Las Fallas de Valencia

Otra vez voy a intentar a escribir esto en español y en inglés. como siempre, primero en inglés.

We didn't have school this past Thursday and since we never work on Friday, this meant a 4 day weekend. We took advantage of this and an amazing offer from one of our Aunts in Spain to spend the weekend in Valencia during the festival of Las Fallas. We stayed with one of our "cousins", Cristina, who is really I guess a second cousin but we had fun like we were first cousins. We hadnt seen Cristina for 10 years so we didn't know what to expect but she was so awesome and it was so great to spend time with her.


I guess I need to first explain the premise behind Las Fallas. Its still up in the air how the tradition originated. One theory is that the tradition originated from artisans throwing out their broken or useless works and burning them in the street to celebrate the spring equinox. Whatever the origin, Las Fallas is now a week long festival that culminates in some big fires. Every year, organizations and communities do fundraisers and host banquets to raise money to construct a Falla which is a very large sculpture made out of some sort of wood/cardboard ornately decorated. They can cost as much as 1 million euros and take over a year to construct. After a week of showing them off, they burn them in about 30 minutes. Badass.


We arrived by bus on Wednesday night at 1 AM. There was a big fireworks show that was scheduled to go off at 1:30 AM and we (unfortunately) missed a lot of it because it was impossible to catch a cab. But, we got over it and had ourselves a good time. We set out to see some of the Fallas and meet up with some of Cristina's friends. Jessica and I had brought the bottom half of a bottle of bad rum and manage to suck it up and drink it as we walked through the extremely well illuminated streets of Valencia. The amount of people out and about was impressive and the plazas around each Falla were totally filled with people dancing and drinking. Another popular thing to do was to throw fireworks that, when they explode, move in unpredictable directions like a deflating balloon. If they hit you, they can burn holes in your clothes or burn your skin so they are obviously a little dangerous. At around 4:30, the party ended and we had to head home but not without stopping and buying some buñuelos to snack on.


After getting back to Cristina's at 6:30 AM, we set the alarms for 11:00 AM so that we could get up and go to the Mascletá, a huge display of firecrackers that make an impressive amount of noise. You can't quite appreciate a description but after watching the following two videos, I think you can see that it sounds like a war has broken out and the city is being bombed repeatedly.

(The Beginning of the Mascletá)

(The End of the Mascletá...Impressive)

After an afternoon siesta, we headed back out to the city to see the top rated Fallas before they got burned at night. Some of the Fallas are absolutely astonishing. So intricate and so detailed that it seems crazy to burn them. Its like burning a work of art the size of a normal house. Which, in reality, would be pretty sick.


After dinner we watched the burning of the winning Falla and went home to go to bed. We watched the burning from a nearby rooftop. It was impressive and also strikingly serene to watch it all burn.

(The Winning Falla - Before and After)

On the following day, we rented bikes and rode them through this awesome park. The space was once a river but, after drying up, the river was turned into a park. So now, there is a narrow park that cuts through the middle of the city and goes all the way to the beach. You can see the park in green on this map.


Jessica and I decided to rent a tandem bike which ended up being one of the best ideas we have had yet. We rode the bikes all afternoon, all the way to the beach and back. Valencia is such a pretty city and it was so amazing to get out and see it...on a tandem.


All in all, we only had one slip up on the tandem which involved Jessica falling on her butt when she got her foot caught on the back handle bar trying to get off. I didn't get a picture of it for you guys but I did manage to commit it to memory as one of the funnier things on the trip.

The only thing funnier thing was when Jessica and I encouraged Chris to ride his bike through a seemingly shallow fountain / water reservoir and he ended up going in up to the gears and almost falling in. Ah peer pressure.


As you can see, I now have a digital camera again to replace the one I dropped and ruined the lens. This one is pretty badass and the pictures come out de puta madre.


If you read my blog, shoot me an update. I havent heard from some of you in far too long.

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La version en espanol viene un poco mas tarde...si viene...

A relaxing spring weekend

I would say that sums up pretty well this past weekend. Fun. Relaxing. Tranquil. And other positive descriptive words.

As per usual, the weekend started on Thursday afternoon. After giving a private English lesson, I met up with Manuel to play "Padel" with him and two other friends from our soccer team (Sergio and Ruben). I had never played and had never even seen it played. I was just told it was similar to tennis, which I haven't played in about 17 years. Needless to say, there was a learning curve and it took me a while to pick up the rules and the strategies. A quick youtube search brought up this video which gives you a feeling for how the game should be played. It was not played quite so well. It's a lot like ping pong with a really big table that you stand on. Sort of. Either way, it was fun.

Over the course of the last week, Jessica and I watched the movie Happy Go Lucky. I had never heard of it over here but im sure some of you stateside folks have seen it. It was nominated for an Oscar and won a bunch of random ass international awards. Either way, I thought it was pretty funny and definitely worth seeing. As a movie it's really not much but there are some pretty hilarious parts and is somewhat true-to-life.

Friday was occupied by searching for a place to cut my hair (unseuccessful), a trip to the park, and a trip to the library to return my well overdue books. It's worth mentioning the system of penalties for overdue books in Spain because I find it to be very Spanish. Instead of making you pay a fee and then regain your library priviledges, they suspend your library card for an inordinate amount of time. For books just a month overdue, my card has been suspended until August...nearly 6 months. I find this quirckily Spanish because it makes less work for the library workers and is a much softer punisment than a fine. I guess it's better than Princeton's Public Library policy where they fine you and dont actually make you pay the fine before renting a new book or DVD.

Chris was gone at a frisbee tournament all weekend so Jessica and I prowled the the streets looking for things to do. We found two new bars that were really awesome with a good atmosphere and cheap drinks.

However, the highlight of the weekend was a picnic that Jessica and I organized for my uncle Jorge on Sunday. My aunt Maria Jose and my uncle Jorge both live with my Grandmother. My Grandmother and my aunt went on a cruise with my parents this past weekend so Jorge was left alone to live the life of ease. We hadn't seen him in a while so we siezed the moment and organized a stellar picnic with Spanish tortilla, wine, cheese, strawberries, and more. It was a perfect day and super relaxing.


I appologize for the lack of photos but I am still waiting for my new digital camera to arrive. It's coming over with my aunt and Grandmother tomorrow. In the meantime, we have been using a sketchy disposable camera so get excited for those pics to get developed.

Ya soy casi español

Finally, after 6 trips to the Registro Civil in Madrid, Chris and I have successfully turned in the paperwork to solicit our Spanish nationality. Now we just have to wait about two months for them to process everything. Hopefully, if everything goes as planned, I'll be Spanish in no time.

Por fin, después de la sexta vez que estuvimos en el Registro Civil, ya Chris y yo hemos entregado los solicitudes para coger la nacionalidad española. A ver si en dos meses han arreglado todo y ya somos españoles de verdad. Era un coñazo pero te digo que merece la pena.

Another Day in Paradise

Phil Collins style. Sort of. Except way less depressing than Phil Collins style. This past weekend Chris, Jessica, and I spent 3 days in the beautiful, sunny, warm, precious, Canary Islands. A quick glance at a map makes you think, "huh, the Canary Islands really aren't anywhere near Spain. Weird..." Well, no, they aren't. But they are amazing.


The reason for the vacation was the 10th annual Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Hat Tournament. 3 days playing frisbee on the beach in perfect weather with people from all over Europe, drinking "Tropical" one of the beers made in the Canary Islands. Life is tough eh? The tournament was outstanding. Really well organized and very well run. For those of you that dont understand the concept of a "Hat tournament", it's as if they draw names out of a hat to form teams. So you play with randos.

To top off all of these good things about the tournament, it also took place during Carnaval, a festival similar to Mardi Gras minus the boobs and the beads and plus a lot of this.


The Canary Islands are one of the premier destinations for Carnaval, second only to Rio de Janeiro. Everyone dresses up in costume and heads out to a big park and drinks and has a good time. The Canary Islands (Gran Canaria in particular) are really famous for being gay friendly and Carnaval has morphed into a bit of a drag ball.


Needless to say, Jessica and I partook heavily in the festivities. I dressed up as Peter Pan while Jessica walked the streets as TinkerBell. It was a bit of burning the candle at both ends, staying out until 4ish and then playing frisbee all day. But it was totally worth it.

We saw some very interesting people. Including an older woman dancing at the concert with a water bottle balancing on her head. And an Arab man who got in our face asking us (his words not mine!) why the United States was allowed to take people to Guantanamo and analy violate them. Hand and full-body motions were included.

In terms of frisbee, it was a lot of fun. My team ended up getting third out of nine but thats not really important. I made a bunch of new friends and the tournament was (miraculously) able to bring back my love for ultimate after so many moths of playing sub-par/boring frisbee in Madrid.


After 3 days of ultimate and a weekend in paradise, we arrived in Madrid at 6:30 AM Monday morning, in no way prepared to work through the week. But so it goes.

English Day / El Dia de Inglés

Esto también voy a escribir en inglés y español. Primero en inglés.

So this past week in school was stressful but also sooooo much fun. The bilingual department (with the help of a few other teachers - Marta (4 years old), Gema (grade 6) and others - put together an "English Day". This meant a day to learn about all the different countries that speak English. Each English teacher picked a country and made a "workshop" about that country. Then each class went around to each workshop and learned a few things about them and had fun. We had a workshop for the UK, Australia, and the USA (the other countries got the shaft since we only have so many bilingual teachers). At the end of the day on Friday, we had a parade where each class dressed up like something related to an English speaking country which was awesome.


I was in the workshop of the United Kingdom. It consisted of two parts - "London" and "Nottingham" aka Robin Hood. Needless to say, I took over Sherwood forest and donned the Robin Hood outfit and manned the dart throwing station. Pretty fun.

(Me and the 4 year olds in Sherwood Forest / Yo y los niños de 4 años)

The London part was manned by Carlos and Mercedes. We had made a big double-decker bus that we made and painted and plasticized so that the kids could sit in it and have their picture taken. We also made replicas of a red telephone booth and the big ben. It was a pretty complicated endeavor and we all worked really hard and it turned out really well.


One of the best parts was being able to play with the little kids and meet some of the older kids. The oldest are like 12 so they are, by all means, still kids and its fun to see them come out of their "too-cool-for-school" shell and be dorks like 12 year olds are supposed to be.


Of major mention is one 4 year old named Denisa. She is absolutely adorable and is apparently totally in love with me. She gets really shy when she sees me but she also doesnt stop smiling. Its to the point where her parents asked me if I would take a picture with Denisa. Which was probably the highlight of my day.

(Me and Denisa / Yo con Denisa)

The parade was great and some of the classes looked really good. You can see all of the photos in the facebook album. I walked with my 3rd graders and was dressed as Peter Pan for the parade. The costume was made primarily by Jessica with my help but she was kind of the mastermind.

(Me and my third grade class / Yo con el clase de tercero)

The last note of mention is that, at the end of the day, a 4 year old that I had just met that day came up from behind me while I was taking down the speakers and stuff and cleaning up and she says "adios" in this tiny adorable voice. I turned around to see her all alone just standing there saying goodbye. I gave her a really big hug and sent her off to her mom. Basically, working with kids is making me a total sucker for little girls and insuring me that I need to have a daughter in my future.

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Puedes ver las fotos aqui arriba en la parte del inglés.

Con esta semana pasada en el colegio venía un poco de estres pero lo que salió fue muy divertido. El departament bilingue (con la ayuda de otras profesoras, en particular Gema (sexto) y Marta (4 años)) hizo un "Dia de Inglés" para que los niños pudiero disfrutarse un poco y aprender un poco de la cultura de paises donde hablan inglés. Cada profesor del equipo bilingue seleccionó un país para hacer un taller de las cosas tipicas de allí. Luego, cada clase del colegio entraba en el taller para aprendery participar en las actividades. Había cuatro talleres en total - el Reino Unido, los Estado Unidos, Australia, y uno para deportes. Al final del dia el viernes, hicíamos un desfile por los padres donde los niños estuvieron disfrazados de personajes tipicas de los paises que hablan inglés. Habia vaqueros y vaqueras, indios, la policia britanica, Robin Hood y su mujer (como se llama aquí?), la familia real de inglatera, y mucho mas. Todos los niños desde 3 años hasta 12 han disfrazado por el desfile.

Yo estuvó en el taller del Reino Unido. Consistió de dos partes, una de "Londres" y otra del "Bosque de Sherwood" donde vive Robin Hood. No hay que decirlo, pero ya tengaís que saber que yo me he disfrazado de Robin Hood para controlar el bosque y el juego con los dardos y las dianas. Nuestro taller era "chulisimo" como lo que dicen aquí.

La parte que era Londres, la controlaban Carlos y Mercedes. Hicíamos uno de estos autobuses rojos de Londres y unas réplicas del "Big Ben" (el reloj de Londres) y de una cabina de telefono roja. Era un esfuerzo muy duro para completar todo pero todos nosotros hemos trabajado mucho y todo salío muy bien.

Una de las cosas que me gustó mucho era que pudía jugar con todos los niños pequeños y tambien conocer todos los niños mayores durante dos días.

Algo mas importante era mi abilidad de jugar y conocer mejor una niña de 4 años que se llama Denisa. Ella es absolutamente encancantadora y, aparantamente, completament enamorada conmigo. Se pone muy timida cuando esta conmigo pero no para de reir. Me da mucha gracia por que todos los niños son muy cariñosos pero no muestran los emociones tanto. Durante el desfile, los padres de Denisa me preguntaron si puedo sacar una foto con Denisa y esto era el momento cumbre del dia (aquí puedes decir "la almendra del día"?).

Pase mucho del tiempo con mi clase de tercero. Me encantan estes niños y como siempre, me pasaba muy bien con ellos. Ya me canso de escribir en español. Pues, hasta la proxima, cuidate.

El Dia De Amor

San Valentin was busy this weekend, making everyone in love more in love and everyone not in love... well...more bitter. It was a relatively normal weekend. My aunt Mavi came down to visit from Gijon for the weekend so I spent a fair bit of time with family. On Friday, we ate lunch at my grandmother's house as usual and I ended up staying there and talking for a long time. OH. Speaking of Friday. Here is a little bitter tale...

Chris and I have been attempting to jump through the hoops of securing out Spanish nationality aka birth right. I have personally been to the governemtn office 5 times, each time leaving and thinking "ok at least NOW I know what I need to get in order to get the nationality". Well needless to say, we went again on Friday and came back empty-handed after waiting in line for two hours. Not only do our birth certificates have to be authorized with the Appostille of the Hague from a consulate in the states (already jumped through that hoop), they need to be translated by a sworn and official translator into Spanish. They assured me that, after this, we are done. So let us all wait with baited breath to find out if the next time we waste the entirety of Friday morning we come back feeling just a little more Spanish.

Ok on to San Valentin and his day of love. To start things off, my soccer team got destroyed again, something like 7-2. Oh well..Jessica and I started the night off by cooking some tapas - in particular cherry tomatoes stuffed with a crab meat dip and "buñuelos" which are basically fried balls of cheesy dough and are delicious. After a few glasses of wine, we headed out to a nearby mexican restaurant which has amazing food and pretty damn good drinks. We split a thing of mole enchilidas which arrived impressively quickly for having been cooked in heaven somewhere.

After the mexican restaurant, we went out to a salsa club in the center of the city. The club was packed and the music was really good. For valentine's day the club was playing a game where everyone got a name tag with either the masculine or feminine form of a word and if they found their counterpart they got a free drink. I was "australiano" and, unfortunately I never found the lucky australiana. Jessica and I danced for quite a while and watched some really good people dance for almost as long. It definitely made us feel like we have to start taking dancing lessons. So we will see if we get the motivation to actually do that.

So that was Valentine's Day in a nutshell. (No pictures because we didnt have a camera...woops)

Young Love

No, this isn't about my girlfriend and I, but it is in honor of Valentines day.

Recently, we did an arts and crafts project in 3rd grade where the kids had to use pens instead of pencils. Apparently none of them use pen so the teacher and I lent out our pens. At the end of class, one of the girls who always likes to talk to me and ask me questions asks "Can I have your pen as a present?". Needless to say, I'm a sucker and I am one pen short these days. How cute are little kids? Really cute.