The first month

Kaixo!

That´s hello in Basque. It´s a strange sounding language, but I am starting to pick up basic greetings! It doesn´t belong to any language family and predates the migration of humans from the east into Europe. Some linguists say that it dates back to the stone age.

Bilbao is in the Basque Country of Spain and part of an officially bilingual province. So I hear as much Basque as I do Spanish. Everyone at the high school speaks it because now it is mandatory that education be bilingual in basque in spanish. My school however has a trilingual program with Basque, English and Spanish. It´s a headache-inducing combination of languages. That´s where i fit in. My job as the only real native English speaker here is to converse with students and present lessons about anglo culture in English, because starting next year they will need to pass an oral language exam to enter college.

I´ve meet a lot of other people in the teaching program, there are Americans, Germans, British, Canadians, Australians, Belgians, French... but the funny thing is I met a girl from Salem! I get along with her very well!

I started teaching, or assistant teaching, officially on October 1st. I was nervous, but it went very well. The students are all very interested in me! The ask me tons of questions and in one of the younger grades they all literally got up from their desks and surrounded me, yelling out questions like a crowd of paparazzi. It seems students here are much less disciplined than in American classrooms. Here class is very loud and everyone talks over each other. No one bothers to raise their hand. But people are also louder in the streets or at restuarants. I guess this is just part of the emotional mediterreanean persona.

Before I started teaching I spent 2 weeks with Julio. He picked me up at the airport and we went straight to the beach in Valencia and stayed at a nice resort. We lounged by the pool and took long walks on the beach in the evenings. It was quite relaxing. Then I spent a week in Madird with Julio and his family. It was nice to have all my meals cooked for me! We went for paseos, or leisurely walks, around the pedestrian center of Madrid and enjoyed the last days of summer.

On October 1st I moved to Bilbao to begin my job and Julio stayed in Madrid to finish his course at the culinary school. He has class for almost 6 hours every day and learns both Spanish and international recipies and cooking techniques. He arrives home around 9 PM, very tired and very full after tasting all the afternoon´s creations.

More later!

Agur, Adios!