A Spanish Thanksgiving! (and other events)

It's December already!!

First of all, I would like to apologize for the lack of updates.

I'm in the middle of changing internet companies, and in Spain, this is a long process. First I had to wait about 3 weeks for the past provider to suspend the internet. That was about a week ago. Then I had to go to the new company, and give them a whole bunch of information...(where I live, my DNI (ID) number, the DNI of the owner of the apartment, her birthday, my bank account number here, etc, etc...). So now, they tell me that it'll take about 15 to 20 days for the new service to begin. But, knowing how fast things get done here, im expecting it to take at least 30 days.

So in the meantime, I use the internet at the school where I work, and at night or on the weekends, I go to a bar/cafe here that has free wifi. Its not too bad, ive endured worse. (Like the time I could have died from altitude sickness in Bolivia, for example)

But enough about that. In the past few weeks I've visited Girona again, (can you tell that I like it there?) I've gone to Barcelona a few more times, and I had a Spanish Thanksgiving!!

I'll let the pictures tell the story first:

You can see all the trees behind me.

So I look like im really comfortable, but i was a little worried because there were spider webs all over the leaves. You never know, I might have some spiders living in my hair now.

This is what most of the medieval part of Girona looks like.

On my most recent visit to Girona, I went to the city park, which as you can see, is full of all of the fallen leaves. Erica and I played around all over the park and took lots of pictures, but I just put a few here. (The rest will be up on facebook soon). This park has hundreds of tall trees...its the same park where the festival I mentioned in the last post was held. The rest of the weekend we just spent hanging out around the town, and we also had a dinner with her roommates. One of them, Axel, had his birthday the friday that I got there, so we all had dinner at home like a happy family.

Axel. He doesn't look very happy, but I assure you, he was!

His girlfriend bought trick candles, so he spent a good 10 mins putting them out.

Speaking of that festival though, I would like to make a small correction about what I said it was for. I thought that La Castañada was the reason why the people in Girona were partying when i was there, but in fact, my friend Miguel, who is Spanish, was kind enough to let me know that in reality this wasn´t true. Every year, the city has a fair, called Fires de Girona, which is in honor of their patron saint, Sant Narcís. It just so happens that this year the fair coincided with La Castañada....therefore resulting in my confusion about the celebrations. Everyone celebrates both festivals, but the big one that I went to with all the beer drinking and concerts was the Fires. So now you all know :)

Here's a picture of one of the logos for the Fires. Random, I know.

Later that week I decided that it was time for me to take some more pictures of my town.

This is one of my fav streets in my town.

A typical winding road in Canet.



This is an old textile factory that has been closed for years.

This is what the inside looks like. I took this through a crack in the front wooden doors.


A side window of the building.

This is one of my fav pic. I was walking down the street, and this dog just kept staring at me.

I even had time to get closer and to zoom in.

A garden with little bell peppers.

An empty lot between two houses.

Grafitti in my town that says in Catalan: "Continue to fight, Continue to suffer, and we´ll continue to win". Something to that effect. And the star and stripes represent the catalan flag, that looks like this:





My town might not have much to offer, but it does have about 4 of these pharmacies.

A traffic sign for the weekly farmers market. It reads "Attention, Wednesday weekly market. Respect traffic signs"


Another old textile factory.

The textile "university" in my town, and thus the reason why there were so many factories here.

A workshop of some sort

I also took some pictures of the actual school where I work. This week I also had a project going on at the school. I made a presentation to the 5th and 6th grade classes about me and about California, and then during the rest of the week, Teresa and I came up with different activities for the kids to do. One of them was a project where in groups of three, they had to make a presentation about me called "She´s Tanya". It was so much fun watching them talk about me. My favorite part though, was seeing the way that they drew me on the posters they had to make. One boy drew me with purple skin all over (hahaha), and some kids got creative and drew Los Angeles in the background, and others tried to draw the outfit I had on that day. Needless to say, it was fun.

One of the three school buildings.

The English classroom at the school

The hooks outside the classroom where the backpacks are hung. It's my backpack!

One of my students! I think she's in 3rd grade.

A group of fifth graders making their presentation about me.

A park right by the school.


The church the school is named after :Mare de deu de l´Misericordia.


This is the road leading up to the church and the school.
Its all uphill from my house, so im going to have really strong legs by the time I leave.

So then on Saturday, I went on a little day trip to Barcelona with this guy from my town. He's really nice, and I met him at the bank where I opened an account. He's just really eager to have a girlfriend, and I'm not into him at all...not like that at least. We walked around my favorite part of Barcelona, Ciutat Vella (the old part of town), which has lots of small streets and walkways.

The dents in the wall of this Church are from some battle a long time ago. Cristian, the guy I was with, told me that they were going to rebuild it, but instead decided to leave it so that people would remember the battle.

The inner courtyard of a church.

The Rambla de Catalunya has this weird giraffe at one end...



...And a thinking bull at the other end.

I like the profile better.


This grafitti was done on a boarded-up window.

One of the apartment buildings by Gaudí.

And the more famous Pedrera, also by Gaudí.

A statue of some Spanish author...im not sure who, but I like his posture. It´s like he´s saying, "yeah im a badass, and what?"

The following Tuesday I went back to Barce, but this time with a school field trip. It was kinda crazy because it was with all of the 2nd graders (there are only three classes- about 60 students total), and we went to the Picasso museum. Taking 7/8 year old to a museum is not fun. The museum itself was awesome, but I spent the whole time saying "be quiet, don't touch anything, don't run, and stop it". Aaaaand, since they dont understand what im saying, only my tone of voice, they mimic me all the time. So imagine me saying "stop it!", and then having five 8 year olds repeat it with a catalan accent, and then laughing. It was exhausting, but I dont regret going. I just dont want to have kids anytime soon.

I don't have pictures of the kids on the trip because my camera decided to die. I'll take some eventually.

This past Saturday, I celebrated Thanksgiving!!(I know, not on the real day, but we actually had to work!) Teresa and her family has been celebrating the holiday with another family for the past eight years, and this year Erika and I joined in to make it more American. I forgot to take my camera, and we were all so distracted by all of the delicious food that no one remembered to take a picture before we devoured everything. We had an authentic 8 kilo (15 pounds) turkey, and I made mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, and carrot cake. There was also some yummy rice, sauteed mushrooms, and even cranberry sauce to go with the turkey! We drank a really good Spanish wine, and then we toasted with some yummy champagne. We did remembered to take a picture at the end of the dinner, so here's proof that the dinner actually happened:

We all have lines on our faces from the blinds...haha.

L-R, top row: Lluis (Teresa´s husband), the next couple is the family friends, then Teresa.
L-R, sitting: one of the two sons of the couple, Erika, Lluis (Teresa & Lluis´son), Me, the other son of the couples, and Lluis´twin brother. (I´m bad at names!)

This Wednesday, I'm going to Lyon, France, to visit Lauren!!! I'm sooo excited! There's some sort of festival happening the weekend I'll be there, so im sure it will be fun. Plus, I get to see my wonderful Lauren!! Since there's been crazy cold weather all over Europe right now, its very possible that it will snow while im there. Its been pretty cold here, too. This week the average temperature has been about 48 degrees (Fahrenheit) during the day, and its usually a low of 35 degrees at night. And last week it hailed. So, yeah, its cold here, but it's even worse up north. I wear about 5 layers each day, including a hat and some gloves-always-and I always take my umbrella with me everywhere. You can never tell when a storm is coming. I will be in Lyon until Sunday, and Monday is a holiday here in Spain-its the day of the Immaculate Conception-so im taking a little vacation.

Then the week after that im going to back to Paris with a guy I met through Erika, who also lives in Girona. I seem to always end up there...but I love it. So much for working! My last day of work this month is on the 19th, and I don't go back until the 7th of January. I still get paid for the whole month though. You won't hear me complaining!

I'll make sure to take lots of pics while im in France!

Lots of love!!