That Spring Thang

I love it...

whether it's a little carnaval adventure in the mountains


Goin' out with amigos in Sevilla



or a long walk on the beach after work.

La Costa de la Luz

Last week I finally bought something I've been meaning to buy for awhile:



Ever since I came to Huelva I noticed there are a ton of bike paths around the pueblos and the coast surrounding the city and I really wanted to get out on them and see where I ended up. Now that I live on the coast in one of the cities connected to all the those green byways, I finally dropped a few euros to buy myself my bici, and I'm glad I did.



There are path ways through pine forests (that smell amazinggg), near the coast and down to the beaches, through the wetlands where you can spot flamingos, to Huelva city, and even to Cartaya. I'm tempted to bike the 20-odd kilometers to work one of these days.. la guiri en bici!!



The weather has been beautiful today (after a good two weeks of storms), so I took advantage of not having to work and biked most of the way to El Rompido, where I ended up at a beach. There I enjoyed a little sun basking before heading towards home to get some lunch. Of course, I got a flat tire along the way and the trek was turning out to be really difficult. Not to worry! A group of Spaniards on bikes stopped saying 'ha pinchaóoo' (Andalú for you have a flat), I tell them I knew but didn't have anything with me to fix it. They did though! They pump up my tire, compliment my Spanish, ask me about my story, and even offer to ride with me home since they live in my pueblo too. I told it wasn't necessary and gave them lots of gracias's, they giggled and said thank you very much in English for some reason then headed on their own sweet way down the highway. Definitely bringing a flat kit and bombín on future outings..

Life on la Costa de la Luz is pretty great so far. I'm only 15 minutes from Huelva, but it feels like another world on the beach. I found out just last week that my renewal application was accepted for my beca, so I will be spending another year around here working at the same high school in Cartaya. Should be some good times in '11-'12.

One year

Well, six months studying in Sevilla back in 2009 and a good six months of this 2010-11 academic year makes for an entire year of my life spent in España. It's official. And I still love it.
So I hear you asking, but whyy do you love it there? And thinking about it, it's not just the fiestas, the travels, the crazy Spaniards, or the oh-so-rico jamón. Day-to-day life and being able to function and thrive in a whole nother world all by myself makes me a happy woman. I work, I study, I hang out with friends from all over the world, and just enjoy the ins and outs of living as a stranger in a strange land that has come to feel like home. The fact that I now live a few minutes walking from the beach now makes things even better.
Sometimes I think back to my arrival in Madrid as a fresh-off-the-red-eye-flight American who couldn't even structure a sentence in Spanish and didn't know a single person, and how overwhelmed and nervous I was to be in a foreign country. It's so amazing to look over the 12 months I've got to spend here, the amazing times, the people I've met, the places I've been able to travel to. I feel so damn lucky.




So, Spain, here's to twelve great months and hopefully many more to come.