Yaaaaaawwwn

I know it's been a long time. I've been upping my hours the last couple of weeks. Teaching English is fun and I really love it, but it's awful for my eyelids. I'm up at 6:30 everyday to give 8:00 AM classes, then I have a break until lunch. After another short break I work until 9:30 PM. After I wait for the metro, walk home, and make dinner, it's already 11:30. But inevitably Shannon and I end up chatting for a while. So, the entire week I have a case of droopy eyelids. I still haven't made any firm decisions on what to do next year. I'll let you all know when I do, of course. I haven't been on any day trips lately, but the next couple of weekends I'm going to try to get out of town. On Tuesday I'm going to an art exhibition though. One of my students is a photographer and I thought it would be fun to mingle with the artsy crowd for an evening of sophistication. This is actual sophistication, not so-fis-ti-cay-shun like they've got in Jasper county. Promise I'll put some photos up in the next week or so.

Is it really Monday?

Well, work started again today. 8AM, arrgh. But I had a wonderful holiday. I rounded out my vacation by taking a trip by myself to Zaragoza. It's the capital of the Aragon province, which is about halfway between Barcelona and Madrid. It rained the whole time, but I got to see some cool stuff and have some Beth time. The main attraction is the Cathedral del Pilar. The legend is that the Virgin Mary appeared to St. James on this pillar, so they built a huge church around it. It's an interesting exterior because of the tiled cupolas. But my favorite part of Zaragoza was the old Moorish castle named the Aljaferia. This was my first experience with Moorish architecture in Spain. The detail in the archways was amazing. The photo above is far more simple than most of the others in the castle. I liked the soft colors in this photo though. Andalucia is supposed to be very similar to this. I've seen a good bit of the north of Spain, except for the Basque Country, so I think my next trip will definitely be somewhere in the south. Sevilla, Grenada, Malaga...Unfortunately I'm forgetting about that whole I have to go to work thing. Hmmm, am I becoming Spanish...?