Snow... sleet... rain... elves... Spain

The weather here in Estonia is just crazy! In the morning when I woke up at 6.19 am, I was pleasantly surprised as it was snowing and everything was white.

Karel (my little one) was really happy to see the snow. He found a small chocolate bar from the slipper he had placed on the windowsill for elves to visit.
While eating the chocolate, he said, "You see, elves made it for me."
"How did they make it?" I asked.
"With their little tools," he claimed :D

The view from our balcony this morning :)

It was really nice to walk to school, I could almost feel Christmas approaching. I had no idea that it would sleet and rain soon and by 5 pm most of the snow would be gone. So now we have streams and ponds instead of roads here :P

The view from my classroom at 11.30 am.

I taught seven classes in a row today. During the 8th class we decorated the Christmas tree in the auditorium and some of the high school students practiced ballroom dances as we have Christmas prom on 21st December. To make things more interesting we're going to have a dance competition between teachers and we will have to dance with last year students. I'm dancing with one of my students and we're going to dance jive :P

The Christmas the students decorated. For some reason we have a pretty small tree this year. But I loved the way the tree smelled :) (I have trouble choosing between American and British spelling here).

Finally, here's a photo of my class. My classroom was really crowded because we had two groups together and my students were talking about their trip to Basque Country.

I'm also going to share a video with you. It shows the trip from the students' point of view and it was made by Nils - one of the students who went to Spain with us. I hope he doesn't mind I'm sharing his video :) Here's the link.

Back in Estonia

It's Friday afternoon but I'm not at work because I'm still not feeling very well and the flights back to Estonia were just a awful. We flew from Bilbao to Brussels and then to Tallinn. Never go on a plane if you've caught cold. I had terrible headache during both landings.

On Wednesday we went to have dinner with Begoña and Monica. I'm not sure if I have already mentioned this but they usually have dinner very late in Spain, at 9.30 or 10 pm even. We met at 8.30 pm at the main square in the old part of the town.

That's the square at night. Before dinner Basque people usually go to a bar or two and have a glass of wine (or two). We went to a bar run by a guy from England. He offered us some young wine and some cheese too. It was nice to hear British accent again :)

The old part of Vitoria-Gasteiz and the moon :)

Then we had dinner in a restaurant and walked back to the hotel. Since it was our last night in Vitoria, we decided to have some of the wine that Begoña had given us as a gift. You see, Spain definitely is the land of wine.

Yesterday we left Bilbao at noon and arrived in Tallinn at 11 pm. I already told you about the journey.

It's 3 pm in Estonia antd it's already getting dark. It's cold and cloudy and I can hear the rain falling on the balcony. Depressing... I think it was the right decision to stay home today. Without having some rest I would have probably ended up completely ill. Now I've got two more days to recover :) I have to work on some things during the weekend. My second novel is going to be published soon and I need to write a couple of things for the publishing house. I also have to think about school and teaching. The Christmas break starts in three weeks.

Last days in Spain

Yesterday was again such a long day that I didn't have any time to write. Today we've got a free afternoon, so I can tell you about the places we have visited during the past two days.

It took me about 30 minutes to upload all the photos :( But now I can finally tell you about yesterday.

When we were having breakfast, there was a strange accident in front of the hotel. One of the lamp posts fell over and hit two cars. Luckily, nobody got hurt.

 We went to San Sebastian yesterday. It's a beautiful beach town near the French border. We walked on the beach and enjoyed the sun.

As I was staring at the blue sea and listening to the waves, I remembered all the TEA fellows I met in Boone. I miss y'all :(

It was sunny and pretty warm - about 17 degrees in the sun. You can never see anything like that in November in Estonia. And we were really surprised to see some people swimming in the sea.

A huge statue of Christ gazing over the city and its people.

We also visited the Palacio del Mar (Aquarium) and learned about the life of Basque people who have always been keen fishermen and whale hunters (I felt really sorry for the whales, though).

They have a tunnel that goes through the huge fish tank. We could see different sharks, turtles, fish and other sea creatures. The students loved chasing the sharks.

Me enjoying the sunny weather. I actually got a bit sunburnt.

After the visit to the Aquarium we had lunch in a small cafe where they offered different kind of pintxos. As San Sebastian is very close to the French border, they also offered frog legs. I can't understand how people can eat something that disgusting.

Would you like a bite?

We had lunch at the main square that was used as a bullring years ago. The appartments on the square had numbers on them because in the past they were used for watching bullfighting.

After our visit to San Sebastian we went to a big shopping center in Vitoria. We had lots of trouble getting back to the hotel but we finally managed to make it on time for the dinner.

Here are all our teachers - Onur from Turkey, Monica from Spain, Marek and Linda and me from Estonia, Birnur from Turkey, Begoña from Spain and Fatma from Turkey.

Today we went to see the Salt Valley of Añana This was something completely new for me, I had never thought that salt could be made somewhere far from sea.

Salt Valley of Añana

We also visited a medieval castle but weren't able to enjoy the visit that much because it was awfully cold in the castle.

The Turkish group left a couple of hours ago. We're going to have dinner at 8.30 pm so I thought I'll sleep a bit as I got to bed really late yesterday. We're leaving at noon tomorrow. I'm not particularly happy about the fact that there are going to be two flights again as I've caught cold but I'll try to manage somehow.

Hugs and kisses to y'all. Take care :)

Good morning world

I was so tired yesterday that I couldn't post any photos. We're going to have breakfast in 30 minutes so I thought I'll try to write something.

Yesterday we visited our partner school. The topic we were working on for the past few weeks was Food and so the students gave presentations about the food in their countries.

 Turkish students telling others about the delicious dishes you can have in Turkey.

 Estonian boys. Norman is stressing how important black bread is for all the Estonians. They did really well and I think they're enjoying their time here in Vitoria.

 Basque students giving their presentation.

Prawns - something they eat here a lot. Well... I couldn't eat anything that has such a sad look in their eyes. They seem to be saying, "Please, don't eat us." :)

In the afternoon we visited a cooking school in Vitoria and had lunch there. Food is definitely one of the most important things here.

In the evening we visited another Santa Maria Cathedral. The cathedral here is huge and is being restored at the moment. They have been working on the building for the past 9 years and there's still a lot to do.

 We also went to see the old city wall and it was fun. Unfortunately, it gets really cold in the evening so when I got back to the hotel I was frozen.

 Part of the city wall

Another part of the city wall and another church. Can  you see the moon?

In the evening we had an hour of free time and then we had dinner at the hotel restaurant.

Today we're going to see San Sebastian which is a city near the French border. It should be one of the most beautiful places around here. I'm really looking forward to the trip and  I hope the weather will be nice.

Hi from the land of wine

Today was a long day. We visited the area where Rioja wine is made. It was amazing! It's the area of wineries, vineyards and wine cellars.

 Our group - Estonian, Spanish and Turkish students and teachers in front of a fancy spa hotel owned by a rich winery owner. The hotel was designed by the same architect who designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

 A blooming rose in one of the vineyards. As you can guess, the weather here is much better than in Estonia. Well, it's cold at night and in the evening and it was foggy in the morning but during the day it's very nice - sunny and clear and pretty warm.

 Me, enjoying the nice weather at an observation platform in Laguardia - a beautiful medieval village we visited today.

 The people here are crazy about food and wine. In the photo you can see octopus pintxos (Basque spelling) they offered in a small cafe in Laguardia.

 The amazing and perfectly preserved 17th century polychrome decoration on the doorway of the Church of St-Mary-of-the-Kings in Laguardia.

 The wine cellar we visited today. I have to say I know much more about wines and wine making now.

The mountains and the pink sky we saw when we left the wine cellar.

Hope you're all doing fine. I really need to get some sleep now as it has been a very long day.

Greetings from Basque Country

I'm in Spain now. I got up at 4 am and we flew from Tallinn to Munich and then from Munich to Bilbao. I wasn't very enthusiastic about the flights in the morning as I've flown a lot this year (in fact, today I had my 14th and 15th flight this year) but it wasn't too bad. Then we took the coach from Bilbao to Vitoria Gasteiz. I'm with two other teachers from our school and there are also three students from my class with us. The students live in host families, we are staying at a hotel. It was nice to see Begona again (she's the Spanish coordinator), we went to an Italian restaurant to have lunch. The Turkish group should arrive at 7 pm so we have two hours to get some rest.

I'm going to add a couple of photos too so you can imagine the life here.

The beautiful sunrise we could admire somewhere above Germany

The mountains they have here in Basque Country. Again, we had an amazing view from the plane :)

Estonian students meeting their new Spanish friends

Begona and me at the Italian restaurant. It was so nice to see her again.

It's so strange to hear Spanish here... By the way, all the webpages are in Spanish, even blogspot. And I also wanted to add that even I can understand that the Spanish they speak here is very different from the Spanish they speak in Guatemala or Argentina :D