Off the air, on the road

Yo yo yo, this is a shout out to say that I won't be on the blog for the next month or so as I'm heading off for a French/Spanish road trip, including seeing my newly fianceed sister! Yay!

Peace out.

Analogue is for on the road

The weekend past, los americanos and three aussie hangers-on headed to Segovia, Toledo and Burgos for a weekend of serious cultural education.

That's me on the left, in Segovia, practising for my next Tommy Hilfiger catalogue. The important thing to note, other than the astoundingly masculine pose I assume with such ease, is that I am carrying an ancient contraption known as an SLR film camera. You may have seen them in a museum or dumpster near you. Due to the difficulties inherent in transferring fillum into digital media (nudge sis nudge), the following are photos sneakily stolen from others who partook in the festivities. Nevertheless! For your viewing pleasure...

We saw 2000-year old Roman aqueducts like this:

cathedrals like this:
this:

and this:
alcazares like this:
and nuns like this:

HOT!

Well, it was hot, like 35 degrees in Toledo. But now it's flooding there. Crazy Spanish weather - more proof that the rain in Spain falls mainly absolutely everywhere.

All in all, a stellar* weekend.

* Use of 'stellar' by kind permission of KT**
**Use of asterisk also by kind permission of KT

On the air

Emja has released her blog to the world. If you liked 'Life of Lil' Bro', you'll love 'A dos velas'.


To celebrate, here's some macarena action:

¿Is free, is good, no?

An integral part of the student life is the enjoyment of free forms of entertainment. And an integral part of the enjoyment is the having of good friends and/or good foods with which to enjoy it. Okay, so my english is steadily going down the shitter, but no importa!!

Last Friday was Deidre (aka Dorothy) from Kansas's last day in Santander. Emja chucked her a big ol' shazoo at her place, including home-made pinchos (tapas). [Leanne, these included bacon, camembert and honey, and stuffed capsicums with brie, mmmm]. Here's Deidre with her very first (and last) home made tortilla española.

Not a bad view from Em's flat huh?After din-dins we headed to the local train station for a free concert of traditional Latin dance which included Peruvians in flannies with mortace boards on their heads and a very very flabby but extremely enthusiastic salsa instructor man. I got bumped and grounded all over the place.

Following the gorgement that was Friday night, we decided to move some of that flab by taking some bikes up to the lighthouse on the headland. The city hires these bikes out free as a tourism caper that really only gets utilised by the povvo student types, but it's an awesome thing nonetheless. Some people take them every Saturday to do their shopping at the hypermarket just out of town.

After winning chicken with the local drivers round some interesting coastal blind corners, we pushed those gearless mothers up the last hill to the lighthouse.

On the cliff is a monument to all the prisoners of war that both sides forced to jump off the cliff to their deaths during the Spanish Civil War. Mmmm, peaceful Spain...

Enough with the Sans already!

This weekend, it was San Vicente de la Barquera (San Vin for short). Clarisse, one of Emja's two close Frenchies kindly drove us along the beautiful coastal road to the western border of a region Cantabria to San Vin. The road took us past Santillana del Mar and Gaudi's Capricho (Cazrock - the only Gaudi edifice outside of the Catalan area [aka Barcelona]).

Clarisse and I at the foot of the castle.

We had intended to actually finally dip our feet in the Atlantic by hiring some surfboards but the 12 degree water temps kept us high and dry. Instead, we checked out the castle and church on the hill in San Vin, and filled ourselve senseless on the local menu del dia.

The Frenchie and the Aussie Queens of the Castle.

Anyone for major testicle shrinkage? No?

Time to knuckle down this week, with 10 hours of teaching English conversation at uni, and lots of new grammar to be alearning. This Friday I'm off to the Picos de Europa, to a church which houses a part of the 'True Cross'... If it's not the real thing, I will be truly cross. What?

You know, Jesus isn't just a cool Spanish name. (aka San Sebastian in the rain)

Last weekend was a 'puente' in Spain. That means that there was a day of work between a weekend and a public holiday. Of course this makes no sense so everyone takes the working day off as well. Puente means 'bridge' and the working day is a bridge between two blissful periods of non-work. Our university gave us the working day off, thereby giving us 5 days free of grammatical mazes and conversational faux pas-es. Emja and I decided to use this gift in the best way possible - by jumping on a bus to San Sebastian, about 2.5 hours from Santander.

Known variously as 'The most beautiful city in Spain', 'the perfect beach' and 'that place where I-rock slept in various public places', I think San Sebastian lives up to all these labels. It pissed down with rain for most of our time there, but even so the place was beautiful. The following is a pictorial guide to the things what we did there:The road to San Seb starts becoming very pyreneesy.

I always thought San Seb was a raucous party town, but they have more churches than they know what to do with. This is the Gothic cathedral between the Old and New Towns.

The bay getting close to sunset. Jesus watches over the revellers from the headland.

Beach, babes, what more could a young sinner you ask for?

Refuge from the rain came in the form of a church service.

My Jesus moment. As in 'Jesus, I can't believe I ate the entire paella'. He he.

The trip back was a mix of trains, trams and buses but it all ran perfectly to time and we were back to say our prayers before sundown Tuesday.

So, this is my life now

Emja in the plaza opposite the port in Santander. Purrritty.

Emja on the pond, in front of the statue in front of Santander Cathedral.

After the long absence from blogarama, I thought it time I gave you a pictorial illustration of my new life in Spain. I live in Santander, which is a really cool little seaside town in the north of Spain. ERASMUS is pretty big here, and at the moment it's easier to meet foreigners than locals, but that is the plight of the exchange student. Today, for example, I played soccer with my German flatmate and ten Brazilians and Frenchies.

Then went out to the bay to see the fireworks with a Frenchie, two Brazilians, a Swede and two Australians.
A Frenchie chick making a move on my girl. Those Frenchies are in to anything.


I´m also working at the University of Cantabria teaching English and running the multimedia library. The extra euros are very much needed.

More photos to come soon I promise. Last weekend I went to San Sebastian, so updates are well past due. Love to youse all.

Ya voy, lo siento y vamos a hablar mas frecuentemente!

Hola a todos from the land of dodgy wine/coke mixes, 6am bedtimes and tenses, tenses tenses. I may have agree with KT's assessment of my blog updating abilities. But hey, three months without an update isn't THAT long is it? Oh....

Okay, well here's the long and short of it. I am living in a very Spanish (aka small) apartment with two Brazilians and a German. I'm sharing a room with one of the Brazzos. I'm ina class with 25 Americans and one very scared Chinese girl.

I have an amazing Australian girlfriend (you may have heard of Emja in the occasional previous post) and some frogs, spicks, eyeties and krauts among my friends. It's my own little United Nations, only with more alcohol and less diplomacy.

Sorry for the lack of updates, en serio. Although my access to the internet is very limited, I will try and update when I can, and I'll be sure to throw in as many wanky Spanish catchphrases as possible.

Hasta luego!