Pay Day!

La Junta de Extremadura finally was able to process all our paper work and we received our first months payment! Its nice to now be able to spend euros and not loose out on the exchange rate. Since my last post, not much has changed, just still giving classes and individual lessons as well on the side. I'm trying to stay active and have been running more days than not but am in no where as good as shape as I used to be when playing lacrosse!

Speaking of lacrosse, I decided to play "wall ball" one day (throwing the lax ball against a wall and catching it aka playing catch by myself). First of all, the walls I used is part of the Alcazaba, a quite old arab era structure in Mérida that is by the rio. So as you can imagine, it was funny to be playing wall ball against something that is so old and storied. I had to chase the ball a few times as it ran astray after hitting an errant piece of the wall.

Speaking of ancient buildings, I FINALLY saw some of the sights in Mérida... We managed to go on the only day its rained in the past 1.5 months but still enjoyable none the less! The pictures along side are of the Amphatheatre and the Theatre. The girls in the picture are certainly my new mejor amigas... Sara (canadian) on the left, Kristina and Lorna (british!) Its fun to have a great group of girls to plan english lessons with, and when we have time, to go out on the town and enjoy tapas and the occasional glass of vino ;)..... AKA we get alone well and I couldn't be happier!

Thats all for now... I'll post more after this weekends trip to Badajoz for shopping!!

Halloween!

Another week has gone by, and I cannot believe ya estamos en noviembre!

This week in class I taught about fall holidays in the english speaking world aka Halloween, Guy Fox Day, Bonfire Night and Thanksgiving. It was fun to see what the students already knew and then test their knowledge at the end with a little trivia game. Teaching "Trick or Treat Smell my feet" was also quite enjoyable! Spanish Translation below:

Truco o Trato

Huele mis pies

Dame algo bueno para comer

Si no lo haces, no me importar

Quitaré tu calzoncillos

Quite fun. This week I also started two more individual classes. One with a man who runs a regional radio station. Very interesting guy who has traveled all over the world. Also met his wife and friends Saturday afternoon as they were relaxing at the cafe below our piso. I was invited to sit down and have a cerveza and ended up eating lunch with them and learning about Mérida and the best places to go for tapas etc. Side note, Russel Crowe's character in the Gladiator is from Mérida!

My other new "students" are a set of triplets, 2 boys and a girl who are 5 years old. I'm going to do an hour a week with them, So we shall see how that pans out...most likely will be a bit crazy at first but I'm up the the challenge.

This weekend was once again fun and surprising. Friday night we ended up going to Badajoz, the biggest city in Extremadura which is about 35 mins from Mérida. We went to a place to eat then a few other spots where there was some live music too.

Saturday was Halloween and we had visitors from Zafra come to eat dinner and enjoy the night. We had a little gathering at our piso that was quite well attended. Myself and the two other girls I hang out with most dressed as Ancient Méridians aka Romans bc Mérida was the Roman Capital of the Iberian Peninsula way back when. We looked very good I must say even with Togas made out of bed sheets. We carried around mugs, mine saying "I Heart Mérida" as a way to tie the costume together. Overall a very fun night.

On Sunday we visited the Roman Museum in the morning and then rode the tourist train around Mérida, a fun little afternoon excursion.

Also this week Sara and I signed up for library cards and were able to take out some books and other materials. I am very excited to now be able to read some books in Spanish and have access to movies, cds and other materials at the library.