¡Feliz Navidad!

Dear Friends & Family,

I am wishing you the merriest of Christmases and the happiest of Holidays!

May you be warm and cozy and with loved ones. May you remember not to stress over decorations, presents or food preperation but instead soak up the spirit of the season.

I will be taking my own little Holiday trip this year. I am aching to be together with my family in the States, but at the same time I am looking forward to my own special Spanish *Nochebuena y Navidad and Scottish New Year. I look forward to sharing my stories and hearing yours when I return. Until then, enjoy the lights on the Christmas tree and some hot cocoa for me.

Much love from Spain,
Kate


*La Nochebuena is Christmas Eve and is actually the day that Christmas is celebrated here in Spain. The big meal and family gatherings occur on this day. La Navidad is...really? Do you not know what Navidad means? Ok, well, it's Christmas.

Letters Home; On Courage

Dear Mom & Dad,

Thank you so much for my lovely Christmas gifts! For Christmas you gave me:

1. An amazing pair of new boots. They are now broken in and I love them!

2. A heavy black sweater to hopefully keep me warm in Scotland.

3. That “Nina” by Nina Ricci perfume I’ve had my eye on since August. Every time I go into Bodybell I spray a little on and dream about buying it. When I checked out the sale’s lady asked me if it was a gift (aka did I need it wrapped). I said no and then corrected, “si, es un regalo… ¡para mi!”—yes, it’s a gift… for me. We both had a good laugh at that.

While I loved all of these gifts, I loved the little Christmas package you sent even more.

The package was full of good music, candy canes and Christmas cheer (thank you for the ornament, Aunt Judy!). But best of all was the little booklet you included on “Courage.”

I remember this series of booklets from my childhood. They are called “Elf-help” books and they feature drawings of cute little elves along with little bits of wisdom. They are silly but kind of neat. I immediately recognized the book, but this time around I am enjoying the little lessons…I think as a kid I mainly focused on the illustrations. I’ve decided to read one lesson on courage a day.

Yesterday, I was really struck by the lesson I read. You see, just last week I had a long conversation with my friend Shannon about the difficulties of owning who you are. I personally struggle with being myself, through and through. I like who I am…and yet, sometimes I find myself denying or hiding parts of myself depending on the company so that I seem more sophisticated, serious, cool, etc. I hate when I do this. I always scold myself later. I shouldn’t change who I am to fit who I’m with; I should always be myself and let the world decide whether to accept me for that or not.

Well, here is lesson #5 in the “Courage” booklet:

“Courage means daring to let your true self be known and be vulnerable. When you dare to let your true self out, you become alive and whole in your own eyes and the eyes of others.”

(Everyday-Courage Therapy by Linus Mundy)

Abs-o-lutely. I think this lesson will be one I read and remind myself of daily.

Thank you for the Christmas gifts, Mom and Dad. But thank you even more for the invaluable wisdom—both yours and the book's.

Love always,
Su hija Kate

No Homework

{Autumn leaves. November 2010. Puente Genil, Spain.}

Carmen, a woman I do conversation classes with, is a teacher here in town. We like to discuss teaching--the trials, the rewards, the differences between the school system in Spain & the U.S., etc. Well, this week during our chat she told me this little piece of information: It is illegal to give homework in Spain. It is actually against the law! Carmen explained that there is also an unspoken agreement that everyone ignores this law. The teachers often sit down with the parents at the beginning of the year and explain that they just can't get everything done in the school hours and homework is necessary. This is how it works.

I agree, I think homework is necessary and important. But I also couldn't help but think...

Oh my gosh, what I would've done with that information as a kid! Are you kidding me? Actually, I probably would've just done whatever the teacher asked (yeah, I'm a big rule follower), but can't you just picture all the bratty kids in class: "I'm sorry teacher, I can't do that homework. It's against the law."

I imagine that along with the unspoken agreement to ignore the law they probably try to avoid letting the kids find out.

Ha!

I love my daily discoveries about life in Spain.

Warm December

Unfortunately, it's taken me longer to get better from last week's sickness than normal so I've spent most of this weekend taking it easy still. Luckily, I was able to get out around town a bit and enjoy the unseasonably warm weather--20 degrees, you guys! In December! (Remember we're speaking in Celsius here.)

On Friday my friend Danica came to town to do a little shopping at the Carrefour, so I met up with her and we got lunch and I showed her around town. It was such a beautiful day to wander and I got to discover a few new paths through town myself.

It was a great time to stroll through Parque de los Pinos and enjoy a touch of greenery. I love the way the trees are slanted.



To me, the park in Puente Genil and the plaza by the river bank near my house are necessary places to go now and then to recharge. Pueblos in Spain (and I'd venture to say small towns in Europe in general) tend to be compact and although the winding old streets can be beautiful, there's not usually a lot of nature within the town. I feel like I can breath again when I go down to the where I can see the river and look out at the campo. The same goes with the park.

We walked back towards the city center a different way than I've taken before and I was happy to discover this charming lane running behind part of the park and the library.



I took it easy the rest of Friday since I spent the whole time we walked around hacking up a lung and by the time Danica left town I was pretty exhausted.

On Saturday I ventured out with the idea in mind that I was finally going to buy some boots. I've been wanting boots since I got to Spain and there are a lot of shoe stores in town. However, I am the worst shopper ever. I mean it. I am very non-commital with my shopping and have a hard time figuring out what I like and want and actually buying things. So I made myself decide ahead of time at least what color I wanted. I decided on brown because I already have a pair of black boots from Prague and a pair of black fake uggs.

I ended up buying a pair that were very different from what I originally thought I wanted. They're less fancy/chic and more practical, but I think I like them. They could be worn with a casual dress and really well with jeans, but definitely nothing fancy. That's ok, though, right? Opinions?



I had Hermione hair yesterday. Sometimes when I'm too lazy to dry my hair after a shower I french braid it in the hopes that it'll get some nice wavy body. That happens about 10% of the time. More often, my hair turns out like a giant frizz ball. I always feel like I look like Hermione (book, not movie--Emma's way too put together) when this happens.



I've also been enjoying reading The Passage by Justin Cronin this weekend. I bought it based purely on the recommendation that my old internship coordinator, Christina, gave me (I interned at a bookstore, so of course she knows her stuff) and the high ratings on BarnesandNobles.com. It's really interesting and really long. Long books don't intimidate me....well maybe if they're classics because the language can be harder to get into...rather, I like knowing I'll have that much more of a good book to enjoy. (See: Harry Potter!)

Now I'm looking forward to finishing off the weekend with a trip to Casa Pedro, a delicious restaurant in town, with a few of my friends. Wish you could join us!

What made you happy this weekend?

Welcome to my pueblo

Now that I've been in Spain almost three months, I am finally able to share a couple of photos of where I live. Sorry it is only a couple and they were taken back in September. I need to take myself on a photo date soon and capture some more of the town.

Welcome to Puente Genil!

This is the calle (street) where I live....

The plaza at the end of my street before you get to the bridge. Trivia: My town is called Puente Genil. The river that runs around the town is called Rio Genil. Puente is the word for bridge. So the bridge is what the town is named for--the bridge over the Rio Genil.

River photo...

And a sneaky shot of the bridge through the trees. (Taken from the plaza above.)

So here's the deal. This post is kind of a mess because I had uploaded these photos to photobucket but that site is always crazy slow for me and I was trying to edit the sizes to be, ya know, the same, but I just ran out of patience. I've been working on this for 3 days. You can see why I just said "forget it, they can be different sizes."

Also, I have taken lots more photos that I'd love to share, but that brief moment of speedy internet was just that...brief. Now it's back to one photo per hour upload speed. Again, I hardly ever have the patience for that.

I hope you enjoyed this brief glimpse anyway!

One more piece of trivia: I can't be sure, but I feel like I may never have bragged on my amazing friend Katie who designed my blog header for me before I left for Spain. I absolutely love my header and was so impressed with her mad skills. That's not the trivia. The trivia is that the picture in the tile frame is an aerial view of my town, in case you've ever wondered. Katie came up with that herself and I was so surprised and excited to see it in the finished header.

puente & lights

It's a mini-break here in Spain. They call a break a "puente" here, which is actually the word for bridge. No work until Thursday!

I didn't have huge plans for the puente, but I was going to go to the nearest big city (Cordoba) to hang out with some friends and just get out of town for a bit.

Alas, my body had other fun plans for me. I am S-I-C-K. After my beautiful morning on Friday things took a turn for the worst and fast. A really bad sore throat came on out of nowhere and by the time I went to bed I was crying from the pain. Fun times. I'm 99% sure it is strep which absolutely sucks because now I have to figure out how to get a Doctor's appointment and try to communicate my woes. My Spanish is getting better, but then situations like this come up and everything gets trickier.

Well, anyway, to be honest being really sick and alone in a forgein country has not put me in the best of moods. I do have a couple of people I trust here, but unfortunately due to the puente everyone is out of town. It's hard to deal with difficult language barrier situations in general, but being sick and doing it? Just not something I'm not looking forward to.

I haven't left the piso in a couple of days. I basically trek between the couch and the kitchen for a constant supply of tea and soup which I slurp down while watching whatever I can find on t.v. (Today it was "The Santa Claus"! hooray!)

But just now I went to look out the window and gave a little squeal of excitement (followed by an "owwww") because they've finally put the Christmas lights up on my street!

There are some things I love and some things I hate about my town, but planted firmly in the "love" column are their Christmas decorations. It turns out my town is home to the company that supplies the rest of the country (or maybe just region, I'm not sure) with their Christmas lights, and so they put up huge and fabulous displays all over town so buyers can come look and decide what they want to purchase for the next year. How amazing is that? The lights aren't on yet, but I've been watching them go up all over town and kept waiting and hoping they'd go up on my calle too and now they have.


There's always something to be grateful for. :)

Some Friday Photos

I love rain. A lot! But after a week straight of it I was soggy and tired of the constant grey hanging over my head. It was making me feel a little down.

Today, the sun came out! The sky was bright blue and I felt my spirits perk right up.

I decided to play dress up.

You see, I am not a fashion person. Have you noticed? This isn't exactly a fashion blog. I almost never wear makeup and I can't for the life of me "do" my hair. I think I look presentable most days, but when I have to get myself up for work in the morning and then walk fifteen minutes across town in the cold to get there, I just don't care much about looking fashionable. Sorry.

So, sometimes when I have free time and am in the mood I decide to play dress up. Yes, just like a little kid. I do my makeup, I attempt to do some sort of stylish thing with my hair and I put together an outfit. Today I had no where to go but I felt like doing myself up, so I did!

I went up to the roof to hang up my laundry and was really impressed with what a beautiful day it was. I knew I wanted to snap some photos.

Looking out...

...at this...

{I particularly like the way the curve of the cloud seems to follow the curve of the hillside in this picture.}

It's been a really lovely Friday, especially since for the first time in months my internet worked well enough for me to upload some photos!

Happy Weekend, everyone.