Kyle en España

Andalucia

2009-05-04T04:48:00.001-07:00

Vuelvo a Oregon

2009-05-04T04:10:00.000-07:00

Hola, vuelvo a Oregon, I'm coming home!

I'm flying back home from Spain May 13th. These past few months I was hoping to have my return planned a little more in advance but it has hit me again that when it's time for a transition, it can be a little scary, but I'm thankful for the peace that God has given me and I'm so excited to see everyone this month.

I've been able to see more of Spain these past few months, and during Easter week I took a trip down to the South, Andalucia, and visited the cities of Malaga, Cordoba and Granada. I'll have these last pictures on my blog at: kylevivaspain.blogspot.com .
The teaching has been a good and challenging experience for me and I'll see if I can continue in the same area of work.
Now, I'm looking for some work opportunities in Oregon and am really excited to spend time with the family and my nieces!

Thank you everyone for all of your prayers and support over this year. I've had such a wonderful time here and have made some great friendships.
I look forward to seeing all of you again and will keep in touch when I arrive home.

Segovia

2009-03-25T15:34:00.001-07:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

2009-03-16T16:52:00.001-07:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Primevera for sure

2009-03-16T15:24:00.000-07:00

Buenas dias y buena primavera a todo. The weather here has been astounding and I'm so fortunate to see what Spain is like at the onset of spring.
The past couple of weeks I've been able to see a bit more of Spain outside of Madrid. I went to Toledo two weeks ago. Such a rich city only 30 minutes from here on train, and saw a such a mixture of cultures in one city- from Roman, to Muslim, and Jewish imprints on the city. Its situated in the plains of Castilla-La Mancha, south of Madrid, the geographic area of where Don Quixote was based off of. It was great to see the landscape, rivers, valleys, and farming land.
It's been great travelling with and getting to know Nuria and other friends who have shown me a lot of Spain.
I also went hiking this past weekend in the Navacerradas, just north of Madrid. Its a mountain range that surrounds the meseta and I've been dying to go visit. I went with Nuria and a couple of others hiking for half the day along some trails, past some lakes, and breathed some fresh air outside of Madrid for a change. It reminded me so much of home.
The classes have been going well, and maybe for a little while I might take on some other classes with little kids where I can be paid as a private teacher and practice my spanish a bit more during the class hours. I've noticed a big improvement speaking with people and still find it fun learning spanish.
Thank you all still for your prayers and support,

Kyle

Happy New Year

2009-01-07T19:03:00.001-08:00

Hola,

Happy New Year and greetings from Madrid. I just got back yesterday from a little euro trip with Walter. We had a great time and fun celebrating Christmas and New Year's together.

He came here to Madrid to visit me as I was finishing up my classes in mid December. He got to see a bit of Madrid and its beautiful city decorations and I was teaching the words to Jingle Bells, other Christmas carols and learning about the Christmas traditions they have here in Spain - Christmas day and Jan. 6th, yesterday, which is the Day of the Kings or Three Wise Men on which a lot of the kids receive their presents. The snowfall here is scattered but in other parts of Spain it's snowing quite a lot and the temperatures were at -4 C this week.

After my classes finished, Walter and I took our first flight to Barcelona. We stayed there 2 nights. Our hostel was on Paseo de Gracia, with very fashionable stores, and not far from Gaudi's Casa Batllo and another one of his houses (I'm using some of Walter's pics that are much better). We then took a tour bus which we could get off and on when we wanted. This took us through the whole city, up Mont Juic where we had a great view of the city, along the pier where we had lunch and monuments for Columbus, then through the Gothic district, the modern district, modern architecture everywhere, past Gaudi's Sagrada familia which is an enormous and spectacular modern cathedral, and up to Parc Guell with more of his designs and very nice view of city. So we had a nice stay in sunny Barcelona.

We then flew over to Rome, somehow again finding our way after plane, bus and walking, stopping in pizza shops for directions to the hotel where his dad was staying very near to the Vatican. At one point that first night we were walking right along the Vatican walls with our luggage looking for the street. The nice hotel with terrace was just ten minutes to walk into Vatican city. Walter's dad gave us a 3 day pass for the tour bus and Christmas midnight mass. First day we went into Vatican museum for several hours with Egyptian, Roman and many other relics, statues and such. We meandered through halls and halls before reaching the Sistine Chapel, took some pics with hundreds of other tourists relaxing on the ground looking at the paintings. We then had a our first Italian pizza-buenissimo. Following day we took the bus tour through the city, to St. Paul's cathedral, had a tour through there where his tomb and the actual chains from execution are displayed, his execution was not far from where the cathedral is. Then went to Colisseum where we got tickets to go in, walked around, could see the inner tunnels everywhere, amazing sight. After we walked to the Roman Forum with ancient ruins and remains of the city center with the capital and temples. On to Trevi Fountain, had a calzone, the Pantheon, fought with a Roman soldier, walked along the Tiber and went back. That evening we waited in St. Peter's square for 3 hours to get into the midnight mass. Once the doors opened thousands were let inside while thousands stayed in the square. Walter and I had never seen nuns be so aggressive before as people were mobbing to get in. St. Peter's is astounding inside, and we were within feet of the aisle as the Pope came down and gave his blessings that night. It was a marvelous experience we got to be a part of. Had a good Italian Christmas dinner together.

Early the next morning to catch our flight to London, well, to Dublin where we had a frantic sprint down the terminals to catch another flight to London just at the last minute, but whats a good adventure without that... In London we stayed at a hostel which is an old courthouse and prison, The Clink, still has jail cells you could stay in, and the band The Clash were held on trial there. Met a lot of people from around the world there including Americans who just came to the UK to work for 6 months and they all met there the same day. The first day we met with my friend Simon another teacher at the academy here who's from London, so he showed us around the city. Walked through a couple of markets, had a traditional English breakfast, walked down to the Parliament, Big Ben, across and along the Thames by some theatres including the Shakespearean Globe, and up to London bridge. Next day we went into Picadilly circus, St. Paul's, and to Tower Bridge where we went up in an elevator for a nice vista over the city. Saw Charles Dickens' museum in his old house. London was freezing, huge, and expensive.

Then another early bus and train to get to the airport to fly back to Dublin. Our hostel, although the worst in condition, was in the city center, not far from O'Connel St. and Trinity College. Walked through the city for a day, along two big streets with statues lined through the middle, across the Liffey River and around the college a bit. First evening we stopped into a pub and watched a small band with guitar, accordian and violin. Spent New Year's there, with many people in the center and just a diverse as London, many live bands playing. Next night we did a literary pub crawl where a couple of actors/Irish literary enthusiasts guided us through four different famous pubs and a couple other sites, rehearsed scenes from plays, sang a few songs, gave us the history and facts of writers such as Joyce and Oscar Wilde, who went to Trinity, had a little quiz at the end. Some of the streets and pubs were central in Joyce's Ulysses so it was fun and entertaining. Had some delicious traditional breakfast with eggs, sausage, bacon, rashers(whatever those are) and mushrooms-- at least 3 times at Kylemore's restaurant with statue of James Joyce right out front.
The next day we went on a bus to Galway in west Ireland and stayed there three nights. We took a bus tour to the cliffs of Moher and saw a lot of the landscape, rock burial sites, and castles. Took bus back to Dublin then flew the next morning back to Madrid.

I had an awesome time traveling with Walter and seeing a lot of the world. Thanks for all your prayers. Missed everyone deeply over Christmas and New Year. Thank you all for the presents in the package and reading The Shack right now. Watched Ryan's DVD of the family down in Sacramento and Thanksgiving, and a lot of Kaelyn, so precious!
I'm continuing with my classes here for a while, awaiting to see what God wants for me next and enjoying the experience.

You can skip through all the pics

2009-01-07T18:59:00.001-08:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

2009-01-07T18:57:00.001-08:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

2009-01-07T18:52:00.000-08:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

2009-01-07T18:50:00.001-08:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

2009-01-07T18:48:00.000-08:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

2008-12-07T11:19:00.001-08:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Diciembre ya

2008-12-07T09:10:00.000-08:00

Hola,
I can't believe it's December already. I'd say I miss the Oregon weather but it's about just as cold here..it actually snowed a couple days last week, well just enough for everyone to stop and look up for a moment.
The teaching hours have been good and steady. I was able to teach a little about Thanksgiving last week and even brought the beef jerky to share with all the students-they loved it. The pictures I've posted are of some of my academy classes with young and mid teens. I've enjoyed them the most, and the picture with my Oregon t-shirt was after a little Oregon geography lesson in which they drew maps and discovered why the team's called the Trailblazers ( which two spanish players are playing for.)
A couple of weeks ago I got to see a good Flamenco show here in a small venue where we were sitting about 10 feet from a small wooden stage. 4 dancers, guitarists and singers. It was a pretty powerful show which you could feel the floor shake under the dancers stomping and very spontaneous music which represents the mixed cultures of the Spanish heritage. Took a few pics that you can see.
Tomorrow's the Spanish holiday of the constitution. Only two more weeks until the Christmas vacation. I'm looking forward to my friend Walter coming to visit this week! At the beginning of the holidays, we have a little European excursion planned..
Well, he'll be staying here in Madrid with me for a week until my classes are done and then on the 20th we're planning to go to Barcelona for a couple of days to see the next great Spanish city. Then we'll be flying to Rome where Walter's dad will be staying during Christmas and try to see as many sites as we can. After Christmas, my friend Simon who's a teacher here from London offered to show us around London for a couple of days, so we'll jet on over there. Since we'll be up in the area of our ancestors, we figured we have to go visit Ireland and so we'll fly over to Dublin around New Year's time. Hopefully we can take a train to some other parts of Ireland and see the countryside before we head back to Madrid. So, really excited about this opportunity and taking some great photos.
Thank you all for your continued prayers and support. I'll really miss you all around Christmas time. I'm continuing to pray as I'm deciding as long as I'm enjoying this teaching experience to see if there are other opportunities or what God wants for me next.
¡Dios siempre tiene el control!
Love,
Kyle

The boyz..

2008-11-28T12:22:00.000-08:00

Diego, Israel, Enfedaque, Alex, y yo

Flamenco show

2008-11-28T12:05:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving with Beef Jerky

2008-11-27T16:34:00.000-08:00

Joana, Jonathan, Bea, Sergio, Carlos

Parque Retiro!!

2008-11-08T11:28:00.000-08:00

2008-10-31T14:29:00.000-07:00

Mis primeras clases

2008-10-12T03:35:00.000-07:00

Hola y buenos dias de Colon/Columbus!

Well I had my first couple weeks of classes, and apparently after talking with the fellow teachers, as of now I have one of the highest amounts of hours, 25 /week. Include hours of lesson planning and hours of traveling per day, that equals a fun week. It is going to be fun and challenging, so I'm giving it a go and seeing how I like it.
Here's my schedule in detail:
M-Th: Leave the flat about 7, take the metro about 50min to first company at 8-9 which is a group of 4 men and 1 woman at a Pharmaceutical company where they are being required to take a 1st certificate english exam next spring,so they're upper intermediate level, and the class follows that preparation along with business english which includes skills for more formal language and areas where they use english in the workplace which are frequent. They're all very nice and enjoy the hour for speaking practice and are mainly focused on the exam in the future which not only do I know little about but will take all the blame for whatever happens I guess. Last class we did some worksheets on common idioms which they haven't heard before like "Don't beat about the bush, get straight to the point, i heard it on the grapevine (which I alluded to the song), can't make head or tail of it," they enjoyed it.
On MWF I leave there and go on metro for 30min to an individual class at 9.30-10.30 with a man in his 4th story office with a nice view. He just wants to keep his english going with some practice, he's a little lower level than the others and specifically mentioned wanting english for chatting with business partners during golf.
MW then I have a break until 1.30 to plan and get some breakfast before having an individual at the academy. Angela is from another company and is pretty high int/advanced, and wants to improve more business english also as well as pronunciation, technical writing. She comes from Portugal and we talked about many people she knows who speak english fluently have a real good accent because unlike Spain, in Portugal they don't voice-over any of the english speaking films,tv, and exposed to it alot more when young. I began to notice how much clearer her english is than other spanish speakers.
MW then I have a break until 5.30-7 with an academy class of intermediate, 6 15-16 yr olds. They're at a pretty decent level, but may be challenge to keep them interested, as they're mostly parent-inspired to be there.
T-Th I go from 1.15-3.15 at a different company I take the bus to, with two different groups, who are about proficient and want to maintain fluency and learn more real use of language,phrases,etc. Here I travel with a Scotsman from the academy who teaches at same place.
Then T-Th I take a bus from 6-8 to an apartment where two siblings, a 14yr old girl Violeta and 16yrold brother Diego. As well as english in school, they've had private teachers most of their lives. Violeta wants to take her 1st cert exam and Diego his advanced exam. I sit down with them an hour each. They're both extremely bright and I got to be sharp on my grammar rules or Violeta will start quizzing me. The first day she did and had me try to pronounce the longest word she could think of in spanish after I told her my low spanish level, and then I fired back with antidisestablishmentarianism. She said it perfectly. Then I rush on the bus back to the academy at 8.30-10 with another intermediate group of college age students. So after speaking with fluent young kids, now its a challenge to grade my language with these adult learners at much lower level. And they're a pretty quiet group which takes a little more to get them talking with one another.
The last class only on Friday evenings is with some low intermediate 13-14 yr old boys and one girl. 2 are brothers and another their close friend so their outbursts of laughs are frequent and its a pretty fun two hours. They're full of questions. All ages take english in school until 16 or 17 years old, but they don't get much speaking practice so the academy is their chance for exposure and practice. The academy's full of resources, materials and people to help you out, english, spanish, french, german teachers, one other American boy starting out named Andy from NY. I try to get plans for a week for all the classes and organizing's the key, so its all good for me.
Oh, yesterday I just happened to see the Tennis master's series first round here at Madrid. A friend of mine David and couple of his friends invited me. The qualifying round only 8 euros for a ticket and we saw two matches: two unranked spaniards, and the second was Robby Genepri from US vs a guy from Serbia, Genepri won. All the players are there, Nadal Federer, but their matches are more expensive, but maybe I'll see what the price is for next saturday.
So really enjoying it and meeting loads of people. Thanks for all your prayers and miss you all,
Love,
Kyle

Valle de los Caidos

2008-09-27T10:14:00.000-07:00

Photo not mine, but it better shows how immense this actually is. The cross stands 150 meters (492 ft) high! Says somewhere to be the largest freestanding cross made.
Looks over Abbey of Benedictine monastary

Valle de los Caidos

2008-09-27T09:57:00.000-07:00

2008-09-27T09:43:00.000-07:00

couple of monks
Simon, Raquel and Marlowe

Plaza de Toros

2008-09-23T16:51:00.000-07:00

2008-09-23T16:41:00.000-07:00

A few amigos

2008-08-11T12:26:00.000-07:00

Egyptian temple
Plaza Mayor

2008-08-11T12:22:00.000-07:00

Palacio Real

Cathedral

Statue of Cervantes, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza

2008-08-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

Hello,
I went into the center yesterday with a few of the students I've kept in contact from the course, Raymundo, Elena and Maria. We walked around quite a bit and saw some of the major sites that I haven't seen yet. We went to the Palacio Real in the Plaza Oriente where the royal family used to live but now is open for tours. We didn't go in but had a walk through the plaza and took a few pictures. My camera somehow got a crack on the screen when I took it out yesterday and about half the screen is messed up so I wasn't sure if the pictures would turn out or not, but they turned out fine, I just didn't take that great of pictures. Then we walked to a nearby cathedral called the Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Almudena. It one of the more modern cathedrals and the biggest in Madrid. We went inside and walked around looking at the amazing architecture and murals, and a huge organ which someone was playing. Then we walked on up the street to the Parque Oeste and saw the Egyptian temple with water around it but it was closed. Afterwards, we sat down at a cafe to get out of the heat for a while before walking down Gran Via towards the Plaza Mayor. This is the main Plaza in Madrid built in early 1600's where they hold many festivities and has shops all around it now. One side of it is covered in paintings and a huge statue of Philip III in the middle. We continued on towards the Prado museum which is free on Sundays so the masses are in line to go at once. Its impossible to see everything there in a day, and I had about enough of the Renaissance paintings as I could handle. It holds many from the most famous Spanish painters like Velazquez, El Greco, and Goya. A lot of them were paintings of royal families and portraits from 17th and 18th century. There were a lot of massive and very beautiful religious scenes with styles like those of the Italian Renaissance painters . It was mostly interesting to hear some of the history behind them and of the royal families which Maria told us about. That was about all the walking we could handle so we called it a day.

¿Que tal?

2008-08-01T07:42:00.000-07:00

After one month here in Madrid, I finished the course at BLC and am certified with my CELTA. I had a great time, learned a lot, and enjoyed being with the others. There is one slight problem, I had no idea that Madrid and schools plunge into oblivion during August-everyone goes on vacation and jobs are scarce. If I can't find any teaching position this month, September is a guarantee whether in Madrid or any other city-the majority of school's begin hiring in sep and continually throughout the school year. However, I have already notified about 40 different school's that are listed on a teaching website that I can start immediately, I'm searching for any part time work, and Simon from the course lives in Madrid is in the same boat and we'll go next week dropping off applications. I also need to go into the embassy to get the paperwork sorted out, once they begin processing the papers, the schools are allowed to hire me-as a few schools already replied to say.
Simon, who's from England but has been in Spain for a few years with a Spanish fiancee, is really nice and we have a lot in common. He's polishing his spanish and also wants to join me to go to some intercambios where people meet up to exchange languages (mostly spanish and english). A few of the students during the course also would like to show me some of the other sites I haven't been to in Madrid and go to the intercambios also.
So, the day after the course, I went on a trip with Elisa and Drew to the northern coast of Spain which is called the Basque region. In landscape, it is very different from all other parts of Spain because of its coastal mountains, Cantibracas, green countryside, and rather cool weather. Where most vacationers go to the Mediterranean sites, Elisa likes going up north where its not as busy. Elisa's from Ireland originally and has lived in Spain most of her life. Her family's still in Ireland and she even invited Drew and I to come visit this month, but afraid the expenses would be a problem. So we got to practice are spanish a bit with her and she showed us around the area.
We stayed in a small pueblo called Pebeño which we walked to the beach area in Muskiz. The next biggest city is Bilbao which we went into one day and toured around and went to the Guggenheim museum which is for modern art including some of the artists I saw at the Reina Sofia. Bilbao is located between the other big cities of Santander and Cantabria to the west, and San Sebastián to the east right next to the border of France. The northern coastal region stretches to the west coast with the city of Santiago. The Camino de Santiago goes along this whole stretch which is believed to be the path of St. James as he preached in Spain, and there is a huge cathedral in Santiago dedicated to this patron saint of Spain-people have made pilgramages on this camino for centuries. So, Bilbao is in the heart of the Basque culture. Basque is a culture distinct from that of Madrid and other regions(Catalan, Castillian, Galician) where throughout history it has tried to be independent from the rest of Spain. It still continues to do so and keep its own politics, language, and other things. The Basque language is radically different where pure spanish (Castillian) speakers can't even understand, yet they speak spanish also. So it was hard enough for me to try to read the travel brochures they had in spanish where its also split in Basque. They still bear their own Basque flag and other symbols which we got glimpses of like during the traditional wedding we came across. It's all very fascinating and we got much commentary from Elisa who knows a lot of Spanish history.
When we arrived at the beach in Muskiz, it was actually a holiday and many people packed the beach with live music and such. Went swimming a little in the nice and rather warm water. The town's were famous for industry and mining areas. You would walk past little ruins and sites along the trails. Upon one of the hills, which was closed to visit, was actually a major site of a battle from either the spanish civil war (right before WWII) or from WWII, and it was a major Basque weapons facility. One day we walked along the coast a ways to another little town tucked in and had lunch. It was very beautiful, sunny, with a nice breeze along the walking path. I took the bus back to Madrid after a few days.
I'll keep ya up to date when more news comes my way. Thank you all for your prayers. I've downloaded Skype from Skype.com to phone people for free if any of you want to do that it's really simple. Otherwise emails have been great.
Love you,
Kyle

2008-08-01T07:29:00.001-07:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

2008-07-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

Gang after we finished the course

On top of Madrid with Simon and Drew

2008-07-05T15:14:00.001-07:00

The course has been going well. We started yesterday to get to know each other in the morning. There are 7 of us: all British boppers except for me (and another woman who's parents are Irish but was born in Spain). Two other guys, three middle aged women and a younger girl. They are all very easy going and fun to be around. We went for lunch yesterday to a semi-nice restaurant where I had some type of meat-nothing real espanolish. We had some more tutorials and did some pre-lesson planning before we left around 5 or 6. Today we each gave our first lessons. We are going to have a total of 6 hours teaching practice time, today was a 30 min some are 60 min. I'm in the group split into 4 people and we each had a section of learning exercises-reading, writing, speaking, listening. I did the listening. We were given an outline of what type of activity they wanted and basically walking us through the planning now where we'll soon be given less instructions. I had us four teachers record a short summary on tape of where we're from and what we liked to do there and was supposed to use it for their listening exercise with some questions made up. I gave a brief introduction of what the instructions are and anything about the questions I made up that they might not understand, played the tape through for two different sets of questions, had them compare answers in pairs, asked if any would like to answer, then talk about anything related to their reactions to fill up the 30 minutes. It went pretty well. I felt comfortable. Theres only 7 students in this class which is pre-intermediate, and then the last two weeks we'll do an intermediate class. They are all college age or older. Simple, basic instructions and reviews of simple grammar points are all we're focusing on presenting for now. And getting comfortable with the students, vice versa. They're really friendly and eager to learn since its their decisions to enroll in the classes. Tomorrow I'll be doing some preposition activity and have them converse about objects in the room, and in pairs have each other describe their own rooms while the other draws a diagram. We have our tutorials and lessons in the mornings at 10 until about 2, then the lessons 4-6:30, feedback and stuff afterwards. The requirements for us like a portfolio, lesson plans, feedback, responses and such are all pretty formal, and I'm liking the system so far and feel pretty comfortable with everything. And then hopping on the metro to and from the school is growing on me. I get ten trip tickets for 6.50. The metro stop is right outside our apartment and right in the Plaza Castilla where the school is. It's about 20-30 minutes one way, but never boring when hundreds of people are feet away from each other with glum faces and awkward glances. "Proxima estacion:" "Next stop" ringing in my ears. But it's interesting to see how this city works and how its part of their lives everyday. I'm trying to pick up quick phrases hear and there and studying whenever I get a chance. I took a walk a few blocks each way around our neighborhood and saw a lot more than I expected with shops, restaurants, parks, so I'll send those pics