Carmona y Córdoba

Emma and I are not just here in Spain to teach English. We're also here to "conocer Espana y Europa" or travel around and visit as many places in Spain and Europe as possible!!  We spent most of October and November adjusting and wandering around all of Sevilla, but we found some extra time to take a few day trips on the weekend!!  We're saving our "BIG" trips for next semester!

 CARMONA

Carmona is a nice little "pueblo blanco" right outside of Sevilla. This was the first day trip we took after about a week or two in Spain.  It was extremely windy and cold when we arrived that morning and couldn't see anything!  We stopped inside a cafe for about an hour and had breakfast and waited out the fog so we could see more sights.  Shortly after starting our little excursion, we met some tourists from Barcelona and Pais Vasco, other parts of Spain.  We listened to them speak Catalan and Euskara (Basque) which are 2 other distinct languages spoken apart from Spanish.  We also spoke perfect English for them and they were in awe at our English skills.  We continued on to see the rest of the city which took only about 2 hours and went to the edge of town where there are ancient Roman ruins, a necroplis and an amphitheater.   

Cloudy view from the Parador which is now just a luxury hotel.

ruins.

"pueblo blanco"  or  white town.

The tomb was pitch black without a flash from the camera.

I took a random picture inside the tomb and found this cute bum in there.

being a tourist.

It warmed up about 20 degrees right before we left.

CÓRDOBA
The first weekend in November, Emma and I decided to make a trip to Córdoba. Between Carmona and Córdoba (the only 2 places we visited) we like Córdoba the best despite an unlucky situation we found ourselves in on the way home. Córdoba is a UNESCO world heritage site and because it has been conquered and reconquered so many times it also has sooo much culture that I could write and would love to write a gazillion pages about its history and what not....but that's boringggggggggggggggggggg. So I'll just talk about our trip.

We took a 1-hour train ride to Cordoba from Sevilla to begin our journey. Before we arrived in Cordoba, we had only heard about the Great Mosque from our Spanish classes so it was the first thing we went to see!!! You can't go to Cordoba and not see the Mosque. We explored the outer walls before going in and were even bothered by flocks of "gypsies" waiting outside to read the palms of poor and easily persuaded tourists. They insist on giving you a twig of rosemary and if you accept it they expect you to give them money... We even witnessed a gypsy chase another man down until he threw money at her and ran away. Emma and I are pros here in Spain and avoided them by saying we already have love, peace, and happiness and ducked inside the Mosque courtyard. In short, the Mosque/Cathedral started in about 600 a.d. as a "Christian" church, then was conquered by moors, converted into a mosque, then they built a bigger mosque around it, then it was reconquered by Spain and became a cathedral... I had to describe the mosque even though I said the history part was boringgggggg. After the cathedral/mosque, we crossed the bridge and had a nice PB&J sandwich that we made from home with a nice city view. After lunch we farted around town like two bums in love. That evening before coming home we ate at a famous tapas bar called Casa Santos where they have awesomely huge ginormous plates of "tortilla Española"¡¡¡ After filling ourselves with enough carbs to poop out whole loaves of bread and pasta we finally decided to head on home...........we TRIED to head on home.....

tons and tons of painted archways. "The prayer hall"

Outside hanging with gypsies.

touristing.

lunch time by el rio.

Córdoba, we likey.

tortilla and a bald guy.

Emma likey.

Now, the fun starts.......

We began our trip with 70 Euros which should have been more than enough to get by and make it home.

Two 1-way train tickets to Cordoba: €32  

Tortilla Espanola:  €1.50

Candy/Water: €3

Magnet:  €2

2 tickets to enter the Mosque: €16.....   (this is where it all went wrong)

We were currently at €15.50.... and train tickets home were €22........  It's 2 hours by car and 1 day and 4 hours walking.

First we did not buy round-trip train tickets because we weren't sure when we wanted to come back... there were many options.  We (or I rather) made a key decision to pay for the tickets to get into the mosque because you wouldn't go to Cordoba and not go to the mosque!!! It would be like going to the bathroom and leaving before you even went to the bathroom.  You just don't do that or else things go wrong.  We both agreed it was a "smart" decision and if it came down to it, we could pay for the train tickets with our debit cards.  Then Wells Fargo messed it all up from there.  We got to the train station to pay for our tickets and Emma's card didn't work.  Then, we went to withdraw money from an ATM using both of our cards.  It didn't work.  I ran 10 minutes down the road to withdraw money from another ATM with both of our cards and it didn't work.  It was 6:15 and our train was leaving at 6:30 or we had to wait 2 more hours.

We tried calling our friends and they said they'd rent a car and pick us up but it was unnecessary to go through all that trouble.  We tried looking for an internet cafe to call the bank.  There wasn't one.  We tried using an international pay phone, but I couldn't figure out how to work it........
Poor, desperate, and short on time, I finally just asked 2 old ladies if we could borrow €7.  I mumbled terribly in Spanish because we were distraught and didn't want to appear like bums wanting beer or drug money..or gypsies trying to read her future.  She gave us €5 and we begged the ticket salesman to loan us a Euro....   He didn't,  but he told us a cheaper way to get home by taking 2 trains which would have been useful the first time we tried to buy them.....

Thanks old lady, Dios te bendiga.  Senior citizens, although slow and dangerous behind the wheel, can still serve a purpose.

In all, it took us 4 1/2 hours to get home instead of the 1 hour it should have.  We got off the first train to wait another hour and a half for another train at a station that was only 15 minutes outside of Sevilla....  Looking back it wasn't that bad, but in the moment it seemed so terrible.

Waiting on the empty train.

Back home, por fin!

Surfing Couches

We've mentioned Courch Surfers before in a previous post and this past Tuesday we finally hosted our first surfers!!!  Since we created an account, we'd been declining requests to stay in our apartment because we were a little weary about random people staying with us.  I'm sure my parents love the idea of us being in a foreign country hosting other foreigners we don't even know in an apartment that has no barrier between us and our guests while we sleep  (except for creaky stairs that could alert us if someone were to walk up them!!)

Of course the website and "community" of travelers is a lot safer than that.  With background checks, references, and profiles, the whole idea is a lot safer than you would think at first glance.

This particular time was a little different than a normal request to stay at our apartment.  We ran into Max and Leila on the street after we were walking back from the grocery store.  They approached us randomly and asked if we spoke English.  They said they were a part of couch surfers and their host never responded to their request.  Thus, they had no place to stay and were seeing if they could crash at our place!  Emma and I were a little skeptical and we told them we had some friends we would ask, so we got their phone number and went home.  After scanning the couch surfer website frantically for the couple, we finally found them and they seemed legit!  A nice couple of French students who had been traveling around Europe for several months!  Emma and I decided to take the plunge and invite them to stay with us! We called back and they were excited to have a place to stay!

Hanging with our new Couch Surfer friends from France.  We knew we'd be safe. 

Max and Leila (and Jack Nicholson) stayed with us for one fun, interesting, and slightly awkward night (only due to a language barrier).  Max was the funny, outgoing type who knew little to no English, while Leila, who was a bit more quiet, could speak almost perfect English.  
We cooked them warm leftover lentil and potato stew.  We talked about Sevilla and the sights, their travels through Portugal, and French culture and music! Later we skimmed youtube to find lots of French music that they loved.

We went to bed a little early that night because we had work and they were perfectly fine with that because they had been traveling all day with 25 lb bags on their backs.  They left the next morning and Emma and I were assured that we should definitely try and host more people in the future!!

We made it through a night and we're still alive!   Don't worry mom! 

Care paquete

Last week we tried for several days to buy tickets for a trip to Barcelona with our friend Barrett from South Carolina.  It was going to be awesome.  We were going to spend just a few days in the city pretending to speak Catalan, hanging out with the FC Barcelona team, and looking for Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, and Scarlett Johansson from the movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona....

Our plans fell through unfortunately, even after SEVERAL ill-fated attempts at purchasing tickets... 

BUTTTTTTT... on Monday, the last day we tried to purchase tickets, we were greeted at home with an incredible surprise from the states to cheer us up!!

my parents sent us an awesome care package!!!
Even after living here for just a little over a month, you notice things or items that America has and Spain doesn't... and vice versa.
We got a package that consisted of:

Twizzlers, Sour Patch kids, Swedish Fish, Marshmallows, Reese's, Kit-Kat's, Cranberry sauce, magazines, Nestle chocolate chips, Jiffy Cornbread mix, spices, vanilla extract, muffin cups, Instant Betty Crocker muffin mix, AND CANDY CORN!!

It was like Christmas/Halloween/Thanksgiving in one big fat heavy flat-rate box!!

If anyone else feels the need to send us anything, please feel free!!!

Thanks mom and dad!!!!!

Halloweiner! and more.

The weekend of Halloween was pretty eventful here in Sevilla.  Of course we had a normal 12-hour work week at school, but I got to spend Wednesday and Thursday explaining what Halloween was to 3rd-6th graders!!  Halloween is by far in my top 3 favorite holidays... if not my favorite!  Emma's too!

The week was mainly spent on teaching basic Halloween vocabulary words and A LOT of coloring Jack-o-lanterns.  We even made 4 huge banners to hang in the hallway that said "Happy Halloween."  The 5th and 6th graders wrote out the words and drew pictures on it for the 2nd-4th graders to color.  The banners would have been great if they had drawn more than just spiders, pumpkins, weird faces with blood coming out of the eyes, the "Saw" clown guy, and ghosts that were more like Grimace from McDonald's than actual ghosts....  I might have the drawing ability of a 3 year old, but i am way more creative...  I guess I only rant because I love Halloween and I missed it back home and their silly drawings didn't satisfy my need for huge bags of candy and trick-or-treating.

We had been talking about Halloween all week and I was so pumped to dress up on FRIDAY for school!  I went as a hillbilly because of my lack of resources and my belief against buying a "real" costume just for Halloween.  I was hoping the teachers wouldn't think I was just a gay lumberjack with no teeth and cutoff jean shorts...  Of course, I had a mustache and pork-chop sideburns just like I do every time I dress up even when it's not Halloween.

ol' tree trunk legs was the only one out of 200 students and staff dressed up for Halloween on this day.

I made them touch my belly... I'm not sure if they wanted to or not.

One of the 12 English classes I teach.  I convinced them I was Wesley's brother rather than just me dressed up as something weird for Halloween. 

The teachers loved that I dressed up and came to school.  The kids loved it, I think.  They really had no idea what to think.  Spain, or atleast where we live in Sevilla,  associates American Halloween with Dia de los Muertos and some other pagain rituals haha.  All the kids believe it has something to do with everything scary.  When kids dress up, there is no Peter Pan, Snoopy, Superman, or anything like that.  It's all vampires and witches. Also, Trick-or-Treating is a little hard because everyone lives in apartment buildings or pisos.  There aren't very many individual homes unless you go way out past the pueblos.  When I asked teachers if they like Halloween, they said "Halloween no va conmingo" or in other words it doesn't fly here.   It's ok.  I brought the joy of Halloween to them anyways!

FRIDAY NIGHT, we also went to see a scary movie! We saw "Los Ojos de Julia" which was pretty decent and a good movie for Halloween.  Also, a large popcorn and 2 large drinks is about $10 here in Sevilla as opposed to $754,632 in the states.


SATURDAY was spent mainly hanging out and going on walks before we went to "Noche Entre Amigos" (Night among friends).  One night a month, one of the Christian churches in Sevilla has a night for people to come and listen to music.  Jordan, Sarah, and I played 2 songs in English for the ol Spaniards.  We played the folky version of "I Saw the Light"!  The Spaniards never really get to listen to this kind of music so they loved it!  So now the people who meet Emma and I will associate us with country music, Sweet Home Alabama & Forrest Gump (the only 2 things spaniards know about Alabama), and Wesley Snipes (the only person they know with my same name). 

Spaniards don't smile.  

                                
I Saw the Light from Wesley Teague on Vimeo.


SUNDAY we went down to Jordan and Sarah's apt. to celebrate Halloween! They invited several Spaniards, but of course none of them showed up because they probably didn't want to celebrate all the pagan rituals we were going to be doing like eating candy, making Jack-o-lanterns and wearing our cool costumes!
I dressed up as my ol' hillbilly self from Alabama and Emma went as..... a kitty of course!!  Sarah and Jordan were pirates.  We made jack-o-lanterns, ate some pumpkin stew, watched micheal jackson, and listened to scary music.

kitty

A kitty and a kitty.  Which one is my wife??

Our Jack-O-Lantern!

up-to-date

We are coming to the end of our first whole month here in SEVILLA!  It has been an awesome month.  Before too much time passes and I forget everything, I figured I might as well post about everything that has been going on now instead of backtracking so much!!

I wish I could make a post about everything thing we've done here this month and all the people we met.  I even continue to get more and more ideas for certain fun posts, but I'm a big procrastinator and it's taking all I have to make this one big post.....

So here is our first month of Spain in a nut shell from about the time we moved into our "piso" until the end of October. (Emma posted pics of our apartment on our photo blog here!) 

The weekend before we moved in to our apartment, we went out on our own and just had a photo excursion of the city center.  We had some coffee and explored the city center!

The Alcazar!

Silly horsey.  This ride should only cost 30something euros, but the drivers ask for 50... and the  horses don't have poop bags....

Emmie girl in the cathedral where they got really mad at me for wearing my hat....

Later that evening, Emma and I stayed in to watch the Alabama vs. South Carolina game on the compooter.

streaming the game wasn't worth it.  I only caught every other 20 seconds.

This is my mad face because of the result of the game, the quality of streaming the game, and the burned quesadilla I was eating....

but it's ok, I still love you Alabama.

The day after we moved into our new apartment, we went to IKEA to buy some homey nick-knacks to give our new place a personal touch!  People also like to come to Ikea on the weekends because it's the cheapest place to buy a hot dog and drink.  They also have free refills here in the Ikea which are very hard to come by in Spain.  I enjoyed watching about 6 spanish ladies spill their drinks and create a massive flood at the drink machine because they aren't accustom to filling their own cups.... amateurs.

First time we have both been to Ikea!

I was super pumped and very overwhelmed!

A few weeks ago, Sarah and Jordan took us to the Carrefour to visit the pet store!! They were debating on buying a kitty at the time.  Carrefour is also the Spanish equivalent to Wal-Mart. (but we think Carrefour might be a French company...nobody knows.)

Silly Shar-Pei. how old is he? nobody knows. He has one wrinkle for every year he's been there. 

Pug love.  We enjoyed listening to their snorting faces right through the glass.

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Emma wanted to buy this just so she could wear it around the house..... She also made me promise not to say anything mean about this picture...

Sally's Spanish brother!!

One sunday night on our way back from church, we walked through the Alameda which is where you can find several awesome tapas bars and the place for all the hipsters to hang out.  On our way through we came across some old men in Star Wars costumes.  Every year they come and reenact scenes from the newer Star Wars movies... probably because part of Star Wars was filmed right here in Sevilla!!! (more on Star Wars and Seville later!)

All the people at church call me "mini Jordan" because we both have beards, hats, and cardigans. 

On Wednesday's, Emma and I go to a worship service that Jordan and Sarah help lead.  This one particular wednesday I got to help with worship!  They have people come and give testimonies or just praise the Lord through worship.

On October 21st, Emma and I celebrated our TWO MONTH anniversary together!!!!!! We cooked breakfast for dinner and then went to an "heladeria" that we had yet to try for some ice cream!!

We could only make french toast and eggs.  They don't have bfast sausage, grits, or good pancake mix..... 

Me wanting ice cream.

Me getting ice creamsss.... and me getting to LOVE my little emmie!

Last weekend, we went with the Bentleys and their couch surfing friends from Germany to a free flamenco show for some Andalusian culture.  You normally have to pay for the good shows, but it was still fun!!

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the gang.

Now comes Emma's favorite part of our whole first month since we've been in Spain!!!  Our friends bought a kitty from the animal shelter here in Sevilla.  It's name is Rayas (stripes)!!!!  Sometimes I wake up in the morning and notice that Emma is gone for days...  She's just hanging out with Rayas.  Rayas is a very cuddly striped kitty with a lot of gas.  She normally poots about every 10 minutes or if you pull her tail.  You can't hold it against her because she is sooo cute (Emma's words, not mine...)

On the couch alone because she probably pooted.

We love you Sevilla! here comes November.