Ciudad De Plasencia

... Enter Hotel Kathryn. Every time we have a long-term sub in the school and the sub doesn’t want to drive back and forth, the teachers put the sub in contact with me. The first two possibilities fell through, but the third one decided that my apartment was the place for her! Like I said, she hasn’t been here long so I don’t want to jinx anything, but we get along well. Jálama has two different buildings—she’s in ...

... br>I’ll be working for 12 hours a week, 4 days a week at IES Jálama. The students range from 12-18 years old, and there’s about 650 students in all. As of now, I’m working with at least one class in each age range except for the 1st year students. I don’t work Fridays so I’ll be able to travel and explore on the weekends. There are 5 English teachers in the school, plus one more in a new school across ...

... easy to Americanize the food here if necessary! For anyone else who may come visit me but we just don’t have plans yet, I’m sure we could also Irish-ize, British-ize, German-ize, etc. the food as well! Anyway, the dinner lasted until 12:30 (I promise you, this is typical—a 2 ˝ hour meal. It’s not done every day, but if there’s a group of friends going out to eat once a week or whatever—lunch or dinner--then ...

... Then we were descending down into Plasencia, where my GPS did its thing and navigated me through the narrowest of streets to my hostel for the night, the award-winning Ikea-type Alojamientos La Plaza. I arrived by 1pm after just 3 hours cycling during which time I had covered only 58 km. So a real treat for me (almost like a day off!) and presented me with lots of time to explore the town and get the blog up to date (but photo uploads will have to wait for a couple of days ...

... me having to dry mine so often. I also usually wash some clothes each night, and it can take a couple of days to dry them! This latter problem is less frequent in the last few days, as the weather seems to be warming up a little - it reached 17 degrees yesterday, according to the TV weather report! Mornings are usually 2-3 degrees so far.

I have come to the conclusion that childhood injuries sometimes come back to remind you of one's frailty. A long time ago I tried to chop a big toe off at the joint, and just every now and then, it tells me to take the bus .... so I do! But I have had some great walks too, and a couple more photos are in this blog. Pilgrimages of this sort are not the same as a silent retreat. For instance, the internet access shop I'm in at the ...

Arrived here on Thursday. Lovely campsite and restaurant. Had a great day yesterday exploring the park by bike. Amazing site watching the vultures soaring over the river and cliffs. Later today I´ll go out on an organized tour. Hopefully they know where the eagles are.

... is a long valley in the sierras at the border of Castilla y Leon and Extramadura (provinces like states). It is about 10 miles long and if you approach from the top of the valley you take a windy two lane road through the dozen or so villages until you get to the major town of Placencia at the foot of the valley. We decided to take the long way around and entered from Placencia to the middle of the valley ...

... by heart. I´m just less ****** off about it now. We went to the Cathedral in Sevilla (Seville), where Christopher Columbus´s tomb is. Before we got there, Dr. Torrico told us that the Cathedral was set up so that it was clear that the crusaders were foolish. I didn´t really know what to expect but I liked that introduction. We got inside and I saw some of the most elaborately done art of my life. In short, I have no idea what Torrico was saying about the Cathedral being a clear ...

I´ve been here in Salamanca since Sunday but just now found out where the computer lab is, which is why I haven´t updated this thing. The first couple of days in Spain were really fast paced. We flew into Madrid, then immediately into Granada where we went to Alhombra. It´s amazing that so many historical sites are able to be preserved so well. In most places, details are completely in tact. In Merida, the last stop before Salamanca, everything is built ...