging each of you to do some research and perhaps find a legit Haiti charity and donate to the cause. If not to help the poor people of Haiti, then at least do it for the extra Karma points!

I love you and miss you all!! (the next entry should be more interesting, sorry)

~Jade

London!

Hey everyone!

Well this past weekend was a long one (we had Monday and Tuesday off) so in celebration we decided to go to LONDON! And I just want to say that it was amazing- the city is so beautiful with so much interesting history and I absolutely love it! I will definitely be visiting another time.

Our plane left from Malaga which is a few hours from Cadiz so we (Abbey, Megan and I) had to take the bus to get there. Our bus left at 7am on Thursday. Abbey and I woke up at 7:15!!! Somehow we both slept through both of our alarms and woke up to Megan calling us telling us we had missed the bus! We ended up finding a train to Malaga (we had to switch trains in Sevilla) so it really wasn't a big deal minus the fact that I may as well have set fire to 20 euro. Anyway, we got to the Malaga airport without any further hassle and began our adventure to London!

When we arrived it was about 12:30 am local time so the tube (subway in London speak) was closed so we had to take a taxi to our hostel. The hostel was really clean and nice- we had to share bathrooms with the floor but it wasn't bad because the place wasn't that crowded. My only complaint was that it was really far from the center so transportation was kind of annoying but other than that it was great! We got a room with just us in it so we didn't have to worry about sharing with other people which is always nice. So the first night there, we pretty much just went straight to bed!

The next morning we woke up and caught the tube to central london to meet up with the Fat Tire bike tour company to do a bike tour through Central london with all of the palaces and parks. It was SOOOO much fun! I got to see all of the main parks and palaces (including buckingham) and trafalgar square, parliament, big ben, and a lot of other cool stuff. And to answer your question, yes I can still ride a bike and no I didn't fall you jerks. That night we went out in an area of London called Picadilly Circus which is kind of the Times Square equivalent. It was fun until Abbey got her wallet and coat stolen. So we tried to go home but no cabs would take us because we were far away (BS right?? SOOO annoying) So we were literally wandering around London at 4am (don't worry it was in a very busy and well-lit part of town so not dangerous) and we just decided it would be best to just eat some chinese food. After eating we FINALLY got a cab that agreed to take us home!! Picadilly Circus was fun, but I don't think I ever have to go clubbing there again.

The second day we went to Camden town to go to the world famous Camden Market which was awesome!! Camden is a really cool part of London- it is where a lot of music and fashion trends started (like punk). There are SO many people from all over, it is really cool. After that, we went to Harrod's London (kind of like Barney's NY) to see the christmas displays. They were really cool but it was too crowded for me! It was Wizard of Oz theme. Later, we went to Westminster Abbey to see an organ show which was really good but I was exhausted and fell asleep... oops!!

The third (and last day) we saw a show in Leciester Square (like the Broadway of London). We saw a Christmas Carol and it was ok.... just not what we were expecting. It was really aimed toward little kids and we were kind of expecting the real thing. Anyway after that we walked around some more and ended up having some ciders and fish and chips at a really cool pub in Notting Hill. Notting Hill is also really cool (even though I didn't see much of it). It has a lot of antique and vintage stores and seems really young and trendy- I liked it a lot!

We went back to our hostel that night (via the tube and double decker bus- SO London, haha!). The next morning we got up bright and early (3:30) in order to make our 6:30 flight from gatwick airport. We arrived in Malaga at 10:30 and then I had to wait until 1:30 to take the 5 hour bus back to Cadiz... A VERY long day of traveling but worth it!

Well I am sure I have forgotten many things I meant to write but I am sure between my FB pictures and stories when I get home, you will get a good picture of my London trip! My next adventure: PORTUGAL!!! That will be right before x-mas though so I can tell you all about that when I come home! See you all very soon!!

Besos,

Jade

Big Ben! Look sideways... sorry
Buckingham Palace... the queen wasn't home

Gatwick express train to central london

Thanksgiving in Spain!

Hi Everyone!!!

I hope you all had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving! I was sad I wasn't able to be with my friends and family at home, but I had a great time here! Abbey and I decided to host a Thanksgiving dinner for our Spanish and American friends. The Spaniards loved it! They were all saying that they had seen Thanksgiving done in the movies and TV shows and they were interested to see how it all worked out. Abbey and I did pretty much all of the cooking (Abbey was definitely a rockstar... we pulled it off thanks to her stellar "Monica Geller " planning!). Since places in Spain don't really just sell big turkeys we had to reserve one a week in advance at the market by our plaza. When we went to pick the turkey up all of the butchers were cracking up because they definitely knew we were American and doing thanksgiving. We had some good conversation with them and taught them all about Thanksgiving! Below are some pictures of how our night turned out...

The table, all set!!!!
The Chefs and Hostesses
I was in charge of potatoes!! Delish

Turns out, sticking your hand up a dead animal's but isn't that fun...

AH!!

Well that is about all for now. Sorry this is so short- we are in the middle of booking a place to stay in LONDON! That will be in next week's blog. Love you and miss you all! I am so thankful to have each of you in my life! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

BESOS!!!

Jade

Since Granada...

View of Cádiz from el Torre (the Tower)
I can Salsa dance!!! (kind of)...
GO CADIZ!!!!!!!!
Hey Everyone!!

Sorry I haven't posted in so long. It has been a mixture of being really busy, really lazy, and a little sick. SO I am just going to talk about what has been going on since Granada. I haven't done anymore traveling unfortunately because all of us are really trying to save money for... wait for it... LONDON!!!!!! That is right! I bought a plane ticket a few days ago and from Dec. 3-7 I will be in London. I am so so excited and I know I am going to want to do a lot of shopping and stuff so I am trying to be very good with my money.

As most of you know, I got that other teaching job with English for Living, an English academy here in Cadiz. I like it a lot but it is A LOT of work! Right now, I am covering for a teacher that is out because she had an operation so I am teaching 5 separate classes right now. It is a little overwhelming at the moment because I am REALLY not used to lesson planning, classroom management, etc. (any ideas Josh??) but I am confident I will get the hang of it. I think the hardest class to teach is the adults because I never account for how fast they are able to pick up topics and stuff and then I get stuck with 30 minutes of class time and nothing to do... kind of intimidating but I am up for the challenge! It is a lot of work but I will have lots of money to Christmas shop! Yay! And maybe if I am responsible enough I can save for a fun trip to Paris or something. When things settle down though, I will be teaching 2 classes (one kids and one adults) which will come out to be 5 hours per week.

When I am not working I am literally trying anything and everything new that I can. Abbey and I started taking Salsa dancing lessons at this one Salsa club in Chiclana (a city close to Cadiz). As if we don't stand out enough, we were obviously THE WORST dancers in the club. By far. But it was still really fun and something new! We went with our friend Sandra that Abbey met in the school she teaches in. I also tried out oriental dancing at this one place called Nahu that we go to a lot. It was interesting, but I don't think I have to do it again. I also went to my first soccer game! It was really fun! Not as crazy as the ones you see on TV, like Madrid and Barcelona, but the fans are still very hardcore. Cadiz is a 2nd division team so they aren't nearly as big as other teams like Madrid, but the atmosphere was still amazing! They fans were literally chanting and singing the entire time. It was fun, up until I realized that when there is a tie in soccer (and it is a regular season game), they don't keep playing. It's just a tie. And everyone goes home. Kind of annoying but still a fun tim! (See pic above).

This past weekend my friend Mel came to visit Abbey and I. It was a little crazy! We ended up going out till 7 AM on Friday and as you can imagine we weren't very productive. Saturday night we went to El Puerto de Santa María to go to some clubs over there. We met up with a few guys that my friend Megan knows. It was fun, but I prefer to stay in Cadiz. Then, on Sunday we took Mel on a little tour of Cadiz. We saw all of the important places and then made dinner and hung out at home. It was a really fun weekend but I definitely paid for it by being sick for 3 days. Don't worry though, I am feeling much better!

This weekend is going to be really low key. Both Abbey and I just got over being sick (oh the joys of sharing a bedroom) so we just kind of want to relax and take it easy. Also, we want to save our money and health for London! Abbey and I will be hosting an American style Thanksgiving dinner next Friday (because we don't get Thursday off... Surprising that Spanish people don't care as much about American colonization as we do right? haha) so we will be doing one Friday. We went to the market today and reserved a 10 kilo turkey for next thursday (thank you to my knowledge of obscure butcher shop-spanish!).

Well that is about all for now! Hope you guys have a GREAT Thanksgiving! I will try to blog again next weekend to tell you how mine went. I miss each and every one of you and I am SOOOOOOOOO excited to see you guys over Christmas!!!

Besos!!

Halloween and Gypsies in Granada!

Hey Everyone!!

So sorry I haven't posted anything in a while, things have been going pretty much the same as usual! I definitely got that other job and I will officially start teaching those classes in a few weeks. This past weekend I went to Granada (another region of Spain in Andalucía) and it was AMAZING. I honestly think it is my favorite city I have EVER visited. The history, charm, and beauty of the city is so breathtaking. It has a unique mix of east and west- the area was occupied by arabs for a very long time so there is a lot of old middle eastern influence. It is so interesting! We stayed at a hostel called Oasis and it was so cool! We met some really awesome people staying there from all over the world. The rooms were like 8 beds to each one so we were able to meet a lot of random people. The hostel itself was really clean, fun and they actually had a lot of activities and stuff for us to do- it was really cool! I would consider that my first REAL hostel I have ever stayed in and I really enjoyed myself. I went to Granada with Abbey (my roommate), Megan (another American friend who lives in Cadiz) my friend Mel who teaches in Ronda, and a few other girls I met at orientation in Sevilla who teach in Granada.

We left at 9 am on Friday and arrived in Granada around 2 pm (by bus). We then checked in at our hostel and then went to get tapas and drinks. The cool thing about Granada (well one of the cool things) is that you get a free tapa with every drink you order, which is really fun! So we did that, and then went walking around the plazas and shops around the city. The city itself is so beautiful and clean, I just love everything about it! After we walked around for a while, we went back to the hostel and had some drinks there and hung out. We entered in a pumpkin carving contest (there were only 2 entries, people in Spain do not celebrate halloween as much as we do in the states... it is a very American holiday) and just hung out on the hostel patio and ate the paella they made for dinner. We met some really cool people: pedro from Mexico, Olaf from Holland, and Daniel from Germany. They all helped with our pumpkin and we just hung out with them the rest of the night. Megan and I went in early (around 2) because we had an early date the next day with the Alhambra!

So the next morning (halloween day) Megan and I left around 8:30 for the famed Alhambra! The Alhambra is a famous palace that was first constructed by the Moorish (Muslim) occupied Spain in the 9th century- that means some parts are over 1000 years old!!!!! Rediculous. Some parts were changed by the Chirstians after they defeated the Moors in the 13th century but a lot of the Muslim influence still remains. The palace was mainly used as a fortress for protection, but it was also a very lavish castle for the royal family. It was the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen- so amazing, words really can't even describe it. I have pictures on FB but they don't do it justice either. If any of you are looking on planning a trip or anything Granada (and the Alhambra) is DEFINITELY a place you have to go. After we got back from there, we met up with the other girls and started to go walking around the Albazín which is the old Moorish neighborhood of Granada. It has the typical winding roads and whitewashed buildings of a lot of old neighborhoods in Spain but what makes the Albazín unique is the Muslim and Middle eastern influence- very cool.

While walking around the Albazín, we went to a very distinct part called El Sacromonte which is the old gypsy neighborhood. There are the Las Cuevas which are literally caves that the gypsies live in. These caves are considered the birth place of flamenco, and have such a cool feel about them, its awesome. Literally reminded me of Fraggle Rock- haha! Anyway, while we were here we decided to find a gypsy to read out palms- and we did! She was so funny, I absolutely loved her. And for the bargain price of 10 euro I got my palm read in her cueva! (picture above) She spoke really weird Spanish so I didn't really catch all of it but she said that when someone is interested in my I never give them the time of day and that I need to be more open minded when it comes to love. She also said that I don't notice when people like me, that I am kind of oblivious to it. She said I have 2 true friends of the heart ( I think I have more but I will let you guys fight amongst yourselves over who are my true friends of the heart) and that I am very intelligent and I have great dreams! So all in all, even if she was crazy I think she got some things right. After that little side trip we headed in the direction of the hostel, stopped in a hookah and tea bar, and then went back to rest up for Halloween night!

That night, there was a costume contest at the hostel and my friend Mel won! She was the joker from batman and she looked hilarious! The prize was a box of milk, some butter, and a half eaten jar of Nutella- nice! I dressed up as a goth, Abbey was the devil, Megan was a cowgirl, and the rest of the girls were vampires or cats- we all looked pretty awesome! We headed out and went to a few bars and ended up at a nightclub called Granada 10. We called it a night around 5:30 and went back to the hostel. The next day we got up (very slowly) and went shopping on this really cool Moraccan street. After that we got some lunch and headed back to the bus station to head back to Cádiz.

All in all, it was a GREAT weekend. I had so much fun, and it is definitely a place that I HIGHLY recommend. I miss you and love you all!! I think about you guys all the time- can't wait to see everyone in only 6 weeks now!! Wow time is really flying by...

Besos!!

Jade

PS- For all of the great pics check out facebook

Ronda!

Hey All!!

So, this weekend I went to another city in Andalucia called Ronda. It was so fun and pretty... check out the pics on facebook they are great! My roommate Abbey was in the states for a few days because she was in her best friends wedding, and my other roommates went to Granada with some friends so I thought it was a perfect weekend to get away for a little bit and visit my friend Mel. My friend Megan and I took a bus there (it took 3 hours which was kind of a pain) and stayed with her Friday and Saturday.

Ronda is a little mountain town. It has about 30,000 people and it is very touristy. They have a lot of Roman and Arabic ruins around the town along with GORGEOUS views of the Sierra Nevada mountain range- truly a really beautiful city! The drive there and some of the views really reminded me of Colorado. Ronda has a nursing school so there are a good amount of Spanish nursing students in the town, some of which I was able to meet- they were all so nice and fun! I definitely want to go back to visit. During the day, we mainly just went sightseeing- we saw the ruins and hiked around to look at all of the beautiful views. On Friday, Mel set up and intercambio (like an exchange sort of) with some Spanish girls, so we met up with them to Speak English and Spanish. The girls also took us on a little unofficial tour of Ronda which was great! That night, we had some tapas at a local tapas bar and it was really really good!! Really traditional Spanish tapas... we at standing up in the little tiny bar, which is how REAL tapas is done! It is so weird here... people aren't really aware of personal space. Everyone was just crowded in this little bar and no one really seemed to care or become annoyed. Definitely something you wouldn't see in the US.

After tapas we went to another bar, and then we met up with Mel's roommates at a discoteca. You had to be 16 to get in to the discoteca.... and I was carded!! Yes, they actually thought I might be 15 years old. Not exactly a confidence booster!! Haha. The night ended up being very fun though and we made it home at and early (according to Spanish standards) 2:30 am. They next day consisted of more hiking around seeing Ronda and then we went out for tapas and dancing that night again! I wasn't carded this time and we got home at a very respectable 6am!! Today mainly consisted of sleeping, eating, and riding the bus home back to good ol' Cádiz.

I will start my 3rd week of teaching tomorrow. I should also find out sometime this week if I get that other teaching job so I will keep everyone updated on that! All in all, things are going really well here! I miss each of you and I really hope everyone is doing well at home! Keep checking the blog for more updates....

Besos,

Jade