Parador Ubeda

... the Sierra Nevada highlands about 20 km north of Malaga and started up a series of serpentine roads going higher into the hills. As we came up over a high hill, we could see hill after hill of olive trees. These hills and valleys were covered with olive trees as far as the eyes could see. Because of the heat, you could smell the thick heavy greasy odor of olives very strongly. As we reached Jaen, we veered off the Autoroute and ...

... language school where people 16 and over can take night courses in English and other languages where another auxiliar from the US is teaching. My students take so many of their core and elective courses per semester in English, I believe three or four, so I will be teaching lessons on my own as well as assisting the other teachers in various subjects in English. I begin on Oct. 1st and will have much more to tell then! We then took the bus out to Villa Gordo...literally Fat Village ...

... still hits the spot on those really hot days when it's getting over 38 to 40 degrees outside. We will be wrapping up our stay in Ubeda this weekend, which is kinda sad because we have had such a good time with the family there. But we do want to see the rest of Spain. Since we spent so much time in Ubeda, and because it's getting so hot here in the south, we've decided to forego Valencia and the Balaeric islands. The plan is to catch a ...

Craziness in Cazorla While we were in Ubeda we took a couple day trips (since there really isn't that much to do in Ubeda.)  One of our trips was to a national park really close to the town of Cazorla.  Getting to the park involves a lot coordination with the public transit system, and we soon realized that we'd have to spend a night in the park to make it work ...

... for the most part, we have been pretty successful. Of course, it helps that in addition to being excellent hosts, Merche and Paco are also fabulous teachers. This has been especially helpful for our spanish skills. Just in the course of doing everyday things with the family (cooking & eating meals, watching soccer games, going shopping or out for a walk, and just talking about our day) we have learned SO much spanish. There are tons of ...

... and we would stop to chat (charlar). One person we ran into was a friend of their oldest son (Jose 27), out taking his two year old son for a walk in the stroller. A lot of men here in Spain do a lot of the child care and appear to be very active parents. In this case, Moses had suffered some brain injury from a car accident and was unable to work, so his wife worked and he cares for Ramon and does the house work. Ramon is just two, but looks ...

... or from Laura herself. But the time difference, and technical difficulties kept us from the computer and Laura was somewhere on a road-trip, out of cellphone range. It would have to wait for another day. We decided we needed a drink to cheer us up and went in search of El Gallo Rojo. Luckily, the owner of our hostel knew exactly where it was and directed us 3 blocks down the street. SWEET! "Dos cervesas grandes, por favor ...

... David Beckham-look-alike who I talked about. They're the ones who decided he looked like the ex-Real Madrid football star. I, of course, didn't argue. As soon as we arrived at the Virgen de Cuadros colegio, in the middle of the Sierra Magina mountains and endless olive fields, the English teacher, Amparo, put Justin to work. Each class played 20 questions with him. They got ...

... appear to be more scarce (taxi drivers not included). After sleeping the length of the ferry trěp, we set foot once again on the shores of sunny Spain and it felt very good to be back. Morocco was a total trip, and two nights there was definitely more than adequate. Tha brain can handle only so much chaos. Today, Rev, Brooksy and i were men of transit, taking a ridiculously uncomfortable 12 hour night train, a 35 ...

... of olive trees. They are renowned for their fabulous Renaissance architecture. In Ubeda we visited a hospital, several churches, and a plaza with church, town hall and another fantastic building. There were panoramic views of the moutains surrounding, but they were obscured by rainy weather. Then the rain started. We quickly scurried back to the bus and went to a restaurant. This was actually the highlight of the trip...a ...