On Spanish Adventures Part IV: Short and Sweet Addition

In which we catch up, mainly pictorially.

I have had so many amazing experiences the last three days that I want and need to write about¹. Between a bike tour of the old river, to visiting a farm and having the most amazing meal, to exploring the backstreets of old Valencia², to the football match last night. It's been a total whirlwind. But I just spent the last two and a half hours in my room grading so I'm getting a little stir crazy. But, I wanted to give a little update, let people know I'm alive, and share a few pictures.

Unfortunately most of my pictures are stuck on my camera, but I'll get them off of there soon. Until then, enjoy!

A shot from Old Valencia.

On our walking tour of Old Valencia there were a lot of neighborhood that had this classic European look. I didn't get to take as many pictures as I was hoping, but fortunately I went back a few days later with some students and was able to take some more.

This is a shot from further up the street.

Like most a lot of European cities you see a blend of classic architecture with modern flair.

We spent a whole day at a small farm just north of the city where a man has turned his home into a resturant for traditional paella. In his barn he has many of the tools they used to use to farm before modern conveniences. He also has peppers native to the region that you can't find anymore. As well as his own GMO-free corn³.

Adding rice to the paella.

This guy was awesome, he was the sous chef and he was great about talking with our students and letting them experience this multi-hour cooking process. He even hand wrote the paella recipe in spanish at the request of one of our students.

Seriously so good

Most of the beer here in spain is pretty cheap and terrible. Not that I ever complain about the price, I've bought a lot of beer for 1 Euro⁴. Before we came out to the farm one the director of the group we are working with mentioned that he and I could try this great beer that they had. It was amazing, it's almost like a saison but with honey and rosemary. My mind was blown. Then he said you could only get it at the brewery and I was a little disheartened.

Yesterday when I was walking around Old Valencia we saw a beer shop. One of my students wanted help picking out something for her dad so we popped in. I scanned through all of the beers from Spain and there on the bottom shelf in the last place I looked I saw this beer! So I bought some and will be bring it home with me!

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1) Before it all disappears from my mind grapes.

2) We found so much awesome street art.

3) This was the most amazing day, I will be writing about it more in the future.

4) So you don't tip in Spain. As a result servers don't try and up sell you on much. Last night a bartender talked me out of a nicer more expensive beer and down to a cheap shitty one. It was late so I didn't care, but talk about something that would never happen in the states.

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On A Year In Review

In which we look back on the year past, reminisce, reflect, and recount all while avoiding sentimentality.

If you are looking for a blog post that will look back at all the important events of 2009, you have come to the wrong place.  If you have come looking for a year in review of the greatest pop culture achievements of the last year, you have come to the wrong place.  If you have come for a reflection on failed resolutions and a promise to stay on track this year, you have come to the wrong place.  If you have come to read about whatever random events I can remember from the last 365 days, then you are right where you need to be.  Welcome!

The year 2009 had an inauspicious beginning as I was forced to leave the New Years party at Mike and Jessica's early due to my allergies acting up.  I can't say I was too disappointed as New Years is one of my least favorite holidays.

'The Great Blizzard of 09' hits at the end of January¹ dumping massive amounts of snow on Bloomington and the surrounding areas.  No school for a week was pretty nice, I would have loved to gone out to enjoy the wintery wonderland, however out crappy landlord didn't plow our parking area for the entire week, nice job guy².  We did use the snow drifts outside of our front door to keep beer cold.

In February I tried Shiner Hefeweizen, it had a really sweet bottle cap.  So I started collecting them, but I wasn't sure why...yet.  Dun dun dun.... 

In March I went to Mexico with my dad.  We stayed at a swank all-inclusive resort in the Mayan Riviera.  It was pretty awesome.  We went deep sea fishing and on a zipline tour of the jungle.  There were pools everywhere and everything to eat and drink was free.  Each night we picked a different restaurant to eat at.  Ironically enough the best food we had was the hibachi grill/sushi place.  If you ever have the chance to go to a place like this I highly recommend it, it is so choice³.

Upon returning to Bloomington I got dominated by some 24 hour virus or something.  I alternated between burning lava hot and shivering.  I didn't leave the bed for two days and watch some really awesome movies on my computer, one of which was Starship Toopers, which is fantastic in its ridiculousness.

Around this time, in March or April, Brett, B-Carl and I went to check out Roadhouse Pizza.  The pizza was mediocre at best, and they sell cokes by the can, which is way lame.  However, there was a pinball machine that gave out free games like it was its job, we put in 75¢ and played for like an hour; just free game after free game.  Eventually we even attracted a crowd.  When we left there was a free game left that we passed on to a family waiting for their food.

In April I went to see the Little 5.  It was fun and the weather was great.  However, one of my old Wyldlife kids was riding in the race; that made me feel old.  It wouldn't be the first time it happened this year.

Graduated from college for the second time in May.  Now you may call me master.

Went to my second Indy 500 race.  It was a lot of fun; we were on the first short shoot, so some good crashes as well as A.C. Slater⁴.

On May 28th, 2009 the world changed forever, this day will be remembered always in the hearts of people everywhere as the day this blog began.  See it from its humble beginnings here.

June held in store for me a trip to Maine with the family⁵ and the most ridiculous job I have ever done.  I was essentially a hall monitor for the Upward Bound summer program.  I walked from building to building on campus and made sure kids were where they needed to be, when I wasn't doing that I was reading, or playing "David Jones Bingo™" it was simultaneously terrible and awesome.

Also in June we had our only week of summer weather.  It was unbearably hot, luckily it didn't last long.

July marked the end of an era.  Since I didn't know what I was going to be doing the following school year and our lease was up Tim Street and I would be headed to different locations.  Of the 120 months in this last decade I have lived with Tim for 60 of them.  That's pretty crazy.  And for the first time since the summer of 2001 Tim and I were living in Bloomington at the same time, but not in the same place.

At the end of July I moved in with the Feltons temporarily.  It would become permanent.  When I moved in I inherited a bowl full of bottle caps that the Feltons had also been collecting.  During the move I finally realized what I would do with all of the caps.  I had an end table with a removable glass top that covered a sunken in part.  I decided to fill this area with caps, but I didn't have enough, so the collection continued.....for now.

In August we had a Young Life reunion with a bunch of old leaders.  We played wiffleball and my team and an epic comeback that fell just short, but it was fun none the less.

A few weeks later I started my job at Jackson Creek in the in-school suspension room.  I ended up working there about 17 weeks.  During that time I read 20 books.

In October Bloomington Young Life put on their first ever weekend camp.  Years ago the whole state would come together for a weekend but it was cancelled due to sucking, so Bloomington just figured that they do their own.  Jeff, the area director, asked me to speak at the weekend.  It was a blast, but I was a little rusty⁶ having not given a club talk in 3 years.  It was a great time, the whole weekend felt very classy and professional just like a real YL camp week.

In November we received an invitation Kaitlin and Andy's wedding, instead of the traditional RSVP note card that asks you to check a box if you were planning on attending this invitation had a post card sized blank space with note on the top that says, "Please reply with number attending by November 28.  This is was we sent in⁶.

The first weekend in December my parents and I went down to Nashville Tennessee because my sister was throwing her boyfriend a surprise birthday party.  Despite the fact that she is, self-admittedly, a terrible liar Peter was still caught completely off guard.  It was great.  Also, weirdly, the night before the party my parents and I went to eat at a restaurant a block from our hotel.  When we were walking to our table I ran into David Pankake, a friend from IU that I hadn't seen in year, what a small world.

Mid-December marked the end of my tenure at Jackson Creek as I started a new job out at the Eastern Greene schools.  I will be filling in for a friend who will be on maternity leave until the end of April.  It is going to be exciting and exhausting.  I am guessing that the first four months of 2010 will fly by.

The first morning I awoke when I was home for Christmas I found that it had snowed about an inch and a half.  Two days after Christmas we had three inches plus.  On Christmas?  It rained, how lame.

When I got back from West Lafayette our house was a disaster area, which isn't all that surprising.  It is slowly getting back into shape.  I have been watching a lot of TV on DVD and enjoying my time off.  One of the things I did was continue to work on the end table/bottle cap art project.  I still have two rows to go, but it is looking really nice.  Two pictures are incoming.  One artsy and one to show the near-finished product.

So now it's the 31^st, not only does a new year start in less than 10 hours, but a new decade.  I think it will be a good one.  I'm hopeful about finding a new job, utilizing the gym membership that I just signed up for⁷, and seeing what God has planned for me.  Two things that I know will happen, I will finish the table, and I will have another long list of ridiculous things that will occur, many of which I will completely forget about.  But for now I am going to go grab a coffee with a friend, find something for dinner, take some allergy medicine, and head to Mike and Jessica's for another New Years Eve party, hopefully this year will start off a little better than the last.

Happy New Year, see you next decade!
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¹ Please note: it was not really a blizzard, and it might not have been January, I can't remember.
² This wasn't surprising, that jerk didn't replace our busted screens the entire year we lived there.
³ Line courtesy of Ferris Bueller.
⁴ I would have preferred Kelly Kapowski, but really who wouldn't?
⁵ Shameless self-promotion warning: Maine post.
⁶ Double sixes, aw crap.  Luckily they both involve the same person.  Talk editing and art work by Carrie Felton.
⁷ For as much as it cost I'd frickin better.