Curiosa Alyssa se está divirtiendo en Talavera de la Reina (3)

On my walk home everyday

     Classes have been going well for me so far. I have made some friends, learned some Chinese and Morrocan Arabic, and enjoyed some chilly mornings waiting for the school doors to open. I am able to hitch a ride with the girls when they go to school in the morning. Carmen takes them and we walk them to their class and then hop into the car and she drops me off in front of school. Unfortunately the doors don´t open until about 9:10 and I usually get there around 8:45. Luckily I have my ipod and I stay upwind from the other students smoking before class. Class gets out about 11:00 and I either "tomar algo" (drink some juice at a cafe with classmates) or walk home. My walk home takes about 30 minutes and I pass many cafes, the park from the picture above, fountains in the roundabouts, and then walk on a bridge over some train tracks. That is my favorite part of the walk because there is just enough wind that I can´t smell the exhaust coming from the cars next to me. I usually see people walking on the bridge for exercise. When I get back I grab a morning snack, review my new words, and go on a jog or walk. I walk back over the bridge to a neighborhood on the otherside. Sometimes a school holds their physical education class in a park in the neighborhood and I run alongside the students. Around 2, we eat delicious lunch and have a lesson in english/spanish. We pick up the girls from school around 5 and I play with them until 8or 9 for dinner. After dinner, Carlos, Carmen, and I talk for a while until they go into the living room to watch their show. I go downstairs and write this blog or read and sleep. There you have my usual day! I enjoy routine sometimes and one of my greatest joys is picking the girls up from school.

Inside Ruiz de la Luna

     One day, spontaneously, Ana (a German Au Pair, she went home this Wednesday) and I went to the ceramic museum. Talavera is known for its classic ceramic tiles and plates in all of Spain. The style is almost always with blue and a dark yellow. The museum is called Museo de Cerámica Ruiz de Luna. Ruiz de Luna is a very famous ceramista from near Talavera. We continued on a walk in the old town of Talavera de la Reina. It was very peaceful and quiet as no cars were allowed to drive throught the old roads.

Iglesia de S. Agustin el Viejo. 17th Century

Torre de Reloj 

    I cannot believe that more than 2 months have passed since I started with this family. Time has flown by and I feel that there is still so much for me to see and do and learn! It is also strange to me to be so alone while so many things in the world are happening. Yes, Carlos and I talk about deeper topics, but our language barrier limits us sometimes and we generally agree on things making the conversations shorter and easier. I have been able to spend time reading the news, in english, and I happened upon a wonderful picture of someone meditating. Below the picture the caption read: Occupy the present.

Curiosa Alyssa va a Madrid

Plaza Mayor

     Earlier I mentioned I made a friend named Emily from Wisconsin with Nina at ferias. Luckily I kept in contact with her and she invited me to stay in her piso in Madrid for a night. I accepted the offer and together we went on a free walking tour of Madrid. I learned a lot more about spanish history, some funny stories about spaniards, and the reason Tapas are called Tapas. Our tour guide was from Israel and was small but had a large head of hair (see picture below). When he talked his hair bounced. Our guide came to Madrid to persue his passion of playing flamenco guitar! We walked from one of the oldest main plazas in the city, and through different neighborhoods learning about the conquistadores and the spanish civil war.

Palacio Real de Madrid

 

Palacio Real de Madrid 

    We walked by the Royal Palace but never went inside. I have heard it is spectacular inside so maybe I will come back and check it out. I hesitate because I think it may be overwhelming to see all 2,800 rooms. (Nope, that is not a typo!)

Calle de Vergara 

     We did some more walking, of course, and worked up an appetite. So mid-tour we stopped for a snack. The tour goers enjoyed some beer and I enjoyed a mini bocadillo made with four delicious cheeses. We had the fuel we needed to complete the rest of the tour. We learned about footballers, bullfighters, and other noteworthy people of spanish history. The statue below is of a poet, but I was distracted and didn´t catch his name. Some Belgians distrupted the tour with a dance. All the while I couldn´t help but think about how cool it was that Earnest Hemmingway frequently dined in the restaurant behind this statue. I came out of the tour knowing more about the life of a spaniard in Madrid and the recent history of the government in Spain.

Drunken tour crashers from Belgium

      Later, Emily and I shared some dinner and went to a bar with Nina and her amigo. I feel so lucky to have made Emily as a friend and contact in Madrid and I hope to visit her more. I would love to see more art in the city and visit more with someone so funny and girly and incredibly nice.

Curiosa Alyssa explora Toledo

TOE LEE DOUGH

     Because I don´t have classes on Wednesdays, I decided to take advantage of my time and hit the road to Toledo. There is a bus from Talavera to Toledo that lasts about 1.5 hours. I woke up with the family, took the girls to school, and stayed downtown to wait for the next bus out. On the bus ride we passed through about 8 different pueblos, continually picking up older people as we travelled along. The bus arrived at the station at the very bottom of the hill where the old part of town sits on top. I visited the tourist information office, made a strategic agenda, and began my accent to everything old, narrow, and ornate.

Just outside the walls of the city

Starting my trek up to the old city

   

Key-hole doorway of a mosque

This street turns into nothing!

Getting lost in Toledo is okay with me

     Because I caught such an early bus, the only people around were hurrying on their way to work or school. I passed a few mosques and convents to arrive at a bridge that would provide a good view of the city from outside.

Puente de San Martin

The view from the other side of the bridge. You can see Monasterio de San Juan de los  Reyes.

     I went inside Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes, Sinagoga de Santa Maria la Blanca y Parroquia Santo Tome. Inside Parroquia Santo Tome, I saw the magnificent piece, The Burial of the Count Orgaz by El Greco. After that I immediately went the Casa Museo de El Greco and learned about the painter and sculptor. His art can be found all over the city of Toledo. I learned about his technique too because the little blurps next to each picture were translated into english. Interesting fact: I have observed all four of the apostle series by El Greco. The museum mentions that in his workshop he allowed contributors to his paintings, but painted 4 apostle series. I saw it first in the Prado Museum in Madrid, second in the museum of El Greco, third in the Toledo Cathedral, and fourth this past weekend in Oviedo at the Museo de Bellas Artes!

The Cathedral bell tower. 

      I was starving after the museum and hopped over to a cafeteria to eat and then over to the Sinagoga del Transito. This was a very beautiful synagogue and museum about the history of judios in Spain. I managed to get lost a little bit more until I happened upon the Toledo Cathedral. This is by far the coolest cathedral I have been to in my life. Everything about it was ornate and giant and holy. Had I felt more comfortable taking pictures inside, I would show them here. Instead, I decided to see everything with both eyeballs and take in all of its shininess. Maybe one day you will be lucky enough to see it for yourself. With that, I will finish writing and start living.

Curiosa Alyssa se está divirtiendo en Talavera de la Reina (2)

The girls before their first day of school. Lucia is not excited.

     Upon my return to Sevilla, the girls and I enjoyed our last week of summer vacation by playing games and riding our bikes and swimming in the pool. But vacation had to end some time and the girls could no longer sleep in until their mother´s high heels woke them up. The girls attend a private catholic school. At their school the teachers are nuns and students attend from kindergarten to the end of what is high school in Spain. The girls look so cute in their uniforms every morning! Since I have started spanish classes at the adult school we have been able to share breakfast every morning. They both drink hot chocolate and dip cookies into their hot chocolate. This keeps them until about 11 when they consume more cookies for snack, and then they eat again around 2pm a full, balanced meal. They think my fruit for breakfast is so strange. This week, upon seeimg me eat a banana and tea, Marina said to me "I could never get used to an American breakfast." Yet they don´t hesitate to admit that they think my oatmeal is delicious. We all get into the car, Carmen, Marina, Lucia and myself, and drive into town. First we drop off the girls and then I get dropped off in front of the school to wait until 9:15 for classes to start. They never exactly start at 9:15 because the professora enters the room around 9:20 everyday. Once I thought I had missed the memo that there was no class one day because I was the only one in the classroom until about 9:20, then I remembered that I am in Spain and that most people seem to not take punctuality too seriously.

Just a photoshoot in los Jardines del Prado

     When Nick visited town we saw some cool things, but I still had not really remembered my way around the city. We went to the Jardines del Prado together and played around. It was my only time to have Nick to myself because when we were at the house I let the girls hog him. Of course they thought he was SO funny and playful. They made music together on Nicogrande´s ukulele and he launched them in the pool over and over again. To this day they still talk about the "potato" that is his bicep muscle.

The result of Spaniards at Ferias de Talavera

     I would like to explain the picture above. The family I am with has had two Au Pairs before me. One is named Nina and she is from the Phillippines, another named Leah from Boston. Nina loves Talavera and Spain so much that she decided to stay after her time with the family and teach english in private academies. She now lives in Madrid and has a pretty sweet life there so far. She came down to enjoy some of Carmen´s delicious paella and invited me to farias, something very exciting for Talaverians. Twice a year, Talavera hosts a fair and it brings many people from the surrounding area to come and play and drink and dance. The fair is similar to what you would expect a fair in California to be, except no livestock. Awesome people watching, fattening food, rides, etc. The fair here is a little different though, because the vendors dress in medival clothing and alcohol is 1/3 the price. Around 11:30pm we walked from her friend´s house to farias to see the specatacle. There is an area where all of the young people go where different clubs and bars set up tents and sell alcohol and blare their music. If you can imagine a large square with about 6 tents on each length blaring music so loud you cannot hear what your friends are saying. It was surreal to stand in the middle of the square and hear all of the unsynchronized beats and see all of the young spanish people. I met some really sweet girls from the U.S.A., Gretchen and Emily,  with Nina at ferias and we wandered around from tent to tent. Throuhgout the entire night we were stared at, and I think it is because we looked pretty different from them. I am considered very tall in Spain, and the girls are considered very tall for American´s and especially tall for Spaniards. Emily and I are also rubias (blondes) and it must have been something of a spectacle to see three tall white chics actually dancing to the music in the temporary tents at farias. It was a great night/morning. Anyway, back to this picture. Spaniards don´t throw away their trash. If they don´t want to carry their wrapper, used cup, kleenex, whatever, they just drop it on the floor. I am in a country full of litterbugs! Anyway, I know people do things differently everywhere and that I shouldn´t say it is bad. I was so disgusted on our walk home that I had to take this picture. I came back to that area two days later with the girls and they were STILL cleaning up trash.

An ice cream date with the family of Alejandra. From left: Carmen, Leon, Marina, Alejandra, Priscilla, y Lucia

Celebrating Carmen´s birthday!

     Since I have been here we have celebrated Carmen and Carlos´s 16th wedding anniversary and also Carmen´s 44th birthday! The girls and I made her cards and helped her with dinner. She made this cake and the girls decorated it. This was an especially memorable meal for me for some reason. This family is so happy!! I have shared almost every meal with the family since I have been here. I reallly think that because of this I have had more opportunities to learn more about each of the family members and also more about Spain. Every meal, EVERY MEAL, we watch the news. I usually don´t understand what they´re saying but understand what they´re talking about, if that makes sense. Eventually it is explained to me and we drag on our meal much longer to have a language lesson afterward. One funny story with dinner: So I am here to learn spanish and try to speak spanish when I know that I know how to say something. Well I decided I knew how to say: Can you pass me the cheese, please? So with my attempt, I said "Puedes pasearme el queso, por favor?" Immediately the girls were red in the face from laughing so hard while Carlos stood up and walked the cheese around the room, making fun of what I had just said. I basically asked him to walk the cheese instead of pass it to me. There have been many more instances of my mistakes in spanish, never ceasing to generate a great laugh for the niñas.

At Carmen´s birthday lunch. Lucia is such a diva!

Cerámicas de Talavera 

The pueblo of El Real de San Vicente in the hills near Talavera

     The family has been eager to show me the surrounding area of Talavera, and one weekend they decided to take me to some pueblos surrounding the city. We all packed into the X3 and ascended to nearly the top of this mountain. Each pueblo is small, if I had to guess, maybe the size of Los Olivos. We never made it to the top because there was a race involving neon subarus that we wanted to avoid. Our drive ended in a hill pueblo called Navamorcuende. The above picture of the ceramics on the patio walls was taken there. We enjoyed some tortilla de patata and drove back into Talavera. The landscape on the mountains reminded me a lot of home in Santa Barbara because of the numerous oak trees.
 

Trinidad square in Talavera

The front of Bascilica del Prado

     Like I said, I have started classes in castellano for extranjeros at the adult school in town. The classes are free and my classmates are nice folks. Yesterday we figured out that our class includes extranjeros from 10 different countries! I go to class four days a week for two hours. Two days of the week it is really basic spanish for people just starting and then the other two days is more advanced! I have met another Au Pair through the class from Germany and we have done some exploring together through town. One day we grabbed some tea and walked through the main street downtown and visited the bascilica. 

     I don´t have class on Wednesdays so I took advantage of the time and treated myself to a day in Toledo. Look forward to reading about it soon!!

La lluvia en Sevilla es una pura maravilla

Emiliano, me, and Nick

     I met Nick in the Puerta Atocha train station in Madrid and we took a high speed train to Sevilla to arrive in the late morning. Before I left, the girls taught me this rhyme ´la lluvia en Sevilla es una pura maravilla.´ And it was true, it rained in Sevilla the morning we arrived to later reveal clear, sunny skies and a lovely temperature. Andalucia is generally much warmer than Madrid, and so I was lucky to experience a mild weekend. During our time in Sevilla, Nick and I stayed with Nick´s friend Emiliano. Emiliano hosted Nicotito and Nicogrande last year during their time in Sevilla and was nice enough to  host us again this fall. Our first day we walked around the city some, we went the the cathedral and the Alcázar.

If you´re not busy looking at the map because you´re lost, you can see some pretty amazing buildings in Sevilla.

Torre de la Giralda, the bell tower for the Catedral.

Emiliano inside the Alcazar.

      The Alcázar was very impressive to me! The structure and the intricate details of the walls were unlike anything that I had ever seen.  If you check out my flickr photostream, you can see many more pictures of the gardens, my favorite part. After spending some time here, we walked around the corner to where Nicotito, Nicogrande, and Emiliano played music on the street last year. They recreated a memory and I was able to document their joy of sharing music with all of the passersby.

Rocky Racoon or Let It Be 

Rio Guadalquivir

      That night we shared dinner and eachother´s company at Emiliano´s apartment. The next day we went to Barrio Triana to enjoy lunch with some of Emiliano´s dear friends. Alicia, David, and their son Ivan. David made paella and we sat in their patio for hours talking in english and spanish. They played some more music and Alicia sang! That evening we went to a lovely flamenco concert and then to some Moroccan tea with Alicia and David again. I had never seen flamenco before and was incredibly impressed with the dancing and the atmosphere. We were in a courtyard that smelled of fresh flowers and listened to a man sing, a man play guitar, while watching a male and female dance. I look forward to watching flamenco again.

Bladerzzz

A siesta after a long day on Emiliano´s couch

     The last day in Sevilla before I caught the train to get back to Talavera, the three of us went to these Arabic baths. Check it out!We had about 45 minutes to go from bath to bath and relaxed the entire time. I want to take my family back to this place because it was such a nurturing experience.

This is what I came home to! Lucia, Marina, Alejandra y Leon.

 The south of Spain was so different from the places that I have been to so far. I am really looking forward to seeing my family this December and sharing Andalucia with them for a week.

Curiosa Alyssa se está divirtiendo en Talavera de la Reina

Known for its ceramics, Talavera has many signs made from ceramic tiles.

      Nick was right, it is hard to keep up on a blog. And it is hard to imagine that so much time has already passed since I have arrived to the home of this beautiful family. I think there are 45 seconds to every minute here in Spain compared to home. I am sitting now in my room using the computer of Carlos,the father. Carlos, Carmen, and I have just finished a lesson in english and spanish about the human body. We specifically talked about the nervous system and also blood. We started to have a conversation about teeth, but I could not recall all of the technical names for the teeth at that time. 

     I will begin: I arrived to the house on August 26th. They have a beautiful home and yard where they spend a lot of time when the weather is nice. I will talk in detail more about each family member as I have come to know them in a later blog. The family consists of Carlos, Carmen, Marina (10), and Lucia (8). They live in a subdivision just on the brim of town that is very safe and almost luxurious. The community has two tennis courts, some racketball type courts, a pool, a restaurant, and two parks. The neighbors are very nice and you can almost always see someone walking their dog. My first few weeks in Talavera were like summer. Marina and Lucia are very fortunate girls who had just returned from vacation in the south of Spain at their vacation home. In the beginning, the girls did not have school and the weather was fantastic, so many days we stayed home, swam in the pool, and danced around in english to Selena Gomez. They adore Selena Gomez! The food so far has been delicious and I have learned from Carmen how to make her bomb Gazpacho. They have been very accommodating with my vegetarianism, but Marina really still can´t understand why I would not eat jamon. Being vegetarian here is worthy of its own post too, so if you´re lucky I will talk about it more later. When I arrived to the house I explained to them that my boyfriend had surprised me from California, and that I would really love to go down to Sevilla to spend more time with him while he is in the same country. My wish was granted and so for the very first weekend of my time with them, they allowed me to go to the south of Spain. Our agreement before my arrival was that I would only take one day off on the weekends. This is because during the week, Carmen and Carlos work everyday. They want me to work one weekend day so that they can spend time with me and practice their english. I am so happy that things worked out and that I was able to take three days off. My grandfather put it well when he said ´What kind of boss lets you have the first weekened off?´ 

     My first impressions of Talavera were so-so. I had just come from Salamanca, where the old town is big and beautiful and lively. Here in Talavera the old town is very old, but not quite as lively and beautiful. Well I suppose it is beautiful in its own way. (Pictures to come later). They drove me around town through many different round-abouts and showed me important things that I should see later. To this day, I still don´t know where some of the places are that they drove me to, but I will find them before December! They also took me to my first time in a Corte Ingles. WOW. Corte Ingles is like a giant department store with a supermarket, clothing, books, travel agency, hair salon, stationary store, etc. All of these things together is interesting to me, to say the least. (By the way, I find out later the Corte Ingles is also the only place that sells peanut butter). When we went on errands later that week, I noticed how well the family dresses, and how well other familys dress when they leave their house. It never gets old to me how cute the girls look in their matching dresses. Another thing that impressed me during my first week, was the amount of chocolate and sugar that the girls eat. I know exactly where to find the fattening stuff in this house and it is very dangerous for me! 

Lucia, Alejandra (Marina´s soul sister), and Marina in the yard. 

Some flowers from their yard. They refer to their yard as a jardin. 

    Oh, and I miss my friends and family :)