Valladolid

On Thursday we threw Javelins in gym class: 

After class I went with the music teacher Jose Luis to the city about 45mins north of Cuellar called Valladolid. It has a little over 300,000 residents and is incredibly spread out. We had lunch at his house then he had to take his daughter to get a vaccination/set up instruments at the bar that his cover band ACROSS was going to play at, so he pawned me off to the movie theater where I saw Los Descendientes (The Descendants) with George Clooney, directed by the guy who also made Sideways, Alexander Payne. The spanish dub of the film wasn't that bad, plus its a good movie, it was dramatic (while being minorly melodramatic in a few moments) and very funny. George Clooney gave a very George Clooney performance.

This is my music teacher's band ACROSS. He's in the background (back right) playing on the keyboard. They had a list of songs on the wall and all you had to do was call out the name of the song and they'd be ready to play it on the spot. Their singer was excellent also! A few on the list were: Starman (David Bowie), Suzy Q, I Put A Spell On You, Time (Pink Floyd), a lot of Creedence Clearwater Revival (they started with Bad Moon a Risin'), etc. Definitely an American Audience-centric band.

Here's a little sample:

In the giant Eroski grocery center 15 minutes by bus from my flat there are large painted snails all similar to Cincy's painted pigs that are found downtown. I thought this was the coolest of them.

Every other Wednesday in the library we have some kind of poetry related event. One time students rapped bulgarian a capella communist revolutionary rap (teachers were a little 'meh :\' to the idea), another time they showed pictures of a teacher who walked El Camino de Santiago, a 780km walk!

This is an image that I see everyday on my way home from Cuellar. I always think to myself "Oh look it's Gondor". Gondor (edit* Minas Tirith!) is of course one of the cities of men from Lord of the Rings, see: 

They're obviously very similar

Quick Picture Update!

Hello! I'm back in Spain and it's really cold! It's making Ohio's rainy weather look pretty pleasant right about now. There is heavy fog most mornings, my house is so cold that you can't walk around in bare feet, and my job remains extremely easy, mwuahaha. Just kidding, but not really.

I miss American whole milk...OH and my family whoops forgot to mention that!

One of the girls in my class had the Three Kings on her nails hahah. When the Three Kings come Jan. 6th is when Spanish people open their Christmas gifts.

One of the bus drivers that takes me to Cuellar has an EPIC mullet and I am going to get very Investigative Journalist on his ass until I get a clear picture. He's got mullet like black women got booty. Truth.

Today in my very trying gym class the kids all lined up and had to make a huge bridge and then my teacher and I rolled weight balls underneath them. This is my favorite set of students. They're very talkative and funny.