Spain!!!

So for Easter I went home for 10 days, and loved every minute! It was such a hectic 10 days tho, non stop every single day, but so good. Got to catch up with all my friends, tho some not as much as i would have liked, and saw my family and my lovely boyfriend :D I went to London a couple of times, and had a great time. I had to go in order to get my Chinese visa so I can go visit my sister. It was a bit of an effort getting it but got it without much problem which is good. Also went to Lincoln to see the awesome Lincoln lot :D Had a lot of fun, even if it rained the whole time lol. I got blamed for the bad weather in the UK haha. As soon as I came home it started raining lol. Had a really nice Easter lunch with my parents, Matt and his parents. It was such a lovely day. :D

Came back to Spain and Rebecca visited me. We had a good 5 days and she got to see what teaching English was like. We explored Badajoz and had lots of fun.

The other Friday was Nely's 15th birthday. In Coloumbia and Bolivia, 15th birthday is a really big deal, like 18th in UK. So she had a really big party at the church and had 2 gorgeous dresses. One was like a wedding dress, and she looked beautiful. We all had a lot of fun at the party. I played slapsies with Sebas and ended up with big bruises on my hand hehe.

The weather has been pretty much like English weather at the moment. Constant on off rain, though not as bad as in the UK. Yay! :D

Baby Sara was born today!! :D She weighed about 9.5lbs!! Big baby. She's so cute tho. I haven't seen her yet, but seen loads of photos on FB and she's gorgeous and looks like her parents. Very cute baby..... and she has my name hehehe. :D Can't wait to have lots of cuddles with her. :D

Paula, the daughter of the family I live with, who is 9, is the best swimmer in Extremadura in the Breast stroke and the Butterfly, and she's the 2nd best in the Back stroke. How amazing is that?! She's a very talented swimmer and is doing so well. Her brother, Miguel is also the best in Extremadura in his age group.

It's almost time for the last ever Firm Foundations! But I get to go! Yay! And I'm helping the amazing Claire lead the main worship. Hehe. Very excited but very nervous too.

Tomorrow I'm going to a talky conference thingy organised by Oxford University Press. Two authors of two really good books that people use to teach English as a foreign language are giving talks. One of the people is the guy who wrote English File, which is the book I'm using to teach the beginners from church. That class is doing really well and I love teaching them. Some of my students are learning Kichwa and taught me some. It's the native language in Peru and it's also spoken in Coloumbia. It's pretty cool learning some of it. Quite similar to Spanish.

I'm having Spanish lessons now. Sonia from church, who is lovely, has a sister who I am teaching English and in return she's teaching me Spanish. It's going pretty well, and people are commenting on how much I've improved. Yay! :D Though, at the moment, I'm learning verbs and grammar. I hate Spanish verbs lol. Spanish verbs are stupid. Hehe. They have a tense that doesn't exist in Spanish, and they also have two verbs for the one verb in English. They have two different verbs that both mean 'to have', two that both mean 'to be', and two that both mean 'to know', and they are the only ones that I currently know about lol. Spanish verbs are definitely evil! Though I'm getting the hang of them, and all I need know is to get more vocabulary. :D

I'm planning my China trip with my sister. Not long now till I go. Getting pretty excited. :D Got lots planned already, and loads more left to plan. It's going to be a great holiday. :D

At church on Sunday we had 4 baptisms. They were amazing. It was so great to see the baptisms. Sonia, who's sister I'm having Spanish-English lessons with, got baptised. She used to go to a gypsy church, the one I visited a little while ago, and the pastor from that church came to her baptism and preached. It was very interesting. After the baptisms, the whole church ate together. We all brought food that we had made, and we had a big picnic in the church. It was really nice.

I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, like normal. Hehe. Pretty sure that is everything for now tho. :D

God bless xxxx

So this week, again, has been uneventful. Working all week mainly. Friday evening was the Generadores meeting, a group for the 18-30s in the church. That was really good. We met at Desmond and Caroline's house and were asked to lead the whole Sunday service one Sunday in May. So we spent most of the evening discussing that. People tried to get me to agree to sing an English song to the church, but yeah that ain't happening. I would deafen everyone haha.
Saturday I went to Merida with my Spanish family. Paula is an amazing swimming, one of the best in the whole of Extremadura, and she had a competition, so we all went along to watch. Miguel grew up in Merida, so he went to get his mum, then took me, Jorge and Miguelito round Merida. Merida was a major Roman city so has loads of ruins. There's an ampitheatre, theatre, temple, museum and other stuff. It was pretty cool to see. I've been to Merida before but hadn't got to look at the ampitheatre or museum. It was really interesting. Definitely recommend it. Paula won all the competitions she was in that day.
Sunday at church there was a Benefica for the youth. They had all cooked a big meal together for the whole church and arranged for some people in the church to entertain after the food in order to raise money so they could go on the big youth events in Extremadura. It was really good and we had yummy Columbian food. It was a fun day.

Now, all this week there has been a wasp at my window, and it keeps trying to get in. Then it flies away and comes back later with a friend. Then they fly away and come back later with another friend, and so on. I've had about 6 wasps everyday now stalking me through my window haha. I think I've found out why. Turns out there's a hole in my window frame that they manage to wriggle into, and I think they are making a nest. Bit creepy. :-S Evil stalkerish wasps haha.

I'm back in the UK this week for Easter! :D Can't wait. Though it means I miss out on the Badajoz chocolate festival!

God bless

xxxx

So I was invited to a Spanish Gypsy church a couple of Sundays and I loved it! It was really interesting. The men and women have to sit on other sides of the room, and they aren't really allowed to talk in the church to each other. The men can talk to other men, and women to other women, but not men to women. This is because women are thought to distract men. Women also have to be careful with what they wear. The people were really friendly too, and invited us to eat with them afterwards, as after every service they all go and eat together.
Last Sunday I went to the country with a different church that my friends, Holly, Abraham, Az and Abbey run, they are all English teachers too, and they invited me to their church for a bbq in the country. It was my third bbq this year, one a month so far. Def need to keep this up, one bbq every month hehe.
Not much else has really happened. Just working and seeing people and counting down till I'm back in the UK for Easter.
Though it was funny in class yesterday. I had a wobbly chair, and cos I'm a wally I kept wobblying it slightly when I sat on it. So needless to say it decided to collapse on me during a class. It was so funny. Apparently my face was hilarious. The whole class cracked up laughing. Luckily it didn't hurt my ribs any more. Grateful for that.
So yeah pretty average two weeks really. Looking forward so much to coming home to see family, friends, and a certain person.
I've been planning China with my sister, so really looking forward to that too. :D
About it really.
Hope everyone is good.
God bless
xxx

This week has been eventful to say the least. Started off like a normal week with work and chilling in the lovely sun. Then came Thursday...... I was invited to a friends house for lunch, so got on the bus for the 30 min ride, had a great lunch with friends and practised my Spanish, then went to get the bus to work. Went to get on the bus, and the driver decided to shut the doors on me! Literally on me, sooooooo painful! Went to work, took painkillers, then by the evening the pain was so bad I was taken to hospital. Turns out I have a cracked rib! Ouch! I'm ok apart from the constant pain.
Saturday was a pretty good day. Went to another friends house for lunch, then off to Caceres in the evening for the YWAM graduation. It was great to see my friends graduate from an awesome programme, loved it. And I may be doing the same next year......
Sunday I went to Olivenza with the family I live with. This weekend was the first Bull fighting weekend in the whole of Spain. Apparently it's very famous and lots of famous bull fighters come to fight with bulls. So I decided to go watch it. The family don't like it, so they wandered around Olivenze while I was in the Plaza de Torros. It was pretty interesting, and I did enjoy it. Though I hated it when they hurt and killed the bull. Seemed unnecessary to be honest. The rest of the time though it just looked like they were dancing with the bull, which was pretty cool. I was sat next to two old Spanish ladies, who explained to me what was happening and what to do at certain times, like wave a white hanky when the ear is cut off. And guess who was watching the bull fight?! The President of Spain!! He was sat opposite me so took some sneaky pictures hehe.
So pretty much a good week, though it has been tainted by pain. Hopefully the pain will go soon. Just got a relaxing week this week so that should help.
Oh yeah, the weather has been amazing!! Hehe
God Bless
xxx

So this week has been pretty awesome, especially as it involved a 5 day weekend. In Badajoz it was Carnaval and the parade was pretty awesome. Like a smaller version of Mardi Gras. Absolutely loved it.... though it did take ages! We stayed for 3 hours and had only seen 14 groups, and there were 47 to see!! So needless to say we didnt see them all. Haha. The Carnaval goes over 5 days which means 5 days and nights of street parties. On the Monday, the family I'm living with took me to Sevilla for 2 days. Sevilla is beautiful! Loved it so much. In the evening we went to a tapas bar for food, but Tito decided he really wanted snails and the bar we went to didn't have them, so he refused to eat. So after us adults ate, we went to another tapas place which did have snails and the 3 kids demolished 2 big plates full of snails. Ewwwwww. You def have to go to Sevilla, so so beautiful.

So cos of the Carnaval, I only had 2 days of work this week. What a shame hehe. Julie did Desmond's classes as he and Caroline went on a much needed holiday.

On Friday, I got a text from Caroline saying that her and Desmond were being interviewed live on Christian tv. How cool is that? Loved it, it was really interesting and pretty cool to see my bosses and pastors live on Christian tv. I'm not sure if there is a video on the website as it was live, but you can check it out if you want. The website is www.revelationtv.com. Their names are Caroline and Desmond Bellew.

This weekend I've just been chilling and enjoying the lovely sunshine. :D

Today has been a really good day... mostly. At church there were 5 weddings! 5 lovely couples were renewing their wedding vows. It was so sweet and touching. The best bit at church tho... a great couple I met at History Makers are pregnant with a girl and they are naming her after... ME!!! :D So excited!! hehehehe. Love it. The rest of the day was spent having a BBQ by the pool and sunbathing, then watching Dumbo! This evening wasn't so great. We went to the university to the Biology department and as Pilar knows someone who works there, and he showed us his experiment. It was horrible, as it involved killing baby chicks who werent even born yet. He took them out the shell and put them in anesthetic liquid and they moved then died. So sad. Def off chicken and eggs for now!

All in all a pretty good week.

God bless

xxx