Baeza

I have arrived!  After much traveling and sight-seeing, my adventure that will be this next year of my life finally has a home.  After a long and terrible bus ride, where I was constantly paranoid that someone would snatch every important thing that I had in my possession, I arrived in Baeza.  I took an 11 hour overnight bus from Barcelona to Baeza.  Yuck.  Not to mention that because of this paranoia already mentioned, I hardly slept at all.  I really had no idea how many stops there were before my own and I was constantly hopping off the bus to ensure that my two bags in the compartment below were not nabbed at one of the stops.

But I finally made it.  Eyes bloodshot and terribly sleep deprived, I got my first glimpse of Baeza.  My roommate Ellen picked me up at the bus stop and together we made the short walk to our apartment.  Later that day, my other roommate Julie made it here on a bus from Madrid along with Lucia, who is another auxiliar that we spend lots of time with.  If you have already begun to notice, I am a boy among many girls.  Which is not a big deal for me, but is something that takes some adjusting to.  There are supposed to be nine auxiliares in total here in Baeza, and of these nine, there are supposed to be two boys.  Myself and another.  However, he has not yet arrived and we are starting to speculate that he may not be arriving at all.

My first week here in Baeza has been filled with all of the things that one must do when moving to a new place.  We had our internet set up, made copies of our house keys for all of us, did some cleaning, moved into our rooms, and made a few trips to the market.  There are several markets, or grocery stores, here in Baeza and we are fortunate that there is one very close to our apartment.  As none of us obviously have a car, we make frequent and sometimes daily trips.  Walking with eight bags of groceries is something I would rather not do.  Throughout this first week we also made several trips out to eat.  The other auxiliares that are here in Baeza are Ellen and Julie, my roommates from Belgium and Indiana, Justi (Nebraska), Lucia (North Carolina), Caroline (Rhode Island), and Ismay (Scotland).  Next week our last auxiliar from Minnesota will be arriving.  Its been great getting to know everyone is with all of the Spanish that we are speaking, it is always nice to have a small refuge from time to time.

Our apartment is in a great location.  It is only a couple minutes from the bus stop and less than ten minutes to the Plaza de Constitución (the main plaza of the city) and to my school.  Our street is a nice quiet side street, except for the awful dog next door that apparently has no training or discipline because it is barking constantly.  We got a great deal on the place.  It is very cheap and very spacious.  My room is plenty big enough, the living room is nice with an old TV and plenty of seating, the kitchen is easily big enough for the three of us, and we have a washing machine along with an area outside to dry our clothes.  Check out the pics!

I’m sure that many of you are wondering what exactly my job is like.  Well, it is quite an experience already.  I have even more sympathy for teachers like my parents who have to deal with some pretty difficult teenagers on a daily basis.  Most of the kids are great, but almost all of them can be quite a handful.  But they are constantly coming up to me and saying hello and then running off giggling.  Especially the girls.  It can be pretty amusing.  Each day at school is different for me.  I am there from Monday thru Thursday, which is nice to have a three day weekend every week.  Mondays and Wednesdays I am there for about six hours each and Tuesdays and Thursdays for only about three hours.  Its a good schedule and even though it sounds like not too much, it keeps me busy.  Approximately eight hours a week I am actually in the classroom teaching or helping the head classroom teacher.  Another four hours a week are devoted to one particular teacher or another and are spent helping them prepare their curriculum.  Two years ago my school began to teach a bilingual program.  This means that there are not only English classes, but also art, math, history, science, and other classes that are taught with a mix of english and spanish.  It is an interesting program and from my early observations, it achieves mixed success.  The last of my duties at the school are spent making myself available to other teachers so that they can practice their English and I can practice my Spanish.  I am already learning a lot and this constant submersion has helped me to improve my language skills in a very short time.  I am really excited to see how this changes even more over the next several weeks and months.  The teachers at my school are great and very helpful.  One of the math teachers named Elio went to the bank with me earlier this week to help set up my bank account.  We did this during his free period.

As for the actual physical building of my school, I feel I must spend a little time here in my blog because of how incredible it is.  Don’t let me fool you.  Not all schools here in Spain are like mine, but I feel very fortunate to be where I am.  My school is located in La Antigua Universidad (the Ancient University).  For those of you who have studied literature or Spain, a very famous writer named Antonio Machado taught at this university from 1912-1919.  Not only due to his involvement in the university but for other historical reasons of which are not completely known to me, the university has been very important throughout history here.  My school is an actual tourist attraction!  You can actually buy postcards with my school on them!  Who gets to say that at any point in their lives?  Not many.  Like I said I feel very fortunate to be here.

Last Friday, all of the auxiliares (auxiliar is the name of our position as a teaching assistant here) in the province of Jaen went to an orientation in the capital of Jaen, which is also named Jaen.  I received a ride from one of the program coordinators in another school here in Baeza.  After about a 40 minute ride, we arrived.  The actual orientation was quite boring.  Lots of it seemed to me to be information that we already knew, but the food was free and quite good.  It also gave us all a great opportunity to meet lots of people who would be doing the same thing that we are all doing over the next year.  In fact, we met some friends who decided that we would stay in Jaen for the night and see the city.  Historically there is not much to see in Jaen.  There is a castle up on the hill and a cathedral with some historical significance but besides that, not much.  There are however approximately 100,000 people.  So there are many shops, restaurants, and places to go out to at night.  I also finally picked up a cell phone here because it seemed to be much easier than in Baeza.  After doing a bit of walking and sight-seeing, our group of about eight stopped at a market and picked up a bunch of bread, meat, cheese, and wine.  A good cheap dinner.  We then took it to the apartment we would be staying in that night and had a very nice and late dinner on the terrace of their roof.  It was lots of fun to meet some new people and it was a beautiful night.  We then went out to a couple of bars, one even being an Irish pub.  However there were not any Irishmen at the bar, but many Spaniards.  Some of these we met and who later took us to a couple of other fun places.  The next day we hopped on a bus back to Baeza along with one of our new friends who wanted to see Baeza too.

Saturday we spent sight-seeing in Baeza, which was really nice.  It isn’t too much walking as Baeza is not that big.  One can walk from one side to the other in about 20 minutes and there are roughly 16,000 people here.  The pictures will do a better job of explaining everything that we have here and for the lucky few who come see me, you’ll really understand how beautiful it is here.  The town is really the image that you might have of a small town in the south of Spain or Italy.  The buildings are very old, the streets incredibly narrow, and the weather wonderful.  As I read in one of the guidebooks that we have, Baeza has an ever-present Sunday aire to it.  And this is true.  Everyday feels like a Sunday.  Peaceful, quiet, and plenty of people out in the streets.
Every other building seems to be a historical landmark here, but there are a few worth specifically mentioning.  First, my school. Like I said earlier it is located in La Antigua Universidad.  Right next to my school is the university here in the town.  I like this because during our 30 minute break in the middle of the day, I generally go with some fellow teachers to a cafetería attached to the university.  By the way, the word cafetería does not have the same meaning here as in the US.  It is simply a café or a place where you drink coffee and have a pastry possibly.  There is no buffet line with trays for everyone.  But anyways, it is very nice and is exclusively for teachers and university students.  So not only is it a chance for me to get away from the students for a bit, but there are many university students around my age there too.  The university is located in an old Muslim palace and just next to this building lies the cathedral.  Three very important buildings in one small part of the town.  A great place to go to work everyday.  The cathedral is beautiful and for one euro we went to the top of the tower where we were treated with a great view of our city and the countryside, filled with olive trees, for miles and miles.

Other than these buildings, we saw the Puerta de Jaen, which is part of the old wall of the city that still stands in some places, the Convent of San Francisco and its ruins, and the Plaza de Toros (bullfighting ring).  Some great sights.  See the pictures for a more justified description as I am unable to do so.

The last point of note that happened to me during these first weeks here in Baeza is that I have another job!  I was approached by a man who runs an academy and tutoring center in the evenings.  He asked me if I would like to help teach some English classes and tutor some kids as well.  At first he wanted me to devote much of my time to this, but I told him that I would be glad to help only if it were on select days.  So the result is that on Mondays and Wednesdays I teach two classes for one hour each in the evenings and on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays I also tutor for two more hours.  And most of the kids are kids at my school so it helps because I already know a lot of them.  The extra ten hours a week are going to be really helpful.  I am paid well and because of this, I will have a lot more freedom to travel throughout the year and next summer before coming home, whenever that is.  I can stop worrying about money at least some of the time now.

Other than this extra commitment, I don’t have much more going on here at the moment.  I have already exchanged books with the headmaster at my school, Salvador.  He is really helpful.  We talk often in Spanish and in English.  I lent him All the Pretty Horses, from the same author of No Country for Old Men and he gave me Invierno en Lisboa, an adventure that he says is a great read and good for my Spanish.  Next week we are also going to set up an hour a week where we talk in Spanish for 30 minutes and English for the other 30 minutes.  Like I said earlier, everyone is very helpful.

I’m writing this while listening to the Nebraska/Texas Tech football game.  Come on Huskers!  But other than that, I already have my first big trip booked for Halloween weekend in Milan, Italy.  My roommates, Lucia, Russ, and I will all be going.  Should be lots of fun!  And tomorrow my roommates, Lucia, and I are heading to Granada for the day.  Again, should be a great day!  Well, more later and I will speak to you all soon.

Dan