Well it has been a very busy month of March here in Castilla-La Mancha. This is one of the reasons that I haven't written a blog entry in over a month or maybe it's just a excuse for slacking. Either way, I have had an action packed month here in Spain.
Let's start with work: Well things at IES Jorge Manrique (the school that I have been working at) have been going well. I feel very lucky to be working where I am. I have become good friends with many of the faculty and staff at the school and I feel that I'm appreciated by the teachers that I am working with. The kids are good too. Some days they can be a little unruly but hey they're normal Middle School/High School aged kids. They seem to enjoy having me in class with them. My experience has been so good that I've applied to return to the exact place next year.
March was a month for traveling around Cuenca and Spain. The first weekend in March Brian, Martina, I and our Italian friends Gianni and Stefano rented a car together and road-tripped to a small city called Salamanca. Salamanca is a college town if not the college town in Spain. One of Spain's most prestigious and oldest universities is located in Salamanca. It is obvious that life in the town revolves around the university, which was literally in the center of everything. The town was packed with college students from all over the world. After arriving, Salamanca quickly became one of my favorite places in Spain. Beautiful ancient buildings could be found around every street corner. While in Salamanca, we stayed with Martina's friend Ana. She graciously took all five us in and had somehow found a place for all of us to sleep plus two more on Saturday night. The whole day Saturday we explored the city, which as you might be able to tell I really enjoyed. That night Ana and her friends gave us an introduction into the nightlife of Salamanca. As you would expect in a college town, there were plenty of bars to choose from and there were even more students packing all the bars full. It almost was intimidating after being in small-town Cuenca for so long! Sadly, Sunday we had to head back to Cuenca. I hope to one day be back in Salamanca!
The following weekend I received some very special visitors. My friends Jessica and Kevin came down to visit me from Bilbao and oh yeah my good friend Amy made the short trip out from Pullman, WA to visit all three of us. It was great to have some of my best friends from San Jose in Cuenca. One of the worst thing about being here in Spain is that I am so far away from my friends and family back in the US. So the rest of you need to get out here and visit me! It was so wonderful spending time with Kevin, Jess and Amy! Although my Spanish has improved a lot this year, you just can't joke around and communicate the same way you are able to in your mother tongue. It was nice to be speaking English for a little bit again! For the weekend I got to play tour guide for my friends, although I must admit I wasn't a very good one. I have not really visited many of the museums in Cuenca, so my tours commonly consisted of "And this is such and such museum. They say it's pretty nice, but I've never been." The part of tour where I believe that I excelled was showing all three of them the best bars in town. I have considerable experience in that area. The weekend was full of laughs and I believe Kevin, Jessica and Amy had a great time.
After the visit from my buddies from San Jose, I had another unique Spanish experience. As I might have mentioned before, two of my roommates are from a small town in Albacete named Tobarra. In Tobarra, they have a tradition of playing drums during Holly Week (the week before Easter). This tradition is not exclusive to Tobarra, many other small towns in Spain have similar traditions during Holy Week. To celebrate these percussive traditions, all the towns who like to bang their drums go to a drumming festival called the Exaltacion. Each year the location of the festival is held in a different town. This year the festival was held in a town called Alcora, which is north of Valencia. It is quite safe to say that before that weekend I have never drummed as much as I did in my life; it is quite possible that I never spent as many consecutive hours on my feet too. I went to the festival with my roommate and drum enthusiast, Salva. We arrived in Alcora on Friday late in the afternoon. After eating a late lunch/early dinner, we put on our tunics, strapped on our drums and headed to the streets. The festival was a very unique experience. Each town had their own "costume." I wore a purple tunic with a white scarf that is typical Holy Week garb in Tobarra. My favorite outfit was one from a town from the South, which appeared to be a Roman military outfit. It was something akin to the uniforms of the USC Marching Band. In addition to the variety of outfits, each town had their own style of drum and their own cadences. The atmosphere was wonderful because people were happy to teach you the cadences from their town and sometimes they would even let you play their drum. Saturday, we spent nearly 20 hours drumming. We strapped on our drums around noon on Saturday and we did not finally return to our house until 9 am on Sunday morning. It was insane and I'm not sure how I was able to survive the weekend. In the end, Salva and I went back to Cuenca with our heads hurting, ears ringing and our hands burning but it was well worth it.
The last weekend of March was spent back in Cuenca. Since in Spain you can never relax too much on Saturday, I organized a party for all the people working as a Language Assistant in the Province of Cuenca and my friends who are living in Cuenca. Each person who came was supposed bring a typical dish from their country. At the party, we had people from Ireland, Germany, France, Spain and Italy. I was the lone representative from the United States. There was plenty of excellent food. We had Crepes, Spanish tortilla, Pasta salad, Sangria, deviled eggs and a delicious Irish pizza. I made one of my Mom's brownie recipes and guacamole. I also bought some Budweiser that I found at the supermarket. Since here Budweiser is an import beer, it's way more expensive than it should be. After stuffing ourselves with the food and drink, we went out to some of the bars here in Cuenca. It was a great night and I think everybody at the party enjoyed themselves.
Now I have a couple days of rest before I hit the road again. Next week is Holy Week (the week before Easter) and it also happens to be our Spring Break. My cousin Michael is flying from DC Madrid on Saturday and then we will be seeing Madrid, Paris and Cuenca in just six days. It should be as action packed as was the month of March!
Happy Easter to everyone and I hope to hear from all of you in the near future!
