One Month!

I have officially lived in Spain for one month and things are still going great. Ben and I have gotten a lot of our necessary paperwork done that we have to do to be able to live here for such an extended period of time. We have also applied for internet so we should have a WiFi connection in our apartment by next Thursday! I will be able to keep in communication easier with everybody. We also had a land line put in our apartment today if anybody wants to call or telephone...(once we go out and buy a cheap one). Also, I have switched my blog so that people are now able to leave comments without having to make a Google account.

I have been very busy teaching kids from the ages of 3 to 19 years old. My second week of teaching at the Primary School (I teach at that school only on Tuesdays) I received a note from a little girl from a class I had met and talked with my first week of classes. I thought it would be nice to share with everybody on here. She had typed it on a computer, cut it out in a small square and used different colored pens to make lines around it for a frame. It was very cute and touching. I now figure that I can make somewhat of a difference teaching the students English here in Spain....well at least the young ones. Here is the note. It is half in English with some in Spanish. I will translate the Spanish into English in ( ).


hello hello hello I am called karem
Rodriguez gutierrez I am 10 years old
I am student of sesto (sixth) B and I to liked
much cuado (when) came to my class to speak
to us in English and to mostrarno (show us)
different photos yours me pleased n
much were very pretty the truth to ber (see)
when vuelbes (comes) to come to my class I
wait for to you since to my the
English costs a little to me has to
ber situ rambien (also) me you can write a
day of theses I wants to learn as much
English as your so that he enchants
the English to me and other languages
to be able to travel to different
countries and places and to know their
languages so that always it is good
send to many kisses and abrasos (hugs)
karencita good bye that estes (you are) well
always


Hope everybody is doing great! Hasta luego...

Link for Photos

Hello! I just finished putting up a link to see some of my photos from last weekend´s winery tour. You can find the link by going to the left hand side of the blog under ´Links´and clicking on ´My Photos from Spain.´ I hope to have captions for the photos within the next few days as well as more photos for you so keep checking back! I am off to school now for 2 hours. Have a great day!

Thanks for the Birthday Wishes!!!

I just wanted to take some time to say thank you to all for making my 24th birthday super great! Yesterday Ben and I woke up at 7:00 AM to go hand in our paperwork to receive our International Identification Numbers. It was very very early for us. We had to sit outside for about 2 hours until the place opened but it was worth it. It was very cold outside and now, because I wore flip flops and sat outside for a long time, have a head cold. Everybody here seems to be sick also. We were more prepared than we thought with our paperwork and we were out of the place in 10 minutes. After we were finished we went out for churros and chocolate for breakfast. It was so great! The day was spent relaxing around the city. I also had to do some laundry. I haven't had very much time here at all to do laundry so I was in great need! After laundry, Ben and I went to the grocery store and bought an amazing chocolate truffle cake.

Last night at around 8:30 we invited all of our new friends we have met here to go out to eat at Pizzeria Da Marcos. There were 9 of us. 4 of us were from the United States, 1 boy from England, 1 girl from Italy and the other girl from Germany. I was really hungry for pizza so this place in Calle San Juan (San Juan Street) looked great. The pizza I had was amazing! It had spicy hamburger meat, red pepper, oregano, cheese and tomato sauce on it. I received two gifts from my friends. A book in Spanish called "The Shadow in the Wind" and also a bath set. I am very excited to read the Spanish novel soon. After we got done eating, Ben and I headed back to enjoy the cake that we had boughten earlier. It was sooooooooo good. I haven't had cake that good for a long time! I am glad we will have the cake for awhile to eat.
Today I headed back to school to CP Breton de los Herreros. I always have Mondays free which is really nice. This school is for 3 - 12 year olds. Last week I met the older kids in the school. Today, I was in classrooms with 3, 4, 5 and 6 year olds! Wow, they have a lot of energy and do not know much English. I am on my long lunch break and I only have one more class left at 3:00 - 4:00. I am starting to think I will like having this long break at the school. It lets me relax a little bit and also have time to use the internet. I had learned last week that my school had WiFi to use so I brought my own computer today. After about 15 minutes trying to ask the Secretary for a password for WiFi I got frustrated. He only wanted to use his English with me yet he did not understand what I kept trying to ask him. So I finally asked him in Spanish and he handed me a paper with the password. Now, I will be able to load a few photos on my blog today. I plan to write bigger blogs on Tuesdays when I have my really long break.

If anybody has any ideas of what I could teach here for any of the English classes I will take ideas at abbylynnelarson@gmail.com. I have been trying to think of very easy songs for the little kids to repeat and learn. I am also hoping to play a lot of games and read many stories. I received one idea about a traveling bear from my mom yesterday about what cousin Tim told her so I think I will also use that so everybody in the US that I know may receive a bear in the mail. Also if you want to know my new address, I finally know how to write it! You can also email me for that if you would like.

Finally, this past Sunday, Ben and I went on a tour of two local winery's and also an old cathedral in La Rioja. They were very impressive. I will be posting photos from that excursion and also from our walk around the city soon. I will post a link on the blog. Here is one of the photos of me that was taken near the very famous bridge in Logrono.

Hello Again!

I am still doing great here in Spain! I have been way busier than I ever thought I would be. On Tuesday I started meeting with all of the students here. I am sitting in a Teachers Lounge right now waiting to go to meet my next class. I am done working at my schools until next Tuesday. This weekend I have purchased a ticket to go on a Vinobus (a tour of vineyards in La Rioja). I can´t wait to take a lot of photos there. I will write more when I have internet again. It is harder than I imagined to find a place and time to have internet. Today we are going to a local bank to get a Spanish bank account so that the school will be able to pay us there. It will be nice to finally making euros instead of always thinking in US Dollars! Hope you can all come visit here. It is so wonderful and can´t wait to share it with all. I am off to my next class. I have 3 more classes left today. It is one of my long days. Goodbye!