Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm not a big fan of this day, but nor do I hate it. I just thought I would send you all lots of love from Spain since today is the day of love.

I hope you all enjoy your weekend and I hope you have a beautiful week as well.

Here is a picture of valentines that were made by my youngest students. The lesson was for students to make a valentine for someone in the class and needed to write a "roses are red" poem, but making up the last two lines of the poem. I felt that they did a pretty good job, most of them are very clever.



Wish you all the best!

Love, Celeste

Pueblos Vallesoletanos

So my first trip of the new year was to visit villages around the province of Valladolid. A family of one of my students (Elisa, who I also tutor) offered to take me around Valladolid so that I could learn more about the province. This offer was made in November and I have been excited ever since to go on this trip. The family decided to take me, well, today (Sunday, February 7th).

We left early, around 10am, so that we could have the whole day to visit various villages. Lola (the mom), Maguil (the father), Toby (the dog), Elisa and I went on the trip. It was nice because Maguil knows a lot about Spanish history and architecture so he taught me a great deal about the different villages and churches we visited.

The first place we visited was Wamba. It is a village named after a Visigoth king. The church has Romanic architecture and it also has a crypt of people who died in wars from around the IX century (I'm not hundred percent positive of the century). Unfortunately, there was a lot of fog so we couldn't see much of the valley. It was nice though.
This is the location of the crypt, also known as "El osario".
La iglesia de Wamba
The second village was Torrelobaton. It is placed on a small hill and is very beautiful. All the homes had adobe roofs. In Torrelobaton there was a very tall castle which is called "El Castillo de los Enriquez" which is from the XIII century. We first walked around the castle and then we went inside. There are 3 levels. The first one gave you some basic information about the time period the castle existed. The second level talked about a war that went on and how the castle was used; if invaders came into the village, everyone in the town would go into the castle to stay protected. The third level was the top/wall of the castle, where you can walk around the whole thing. It was really nice. The castle was also built during the Romanic time.
Lola and Elisa at the top of the castle with the tower behind them.
The tower of the castle.
The castle itself.
Elisa climbing the stairs of the castle.
The third village we visited was San Cebrian de Mazote. We didn't enter this village, but we saw it's church, which was beautiful, and by the time we arrived some of the fog had lifted. The church has Romanic and Moorish influence which was very neat to see. The capilla is shaped as an octagon and the church has different angles which made it fun to take pictures of. Running near the church was a very small "river" and a small cascade that led the water to the "river". It was really nice. It was fun to see the dog Toby because he had so much fun running around and being free....hehe.
The church of San Cebrian.
Here you can see a mixture of the two architectural influences. I love this angle.
A view of the village, with Toby in front.
Toby again playing in the "river".
The fourth village we visited was Uruena, which was my favorite. It is a city built within a fortress. Most of the building and homes in Uruena are of Romanic architecture. We walked around it and also on top of the fortress wall. We browsed around the "street of bookstores" and I went into a calligraphy store, which was very cool. In this city we also had a very good meal; I even had a little wine on the side. :)
The rooftops of the homes of Uruena.
The towers of the fortress wall.
A view of the valley of Uruena.
The last place we visited was the village of La Espina (the thorn). Once again, we didn't visit the village, but instead visited a monastery there. La monasterio de Santa Espina is no longer a monastery, but is now used as a school of agriculture. It is very beautiful and the cloister was really nice, too.
The monastery was finished being built in the XVIII century.
One of the cloisters of the monastery with a well in the center.
A small pond behind the monastery where Toby chased a large flock of geese back into the water. It was pretty humorous to see. :D
This was a beautiful wall mural painting of Jesus. What I loved was that when you viewed the painting from a distance, it looked like a mosaic.

We returned back to Valladolid around 5pm. All in all it was a great trip and I loved learning more about the history and province of Valladolid. Plus, it was fun hanging out with Elisa outside of the "school realm". :)

Miss you and lots of love!
Celeste

Ballet + Flamenco = Fun, fun, fun!

First, I want to apologize for not updating my blog in quite some time now. It is just that not a whole lot has been going on and I didn't want to bore anyone about school stories and such, but I'll update more and maybe share what things I have been doing with my students.

During the last weekend of January, a famous ballet/flamenco company came to Valladolid to perform. It sounded interesting so I decided to go and invited Amy (the other American at the school with me) to join me. We went to the first performance, on Thursday, because it was the only day the theater was not sold out and we purchased seats in one of the side, private booths. I had never sat in a booth before and Amy and I thought maybe it would be fun. We sat 4 levels up from the stage so we had to lean over the side of our booth a little to see the stage, but otherwise it was very enjoyable.

The dance company was Balet Nacional de Espana and they performed at Teatro Calderon, which is a beautiful theater. The theater (as I have mentioned it before in another blog post) is absolutely beautiful and has images from famous Spanish plays and playwrights along the ceiling.

The show was very interesting and I really enjoyed it, being someone who isn't found of ballet, but it wasn't classical ballet rather a modern Spanish version of ballet with some influences of flamenco. It was very beautiful and the costumes were great because the dancers dressed up in clothes from different centuries and not in leotards.
This is the view from across our booth. We sat 4 levels up from the main floor.
This dance was more flamenco than ballet, but it wasn't true flamenco.
The chandelier in the theater.
This dance was a mixture of ballet and flamenco. You can tell which dancers danced which part just by looking at their shoes.
I loved the costumes!
Amy and I in our private booth. It seats 5 people, but we were the only ones in it. :)

Amy and I received a wonderful surprise when we were waiting at the entrance of the theater to go in. A student of ours from 2B was there with his mother. It was really nice to see a student outside of class and we talked for a little bit (in English of course). All in all it was a nice evening. :)

Besos, Celeste