Life Update

Hi all!  Well, I wish I could say I’ve been up to interesting things, but life has been pretty mundane here for the past few weeks.  My trip isn’t until the end of the month, this coming weekend, so I’ve just mostly been focusing on my teaching, lesson planning and general vacation planning.  I’m going to Merida this coming weekend with my wonderful Northern Irish roommate who is willing to travel with my crazy ass.  Other than that, I did the one day trip out to Rio Tinto and have been spending my weekends with my friends, and occassionally going to the beach when it’s warm enough.  The beginning of the month was very warm so we went to the beach two weekends in a row and took advantage of the good weather. 

 


I also took a day trip out to Sevilla with Camille at the beginning of the month and we explored some parts we haven’t seen before and went shopping!  The shopping is just so much better in the big city than in my little city.  And we discovered some cool new things they have in Calzedonia, the tights and leggings store.  Tights and leggings are more than just a thing here, they are a way of life.  So having cool tights is a must.  We went to the look out point on top of the Mushroom.  The Mushroom is a new building they made in 2010 or so.  It’s really just a strange looking construction with a bar on the top and you can walk around and get a nice view of the city.  It also has a cool museum underneath with some roman ruins that were under the city. 


 
 
 

And I saw this chocolate delight of mine that I wanted so badly.  It’s a chocolate float of one of the many they have during Semana Santa.  Yummmmm

That’s honestly all I’ve been up to.  This week reports are due so I’ve been correcting tests and writing reports for my students at the activity. 

My next post will be my fun trip to Merida. 

Oh, and my parents come in 18 days!! I'm so excited to travel around some of my favorite parts of Spain with them.  It'll be their first trip to Europe so it should be lots of fun :)

Much love!

Rio Tinto

I went to a small town called Rio Tinto last weekend and I just wanted to share briefly with you guys about the town and my fun excursion.

Rio Tinto literally means Colored River, and it’s the color red.  Yup, that’s the right, the water is red.  It’s big talk here in Huelva, and it is for a reason.  Rio Tinto used to be an old mining town, and is basically the reason the province of Huelva exists.  Huelva has a old British Quarter where there are houses that look like British Cottages and such, and those were where the British used to live back when Huelva was a mining province.  They used to mine sulfur and metals there and the large amount of metal that is in the water actually turns it red.  Rio Tinto is the most acidic river in the world, and nothing can live in it except for bacteria.  You won’t find fish or any other living thing because it’s too acidic.  But it’s very cool and doesn’t burn your skin or anything, it’s perfectly safe to rub on your hands, but not to drink. 

So I went with my friend Sarah, we made the 2 hour bus ride out to the town, and were kindly driven in the guide company’s car to the site of the old mine (it has since been shut down) and were able to see the tunnel that they used to get to the mines, and were walked out into an open area where you can see the different levels of the rock they chiseled out and the different colors because of the different minerals that are in the rock. 

Then we were brought to the train where they take you on an hour and a half train ride next to the river.  This again I think used to be a part of the old mines and they used this to transport the minerals to and from different locations.  But the train ride takes you along the river and you can see there how truly blood red the water is, it’s really cool!  They stop the train at one portion of the river so you can get out and take pictures and go down to the water front and touch the water or even fill a water bottle with some (although it looks more diluted in a water bottle and I feel like I just have a bottle of pee sitting on my desk)

After we stopped they brought us back to the main station and the nice guide took us to Nerva (apparently there are only two taxis in that area….so hitching a ride was the only option). There we had to catch the last bus back to Huelva and we ate lunch at a hotel restaurant where the waiter was a singer at heart.  He served us a delicious lunch full of fresh seafood and chocolate cake and then sang Karaoke!  It was certainly the most entertaining lunch I’ve had in a while.  Rio Tinto was really interesting to see, and while we didn’t get to see everything the town and the mines had to offer, due to the horrible bus schedule, it was still charming and worth the ride out there. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carnaval in Cadiz

So, since I was in Andalucia once again for Carnaval my friend and I decided that we’re going to go to the infamous Cadiz to celebrate Carnaval.  We had a puente last weekend, from Feb 28-Mar 3 so we took advantage of the extra Monday off and took off to Cadiz.  Now, if you don’t know what Carnaval is, think Mardi Gras in Spain, but add costumes like Halloween and people singing songs in the street. It’s basically right up there with celebrations to witness like Carnaval in Brazil.  So people get all dressed up all day long and then start drinking in the streets while groups of singers walk around town singing what are called Chirigotas.  They are usually songs that make fun of political figures and political situations in Spain, or make fun of foreigners or any other aspect of life that could be made funny, and occasionally they are romantic songs, although not usually. 

So, Camille and I arrived on Thursday afternoon and spent all day Friday looking around and exploring the city before it turned into the crazy place it is on the weekend.  The weather was gorgeous so we walked around the city, visited the camara oscura, which is a big mirror that they place on top of a tower and then from the inside you can see the inverted image of the town.  You can get a 360 degree view of the city just from inside and it’s very interesting.  Then we walked around the edge of the city and went to the beach and saw the two castles/fortresses that there are to see.  AND, the two fortresses were free to enter, so we spent very little money.

Saturday, we headed out early to return some things to the store and then went to the court room where they signed the first constitution of Spain in 1812. It was very cool to see and the inside was just as impressive.  Now, it’s just a small building that you can enter and read about, but we weren’t allowed photos.  Inside there are a number of religious statues an alters and up above they have 3 levels of balconies which were used when they signed the first constitution.  It was cool to see the different levels and to see something that is so important to Spain.  I guess it’s the same as if we were to go to Independence Hall where we signed the Declaration of Independence.  Before the Constitution they always had an absolute monarchy and there was no constitution stating the citizens’ rights, so this was very important for them.

We also went around to see the Cathedral which was very large and the inside was fairly impressive, but it wasn’t the most impressive cities I’ve seen in Spain.  Idk if I’ve been desensitized or if Cadiz is just underwhelming for me, but it was only an okay Cathedral.  It was still nice though and a nice respite from the wind.  It was very windy while we were there so it got tiring to walk in the wind all the time. Once we walked outside the Cathedral though is when we noticed that the festivities were beginning for Carnaval.  What gave it away?  Well, that would be the people that began to gather around the stairs of the Cathedral in their costumes with their big liters of beer in plastic bags and other assorted drinks. That was at around 3pm and by the time we came back to the Cathedral at around 6 for dinner the crowd was much bigger and someone has even brought speakers and was blasting music!

Afterwards, we just grabbed some dinner and headed back to the hostel to get ready for our fun night full of Carnival! We got all dressed up and went out on the town!  And by that, I mean we didn’t get farther than two plazas (10 min) away from our hostel. haha.  Turns out the streets were so full of people we could hardly move, much less find our way to where we wanted to go.  We were staying right down the street from a main plaza where they were having performances of Chirigotas that performed the night before.  So we ended up staying there and listening to the performances, stopping at our apartment to use the bathroom and heading back out into the fray to listen some more and see what people were doing.  Really, people were just listening and drinking, and playing with our costumes because we were wearing headbands with bobbing pom poms on them, turns out, when people drink our heads turn into human cat toys….so people were playing with them all night, taking them off our head, and one guy even tried to eat mine….yea….idk.  Either way it was a very entertaining evening.  We went out at around midnight and got back to the hostel by about 3…yea, that was quite an early night for us, but we could hardly move and we were tired.  So we crashed around 3 even though the party didn’t stop till about 8AM.  I slept with a pillow on my head and my headphones in.  It was worth it though, because it was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, and it was really fun to see the Spanish all dressed up.  Some people got really into it and there were large groups of people dressed the same.  We saw lots of NYPD, and roman soldiers.  We saw an assortment of different costumes, but if you didn’t have an actual costume then if you throw on a wig or a skirt then you’re all set.  As long as you’re not dressed like a normal person you can pass for celebrating Carnaval the right way. 

Sunday we stayed in and went to lunch and even found a couple of the Chritigota groups that were performing on the street.   Then we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the city staying away from the large crowds.  We had had enough of the crowds of people, and smelly streets so we stuck to the outskirts and explored the park and took in the view of the water from the edge of town.  It was a very nice day, we just relaxed and ended up having dinner at a nice place around the corner from where we were staying and the waiter gave us a free drink, (alcohol free of course, the house can’t lose too much money) and we made it back for our nice.  We went to bed on the earlier side since it was quiet for once and I had to get up for an 8:30AM train back to Huelva.  Overall, it was a nice weekend, not as relaxing as I wanted, but it was fun to explore the city and experience something so cultural.  I don’t need to return for Carnaval, but I did it once now!

Check out the album for the photos, there’s a ton! 

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