Long weekend travels

Tomorrow morning I am heading to Bilbao y San Sebastian with some mates. Gracias to a Thursday holiday in Spain I get Thursday y Friday off of school - perfect for traveling!

Once I return my new sd card reader will soon arrive and I can post some more photos!

Gracias garbage!

I was running  late to meet someone and walked out my door. Lo and behold, I spied this map laying on top of the garbage across the street. How could I pass that up?

So I grabbed the map, brought it in and then ran to meet  my amiga. 

I question who threw this great Spain map away but appreciate that I was the first to spy  it and that it is in pretty good condition.

It now hangs on  my wall above my love seat. It makes my apartment look much more homey to have something on the wall and the fact that it was free makes it even better.

Other things Jessika has awkwardly spied next to the garbage and taken as her own... a vase, a drawer (to keep my shoes in..) and a wooden crate that had been used to deliver fruit (and now holds yarn).

Aceitunas. Me gusta!

One day this tent appeared in the plaza right near my casa.  It was an interactive educational tent to teach people about olives. I'm pretty sure it was geared towards kids (colouring pages, tiny benches for the informational cartoony video, etc.), but I went in anyways.

I walked in and was handed a bag with three cans of olives so even though it was definitely for children at least I walked away with free olives!

One can is full of olives stuffed with anchovies. Yuck. I'm saving those for Nathan to eat.

Toledo. p4 - Nature walk!

Either this wasn't in Toledo when I was there or I was lame and didn't realize.

I was on my way back to the bus station when I saw a sign for a nature trail. 

Luckily my bus ticket back to Madrid was open ended so I could leave at any time. 

Off to explore and  go on a relaxing fall walk!

The trail went around the outside of Toledo so for most of the walk I had a view of the impressive city walls.

Could Toledo be more spectacular?

As I walked on the trail I came across tons of random ruins.

There was a tiny tiny dark stairway so I went to the top of this to get a better view of the river and city.

These ruins looked  like they were turned into a community garden. And what's that I see? Rain barrels? Someone loves Mother Earth.

There were a ton of ducks in the river. If I go back I'll be sure to bring some bread to feed them.

Now for some two photos of Jessika standing awkwardly.

I'm hoping that when Nathan comes to visit we have time to walk the entire trail.I was on it for a long time and stopped walking as I realized I was near the bus stop. It'd be fun to walk the entire trail.

Toledo. p3 - El Museo del Greco

El Museo de Greco houses paintings done by Greco and also includes a tour of his casa. I followed a tour group for a bit but then broke off and went on a Jessika-guided tour.

Because I was guiding  my own tour - I'm not really clear what this cave thing was. Or how it is connected to Greco.

There was a nice garden area with random statues, benches and fountains. I enjoyed 3/4th of a woman statue.

Greco's casa.

Toledo. p2 - Museo Sefardi

While in Toledo I toured el Museo Sefardi which is housed in the Synagogue of El Transito. After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain it was turned into a church.

Inside the synagogue.

Outside in the memory gardens.

Some creepy faces from the patio area.

Toledo. p1

A few weekends ago I took a day trip to Toledo. It was fun to go there and see what I remembered and what was  different from when I studied abroad there.

Toledo is a marvelous old walled in city. Very different than Madrid.

 Gorgeous.

I love the tiny, winding roads. Cars can't fit down most of them and some are barely big enough for a car. A few times I had to stand in a doorway as a car  drove by. 

The cathedral  in Toledo.

History lesson. Toledo of the past was home to three religions - Muslim, Jewish and Christian. Of course like times of the past they lived in separate areas of the city. 

Here is a map showing the Jewish neighborhood.

These areas weren't just areas where specific religions tended to live. They were actually separated - with doors such as this. 

Change of subject.

Marzipan. Mmm.

Toledo has a well known seller of marzipan.  Santo Tome. The first thing I did when I got to Toledo was to buy some marzipan. Amazing. This pieces has pine nuts on it. Pine nuts and marzipan? Yes please.

I also would not say no to eating an entire castle of marzipan...

Christmas lights!

They are putting Christmas lights up all around Madrid and there are a  few Christmas markets set up as well. The lights  were just turned on a few nights ago so I'll be sure to take pictures soon.

I walked around last night to look at the lights and was in Christmas heaven. 

Ah. Christmas in Spain. I'm excited.

Long time, no post.

Don't worry - Jessika is still alive in Spain. 

I haven't been able to upload my photos to my computer - hence the lack of posting. I felt like posts with all words and no photos would not be very enjoyable.

I'm working on trying to figure out the problem (personally I blame Air Canada - ever since they dropped my laptop the USB ports have been pretty wonky). As soon as I can upload my pictures I'll have some photo filled blog posts. 

What I've been up to..

Last weekend I went to Toledo for a day. It was marvelous! Toledo is where I studied abroad many a year ago so it was fun to walk around and remember a ton of things. There were also plenty of new things to see and I ate my fill or marzipan. 

At school my students "wrote" letters to Santa saying what they wanted for Christmas. I put wrote in quotes because the kids are in second grade so their letters consisted of pictures with a few words.

I also taught the kids about being thankful for things on Thanksgiving and had them write what they are thankful for. Some kids didn't really get it and wrote things like "my brother was a skeleton for Halloween" and some kids tried to just copy mine and wrote that they were thankful for "my husband"...but most kids got it.

I've been hanging out with some great people from the UK and learning all sorts of new words and phrases. Apparently in the UK "fortnight" is used often. When I first heard it I was like "so...every other day" and was laughed at. I guess it means two weeks and is used quite frequently. Also, when someone says "let's meet at half 8" they mean 8:30. At first I wasn't sure if this meant half after 8...or half to 8. Now I know. 

I joined a gym. (say what?!?). Yes. Jessika has joined a gym. The first day there I was awkwardly using the elliptical wrong (which I wasn't aware was possible...) so that just goes to show you how Jessika and the gym don't mix. BUT...I have a two hour lunch break at school and needed something to fill my time with. I now know how to use the elliptical and have yet to die whilst on it. 

Reading. I've been reading a ton. I read on my way to and from work and when I'm on the elliptical. Books I've read since I've been here: One Day, The Help, Bossy Pants, A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. I'm currently reading A Feast for Crows and next will read Committed. If anyone has book suggestions - feel free to send them my way. 

It's been getting colder - though not near as cold as good old Minnesota y North Dakota. It's usually about 65 degrees in my apartment, colder in the morning. Luckily I received some super warm flannel sheets in the mail (thanks again Terese y Ken!) so I've been cozy warm in bed.

Aahhh. See how boring this is with no pictures? Pretty boring.

Getting to school

I live in Central Madrid but the school I teach at is in Getafe. It takes me about 45 minutes to an hour to get to work each day. Fun times.

From mi casa I walk about 10 minutes to Puerta del Sol. From there I take the Cercanias from Sol to Getafe.

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Then I hop on the metro for a couple of stops.