Jazz music and undead drunkards.

I went out to listen to jazz music Friday night. I ended up carrying a drunken, undead man home.

The live music was in an upscale bar that catered to a much wealthier and older audience than myself. I believe I was the only person there under 30. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the music. The band looked like an older, Italian version of the Jonas Brothers with Dave Grohl on drums and a woman on cello for whom I can't think of a doppleganger. They did a lot of improvisation, especially the drummer, and even incorporated "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" into one of their songs.

I went with Louis and Ana. Louis and I enjoyed the jazz music thoroughly while Ana complained about the lack of dancing. We told her to dance if she wanted but I don't think anyone was going to join her. I had a conversation in Spanish with Louis about most music being stolen by white guys and eventually being turned into a spectacle for old white people to enjoy. It's a good thing I have patient and helpful Spanish friends to listen when I'm trying to explain more difficult concepts. Usually they get the gist of what I'm saying despite some grammar errors.

After listening to jazz for a while, we headed over to the other popular concert of the night in Teruel in a modern-looking bar called "The Place" (yes, in English). It was 15 euros to even enter, so we decided to go somewhere else. And from the sound of the place, the music would not have appealed to me anyway. We ended up going to Louis' favorite bar. It was obvious upon entering it why he liked it so much - the walls were decorated by a hardcore heavy metal fan. There were flaming skulls and long-haired demon people painted everywhere. I'll admit it was equal parts impressive and creepy. There's nothing like listening to Metallica and Slayer playlists in a basement bar that could have been designed by a Dungeon Master.

After having my face sufficiently melted, we went to another bar. This one was picked by Ana. The music was folky and the bartenders could have easily been Starbucks baristas by day. I tried to explain the term "hipster" to Ana and Louis but they kept thinking I was referring to hippies. It's not necessarily difficult to explain it in Spanish so much as it is difficult to define a hipster. Our tranquil tea time in hipsterland was interrupted by Ana's alcoholic cousin, George, who stumbled in, drunk as a skunk, in what I'm sure was the best Halloween costume in Teruel that night. In fact, it may have been the only Halloween costume in Teruel because Halloween is a fairly new, imported holiday here.

I wish I had brought my camera because his outfit truly was impressive and his inebriated state made his undead look all the more convincing. His face was painted pale white and he had a thin beard that traced his jawline and connected to a mustache, leaving the chin cleanly shaved. It was similar to a mutton chop style but very clean-looking. He had a nice bowler hat and a white a black striped suit with a red bow tie. Talk about classy. At first, his drunkenness was a bit entertaining but it soon became apparent that he was not feeling well. Ana tried to give him water and coffee but he opted to vomit on the floor instead. One of the bartenders mopped it up with what I thought was an entirely too satisfied look on his face. Either he really liked mopping up vomit or he had no idea where he was either.

Ana went for her car and Louis and I carried George out of the bar and laid him down on a bench outside. He immediately went to sleep. If it weren't for his snoring, I would have thought he was dead. The police pulled up eventually and made sure he was okay. They offered to take him home but Louis told them we had a car on the way. George would have been arrested if he had been in the States. Here, the police offer to give him a ride home. Spain is different.

Ana didn't know where George lived exactly, so we drove around for quite some time looking for his house. George made himself comfortable by laying his head on my shoulder. I was terrified that he was going to expel zombie puke on me at any moment. Thankfully, we found his house before he had the opportunity. His mom seemed thankful that we brought him home but irritated that we had showed up at three in the morning and rang the doorbell. Ana offered to go back to the city center after this fiasco but I declined. Spaniards are crazy.

Last night I went to the movies with my roommate and his lady friend. We watched The Adventures of Tintin, based on the Belgian comic series and the cartoons. It was directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson and has all kinds of popular actors in it (including Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Andy Serkis). The bad part was that none of the voices were from these actors because I watched it with Spanish voice actors. However, the voices weren't just sloppily dubbed as they usually are for movies here. They actually sounded quite natural for the characters. It was surprisingly enjoyable and the visuals (especially during action sequences) were well done. I think it's one of the few 3-D movies I've seen that actually benefits from being in 3-D.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Zaragoza with one of the teachers at the foreign language school. Her parents are going to let me stay at their house and feed me free food. I'm excited.

Meeting some personal goals and working a bit much

I spoke too soon when I claimed it wasn't fall yet. It has been cold and rainy all week.

I'm starting to reap some of the benefits of being a teacher now, especially with the number of students I have (several hundred). I often see my students out and about in Teruel and they are always friendly. Many of them have invited me to go out to eat with them or have a coffee (and usually when I accept, they pay!). I think I could get used to this. But outside of getting free food, I have noticed that my presence in the classroom, both in the primary school and the foreign language school, has made some impact on the students' learning. While I don't consider myself all that qualified to be a teacher, I think I'm at least doing something right. The kids in the primary school go from being outright hostile to the idea of learning English to exclaiming "hello, how are you?" (or as Spaniards pronounce it, "how are jew?") every chance they get. It's a transformation that happens in just a couple of days because the kids are only there for one week and then a new set of them arrives. Perhaps it's merely the novelty of having a strange American around, though hopefully it's more than that.

At the foreign language school in Teruel (where I teach in the evenings), I have been giving a similar lecture to every class for two weeks now. There are three different levels of English classes, two classes per level, and several groups of classes in each one. So I will be in each class roughly once every two weeks or so. Thus far, I have been introducing some general information about Kentucky and about myself and then allowing the students to ask me questions in order to practice their English and to get them used to hearing a native speaker. Depending on the level, this is much more difficult than I had anticipated. My accent is somewhat neutral compared to what it could be, so the students usually have an easy time understanding me, assuming they know the vocabulary. However, I often find myself using turns of phrase and slang that they are not familiar with and speaking too quickly for them to follow me. I have also realized that they learn British English from their Spanish teachers, so some of my pronunciation (especially the T in words like Italy or twenty being pronounced as Idully or twinny) is hard for them to understand. Overall, however, the students at this school have expressed great interest in not only improving their English but exchanging cultural ideas as well. This is great for me because I often learn just as much as they do.

I have also noticed an improvement in my Spanish. I have picked up a lot more vocabulary, through independent study, association with all of the words I see on buildings and signs, and in everyday conversations with people. I especially enjoy learning the colloquial words and phrases. I believe my speech is becoming more coherent and I can do more than convey simple ideas now. But perhaps the most considerable change has occurred in my comprehension. I attribute this in part to having settled down and gotten used to the language and the people speaking it, though I have also managed to increase the amount of things I can understand and the range of people I can understand as well. At first, it was primarily slow-talking women that I could understand because their voices and pronunciation are typically better in my experience so far. However, I can now understand the low, muffled voices of some of the old men as well.

This week I have been ridiculously busy in the two schools but I have managed to accomplish several of my goals for the week. First of all, I set out to learn how to use my fancy camera in full manual mode. I've owned the camera for quite some time now and made pitiful efforts towards using it manually on entirely too many occasions. I decided it was high time that I learned. I found an online "class" by Alexandre Buisse and read almost every lesson in two days, all the while practicing with my camera. The result is that I now know what every part of my camera is for and how it works and I have way more control over the shots I take. To test out my progress, I decided to take pictures in the one situation I've never been able to get a decent shot in - at night. Despite a few flaws, I think some of the pictures turned out quite well (and none of them have been doctored up):

This last picture is of a hotel that sits atop a Medieval passageway. They also have some excellent tea that you can drink underground in a cozy room with walls made of stone. It may be one of my new favorite places in Teruel, as it combines two amazing things: history and tea.

My second goal for the week was to open a bank account so that I could get paid for this month's work. I managed to do so by myself. This is the first difficult thing I've done on my own. Usually one of my mentors is there to make sure I don't screw something up. I even had a nice conversation with the banker about Kentucky and about the popularity of his surname in this region. The fact that I managed to do that on top of the technical stuff makes me proud.

In addition to the things I had planned to do this week, I also spontaneously decided to go to a volleyball game and go out to have tapas with some of the teachers at the foreign language school. Apparently Teruel has the best volleyball team in Spain. Unfortunately, they weren't playing a Spanish team when I went. They lost (though it was a close match) to a Polish team. One of the teachers at the foreign language school took me along and I enjoyed it quite thoroughly. The fans were exactly like any other sports event in any other country I've been in - they are loud and they always make what they believe to be better calls than the referee. My favorite part of the whole event was that the best player on Teruel's team was an American. I wanted to go talk to him after the game but we couldn't get to him. Perhaps next time we can have a chat. It would be interesting to know how he ended up in Teruel and how he's getting along here.

Last night I went to a bar called Torico Gourmet, home of the number one tapa in some contest from 2009. It lived up to its reputation. The tapa had ingredients that were all grown or raised in villages around Teruel. It was absolutely delicious. Then again, I don't think I've tried much food in Spain that I haven't enjoyed. The teacher that invited me out paid for all of the tapas as well. Then we had to go to another bar for coffee (or in my case, tea). What I thought was going to be a short dinner ended up turning into several hours of learning about different foods, slang, and Spanish television. I enjoyed it but I paid for it today, as I had to get up early for work.

That's what siestas are for, I suppose. It's almost 10:30 and I'm about to go out to a bar to listen to jazz music. Hopefully I can get home at a decent hour, though that's never the case with the Spaniards.

And then suddenly...hiking

They tell me it's fall here in Teruel but I'm highly suspect. It's true there are a few trees shedding their yellowing leaves, yet that is the only resemblance to any fall I've ever seen. It should not be possible for me to be hiking through the countryside in a t-shirt, sweating profusely and getting dehydrated, in what is supposed to be fall. Fall means I should be wearing a light jacket and enjoying the cool breeze, perhaps even getting rained upon. I don't mean to complain about the weather here, but they should call it what it is - summer.

I had planned on going to the park today. I accidentally hiked nine miles instead. David (my roommate) told me about a nice park about a thirty minute walk from our apartment. It sounded easy enough to find. He told me to head in a certain direction and look for a dirt road to follow. I found a gravel one that seemed to match his description roughly, so I followed it. I met a few cyclists along the road, so I figured I was heading in the right direction. People with bikes like to ride in the park, right? It was a mile or two later when I realized that I was most certainly not heading to the park. I was passing through the countryside looking at some beautiful scenery though, so I decided to keep going. I found several farms and even saw a tractor stirring up dirt in a field near the road.

Teruel has some gorgeous countryside. I was constantly stopping to take pictures of the scenery. I had no idea where I was going but I wanted to document it well. And that I did.

After hiking up quite a few steep hills and through rows of trees, I found a giant clearing where there were several farms and hunting zones. I wasn't aware of the hunting zone part until I looked up what the sign said later. I might not have trespassed onto this farmland to get a picture of the ruined building had I known that...

Don't worry though, most Spaniards don't have guns. I escaped unscathed and snagged a few pictures of the building. I couldn't tell what it might have been. I might ask David later to see if he knows.

Once I had advanced well into dehydration, I spotted a city in the distance, less than a mile or so off. I decided to head that way since I knew I was at the point of no return in regards to Teruel. I crossed a bridge that went over a highway and headed up into town. It was incredibly small and quiet, aside from the annoying rooster that someone must have been kicking in their backyard. I followed the sound of laughter to a small bar in the middle of town and went in for some water and food. I had to settle for chips because they were only serving those and green olives. I despise olives. It's a shame really, the Spaniards are absolutely nuts for them. I had a bit of trouble getting the young, mohawk-sporting bartender to understand "agua". I'm not sure if my accent is that bad or he just couldn't understand the difference between agua and cerveza. 

After a rest in the little town I bought another water and headed back towards Teruel. I managed to take a self portrait using my backpack as a tripod and the 10 second delay on my camera. It's a bit lopsided, but not too bad.

I made it back the same way I came. I looked up my path on Google Maps once I made it to the apartment. It turns out I had traveled around nine miles if I include my detour onto the random farm. Perhaps tomorrow I can have another go at getting to the park. That is if I'm not too sunburned from my stroll through the countryside in the "fall".