Primera semana de trabajo

So I have just completed my first official week as a Language Teacher at Colegio Santa Ana. It was a very interesting week meeting all the students and getting a good idea of the students' grasp of the English and French languages. I am teaching students from 12 years old to 16 years old and their grasp of the languages span a wide spectrum.

In all the classes I started out with a short introduction about myself, where I am from, what I like to do in Canada, etc... Basic stuff to really get an idea of what the students understand, and how they can adjust to my accent (weird to think of this being such a major factor during conversation). After this I opened the floor to the students to ask me questions. Can you guess what the first two questions that were asked to me in every class. Alright, it may have been a little foolish of me to allow to ask the students to ask me "whatever they would like."

1. How old are you?
2. Are you single? - this question was actually asked to me mostly by boys who were put up to it by the girls sitting beside them....


So after I brush the second question off in all 22 of my classes I was able to move on to explain to the students my goals for the year and my desire for the students to try their best to converse in the language I am instructing them in.

I have a feeling that this will be interesting but I won't really get a good feeling into how the students will act until the coming weeks. I will most definitely posting updates so that you don't miss out on anything!!

Other than classes, last weekend I actually visited an authentic Arabic bathhouse. This has to be one of my top experiences in Spain so far. The arabic baths were similar to a nordic spa that we have in Canada, but the setting for these baths are all indoors in very old stone buildings with extremely ornate wood carvings. It had to be one of the most relaxing experiences I have had, and  definite must for anyone visiting Seville. My favourite part of the whole experience was the bath of 100 jets where I had to anchor myself into my chair to stay in place from all the jacuzzi jets coming from all directions. It was a full body jacuzzi that was absolutely serene.

A shot of the salt bath where you just float and little to subtle arabic music being played into the water. 

The relaxing room where I was able to enjoy some amazing fruit tea. 

Thanks again for reading and I hope everything in Canada is going well. Send me an update when you are able to.

I miss you all!

Vamos mi Sevilla!

Hi there!

Just thought I would check in to let you know how my week was.

So right now I must admit that I am quite anxious to start teaching in the classroom. Last week was mainly meeting with the teachers I will be working with to discuss how things will be working once I introduce myself into the French and English language classes. My contract states that I will be teaching for 22 hours a week. This works out quite well because there are 12 English classes and 9 French classes that I will be working with. Therefore I will be seeing each of these classes (that go from ages 13-16) once a week and preparing activities and exercises that will challenge them and allow them to practice the languages they are learning.

Now yesterday I went to my La Liga game. It was between Sevilla FC and Getafe FC. Sevilla won the game 2-0, but what an experience. I feel that the best way to immerse oneself into the local culture is to do what the locals do for fun, and that is going to see the red and white play. It seemed like the entire city was at the game! The stadium is massive and it is designed to have all the noise be focused into the stadium. This made for an atmosphere that I had never experienced before. I felt that I was able to catch some of the words in the chants from the crowd, but it was still difficult. In this case it seems like I will have to go to as many futboll games in order to really get comfortable with my Spanish! Good strategy, no?

Here are some photos of the game and a video of the penalty shot that happened. The fans in the stands went absolutely mental when Bacca scored on the penalty shot!

The front of the stadium, completely put together in tiles.

The stands 30 min before the game

Just as the game was starting!

The start of the second half!

Well that's it for this post. I will do my best to keep all of you updated! Once again I miss all of you dearly. If you have any questions or want me to speak about something in particular don't hesitate to contact me or add your comment in the box below!

Cheers,

Mathieu

Bienvenue au Maroc

Apologies for this post being out of order. It shows up at the top now because I found a few mistakes and had to edit it slightly, but it wouldn't let me repost it in the same place I originally posted it. 

So this past weekend (from September 4th to September 8th) I decided with a few days off that I should visit a different continent. This is why I packed up my big red backpack and made made my way to Morocco.

The view from the back of my ferry from Tarifa to Tanger

On thursday morning David and made out way to Tarifa and then got onto a ferry that took us from Tarifa to Tanger. These ferries were extremely fast and it only took us 45minutes to cross the straight of Gibraltar. Once we landed in Tanger, we were almost immediately introduced to Moroccan culture.

Once we got off the ferry we were greeted by an older man who claimed that he was an official tour guide by flashing his Moroccan ID at us (which should have been the first key to say that this guy was slightly shady). He then proceeded to walk us to our hostel through the old medina (market). Once we completed this 15 minute walk through a very tight and confusing maze we gave this man 5 euros for his services.

This is a view of the Tanger Skyline from the old city at the Hostel I stayed at. 

 After we got settled in David and I met two other guys, one from Essex and the other from Australia as well. This made the four of us who travelled around the entire time I was in Morocco. It made for some excellent adventures indeed.

An example of the markets in Tanger. 

He is a little example of what the streets looked like.
I'm amazed locals don't even get lost!

After only a day in Tanger I was quite tired of the pressure tactics of the souk keepers (shop owners). Their goods were quite nice and looked very interesting but if you stopped even for s second to look at them they would push the good into your face and follow you right down the street to continually try and sell it to you. 

The next morning the four of us packed into a cab and made our way towards the bus station to catch a bus to Chefchaouen (the blue city of Morocco). The bus was only 45MAD (about 6$ Canadian). This was one of the most unique bus rides I have ever had. The terrain was alot more mountainous than I thought and I had absolutely no idea that Morocco had such a beautiful landscape.

Here is what a big taxi looks like! The driver said that 6 people could definitely fit into a "Grand" taxi!!

Once arriving into Chefchaouen, we decided to try and find our hostel in the old city on our own. BAD idea!! We were walking around the old medina for close to an hour trying to find where we were staying. There was finally a nice man, who showed us how to get there and amazingly wasn't after any of our money! Once arriving we were greeted by the humble owner of the hostel Casa Amina.

A picture of what our hostel looked like. 

This hostel turned out to be my home for three nights until I was forced to bus back to Sevilla in order make a meeting with the teachers I will be working with once classes start on the 15th of September. 

Now after settling in to Chefchaouen (it is said Chaouen by the locals) we decided to hire a guide through the hostel and take a hike up the Rif mountains. It is said that the Rif mountains are some of the most beautiful hiking that can be done in Africa. 

The next morning at 7am we dragged ourselves out of bed and began to head up the mountains. We left so early because we wanted to avoid the deadly heat of the afternoon sun. The hike was absolutely amazing. The views were simply breathtaking. The hike wasn't very easy either, the 4 foreigners were gasping for the breath the entire way up as the guide was walking along in old flip flops!

The view of Chaouen from the mountains. 

After coming down from the 4 hour hike we decided to take a well deserved ciesta before lunch. After this we decided to explore a little more of the city by getting lost in the medina. This actually proved to be quite fun as the blue throughout the winding and narrow streets made for some great pictures!

 

 

Now on the second day we decided to take another hike to the akchur waterfall. This time,  we decided to try this trek on our own with a little bit of guidance from our hostel owner. We took a taxi up even higher into the mountains and were let off at a very congested parking lot. As the summer was ending, there were hundreds of locals who had decided to take this hike as well! It was quite refreshing to be the only tourists around and that local Moroccans were also enjoying the hike along with us. This highest point of this hike was supposed to have an amazing natural waterfall, although we were still extremely tired from the trek the day before so we decided to stop half way and enjoy the water from this point.

What our hiking trail looked like. 

Once we decided to settle in I seemed to be the only one excited to get into the water. We stopped at a basin where there were a group of Moroccan men doing acrobatic dives into this small crevice of deep water. After watching several death defying jumps by the Moroccan men, they told me that they weren't jumping anymore until I tried it. So I did, and the water was extremely refreshing! It was cold enough to have to get out after a few minutes but after a few minutes I found myself jumping off these rocks a lot. I found it to be quite a bit of fun! 

After this amazing hike we once again went back to our hostel for some well deserved rest. 

After a nice long nap we decided that we should go all out and visit the nicest restaurant in town, because the next morning I would have to spend the day travelling back to Sevilla. We did out research and went to a very nice restaurant with a beautiful rooftop patio that gave us an exceptional view of the city. We all order complete meals. I started out with a Moroccan salad with goat cheese. Beef tagine and coucous for the main meal and a chocolate crepe with almonds for desert, all tied together with a fresh fruit smoothie to drink. At any restaurant in Canada this would be a very pricy meal, but in Morocco this luxurious meal came out to 100MAD (or 14$ Canadian)! 

After a full belly of couscous am olives we went back to the Hostel to get some sleep as I had to be up early to catch my bus back to Tanger to get on the ferry and eventually make my way to Sevilla. It was a long trip back, but it was completely worth it because I have some amazing memories of being in Morocco with my Commonwealth friends! 

Keep checking back shortly and I will put up a post of how this week has gone! I miss you all and hope to hear how things are going back in the Great White North!!!    

First Week in Sevilla!

So now that I am landed here in Sevilla, my first task was to find an apartment to live in (una habitación). For the first three days I stayed in a Hostel (Triana Backpackers) and did my research out of this small hostel.

This is a view of the river, my hostel was just behind this first row of buildings. 

The hostel was nice, but I felt that they were trying to fit 6 people in a room meant for only 2-3 people max. Regardless, after only one night I was ready to be in my own apartment.

After viewing a number of apartments I found an apartment in Plaza Jerónimo de Cordoba (6) that I instantly felt good about. The landlord Miguel was amazing, and his english was a little rusty so he had his daughter present to help translate to ensure that we were both on the same page. After viewing the apartment I decided to sleep on it. The next morning in order to try and discover the city a little more, I took the hostel's free walking tour of the old city. After this walking tour I went and met Miguel again to sign my lease until the end of June 2015!

This a small photo of the room I living in for the year. Great view from the patio!

During this walk of Sevilla I saw some of the main sights in Sevilla and learned some of the history of the city. As a history nerd I found it very interesting to learn about how Sevilla hosted the world expo in 1929 and how the the iconic Plaza España was designed and what it represents today.

The historic Plaza España. Also the warmest place in Sevilla due to all the tiles in the square!

During this walking tour I met an Australian named David and we began talking about our respective situations. David had been travelling around Europe for the past few months and had just come to Spain from spending a month in Portugal. After the tour we decided to hit a pub for some lunch and began talking about our desires to visit Morocco. Funny enough, after lunch we decided to go ahead with the plan we formulated and head to Morocco the next morning for the weekend. I only had a meeting to show up for on tuesday so I was able to spend close to 4 days in Morocco. Therefore, after signing my lease I invited David over and we began planning how we will get to Tarifa to take the ferry over and where we will spend our first night in Tanger!

The next post will tell you all about my adventures in Morocco! Leave a comment below if you have any questions or comments about this post. I miss you all!

Cliquez le "select language" button si vous voulez lire cet article en Français.  

Bienvenido a mi blog!

So yes, I know this blog is a little behind schedule but I will now do my best to catch everyone up.

Right from the start I would like to say how sorry I am for not creating this blog earlier. My goal with this blog is to make sure that all the people I care for a kept up to date, and so that everyone knows how much I miss all of you!

Basic details:

Living in Sevilla, Spain from August 31, 2014 until I return to Canada July 22, 2015.
Teaching students from age 13-16 as a Conversational Instructor of French and English. I will be planning and implementing conversational activities with 22 different language classes of one hour in length each. You guessed it! I will be teaching 22 hours a week.

The rest of my week will be taken up through studying International Business at the IMF Business School, that is part of Universidad School, that is part of Universidad Camilo Jose Cela. 


On my spare time, I will be doing my best to pick up as much spanish as possible and do a small weekend trip once a month to make the most of my experience overseas!

If you would like to see this text in either french or Spanish just click the select language button below. I will put this link on every page.