All The Going-ons

Omgosh peoples! it's been such a long time since i'v written an update for you! i feel like so much has happened and yet i can barely remember it all! i'm writing to you all here on a cold Spanish night with my heater on and a homemade cup of Spanish style hot chocolate! so let's get this underway! i want to head right back to the holidays again! i know i wrote all about my week in Bilbao but guess what! there were actually 2 weeks of holidays so i shall now tell you about my adventures in the second week! :D Well firstly i caught up with a friend of mine from school! the geology teacher and her boyfriend and we walked around Murcia central and went to some tea shop which was really cool! (and no i didn't have tea hahaha) we saw lots of stalls of people selling random things! kind of like a mini market! i'd been along the place before but the stalls weren't open! really cool to see everything! a shoppers paradise! good thing i don't care too much for shopping XD

Ok so then something very interesting about the spanish/catholic regime is that they celebrate 'los tres magos' or in English the three wise men! and they come every year on the 6th of Jan! so as far as tradition goes the kids get their presents not on Christmas but on the 6th of January when the 3 wise men come! personally this makes more sense to me that you get gifts from the 3 wise men rather than from some Santa Claus person! XD buuuuu this is only theoritical! In fact there are many kids who get presents on Christmas and with the three wise men! Also from what i gather the 3 wise men is for younger children! So i witnessed my first real parade here in Murcia on the 5th! the 3 wise men parade! was very exciting! soooooooo many people and children turned out! i was lucky to find a spot where i did to see everything! basically it's just a whole lot of floats that come by and they throw lollies out to the children in ridiculous quantities! in fact the kids in front of me brought along plastic bags which they managed to fill up with lollies and treats! Right at the end come the 3 wise men! and supposedly they all had names because the kids would scream and shout at them as they came by! which seemed weird to me that they had names! anyways was def a cool experience! i asked my kids at school when they got back whether they had gone but it would seem they are far too cool to assist such a childish parade! XD

 Aaaaaaah! Bomberos! :D

 Buble making machine/car

 Yup! the Spongebob Crew were there too! :D

 Tangled! I so thought of you Shari when i saw this! XD

 This was on Gran Via, one of the main streets in Murcia

One of the 3 wise men! Check out this video of him below! Aaaaaaand there were Camels! it was sooooo cool! :D

Here is another interesting video for you! just for the sake of it! a marching band

Then on the saturday, my last weekend before school i got invited to go to a town called Cartagena with a fellow English teacher from school! Cartagena is a town about 30 mins drive out of Murcia! it is really beautiful there and we had a really nice time! first we went and saw a friend of my friend who is from there who could show us around! he was very talkative and seemed to know something about everything! which i guess isn't a bad thing! lol while we were there we went to a Roman Theatre (an ampitheatre kinda thing) that had been burried for like 2 centuries! they only just discouvered it in the last 20 years and it's so beautiful! hard to believe something like that existed below so many houses! seems like no matter where they dig underground there they uncover something new! hahah XD after that we went to the marina because it's a port city! and we saw one of the world's oldest submarines and then to some underwater museum to see lots of interesting things! after that we went back to sit by the town hall at a hot chocolate cafe! where literally they had a big book of all the different kind of hot chocolates you can order :D oooooh and we had churros! yum!

 Roman Theatre

 Hard to believe this was all underground 20 years ago!

 proof i was there! hahaha

 My fellow English teacher and friend on the left: Rosalia!

 Old submarine

Ayuntamiento - Town Hall

Well moving along! recently i have meet some1 else from NZ! Rosalia, who i went to Cartagena with on the same day took me to see her sister and brother in law who had recently married and he was from NZ! his name was Dan and he reminds me a lot of Daniel Graig! hahaha pure coincidence! anyways he's from the south island of NZ and teachers PE at a high school there! so anyways the story goes that we invited him to come into school into my older class to teach us the Haka! seeing as we have been looking at Maori culture and one of the students had asked if we could learn it! i had no idea how to perform the haka ever mind leading and teaching it so it was super cool that Dan could come in and teach it to us! the kids enjoyed it heaps! Shame we didn't record it! maybe we'll have to practice and get a video sussed! After class that day we went for coffee close to school and was cool talking to another NZ about Spanish culture and schooling and how it is different from NZ! Anyways Rosalia invited me to Dan's farewell get together thingy and has now gone back to NZ! aaaah talking in groups is still so hard! =(

Well a few weeks ago i made a trip to Nueva Condomina! the mall to buy some new clothes! i really hate clothes shopping! i can't think of anything else i dislike more! hahaha anyways bought myself some new clothes and tried on some very tight jeans! had to laugh actually i struggled alot to get in and out of them and wondered how on earth any1 else would have a hope of fitting them! needless to say they weren't for me! after that i went and bought myself some books (to make the trip worth while) i think i spent more money on books than i did clothes ahahhaa! aaaand then i went to the cinemas to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie! was quite good and i imagine it would be even better in English! they have a terrible habbit of dubbing everything here into Spanish! it's a shame really because it takes so much away from the movie, it loses it's originality! they say they have a fantastic dubbing system here and what i think they mean by that is it's efficient but to me watching dubbed tv and movies in Spanish is soooooo ugly! XD today i went to Thader with my flatmate and we ate at some really nice place! was thinking how much i'd like to go their with friends and family! Ooooooh well! and we spied out the graphic tablets! which i've come to conclude that laptops and graphics tablets are very cheap in Spain!

Last week after church a couple of us went to a bar to play billar! or pool! it was lots of fun and i really enjoyed that! Then sometime in the last week something that amazed me was that a parade passed right by outside our house! and it was like 10pm at night! there was a marching band and everything! i was spazzing out at how cool it was that a parade came by our flat! we could literally look down on it from our balcony! and yet all my flatmates were like meh it's nothing exciting! honestly! XD check out these pics and vid!

Singing!!!!!!!!!! :D

My gosh would you look at how long this blog post is already! XD i'll finish off by talking about what's been happening at school lately!^^ classes have been really cool lately! we've been talking about the up coming olympics in London this year and for one of my classes we did our own mini olympics! basically we split the class into 3 and had the teams compete in a series of fun English games! they took to it so well! they still don't know the results but i'll tell you all here now! lol team 1 and 2 tied with 21 points and team 3 got 17! then you already know that we learnt the Haka in my older class! Also as of late we have been studying the Merchant of Venice! a Shakespearean comedy/tragedy! has any1 seen it? well we all got on a bus this last Wednesday and headed to a theatre to watch a performance of it! was really cool! half was in Spanish and the other half in English! pretty much when ever the Jews spoke amongst themselves they spoke in Spanish! my kids really enjoyed it! i think about 6 classes went! we were 3 bus loads all in all and then there were other schools that turned up too!

 I have to be the most un-photogenic person alive >.<

You will be surprised to know (not really) that we had yet another day off school! on Friday it was the day of  Santo Thomas! whom i think is patron saint of highschools or something like that! so naturally being the Spanish way we had the day off! aaaand then on thursday to celebrate the day off on Friday the kids had a day of activities instead of classes! so i think there was a mass service for them and a interyear soccer competition and also a create a mural competition where each class was assigned a country for the olympics! i went to the prize giving and was so proud of my students who won their soccer games and then my 4A class who took out the poster competition with their New Zealand poster! aaaaaaah it was so guay! so cool! :D then after that a group of teachers and I we went to a local bar to have a drink after school!

 Santo Thomas posters

 Prize giving

 The winning New Zealand Mural! :D

Some other posters!

Well that is all! if you have made it through everything up until now i congratulate you! Holy heck this entry has taken aaaaaaaaaaaaages to write! not to mention the headaches these videos give me uploading >.<

Oh now before i forget, if anyone is interested i have i started a new blog for my artwork! Just sketches and things like that! check it out here => http://chrisdog203.blogspot.com/

A Week in Bilbao

Hey good people!

Well with the holidays here i decided to spend a week in a city called Bilbao! turned out to be a little bit longer than a week but was jam packed with lots of exciting things! I'll do a run down day by day and hope i can remember what happened lol. So let's start at Saturday 24th! Christmas Eve! Well from what i've gathered at school and everywhere, here in Spain, Most Christmas celebrations are done on the 24th ie kids get presents, Christmas dinner is eaten! where as in NZ it's usually the 25th! Anyways i was going to catch a bus on the 23rd but all places had been sold so the 24th it was! i spent just over 12 hours traveling to the other side of the country! to the north, to a region known as basque country! (Pais Vasco in Spanish). The region itself is divided into 3 smaller regions and here they have their own language Euskera, which is completely different to any other language and it's origin is unknown! Anyways the bus trip was long and boring but i have to say i prefer it to flying! at least in a bus you can see you're moving but a plane, you're confined in a small area and really have no proof you're even moving, especially at night! XD Something interesting about spain is the beautiful windmills they have dotted all over the country! every now and then you'll drive past a whole field of them! As for the trip i can now say i've been to Alicante and Valencia and many others! or at least through them hahaha. When i think about spanish landscape (or driving cross country) i can really only compare it to driving through the desert road in new zealand, only for 12 hours. País Vasco is different to Murcia because it sees alot more water and thus is greener, but also colder >.<

 Mediterranean Sea - Just out from Alicante

Windmills (click to enlarge pictures)

Anyways that night when i arrived in Bilbao my friend Dani came to pick me up and we went to his house, aaand i can now say i am an expert (or in my mind lol) at using the Bilbao subway! much nicer than Madrid! XD We spent that night walking around looking for some sort of shop open to sell us some food, but as it was Christmas, everything was closed! But in the end Dan's flatmate gave us some of their dinner which was nice!

On Sunday, we encountered similar problems with evrything being closed so we just walked around the city. We went to Casco Viejo which is like the old part of the city! my friend asked me where abouts in NZ are the old cities and i was like hahahha everything in NZ is new! we have such little history compared to the thousands of years of history here in Spain! We found a kebab shop that was open so had something to eat there!

 Making a Spirit bomb with the Sun! XD

 Not sure of the name, but a place with library, study halls, gym, swimming pool, cinema and more

 Random building lol

 Contrast between old and modern

 Bilbao Train Station

 Bridge that lead into Casco Viejo

 I love how beautiful streets are here in Spain!

Aaaaaaaaaaah my finger! :O

Some sort of church

 Bilbao Ayuntamiento (hope i spelt that right) Town Hall

 Something really strange i've noticed here in Spain is that aaaaaaaaall planes in the sky leave these slip trails behind them! i've never seen it in NZ, maybe it's something to do with the airways in the upper hemisphere here? o.O Whatever it is they make these really beautiful lines in the sky!

 Lots of sculptures and statues everywhere in Spain! even in the middle of nowhere!

 La Ría de Bilbao (no idea why it's feminine but that's what it's called)

 I touched it! it was freezing! XD

Art on the side of an over bridge! was really cool!

Ok moving on to Monday! we took a trip for 20mins on the metro (subway) and arrived to an area called Areeta in Euskera, Arena in Spanish and Sand in English lol Anyways there we saw a funny bridge that transported cars across and walked along the ocean and around the city a little.

Having fun with the panoramic function lol XD

Before we go any further i want to stop and take the time to write about something special! something very unique to Bilbao! and that is the Guggenheim Museum here in Bilbao! a very cool piece of architecture! my friend and i went past it a few times so i'll share some photos!

 Ewwwwwwwww Spider! actually walked under it! it's huge and has dove eggs inside waiting to hatch

Does it look familiar to anyone? it reminds me a lot of the Disney Concert hall in Los Angeles, But maybe you've seen it somewhere else? it was filmed in the James bond movie "The world is never enough" Check it out below! The giant dog in the background is called Poopie!

Ok moving along now to Tuesday! A lot of people (just about everyone i had told i was going to Bilbao) told me i had to go visit the town of San Sebastian which is about an hour bus ride from Bilbao! so my friend and i jumped on a bus and got there about midday! not with any great plans so we walked around the city a lot and slowly made our way to the beach! i have to say it was very beautiful! and def worth the visit! thankfully it was great weather too! (for winter) anyways we decided we would head to the aquarium there! it was very cool! lots of interesting things! Took us double the time to get there cause we walked along this warf thing we thought connected and then right at the end it stopped into deep ocean >.< so we had to backtrack! After the museum we walked around this pennisula thingy which reminded me of mount muanganui, only not quite so big lol and after all that it was almost 4 i think and we were both staaaaaaarving and i was super tired from walking but we walked some more and after realizing what we though was a shopping centre, wasn't we eventually found a good old Maccas! lol

 Fountain where the bus dropped us off! Have to admit it's a lot greener than Murcia XD

 Architecture! everyone here thinks the buildings are boring but i could stop and take a picture of everyone!

 San Sebastian River (apparently some big waves come through and people surfed them the week before)

 Church

 Do you recognize these fellows? Don Quixote and Sancho Panza!

Panoramic shot at the beach! (notice the twin lady? hahaha)

 Janita pose!

 Lol XD

 Beautiful boat yard

 We had a whale of a time! :D

 Jelly fish!

 Tiburon! Shark!

There he is! i found Nemo! he's the one on the right XD

 XD

 Yup! that's the Atlantic Ocean alright! so blessed to have been able to be here! :D

There goes another plane trail! aren't they awesome!

Hehehehe Moving pics are always fun!

Ok moving on to Wednesday! i have to apologize cause this is where the photos stop lol i didn't think i would need to bring my camera charger along so my camera died in San Sebastian! the photos that follow are all from my phone, so not that great! Anyways on Wednesday we walked around the river for a little bit and then went to the movies in the local mall. We got there, bought our tickets and had about 2 hours to spare so we went for another walk and discouvered there was a football match on! (interesting that every city worth visiting has a Cathedral and a Soccer Stadium xD) so we followed the crowds to the stadium and had a nosy around! i can't remember who was playing! i think it was Bilbao vs San Sebastian lol Anyways we went back to the mall and watched Immortals! Afterwards when we went to walk home it was pooring down with rain! >.<

Thursday! We went to the Artxanda Lookout at the top of a mountain in Bilbao! some sort of tram thingy which took us about 700m up the mountain! Boy was i glad we didn't have to walk lol! anyways it was an over cast day but the lookout was really beautiful because we could see the whole city! Anyways while we're looking there some oldish lady walks up and asks if we can take her picture for her and after a bit of chatting we discouvered she talks english! So that was a pleasant surprise! turns out she studied her Phd in Oxford so had to learn english to do that! i think she was a plantologist or something like that (yes i did just make that up) but she was talking about agriculture and fungi etc! Anyways her name was Pilar and was very enthusiastic about the fact i'd come from NZ! She'd made a day trip to Bilbao from Leon just to go to some art exhibition!

 Tram Thingy

 Bilbao City

So apparently a traditional style house from Bilbao - Looks English to me XD

Ok moving on! Friday! We went to the bus station to get my ticket home, and i was suppose to leave the next day but due to the holiday seasons there were no buses until Monday! Truth be told i was a little gutted, was looking forward to going home but it was a good thing i stayed i think! That afternoon we went to KFC for lunch! omgosh! that sure turned my frown upside down! hahaha how i miss it here in Murcia! had to travel 12 hours just to go get some fried chicken! XD was totally worth it! people in NZ! do not take for granted your friend chicken! =P

Ok Saturday! New Year's Eve! i hadn't even realized it was new year's eve then so i was glad i was in Bilbao cause i sure didn't have any plans back in Murcia and didn't really want to spend it alone! so my friend and i went to his Church for a dinner with everyone there! was really cool! enjoyed it alot and stayed up nice and late till about 3:30am! Spanish people really make a big deal out of New years! i know we celebrate it in NZ but not quite to the same extreme as here! lots and lots of fireworks going off all hours of the night! alot of partying and streamers/confetti! On our way walking home there was lots of streamers everywhere and my friend told me by 2moro morning everything will have already been cleaned! and he was right! because the next day when we went out all the streets had been cleaned up! was a bit amazed at that! well done Spain! No photos sorry =(

Sunday, i don't remember too much lol at night we caught up with a friend of my friend called Diamandra! so that was cool! didn't do much! just walked her to her bus stop lol and then went to the mall again for dinner and took some pics while we were there! i think that night we went to bed the earliest we had done all week cause i had to get up early for my bus!

Monday! caught the bus nice and early and spent it traveling back to Murcia! we had a change over in a city called Benidorm! i beautiful beach city kinda like the gold coast! would be nice to visit! anyways i took a cell phone of my friend's back to give to his dad who was waiting for me at the bus station holding a sign saying Chris! lol i felt special! XD and then he drove me home which was cool! cause walking around with a suitcase isn't that fun! Glad to be home now! spending the second half of the holidays relaxing before i go back to school on Monday!