When Kelsey and I went to Costa Rica the summer after graduating high school we were nearly always the youngest people in the room. That coupled with our inexperience in the travel/hostel/bar scene and modicum of introversion led us to doing our own thing most of the time. We would mingle with travelers when we went on tours or were hanging out at the hostel, and if we lost our wallets (if I lost my wallet) we would buy the dude who found it a drink. But when it came to exploring the town’s nightlife we would go without accompaniment.
A few weeks ago Kesley and I went to Northern Spain with my host family. My host mother's parents (my host grandparents?) live in a rural town in the Basque Country, about forty five minutes from Bilbao. The weekend was a good opportunity to relax, take in some beautiful scenery, and enjoy the best food of my life.
When I first signed up for my TEFL certification class, I was under the impression that I would be teaching school classes, as that is what the program's website states. After starting the course however, I learned that all learning situations in Spain are called "Classes" whether there is one student or forty.
Two weeks into my certification course I got an email detailing my first potential "Class." It was a hour and a half long with a three and a half year old boy named Mario. This confused me because classes with children less than seven years old were supposed to be a maximum of one hour long. An hour was apparently all the attention span of a young child could handle. As I re-read the email I noticed a note in parenthesis that I missed the first read through: "We wouldn't normally accept a 1.5 hour class for such a small child but as you can see below his grandfather is Irish." I guess an Irish grandfather is worth a fifty percent increase in attention span... Spain is a country full of beautiful architecture. The buildings were clearly not just built for utility; they are also works of art. Some of the most amazing buildings I have ever seen in my life have been Spanish palaces. One of my favorite sights in Spain so far is the royal palace in Segovia, which houses the Queen of Spain during the holidays.
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