La Manga

Hey people!

Well lots of things have happened in the past couple of weeks since i wrote my last entry! obviously because i've been on holiday and here in Murcia there are lots of spring festivities going on! more to come on those! today i am writing about an adventure in my first week of holidays! Ok well i can't remember what day it was, my camera tells me it was a tuesday which sounds right, i went with a group of people to Cabo de Palos and La Manga! My friend and fellow English teacher sent me an email monday night asking me if i wanted to go with them to the beach so i said sure! sounds good! Anyways the following day i got picked up by Rosalia (my friend) and then we went and picked up two more of her friends! One was spanish and the other from England! i was quite surprised to learn that the british woman had been living in Spain for 10 years! i picked up her accent straight away and i would've expected her to have better spanish than she did! but that seems fairly typical here in Spain! lots of Brittish people come and live here for half there life without ever learning spanish! seems odd! you see they don't care to emerge themselves in the culture, but rather have everything english, only with the spanish climate, so they form communities etc! anyways more on that later! We then went to Santa Ana to pick up another friend of Rosalia, Ricardo! who seems to be an authority (or for lack of better words a know-it-all) on everything!

Firstly we went to Cabo de Palos! about an hour from Murcia center, which is i suppose literally 'Stick Cape' in english! XD but the word cabo in this case comes from the latin word palus (lagoon)! it was really beautiful and we walked up to a lighthouse to see out to the Mediterranean Sea! huh huh! i feel so exotic saying that! :D Its lighthouse began operating on January 31, 1865. The cape is part of a marine reserve, the Reserva Marina de Cabo de Palos and Islas Hormigas (a group of islands)

 Little beach!

 lighthouse!

 Ok so apparently out here a ship similar to the titanic sank 2 years before the titanic (or after, i can't remember! lol XD)

 tip of Cabo de Palos

 another beach at the tip of the cape!

 Here you can see La Manga! Cabo de Palos marks the beginning of it! i neglected to take any pictures when we were there so will talk about it here!! Basically it is like a massive sandbar (connected spit if you want to be technical) that separates the mediterranean from 'mar menor'! The strip is 22 km long and 100 metres wide (average). It is really nice! reminds me a lot of the cold coast with all it's hotels and such! just about every1 from Murcia goes there for the summer to escape the heat! i heard that there were only 4 land structures like this in the world! another is in Acapulco Mexico! Here is a picture:

Ok! Next up, in Cabo de Palos we went to a nice restaurant next to a little marina! Aaaand for the first time (really quite ridiculous) i tried Paella! the national dish of Spain (if you live outside of Spain, and if you're from Spain it's the regional dish of Valencia!) Also i tried Caldero! like rice done in a very very strong fish broth! The paella was the best! :D

 The people that came along! from left: Ricardo, Rosalia, Linda, Iliana

 Ok so i said before i would talk a little bit more about british communities in Spain! well they seem to bring all things British to spanish weather! i'd heard about them before but never actually come across them! anyways we went to La Manga Club, which was interesting! actually felt like being out of Spain! was def for very very rich English people! we found out it was like 2,000E per night! aaaaaaaah! talk about a waste of money! lol  i felt so awkward walking on in with my beach clothes, snapping up pictures of everything! XD

Let's Practice English!

 I have been meaning to write about the differences between Spanish and English and the challenges of Learning both languages but haven't gotten around to it lately lol so here i simply have a poem in English for you all to enjoy! In case you weren't aware, the English language is incredibly difficult when it comes to pronunciation! many words are written exactly the same but are pronounced completely different! Don't believe me? try reading this and then imagine a foreigner giving this a go!

Dearest creature in creation,
 Study English pronunciation.
 I will teach you in my verse
 Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
 I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
 Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
 Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
 So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
 Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
 Dies and diet, lord and word,
 Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
 (Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
 Now I surely will not plague you
 With such words as plaque and ague.
 But be careful how you speak:
 Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
 Cloven, oven, how and low,
 Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
 Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
 Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
 Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
 Exiles, similes, and reviles;
 Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
 Solar, mica, war and far;
 One, anemone, Balmoral,
 Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
 Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
 Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
 Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
 Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
 Blood and flood are not like food,
 Nor is mould like should and would.
 Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
 Toward, to forward, to reward.
 And your pronunciation’s OK
 When you correctly say croquet,
 Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
 Friend and fiend, alive and live.
 Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
 And enamour rhyme with hammer.
 River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
 Doll and roll and some and home.
 Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
 Neither does devour with clangour.
 Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
 Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
 Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
 And then singer, ginger, linger,
 Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
 Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
 Query does not rhyme with very,
 Nor does fury sound like bury.
 Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
 Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
 Though the differences seem little,
 We say actual but victual.
 Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
 Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
 Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
 Dull, bull, and George ate late.
 Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
 Science, conscience, scientific.
 Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
 Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
 We say hallowed, but allowed,
 People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
 Mark the differences, moreover,
 Between mover, cover, clover;
 Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
 Chalice, but police and lice;
 Camel, constable, unstable,
 Principle, disciple, label.
 Petal, panel, and canal,
 Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
 Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
 Senator, spectator, mayor.
 Tour, but our and succour, four.
 Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
 Sea, idea, Korea, area,
 Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
 Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
 Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
 Compare alien with Italian,
 Dandelion and battalion.
 Sally with ally, yea, ye,
 Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
 Say aver, but ever, fever,
 Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
 Heron, granary, canary.
 Crevice and device and aerie.
 Face, but preface, not efface.
 Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
 Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
 Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
 Ear, but earn and wear and tear
 Do not rhyme with here but ere.
 Seven is right, but so is even,
 Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
 Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
 Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
 Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
 Is a paling stout and spikey?
 Won’t it make you lose your wits,
 Writing groats and saying grits?
 It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
 Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
 Islington and Isle of Wight,
 Housewife, verdict and indict.
 Finally, which rhymes with enough,
 Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
 Hiccough has the sound of cup.
 My advice is to give up!!!

Field Trips

Woooooooooooooah! it has been an incredibly long time since i posted a new entry here! lol 3 months in fact! weeeeeeeeell i am sure that plenty of things have happened in that time but the sad thing is i don't remember a lot of what has happened! So i will write about what i can remember! expect this entry to be short! i've named it field trips because that's probly the main thing i will cover in the blog! school field trips!

First let's go right back to the beginning of these 3 months! with youth group we went to a place called Torrevieja! it is a very beautiful town but a las we were only there for the night and didn't see much! will have to go back sometime! Apparently it's a very english tourist location! one of my flatmates is from there!

 Here is a video of us performing a hand theatre thingy! you can see me at the end when the lights come on! :D

Ok so my third year classes and i we all went on a field trip to see The Siyasa Ruins in a town called Cieza! so we all jumped on a bus and went to Cieza nice and early in the morning! first we went to a museum where one group watched a video about the history of these ruins! basically it was a muslim city built here in Spain many years ago, i don't remember which century tho XD i had no idea there was a huge Islam Influence (for lack of better word) here in Spain! there was a large scale conquest from 711 to 1492! Spain has such rich history and i feel totally oblivious to it all! Anyways the other group went and watched a theatre thing in English about an islam woman and an English soldier (more historic influence). Afterwards the two groups switched! the English theatre was really good and i'm pretty sure the kids liked it! they showed us traditional dance and everything! oooooooh i had to laugh at some students! XD Around lunch time the 2 teachers and i left the kids at the museum and went down the road to a cafe! i have to say that seemed really strange thing to do! i can't ever imagine that happening in NZ! anyways by this point it was raining and everything was wet so we recived the bad news that we couldn't go to see the actual ruins up in the mountains! but such is life! one of the teachers had been before and said they were really cool!

Ok but after that we were allowed to go see a mill! so that was cool! the bu wove us through the tiny one way street maze that is Cieza (actually i think in general street here are far smaller than NZ! here, other than main streets everything is one way! i always freak out when the bus navigates it's way around these narrow streets thinking it's bound to hit something! XD) Then we listened to some lady talking and went for a walk to see the mill! in all honesty it was a little boring! but don't tell anyone! lol

 Don't they look excited?!! :D

 English theatre lady

 Reconstructed courtyard of a typical Siyasan building

 This is called 'Lattice work'

Walking to the mill!

Ok so in these last few months i have been round to the houses of a couple of the English dept. Teachers! First i went to Maria's house for lunch! It was really nice and i got to meet her two kids! We ate outside on there deck thingy (lack of better word) and it was so sunny! i really liked it! then i one day i went to Carrefour! which is like a big warehouse type store and supermarket! really cool! anyways i decided to buy some speakers for my laptop and on the way home i ran into an English teacher Isabel! and she invited me back to her home! so that was really cool too! also meet her two kids!

Before we continue i have to say sometimes the differences in food can be a little difficult here! what i mean is that here you can't find things you'd be able to get easily in NZ! and i know when i go back to NZ i wont have any hope of finding some of my favourite foods from here! hahaha i walked to 3 different supermarkets the otherday in search of celery salt but no luck! however at the last supermarket i found CADBURY CREME EGGS! super stoked with that! needless to say i bought far too many! XD aaaaand also it is impossible to find sour cream here! but i did find some really nice sweet chilli sauce in the international department! 

Ok moving on! to another school fieldtrip! My first year classes and i went to spend the day in Cartagena! to see firstly the roman theater ruins and then a fortune house ruins and i have no idea why it was called that! it was basically just some ruins of an old street! nothing that exciting! it was the second time i went to the roman theater but was still good! the kids really enjoyed it! it was for their social studies class but i was lucky enough to go with them! It was strange, another thing that is different here in Spain is that there were only 2 teachers and myself for 2 classes! i'm not sure there is some sort of rule of teacher student ratio here! i know in NZ by law it's something like 1 adult for every 6-8 students!

 Arriving at Cartagena

 CLass pose! can you see me? :D

 Mural on a building i thought was pretty cool!

 Roman Theater

Inside the Fortune house!

Well that's about it! finally in classes we have been talking about Easter and how differently it is celebrated here in Spain! Basically here they have spring festivals and Semana Santa which is holy week! Anyways i am now on holiday for the next 2 weeks so i will update my blog with all the going downs at the end of them!