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Showing posts from March, 2013

Bilbao, Spain: Where the Modern Art Museum IS Art

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On my return journey from France back into Spain, I stopped off for a few days in the Basque provinces in north-central Spain. In the short time I had to spend there, I fell in love with the coastal city of San Sebastián and decided to make a day-trip to nearby Bilbao, one hour to the west. Pronounced “beel-BAH-oe” [bil'βa.o], its name in the native Basque language is actually Bilbo —yes, spelled the same way as the protagonist from Tolkien’s  Hobbit . Riverfront apartments in Bilbao’s old town Nerd freak-out moment aside, Bilbao is a large city that stretches out between the hills and the Nervión River, a few kilometers inland from the coast. Although a lovely place to visit, its industrial, workaday heritage still shows through today. After all, Bilbao—along with the rest of the Basque Country—led the way in bringing the Industrial Revolution to Spain a couple hundred years ago. Blessed with large iron ore deposits and a strong population, the region quickly transformed

San Sebastián, Spain: Coastal Gem of the Basque Country

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Returning to Spain from a little over a week in northern France , I decided to pass through the Spanish Basque Country situated around the western corner of the Pyrenees mountains. This would complete the loop around France I wanted to make, having entered via Barcelona and the eastern Pyreness on the other side. Green, beach-blessed  San Sebastián was stop number one, just outside the French border on the Atlantic coast. It was love at first sight. San Sebastián, seen from Mount Urgull But who are the Basques? Before I got interested in Spain or Spanish history, I had never heard of this people group before, but, come to find out, they’ve been interacting with Europe and the world since before the time of the Romans. In short, the defining feature of the Basque people is that they speak, well, Basque— a language with no discernible link to any other European language that has resisted competition from Latin, French, and Spanish for thousands of years. The Basques straddl

7 Things You DON’T Have To Do as a Language Assistant in Spain

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As a language assistant in Spain , you’ll be expected to show up to your school (or schools) and work in 12 hours of classes every week, helping your assigned teacher in bilingual courses. In return, you’ll receive 700€ a month, health insurance, and time off on national holidays (e.g., Christmas and Easter). This is the bare minimum of what is required of you to spend two-thirds of a year living and traveling abroad, but I think many assistants, myself included, often worry that we don’t live up to certain expectations of what an “ideal” language assistant should look like, whether that’s how they should work or what they should do in their spare time. I’d like to shoot down some common misconceptions people have about the program, many of which I once thought should have been true of myself until I wrote this post. Street in Barcelona 1) You don’t have to travel every weekend, month, or break There’s this big pressure on participants in the program to take trips all the tim

Festival de Música Antigua: Úbeda and Baeza’s Classical Music Festival

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Way back in November, it was a pleasant surprise for me to learn that my adopted hometown of Úbeda (along with neighboring Baeza) would be hosting a classical music festival spanning the next couple of weeks. Ever since I was young, I have always had a big place in my heart for classical music, from listening to WRR 101.1 FM in Texas growing up, attending as many concerts, performances, and recitals as possible in college, and singing in choirs throughout my “formative” years. So I was naturally delighted when I found out this little-visited corner of Spain would be home to a series of concerts centered on just that—classical music.  Informative booklet about the festival The Festival de Música Antigua is a month-long celebration of “ancient” music that is often forgotten in the classical music world, mainly medieval- and Renaissance-era works. Organized by the regional department of culture of Andalucía, the provincial government of Jaén, the town councils of Úbeda and Baez

A Day in the Life of a Language Assistant in Spain

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Since most of the posts on this blog have been mainly travel-oriented lately, I thought I’d whip up a post about what living abroad really looks like, about how I live in between exciting (but once monthly) weekend travels. If you don’t already know, I’m currently working as a North American Language and Culture Assistant ( auxiliar de conversación  in Spanish) in an elementary school in a small village called Villanueva del Arzobispo , which is in the south of the country. The gig is good for the better part of one school year (October 2012 through May 2013), and I work 12 hours or so a week for 700€ a month, health insurance, and three weeks of vacation (at Christmas and Easter). Úbeda, the town where I live Although travel is a strong passion of mine, I’m a pretty big introvert and homebody, so my Instagram and Twitter feeds probably aren’t always the most accurate representation of what life as a language assistant is really like. I hope this post brings things a little c