Montgo

Today a group of us Calvin kids tried to climb Montgo. We met at the university that we study at, the UNED (universidad de educaciOn a distancia), and then we started the hike. We knew that the forecast said something about rain and clouds, but we didn't pay much attention. We hiked up the mountain to about one third of the height of the whole thing, and stopped at a cave that had been used for a source of freshwater in the distant past. There were a bunch of Roman numerals and Latin words etched into the side of the cave at one point. Pretty interesting, but I have no idea what it said. After the cave, we decided to head back down because it looked pretty angry and dark outside, and we didn't want to be stuck on a mountain during a raging rainstorm. We headed back down and stopped at a hermitage of the patron saint of Denia (I think), la virgen de los desamparados. (virgin of the helpless). It turns out that it didn't rain at all today, but we wouldn't have been able to see very well from the top anyways. We probably got up about 250 or 300 of the 700 meter climb...Maybe the next weekend that we have free. In a week we are going to Barcelona and Tarragona, and professor Bierling has been telling us scary stories of how she and her husband have been mugged and robbed. I'm excited to see how that weekend will be; Barcelona is a great city from what we have read and studied in class. Exams for our January class are this wednesday, so we have to study vosotros forms, spanish political and physical geography, and spanish literature...We are all looking forward to Barcelona as a good break before the new classes start.

In the news today...and language differences

Today in class Marielena brought in the local newspaper and we found a little piece about our group. Here's the link for that:

http://www.lasprovincias.es/20100120/marina/universitarios-americanos-visitan-centre-20100120.html

That was pretty funny to read, especially since we aren't "Calvin College" anymore, we are now "Collin College" to any local Denia amigos who read their newspaper this morning. So many things get lost in translation. The most difficult part of not speaking English is that whatever sense of humor that I had (or thought I had) in English just got killed by my inability to understand Spanish jokes and sarcasm. It's so weird because I will understand the words people are saying, but it won't make sense because of the context within which they are saying it. I guess the point is that I need to learn some Spanish jokes or something...

Today I had the opportunity to meet with Jaime Jr, a 17-year-old Spanish amigo whose parents think that he needs to improve his english. It was pretty fun to work with him and his little brother Federico, or Fede for short. It turns out that their english is pretty limited, but we can still find fun things to do. They are nice guys. The family lives in a two-floor apartment next to the store that their dad works at. It was really hard to know how to prepare because I had no idea how much English the guys would be able to speak. Now I know. 16 euros is not a bad bonus. I might have done that for free anyways...

This weekend our group of Calvin kids went to Javea and Valencia, a quaint earthy village and beautiful big city, respectively. Javea is on the other side of Montgo, which is a mountain that sits behind Denia. Denia is between Montgo and the ocean. The local "Javean" city council had a few representatives that met our group at the town hall and gave us all bags with all of their turist propaganda. They did let us climb up to the roof of their local 14th-century church and explore the place. What a great view; from their you can see miles of Mediterranean coast, the entire village of Javea, and the clouds of mist created by waves crashing against the rocky shore in the distance... Montgo is about 2300 feet above level, and this coming weekend a few of us are planning on climbing it. We'll see how that goes. Valencia was amazing; we saw all the major sites, including a baptism at the cathedral. It was an odd mix of reverent catholic liturgical tradition and turists taking photos of everything. I personally found it really awkward to take photos while I was in the cathedral but I sneaked a few, especially of the ceiling, which had an amazing painting the spanned the whole interior of the dome. Later on in Valencia we went to the Oceanografico, which, I was told, is the largest "Shedd Aquarium" type of site in Europe. (Shedd Aquarium is bigger)

Cell Phones and Tutoring

Eighteen of the twenty-five Calvin students managed to get cellphones today, which will be a huge help for us with respect for planning and coordinating meetings and such. I have this tiny little LG phone now with limited minutes, but it won't be a problem because I'm only using the phone to call people in our group. Professor Bierling told us in class today that our travel agent wanted someone to tutor his two kids in english, and since I was the first volunteer she brought me to the travel agency to meet the man and his wife and his two kids. Most mondays I will be meeting with Jaime Jr. and his little brother, and I am supposed to speak in english with them. I'm not sure what level they are at, but hopefully we can get past hand gestures and have some conversations. Two hours is a long time if no communication is taking place other than hand motions...

My first Monday in Spain and I came late to class because I was looking at the wrong schedule...Not a problem though after I explained everything to Marielena. (that's professor Bierling back in Michigan) It turns out that I will probably get to know most of the older ladies in Denia through the many acquaintances of my mama here in Denia. I spent all of yesterday shopping with Pepita and my mama at a mall close to our house. There were some good rebajas (sales) going on and I took advantage of them. I have 150 euros to spend that will be reimbursed by Iberian airlines because they pay 50 euros per day to passengers whose maletas (suitcases) don't arrive on time. My little suitcase was three days in arriving, and I was pretty happy to be able to drop some euros on sweaters and shoes and pants and socks and...yeah I bought a lot. The mama does a pretty good job making me at home. She is a funny lady, and has an interesting habit of finishing my sentences for me before I am done talking. I'm really great at starting a sentence, but I rarely have the chance to finish before she jumps on it. We'll have to figure that one out. She cooks really well also; for example for lunch I had salmon, mussels, red wine and some kind of soup with valencia oranges. Her little apartment is right at the base of the castle in Denia. The walls by us are part man-made and part natural cliff; I would say that they are about 120 or so feet tall by us, but less in other parts.
On saturday a bunch of us Calvin students met a the bus station and began our little expedition to La Torre de Gerro, which is this 50-foot-tall tower about 5 miles south of Denia that overlooks "really tall" cliffs and gives a great view of the Mediterranean. Seth Kuiper and I climbed to the third "floor" of the tower, but realized when we got there that the rope that we had been using was worn thin at the top, whereas it had looked quite strong with intermittent knots at the bottom. So we didn't get to the top, but the view was still amazing. I am not a huge fan of spending long amounts of time at dangerous heights with 30 mph wind blasting me in the face, so I didn't last long in the tower. Next weekend we are going to Valencia, so that will be an interesting time...