October - A Week in Provence and a few in Barcelona

October 1, 2008 - October 31, 2008

The month was kicked off with a week in Provence with my family, Colleen's family and her sister-in-law's family. It was a week filled with wine tasting, touring small towns around Provence and relaxing days around the Chateau...what a life:) In addition to many wine tasting events, with the support of the group, we were able to add in an evening featuring a beer tasting to represent us minorities amongst the group...they even allowed me to host the tasting and present the various beers to the group. It was a fun week of family, food and spirits that flew by, leaving amazing memories of a very unique experience!! I loved having my family here and having the chance to spend some time with them and to enjoy catching up! My parents, Kelly and Greg flew in and out of Barcelona, so I was able to enjoy them for a few extra days in my city on either end of the trip, which was fun to show them around Barcelona and to enjoy a few drinks and tapas near Barcelona landmarks such as the Sagrada Familia one night, and in the Gothic Quarter and Born area another! My parents were only in town for one night following the Provence trip, but I had Kelly and Greg around for a few more days, where we were able to take advantage of a city tour and fun evenings out and about in the city!

After my family left, the reality of this experience really hit me, that I am really in Barcelona, I really am teaching English, and I am really in a whole new city with so much to see and with so many new people to meet! I have settled into the teaching role, getting to know my different students and learning how to teach English to the various levels, which has been a challenging but interesting experience so far! I have lucked out and I have great students who are engaged and focused on learning English, despite the fact that most of my students are 14 year old boys, who I thought were going to be terrible! Maybe I could do middle school after all:) So I go from house to house in different neighborhoods each day, which has helped me to get to know the city and the public transportation much better everyday.

Outside of work, I am getting to spend time with some friends checking out new parts of the city and tasting new restaurants and bars throughout Barcelona. It's been fun having the opportunity to meet new people from different places. Our group of friends is very diverse, I even noted with Halloween that all my friends were asking me about the traditions and wondering if on Halloween, if children are not given candy, if they would really do something like throw a rock through your window:) It was actually quite funny to me, but made me realize how few American friends I have out here! It's been interesting to meet people from different cultures, as our group is made up of people from Romania, Bulgaria, England, Argentina and other countries throughout Europe and South America. I am working on my Spanish, it is getting better with daily practice on the bus, in the stores, and I'm also doing some intercambios (language exchanges) where I meet with native Spanish speakers and we spend half the time speaking English and half the time Spanish so both people can improve their language skills.

Barcelona is a very lively city and I am glad that I have had the opportunity to experience the sights, nightlife and the culture thus far and look forward to experiencing and seeing so much more:) I'm looking forward to also meeting more locals to add to our multi-national group of friends:)