Segovia, Spain

December has arrived and besides enjoying 50 degree weather we also enjoyed having one of Kristyn's friends (Sarah) come out and visit us for a week. During this time we went to Segovia (just N. of Madrid) and saw the sights. We also got to show her Madrid. This is a lot easier now that we have lived here for more then a few weeks! The trip to Segovia was great, with the highlight being a Roman Aqua Duct that is over 2000 years old. They say it still works but I didn't see any flowing water so I have my doubts.

My English classes are still going well and i just added two more lessons, so I am up to 10 a week now. This allows for a great amount of down time but also gives me something to look forward to throughout the week. Here are a few pictures from Segovia.

For the soccer fans out there

I went to my first European futbol match with my friend Andy before he headed out for Brussels. We saw Rhyo Vallecas (the Madrid team) play some team from down South. These two teams would be like watching a AAA baseball team. So these guys are one league below playing for the pros, Pretty good.!

The game was amazing. People chanting during the entire game, waiving flags, and yelling at the opponents fans, and by using the word yelling I am being kind. It was a little bit more harsh then that. But overall it was great. Taking in some real soccer and watching it in such an amazing environment, defiantly is one of my highlights so far.

These are our new friends: Israel, Raul, Conchi, and Israel's and Conchi's son Manu. This is in Toledo

Having some fun while walking around Tolded

Pictures: Tim, Raul, and Conchi

Conchi and Manu

Israel, Conchi and Manu posing before we go into a Museum that features pictures by Goya

talk about twins!!!

We finally started working!!!

I started 6 private English lessons this week and have added one more for next week. So that means I will be up to 7 total lessons and hoping to add at least one more. This puts me at 8.5 hours of work a week. Really with all the prep time it equals a lot more, especially because I have to put so much work into my prep (because I don’t know what in the world I am really doing).

The classes seem to be going pretty good so far, thanks to the handy website www.onestopenglish.com I just print out the worksheets and walk them through it. The hard part is when they don’t want to do worksheets. Then I have to create lessons, which take more time and have more of a potential to bomb, but so far so good. I just keep smiling and telling them that it takes time and practice and that seems to put them at ease.

So, my just under two months without a job has finally come to an end. The nice thing is that none of my classes are before 2:00. So I still have time to sleep in, work on my Spanish, and do a little reading before I head off to work. The bad part is that some of my classes are at 8:00 p.m. This definitely cuts into my night life J

Kristyn starts classes at an academy this week and she will be working the evening shift usually from 4 or 5 until 10:00 p.m. This doesn’t make for the greatest of schedules for us to see each other but we are hoping that after Christmas break we will be able to re-work some of her hours. She will be working one-on-one with students studying to pass certain tests in order to further their careers. The nice thing is that it doesn’t really require any prep work because she just walks them through a computer program, the bad news is that it is every night of the week. So our hang out time is at a premium.

But we have jobs and we are finally making money. Who knows, this adventure might actually work out after all.

Final decisiosn

Ok, after a bit of a crazy week sending out e-mails and making lots of phone calls Kristyn and I have decided that we have enough work to stay! Things are going to be tight for a while but it is good finally making the decision and having real work. I was able to line up 6 private lessons to give each week and Kristyn was able to line up some work with another academy. So that is the update. Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers.

We both start teaching this week, so wish us luck!

Kristyn and I at the Parque del Retiro in Madrid

Downtown Madrid during one of the many holidays

This is the Templo de debod in Madrid. Kristyn captured this magical scene one night when we were out walking!

Job update...O NO!!!

It has been a while since my last post… I realize this. But I am ok with large gaps in the frequency of my posts. I think it builds suspense and from what I know about books, TV shows, etc. suspense is a good thing. So I hope you all don’t mind that you aren’t getting a weekly update. Who knows, maybe I will get better, but in the mean time just feel the suspense building up inside and say a little thank you to me …your welcome!

SIDE NOTE---It is kind of hard to post when you still don’t have internet and you have to hold your computer over your sink and half way out a window just to get 5 minutes worth of signal.

With that said the last few weeks have been eventful to say the least. We started the month out attending my buddy Andy’s wedding to a great Spanish lady (Irina) They did a three day wedding in Hornacharlos (close to Cordoba) and it was amazing. The highlight was when Kristyn and I won the Flamenco competition over all the other Americans. I guess you could say we should have won because we had been here for a month before everyone else. But, with my sense of rhythm working against us I still think this was a truly amazing accomplishment! Neace, you would have been happy!

After that we came home and thought we would start work the next day. Well, that didn’t happen and the next few weeks consisted of our boss telling us we would start on a certain day and then getting an e-mail right before hand telling us we needed to wait a little longer. That finally played out this weekend and we realized that our jobs were no more.

This leaves us in quite a predicament. What are we going to do now that we don’t have jobs, and we haven’t explored any more options because…we thought we did? I am sure you can feel our pain! So now Kristyn and I are trying to figure out what to do next. We have sent out a few e-mails trying to put together enough private classes to sustain us until we can get our feet about us, but we are not quite sure if this will work out.

So the adventure continues and Kristyn and I get to put our money where our mouth is and try to trust the Lord through this challenging time. If we don’t get some things worked out quickly we might just need to come home for a while and then head back over here in early March/April to do the backpacking part of our trip. Neither of us wants to do this but it might be our only option. So there is my little update.

I hope you all are well and that you are enjoying the fall/winter seasons. We are still in the 70’s during the day but at night it is starting to get quit cold.

I will leave you with these words of wisdom. Never take for granted the fact that you know what other people are saying. It can prove very challenging when this little convince is taken away J

Getting acclimated

***The picture is of Andy, (my friend from the states) one of his english students Juan, Kirstyn and then me. We went out of the city and hiked the mountains about an hour N. of Madrid.***

OK, a lot has happened in the last two weeks since arriving in Madrid. I will try to give a brief update on some of it so that you guys feel that you are right here in the action with us… well maybe not that much information, but enough too know a little bit about our highs and lows.

First—Like I mentioned in the last post, we do have “real” jobs working at a bank here in Madrid. Kristyn and I will be teaching English 4 days a week 3 hours a day. The nice thing is that we both work in the same building and we don’t have to travel all over the place to find out students. The bank supplies the rooms, the students and the resources. Are job is just to provide conversational English for each class during their one hour with us. Also, we will have no more then 8 students at a time. The hard part is that each hour we will have a different “level” of English Speakers. This means we will have to provide three different lessons a day. I think the first few weeks could be tough but once we get the hang of it everything should work out just fine. The other bad thing is that we have to travel 1 hour each way to and from the bank. It definitely isn’t the worst thing in the world but that does take more time away from us, and that in the end is not good!

Overall we are both very excited to get going and figure out how this is going to work.

Another piece of new is that I started my first private lessons last night. I am working with two scientists…that is right my friends, SCIENTISTS. They work in a laboratory and do all kinds of tests to find cures for things. It is actually really cool. The IQ’s of these two people blows me out of the water. They are both really cool and nice but the guy looks like Vladimir Putin, which I think is really funny! The first lesson went well I think, or at least well enough for them to schedule a second lesson and that is what really matters J

Other news:

Kristyn and I just signed up for a tourist bank account today. We had to run all over the place and get paper work saying this and that. Then we had to try and figure out what the heck the banker was talking about. It was kind of crazy and stressful. Just imagine two people that don’t look much older than 12 sitting down with our Spanish/English dictionary trying to talk interest rates and monthly balance charges. I am sure that banker new she was in for a long day when we both just kept smiling after all of her questions. To be honest Kristyn really did do a good job working on her Spanish…it was I who had no idea what was going on. Something that I am getting very use to while over here J

Next on our list is to try to set up a landline and then get Internet. Both of these will be tough, especially because we just learned that my buddy Andy (the one who helped us get there and line everything up) is going to be moving to Brussels with his wife. So, soon we will lose them as our safety net and have to do everything on our own. I know it will probably be good for us, but nonetheless it will be sad to see them go.

Ok that is all for now. I hope everyone feels caught up a little on what is going on. Let us know if you have any other questions and feel free to e-mail us. We will get back to you as soon as we can.

Until next time,

Chao

UPDATE AND PICTURES

Here is a quick update. Kristyn and I went to 4 interviews between Monday and Tuesday and we have decided to accept a job teaching english to employees at a bank. We only have to work 12 hours a week and it should be able to make enough to pay for everything we need here and to help with some of the cost of traveling around Spain! So, we are both pretty excited and amazed that we were able to get this job. I am just hoping that it doesn't fall through for some reason. You just never know i guess. But, if all goes well we start on Oct. 5 (I think that is a Monday)

Also, here are some pictures from our adventure in Dublin and some other random pictures

We made it!!!

Hello everyone,

I just wanted you all to know that we did indeed make it to our apt. in Madrid and are currently figuring stuff out. Like where to get groceries, where to take the trash to when we need to get rid of it and all other sorts of stuff you just take for granted when you are in the States. As Kristyn and i were walking around yesterday with our friend Andy taking in all the sites I made a comment that is still very true and i am sure will be for some time. "I said it was hard being illiterate!" I guess that is the way it feels for both of us right now. Not knowing what anyone is saying or being able to read the signs does present is challenges. But at the same time we are having fun figuring things out and learning a new system.

I am sure i will write more about our trip getting here and our stop over in Dublin later. But for now rest assured...we did actually make it and we have our job interviews this next week. I hope it all goes well!

New Apartment

Hey Everyone,

I think we finally got a new apartment in the heart of Madrid. Here is the listing for it on-line.

http://madrid.loquo.com/pe/housing/flats-for-rent-by-owner/atico-estudio-zona-bilbao/4256306

We will see how long this link actually stays working now that it is off the market!

Selling stuff on Craig's List

Ok,

As the countdown gets closer and more and more things still need to be done Kristyn and I went ahead and put our furniture on Craigs List, even though we still have 8 weeks before we completely move out of our apt. Our rational… our stuff isn’t that good and it is going to take some time to sell it all.
So on Sunday we took pictures and wrote up catchy little descriptions using all the familiar words that we have all heard before; the hutch is “gently used” the couches are “mocha” not brown and the bookshelves are stained a nice “cherry” color. I thought people would see right through our dazzling vocabulary and just pass over our stuff. Boy was I wrong.
We posted the stuff at 4:00p.m. on Sunday. By 8:00 the next morning we had some 25-30 e-mails of people wanting to come and look it over or buy it straight away. We sold our couches (which I bought from Alan Jacob/Whitworth for like $30.00) at 6:30 p.m. on Monday; one day after we posted for $150, how crazy is that. We have other people coming in tonight to look at the rest of our stuff, so things are looking good.
The bad part is this. We have another 8 weeks to go and we don’t have furniture in our living room. It is going to be a long couple of weeks, but at least we have more space to pack things up, right?

Getting Ready

The tickets have been purchased! On September 8, 2009 Kristyn and i will be taking off from

Chicago and heading over to Dublin. The plan from there is to take a day or two and explore as much as we can in Dublin and then grab another flight into Madrid. Now that we have the tickets it definitely feels more real. With that comes feeling of shock (what the heck are we doing) and feeling of excitement (this is going to be awesome). I am guessing that once we land I will be somewhere in between.

Now Kristyn and i are in the midst of packing up the apartment and getting ready to take some of our stuff back to Mansfield to store it with the parents. It is easy to forget just how much stuff you can cram into one little apartment, but as we begin to pull things out I can't help but wonder where it all came from. Our hope is that this move will really help us downsize and live a bit simpler when we come back to the states. or should i say...if we come back to the states!

Next week we will post our furniture on Craig's list. So if your in the market for a gently used sofa and books shelves give us a call! If that doesn't work I think we will end up donating the stuff to a local charity or something like that. I just want to get it out of the apartment so that we don't have to think about it any more. That is my answer to everything, out of sight out of mind.

Well that is it for now. its time to buckle up, because we are actually doing this!