Sevilla

Let's face it folks! I'm in love. I'm in love with a city! My colleague Bente (from Berg vgs) and I have spent some lovely days in Sevilla, and I'm totally in love with that place! What a place! What an atmosphere! Nueva Andalucía is nice, but not "typical Spanish" (feels like "Little Britain" quite often...). So my impression of Sevilla was bound to be a positive one! And it was!

 

The amazing cathedral! 

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seville_Cathedral)

 This reminded me of a scene from Monthy Pyton and the Knights of the Holy Grail (I think...)

 

Koselig! 

Since Pedro had to stay a few extra days at Marbella Automecánica, we decided to take the bus to Sevilla. I got an immediate attack of carsickness when I realised the bus would take us through Ronda (everyone talks about the roads leading up to Rona), but I have to say the roads were great. No te preocupes! A funny thing is that we didn't actually see the spectacular canyons of Ronda. Hmm... Maybe the bus didn't really stop in the city of Ronda? It was all flat up there, reminded me a bit of Hedmarken. (Click on the link to see what Ronda is really like ... http://www.igreens.org.uk/ronda_puente_nuevo2.JPG)

We enjoyed nice food and wine in some excellent (and very authentic) tapas bars, stayed in a great hotel which was called Confortel Puerta de Triana (thanks, Elaine!), walked in the Jewish quarters, tried to find our way around without a map (mostly a great success!), were amazed by the Cathedral and the TOWER, had coffee at Starbucks (!) ...

This is the first time I've seen Starbucks in Spain

... enjoyed the sun and the spring (no rain -- the weather forecast was wrong! hurray!), bought lots of Spanish films, Spanish books, and other books, had bocadillos con aceite y tomatas (I'm beginning to like it now), discussed Spanish words and other aspects of Spain and life and all those things. And yet one of the greatest experiences must have been the flamenco show, regardless of how tacky it may sound. You can read about the Museo del Baile Flamenco here.

 

Monica Idalgo in a dress with a loooong rope

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of Bente, an American guy and myself when we had a flamenco class with the great Monica, but boy do I have pictures of the two dancers (Monica and a fantastic male!), the singer, and the amazing guitar player. I m p r e s s i v e !!!

 

Meget imponerende!

It was kind of difficult to take pictures of them dancing, but these pics may give you and idea of how it was. I was really impressed by their energy! Oh oh oh! 

Finally, I would like to recommend a really great tapas restaurant which was called Levíes. They had great vegetarian food, and their croquettes (?) were almost as good as those Ascención made before Christmas. The other picture is from a fantastic tapas bar where we dined another night. I'm sure we were the only tourists there! Great wine, great food. Can't remember the name of the place.

 

I will finish off with some gossip. Actually I came across three celebrities when in Sevilla:

1.) The Turkish Prime Minister was in town, and I saw his car driving by while we were in the tapas bar whose name I've forgotten

2.) It was nice to catch up with George Clooney again, this time not in the form of a calendar, but in Seville near the railway station.

3.) Christoffer Columbus was buried in the Cathedral. What are you saying? Don't you believe me? Take a look at this picture.

So, that's about it, I guess. This must be my looooongest blog entry ever.

**********

I picked up Pedro from the garage this afternoon. Now I'm broke. In hindsight it was actually alright to go to Sevilla by public transport. We ended up spending the last night in Málaga instead of Córdoba because of the public transport. But that's alright.

Right now I'm enjoying something Bente brought me: Ingrid Olava's CD "Guest". Here's a review of this fantastic CD: http://oslopuls.aftenposten.no/musikk/article346008.ece 

I've had a great half term so far, and there are still 4 days to go! Yohooo! :)

The school bus

I've had to take the legendary school bus to work the last two days. What an experience! There are mainly primary school kids on the bus, and there's a woman there whose job is to make sure they all behave well! :) My dear Fiat Punto (Pedro) has spent the last two days at Marbella Automecánica because he needed to get a new direccion electricia reparada. Bascially, the steering mechanism doesn't work anymore. This is a costly reparation, and I'm not looking forward to paying the bill when I pick him up mañana...

Surfing

Oh oh.
I have just spent hours online! Was writing some e-mails, and then I started looking for information about something, and one thing led to another, and I ended up spending hours surfing the Internet. Yes, surfing. It's amazing how time flies when you're online...

 Thank you to my favourite comics web page (www.comics.com)

Anyway. I've come across lots of interesting web pages, blogs etc. Interestingly enough I'm working with "Surfing and skateboarding in English-speaking countries" in my English B HL class now (Year 12) as a part of the studies of "typical and distinctive leisure activities" (p. 28 in the Subject Guide). On Wednesday we watched the film "Lords of Dogtown" about the Tony Alva etc. I like that film!! You can read about it here.

*****

I spent last weekend in Oslo celebrating my Mum's 60th birthday. It is exactly a week ago now since I arrived at my parents' apt. in Oslo. Strange. Feels like ages ago now. It was really nice to get some quality time with my family, including my sister and her little family:) The birthday party was held at my mum's job Gyldendal Norsk Forlag and was a great success, with lots of nice guests (family and friends), tapas, music, wine, a jazz band, Martha Norheim. The youngest guest was 2 (Sivert, my lovely nephew) and the oldest one was my grandmother (soon 88 years old!). I spent 58 hours in Norway last weekend and enjoyed it very much! Here are some images from my short, long weekend:

Mamma, Oda, Trude, me, Sivert. 
We gave mamma her presents before the guests arrived. 

  

 Frognerparken last Sunday! Oda and I went skiing. I love that park!! 

Oda! 

  

My favourite park on a beautiful Sunday!  

I also spent some time with Vivian and Kjersti last weekend. Nice! The Monday morning flight from Oslo to Málaga was full, 100% -- it's the most crowded plane I've ever been on. 

When I got back from Oslo on Monday it turned out that the switch on the kitchen had gone, so I was welcomed by an awful stank from my fridge and freezer. Had to throw five plastic bags of food in the bin. What a waste! Anyway, I am lucky since I live in a country where I can pop out to Mercadona and buy new food. No worries. No te preocupes. A bit annoying, of course, that the same thing happened again this afternoon.... Jamie the handyman has promised to get an electrician to have a look at the electrical equipment in this apartment. Thank you. 

***

So, what else is new?

... went to a Cambridge Exams Training in Marbella today. Interesting and very useful! I also met Birgit Bloom, the legendary teacher at Aloha at the training session. She retired last summer, and I have taken over her job. "Oh, so you're the new Mrs Bloom?" is a question I've been asked soooo many times this year! And finally I've met her! She was very nice:)

... watched a great film (with Karol) the other day: "Invictus". It was probably not historically correct, but Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mandela is definitely worth watching! Read more about the film here.

... enjoyed singing on Tuesday night! :)

... going to Málaga tomorrow (with Fiona) to watch Bodas de sangre at the theatre. You can read about the play here and wish me luck: the play is performed in Spanish!!   


That's it.
Ole Lukkøye og Paul Auster venter på meg.

Sov godt!

Strawberries and George Clooney

January was great! It was really good to come back home to Spain and get on with things here. The taste of the local (?), short-travelled fruit is muy muy bien, and I've been gorging on mandarins and strawberries (price: nothing, compared to Norway) the last couple of days!

A delicious look and a delicious taste! 
A mí me encantan las frutas!!!!

It's been a month where I've reached some of the goals I set for this term (aka New Year's Resolutions), whereas I'm still working on others. Some things I'm really happy about are (in random order):
- lunch on the beach in Marbella on Sunday -- what a wonderful day! The sun was shining, and we we could see Africa!

- started working with my Spanish (last week) and have had two lessons already

- been dancing (hot latino dancing) in Fuengirola!!

- been going to the gym three times a week (øh... at least the last two weeks...)

- taught people from Ireland and Spain how to make pancakes (have got pictures of this, but won't post them here --- it's a confidential matter!)

- joined a new activity!

- watched several Spanish films

- been to the cinema and watched almost all the films they've shown in original version -- which is one film per week. The rest is dubbed! I've seen "Up in the Air" with (ah...) George Clooney, "Sherlock Holmes" (they used the word "discombobulated"!!!) and "Did you hear about the Morgans?". They're showing "Invictus" in original version this week but I won't be able to watch it. Next week, hopefully...

- been to Malaga (see pictures below)

- been crazy girl with Elaine in our black dresses (see descent picture below, that was before we got crazy)

- started planning the trip to Sevilla and Córdoba with Bente when she comes to visit in three weeks

- stopped the car and took some pictures of Benalmádena on my way to Mariela on Saturday. What a beautiful place!!

The view of Benalmádena

- read some nice books (see list in the right-hand column of this blog) and listened to lovely music!

- tried to catch up with friends and family on e-mail and skype

- and of course a lot of other things that I can't write about on this public blog. But life is good, I'm learning new things almost every day, and I feel much more confident as a teacher now, especially with the younger students. The weather is better (no rain, but still cold) Enjoy these images from MY January in Spain!

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Kari and me -- the Castle of Malaga

Helen (one of Kari's science friends) from Canada -- the Castle of Malaga

 

Teachers in Black

The Norwegian School in Benalmádena

 Mr Gatsby's pool? 

The Cathedral of Malaga-- beautiful! 

Helen, Kari, Max and Dick outside the Cathedral. 

Cathedral of Malaga-- Interesting Piece of Art 

We also visited the Picasso Museum. Not too impressive. Felt like singing "Been there, done that"... Helen and I went to see the Bull Ring (apparently very impressive) but it was closed. (Why is the text underlined??? I don't know)

Enjoy February, dear blog reader!