At least now I have a giant vocabulary.

Well, the exam I thought would never end is finally over.  On Thursday we went to Granada to take the first part, the oral exam, and then on Friday morning we did the rest of it - four hours of reading and listening comprehension, writing and grammar, with a measly 30 minute break somewhere in the middle.  We took it pretty easy while we were there, treated ourselves to nice dinners twice, and went on a hunt for the perfect shoes.  On Saturday we had much needed massages scheduled but the guy who was supposed to give them to us never showed up after we got up early and went out of our way to find the place in a city that neither of us can get around in very easily.  But massage or not, we are under a lot less stress than before.  I have almost all my work done for the quarter and much more time to breathe.  Kate has resumed her Sudoku addiction and I have been enjoying just lying in bed reading.

Rather than going on excursions and having any sort of fun for the last five weeks, I have spent the majority of my waking hours at our school.  It's a good thing it's a lovely place to be, as you'll see from the photos.


Here's the outside of our school.  It's a renovated 16th century palace.  I robbed this photo from the school's website.  You should check it out:  http://www.abadatescuela.com/school.htm.  I have translated a few of the texts on the site (the good ones, of course) and I have a testimonial there in both English and Spanish.  There are several other cool photos on the site, some of which are from my trip here last year.


This is the patio in the school as seen from the front door.


This is the view from the other side.


And yet another view from beneath the stairwell.  You get the idea: it's pretty.


If you take your first right when you enter the school you end up in this hallway leading to the sala de internet on the left, our classrooms on the right, and the baño at the end.


Here's Kate in the sala de internet, where we spend way too much time.  This was taken about a week before the test.  She's looking a little stressed.


My classroom.


Oh, the marvelous green chalkboard where all the grammatical concepts that are now burned into my brain were born.


Even the bathroom is pretty (sorry about the flash in the mirror.)


If you go back out onto the patio and cross to the other side of it, you find these big dangerous stairs that lead to the cantina, a cave-like structure where the inhabitants of the palace used to store olive oil, wine, and other staples in big vats.


As you near the bottom you can see one of the vase-like structures used to store liquids.


They are almost as tall as me.


Here's one view of the entire cantina.


And another view.  The school occasionally uses this space to host concerts or art exhibitions.


Speaking of art exhibitions, here's an example of the paintings that were recently displayed here.  If I had 600€ and a way to transport this giant portrait of Kafka (3X4 feet) I would have done so in a heartbeat.


This is the school's lovely stairway and phone hub as seen from the patio.  If you have ever received a phone call from any of us, we were probably sitting on that bench while making it... or pacing back and forth trying to stay warm since the patio isn't covered.


If you ascend the charming stairway this is what you see.


If you look up you can also see this enchanting painted dome.


This is the upstairs gallery.  Notice the pleasing, warmly-colored art hanging all around.  Just in time for winter it has been replaced with a bleak, modern sculpture collection in which every piece is the color of rust.  Blah.


This is the library where I have spent countless hours these last few weeks.  In fact, I am sitting in the red chair on the right as I type this.  Usually the only reason I even go upstairs is to visit the library, although there are other classrooms that are seldom used, and the teachers' office.

Okay, so it wasn't exactly true that I haven't been on a single excursion.  The last week of my prep class my friend Farid showed up in Úbeda, having just returned from a vacation home to Algeria, and offered to take Kate and I on a little drive around the province.  Needing to get the hell out of town, we took him up on it.  First we had coffee in Jaén and then we went driving around until we happened upon this tiny little village called Los Villares.


There we found some friendly horses that gladly accepted the plants I fed them.


This horse kept trying to bite Farid's fingers, and Farid kept letting him try.  It was scary.


Making baby-talk at the animals, as usual.  Hey, at least I did it in Spanish.


After Los Villares we drove a little further until we found an abandoned house just asking to be explored.  Kate was only pretending to be grumpy (for once) - we were actually both in very good moods that day.


This is where we parked the car so that we could go trespass.  Fall in the province of Jaén: pretty...


The house was situated alongside a little brooke that we just stared at for a while.  I think here I was giving Kate my expert opinion on something or other.


Trees, blue sky, deep breaths, oh yeah.


Farid referred to this as "being like Tom," as in the cat from Tom and Jerry.


Here's Kate expressing her astonishment at the fact that this fig leaf is bigger than her face.


Homies.


Amigos.


On the way back to Úbeda we stopped at this overlook.  Since Farid was sitting in his car being yelled at on the phone by some girl, Kate and I took his camera and did ruined the view by smashing our big faces into it.


Here's the view without our faces.


Kate enjoying some local flora.


And finally, I had to include this because it's astonishing.  See all those little cards with words on them stuck to the wall, along the baseboard and around the door?  Those are the flashcards I used to study for the exam.  Yes, all of that is in my brain now.

That is all for now.  Sorry for the much delayed entry.  Between being busy and having technical difficulties it has been a chore to get this thing up.  I'll try to be better, I promise.  Byeeeeee!