Love, Brett

A Glimpse of: Oia, Santorini, Greece

2010-11-22T01:02:00.007+01:00

OIA is famous for it's sunsets. In the early evening, you can stroll through the high-end craft shops, admiring the architecture & the views...

As the sun begins to lower in the sky, 100's of tourists find somewhere to perch themselves...

Everyone watches, almost in silence, as the sun slowly sinks below the horizon. (This would be the part where you feel like you hanging off the edge of the world...)

As soon as the sun had set.... someone started the "slow-clap." Soon everyone was applauding and cheering one of natures greatest shows.

Oia was one of the highlights of my entire trip to Greece. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

Notes from Santorini

2010-11-22T00:12:00.003+01:00

Santorini is a dream island.
You feel like you are hanging off the edge of the world.

The island was created by one of the largest volcanic explosions (which means black sand beaches!!) The natives move at the pace of island life, which is perfect for relaxing vacationers...
The rotation of the sun and moon were somehow more dramatic there. Naturally and immediately you become in-tune to the amazing power of nature.

Dani & I rented an ATV and took turns driving. It is so much fun tootin' around between beaches, towns and restaurants on an ATV. All of the tourists were happily scooting around on them & they were really cheap to rent- only 15€ a day.

The roads to Oia, at the very north of the island, were suuuppperr windy. The kind of windy mountain roads where you if you fall off, that's it. On the midnight rides home from Oia, I crouched behind Dani trying to hide from the wind while admiring the reflection of the moon on the rippling water far below.

Not like they need me to toot their horn, but I loved using the Lonely Planet guide book. As far as the Greece edition went, we used it for everything except picking our hotels. The restaurants the guidebook recommended were sublime & the descriptions they give of all the cities and tourist sites were usually head on. We were able to find beautiful hotels at much cheaper prices via other recommendations. Especially because we went during low season.

Graffiti in Athens: I put on my fake smile and go to work!!

2010-10-28T18:23:00.028+02:00

Athens is absolutely covered in graffiti. Grungy, yes. However, it was also some of the coolest, most detailed & original graffiti I had ever seen. Since I posted about Barcelona graffiti before I snapped some of my favorites to post about GRAFFITI IN ATHENS::

Here are a couple from the islands (the only two I saw at all actually, quite the opposite of the capital).

This one was in Mykonos:

and this one in Santorini:

Arriving in Santorini...

2010-10-23T21:01:00.004+02:00

When I was reading about the Greek islands and trying to make our itineary, the first destination I decided upon was Santorini. I knew I wanted to go there when multiple times I read it described as one of the "#1 Honeymoon Destinations." :)

The night ferry ride from Athens to Santorini is 8 hours. We were on the boat from 12:00 midnight - 8:00am. Tickets to sleep in a cabin with beds started at 180€ a night. Tickets to sleep on the boat wherever you could find a spot were 30€. We opted for the floor. Luckily, by "ferry" I mean huge & beautiful yacht. We found a corner in the lobby and snuggled up under blankets and a sleeping bag Dani brought. It certainly wasn't ideal, but it was all part of the adventure. There were 100's of people with the same tickets as us, sleeping everywhere you can imagine all over the boat! If we had been on the Titanic we would have been the last people helped off, haha.

I had read it is highly recommended to pull up to Santorini during the day, as opposed to at night, so you can enjoy the views. The guides didn't lie.

Waking up with a slightly stiff neck from sleeping in the lobby quickly went away once we were on deck. We rolled up our things into our backpacks, bought coffee with sugar & milk and made our way upstairs to the huge deck. At 8:00am the air was crisp and it was a beautiful, sunny day. Here are some pics I snapped while we pulled up to what would become my favorite island (out of two, haha):

More to come...

* * *

I'm now using Google reader on my iPhone to read the blogs I follow. How I didn't do this before, I don't know. I now have another application to happily play with on the metro. It's so much more convienent to everyone's updates in a row, rather than browsing sites.

Planning our trip to Greece...

2010-10-21T14:12:00.008+02:00

I spent 10 days exploring three cities in Greece with my boyfriend. Of all the places I've been to so far, Greece was my favorite vacation destination. I really recommend it. The Greek people are unbelievably welcoming and friendly.

When I first started planning our excursion I felt a little overwhelmed. There are so many options of places to go, things to see, and we were only going for 10 days.

There are literally 6,000 Greek islands! Of those 30 or more are popular vacation destinations. Not to mention the mainland. Athens is certainly worth 10 days alone.

Our travel style is that we prefer to take our time, and enjoy every city we go to, rather than rushing through a check list. So in the end we visited two islands- Santorini and Mykonos- plus Athens, with hopes of one day returning to explore some more. I think that everyone who visits Greece hopes that one day they can return.

In the next few blog posts I'll be writing about our trip to Greece...

My other goal at the moment is trying to DELETE/ORGANIZE literally 100,000+ pictures from the past 4 years before backing them all up from my laptop to Dani's hard drive. It's taking me a while to say the least.

Dani loves this song & it was filmed on Mykonos.

summer of love.

2010-08-28T18:29:00.002+02:00

The girls are back from vacation, which means I'm back to nannying full-time, until the end of the summer. We spent this past week making loads of water balloons. After some English exercises, we would all happily file into the kitchen for what became our water balloon-making ritual.

The ritual goes like this: The sisters, 5 and 6, pull chairs up next to the sink, and sit with large ceramic bowls in their laps waiting for the assembly line of balloons to start. I start stretching the balloons over the end of the faucet and we discuss the size of each balloon. I ask, "Do you want a Daddy, a Mommy, a brother...?"

"A baby," Marina requests.

"Okay, a baby."
I fill up the water balloon and am about to tie it off when she pips up... "Take out water, take out a little water."

I spray out some water and make to tie it. "Like this?"

"No, no!"

While they peek their little heads over, I pour out more water making the balloon smaller and smaller until Marina yells, "Like this!, Like this!" Then Daniela inspects the balloon, carefully considering, "Okay, yes, yes, like this." (They got along so wonderfully this week, I was so happy. They were sharing everything. It is so sweet, they are so lucky to have each other, and it makes life better for all of us).

It's Daniela's turn to make a request, "Now a Daddy."

"Okay now a Daddy. What color?"

"Orange!"

"No green!," her sister counters.

"Okay, first an orange, then a green..."

After I tie off every balloon, our system is the same. I hand Daniela the balloon first. She hands it off to her sister annoucing, "Here is the balloon. Do you need a plate?"

"No plate." Marina professionally replies.

"Okay, no plate."

Four balloons later Marina's bowls will be full and she will accept the plate offer. In this way we slowly cover the corner of the kitchen with plates and bowls holding a rainbow of water balloons. They both sit with their feet swinging in the chairs, their legs too short to reach the ground. We keep making balloons until just looking at them is way too tempting and we have to get down to the swimming pool straight away.

After we are all bikini clad and smelling of sun-screen, the girls, in a very organized manner, transfer the balloons from their mother's matching dish sets into plastic bags. Together we shuffle the balloons, huge blow-up raft, goggles, towels, sunscreen, and water bottles into the elevator (which is a down-right hilarious five minutes). Then we go down five flights to the swimming pool!!!

The neighborhood kids are always happy to see us coming down with all of those water balloons. Both the girls make a circle around the pool and formally greet their short peers.

I remember the first day, Marina gave a yellow brother-size balloon to 2-year old Dani as a present before the games with the older kids began. (She's always giving presents. She also offered a balloon to the realtor selling the apartment next door. The realtor politely declined, despite Marina's repeated reassurances that it was really no problem).
We line the plastic bags up at the edge of the deep-end. "Okay, Lindsay, now we do like this (they make a throwing motion)." "Throw," I say.
"Throw," they repeat anxiously as they are trying to quickly adjust their goggles. They don't want to get a late start, and all the older boys are now paddling towards them for the water-balloon game.
"Ready girls?"
"Yes!" (The other kids look around at each other, some of them understand English, but not all of them)
I tell Marina her goggles are on upside down but she can't be bothered to change them. "Throw them in!" she yells, "Lindsay!" Just looking at her cute little face bobbing up and down in the water with those upside down goggles makes me giggle. I start chucking in the balloons and the kids scatter to collect them. They grab the ballons by their tied ends and lob them around in their hands under water while gasping for air, (trying to swim with full hands is very difficult). The game is, they bring all the balloons back to the edge of the pool - then we throw them in and do it again! After a few rounds I want to play too. You don't have to be a kid to find the underwater view magical. With goggles on (even upside down) - against the backdrop of the blue tiled pool you can see 20 or more balloons floating around you, and more balloon bombs plunging beneath the surface as the kids throw them in from above. Marina, Daniela and I wave to each other underneath the crystal clear water. Balloons float around us - blue, green, yellow, purple, pink, white, daddies, mommies and babies. We notice the other kids are collecting all of the balloons - and we kick into action to grab as many balloons as we can. (I had to write this one down, I wanted to remember our summer in Barcelona, swimming in the cool pool collecting water balloons).

Barrio Gracia: Neighborhood Party

2010-08-23T00:52:00.000+02:00

Gracia's neighborhood party was decidedly better than the one we had in Raval. A contest was held and each street was decorated differently using only recycled materials. (My favorite was the HONEY BEES). That street was done beautifully. For a moment it reminded me of Splash Mountain at Disneyland. There was live music... which was great... and if you didn't like the "Grease" covers, you could walk a couple of blocks down to find "Blur" being covered... on the walk in-between decorations and music there were over-priced mojitos... and cotton candy...

Check out more of the beautiful recycled decorations at the festival this year in the gallery of professional photos at the official website.

MACBA @ night.

2010-08-06T16:51:00.000+02:00

Cristina: [Looking at a sculpture of Jesus] Are you very religious?
Juan Antonio: No, no, no, no, I'm not. The trick is to enjoy life, accepting it has no meaning whatsoever.
Cristina: No meaning? You don't think that authentic love gives life meaning?
Juan Antonio: Yes, but love is so transient. Isn't it? I was in love with a most incredible woman... and then in the end...
Vicky: Yes?
Juan Antonio: She put a knife into me.
Cristina: My God, that's terrible!
Vicky: Well, maybe you did something to deserve it.

-VickyCristinaBarcelona

Barrio Raval Partay

2010-07-18T21:25:00.000+02:00

In Barcelona, every neighborhood is designated a different weekend to have a neighborhood party....

this was ours... Raval....

The most popular statue in Raval...

"Meet me at the cat."

Good grub,

Good Music,

The kids were invited too...

...even though the whole place smelled like hasch...

Dancing on the cat statue :)

and Estrella, of course.

Barcelona Graffiti: What's Beautiful is Your Head

2010-06-29T00:03:00.002+02:00

My sister in front of my favorite sandwich shop when it's closed. The neighborhood is Raval:

Dani & I at Pep Ventura for a beach day by ourselves...

Love is brave.

2010-06-28T00:09:00.005+02:00

My younger sister flies into Spain today. I haven't seen her for ten months. I show up at the airport half an hour early- only to find that her plane is delayed another hour after that, so I order a cup of coffee and open a blank page. If I want to write I can't sit next to English speakers in the cafe or I find it impossible to drown out even the most mundane conversation.

I sit next to a Spanish family and find the white noise comforting. My favorite time to write scattered thoughts is when I am surrounded by people; yet completely alone. Not only can I easily zone them out, I'd have to really focus to understand what they were talking about. I love needing Spanish (when I encounter Spaniards who actually don't speak English) because I'm American and living in a potluck of languages is still a novelty. When everything else about my day sucks at least I probably learned a new fucking word. At least there's that. I also love needing it because, before, I never spent so much time looking at people's lips. I never took the time to appreciate the way their lips press together and then open again while their tongues click. I have to listen carefully to the way syllables drop, rise and form in order for the sounds to transform in my mind into meaningful images.

Whenever a plane lands there are at least three parties ecstatic to be reunited. A man paces the ARRIVALS gate carrying flowers and when the woman he has been waiting for appears they melt in unbridled joy kissing and hugging so close it almost seems like she is continually trying to climb him. They never let go of each other, only shift their form of attachment as they move through the airport and exit into the hot afternoon through the automatic glass doors. It's so touching and I think it wouldn't be so bad to work in the airport. I like how everything is glass in the Barcelona airport. There are hardly any walls, mostly windows. Where windows are impossible there is still a frosted glass sheet of glass-

Another couple is reunited and a young girl rushes into a boy's arms. They hug and kiss; this one is climbing too. I like boys I can climb; that's why I prefer the tall ones. A couple with a baby is reunited, so the baby gets the hug first. The mother pushes a one-and-a-half year old boy towards his father. He slowly topples towards his Dad (the way toddler's do without bending their knees) and the baby almost collides with the young couple who are now gathering their luggage. In an intimate burst of energy strangers are jumbled together while trying to re-connect with the people they are expecting. The father lifts up the baby and smothers him in kisses before putting an arm around his wife. I wish I could feel this passionate and excited about something.

What if I never do anything out of the ordinary? Will I feel I have wasted my life if I am lucky enough to enjoy the simple pleasures of life? Suppose I travel to the capitals of the world and buy the recommended guidebooks. The guidebooks will recommend that I buy the city museum passes, which I will. It is always quite soothing to slowly wander through rooms with high-ceilings in well air-conditioned museums while taking in beautiful paintings- paintings capturing fleeting moments of love, loss, pain and things worth fighting for. While I am visiting the capitals of the world I will go to the monuments and take the same pictures that everybody takes.

Suppose I fall in love with a sweet, kind, handsome man who suits me well and lights me up. He asks me to marry him and I say yes, because I find his mannerisms and character charming enough to change my ways, give up some dreams, and make some sacrifices to build our lives together. I am in love with him and he loves me and we wear each other's rings and spend sunny afternoons laying on the beach and strolling through parks, drinking fresh fruit juice, getting sun tans, enjoying the nature and the people and the moment.

Group of kids jumping for a picture at Park Güell

Shouldn't this be enough? Shouldn't it be enough to enjoy one's small triumphs and losses, the blood and flesh of the day-to-day? I fear that I won't feel completely satisfied. I fear that no one ever does. I fear that my whole life... my commute to work is going to really fucking suck.

Then just at that moment my sister emerges from the frosted glass sliding doors and I forget what I was writing about and I find myself running towards her. The tears I feared were not welling come bursting out un-expectedly and I don't realize until this very moment how much I missed her and how happy I am just to touch her.

Exploring Park Güell with my sister

See you in the hot room...

2010-06-17T21:56:00.001+02:00

Sooooo I read Bikram's book: Bikram Yoga and of course it helped improved my practice by giving detailed instructions on every posture. However, even more satisfying was the wonderful advice he gives about marriage and spirituality - he is so positive, and his world view radiates with same healthy outlook that should be associated with a serious practice. Plus he's freaking hilarious; he's good at making fun of himself. If it's any indication from how many quotes I typed up - you can tell I loved the book.

"Most Americans seem to view divorce as a fact of life, an inescapable reality of adulthood. Marriages self-destruct or cannot be formed in the first place because, without yoga, neither party knows how to do it. It's like me owning the longest swimming pool in Beverly Hills - which I do- but not being able to go near it because I can't swim." (252)

"Serve your Self; you are born to give, not to get. We believe that giving to others is the best way to serve the Self; that's how I fulfill my Karma Yoga, or sacred duty, by helping you, and by so doing I am realized and fulfilled." (77)

"What's right is what works." (3)

"The ultimate destination of human life is Self-Realization. To define that I need to make a distinction here. When I say "Self" with a capital S, I mean the real you, the perfect you, the ultimate human potential that you carry inside of you, which, I believe, is also the Divine. You have godliness in you, and so do I. That's our birthright. Our mission here on Earth is to fully inhabit or to realize the awesome potential of our true Selves. The "self" we think we are, the one spelled with a lower case s, is just a creation of our minds, the ego. We have to break down and fight through that ego self to get to the right Self." (5)

"So when you ask me if I believe in God, I will never be able to answer with a simple yes or no. I'm going to say, "Yes I do, because I believe in myself, and I am God. I believe in you, too, because you are my God." The only danger in this belief comes when we refuse to recognize everyone else as an expression of the Divine and see only ourselves that way. If you think you have more of a God within you than anyone else, you're in real trouble, my friend. And so is the world we live in." (43)

"Materialism is the number one problem in the West today, because it is the opposite of Spiritualism." (43)

"If you've read any of the many articles about me.... you already know that yoga and cars are my two biggest passions. Every piece on me mentions that I own a garage full of Bentleys and Rolls-Royces." (1)

"If you have a good spine, you'll have a good life." (6)

[On his arranged marriage] "Yoga taught both of us that rather than demanding perfection from the other person and trying to change them, we needed to perfect ourselves first. That holds true no matter where you live. Only when two people make that kind of commitment can they experience the union of two souls that is marriage at its best." (10)

"I believe that for all the triumphs of both the Eastern and Western worlds, the greatest civilization has yet to be born. This civilization will provide for all human needs: health, happiness, friendship, mental peace and a true satisfaction of living. It will be a global society connecting the genius of the West to the inner peace of the East, one in which all citizens live fully and deeply. By creating a bridge between the East and the West, I can help to bring that about and accomplish my life's goal. I already enjoy the rich material life of America, and I'm deeply grateful for my solid Indian heritage and spiritual beliefs. It's a good life; I'm a very lucky man." (15)

The Night FC Barcelona won the League!!

2010-05-21T18:34:00.000+02:00

Madrid, Cabron, Saluda el Campeon!!

(Madrid, motherfucker, greet the champions....)

Scaling this pole is much more impressive than the picture makes it out to be:

I wish I got a better picture of these girls standing on each other's shoulders:

Feliç Sant Jordi: Festival of Roses & Books ♥

2010-04-25T13:13:00.001+02:00

La Dia de Sant Jordi is a romantic holiday unique to Catalonia. It is similar to Valentine's Day but with lots of traditional twists.... lovers (and friends and family) spend the day exchanging my two favorite things, roses and books :)

The holiday is held on April 23rd in remembrance of two great literary figures: Spain's Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare. Both men passed away on April 23, 1616....strange, no?

The morning of Sant Jordi's this year I happened to substitute a very early morning class, and from the moment I stepped onto the street (at 7am) I could feel the excitement in the air. Vendors were busy setting up stands on the most popular streets in the city to sell roses and books from. This was Las Ramblas:
By the time I returned to Las Ramblas for my afternoon lunch break, festivities were in full force...

One of the cuter parts of St. Jordi's is celebrating with the children. Pol, a 3-year old student of mine, has a fabulous Knight costume that he looks quite handsome in. Legend has it that a horrible dragon was demanding pretty girls to kill and eat... everyday! St. Jordi travelled very far to face the ferocious dragon and right before the dragon was about to eat the King's daughter, Jordi speared him in the heart. From the dragon's wound, a rose grew, and St. Jordi picked it to give to the Princess.

(My former student Abel was the first to inform me about these details, which I really appreciated when later, with my younger students, I found myself coloring dead dragons with roses growing out of their hearts).

I didn't know, until after being in town for St. Jordi's, that Barcelona is the literary capital of the Spanish speaking world!!

(For a while, I considered moving to New York, the literary capital of the English speaking world, so I feel like it's another sign, that I am happily in Barcelona, and planning to stay for a long while...)

"By the end of the day, some four million roses and 400,000 books are purchased in the name of love, registering half of the total yearly book sales of Catalonia on this day alone!" -Don Quijote

p.s. I gave Dani Herman Hesse's Siddhartha :)

I DON'T FEEL LIKE DANCING!!

2010-03-28T21:16:00.001+02:00

So one of my (older) students informed me the other day that in Spain they have a much better phrase for "fuck buddy." They call lovers that don't quite qualify as girlfriend's or boyfriend's "Kit-Kats."

As he explained, "They are like a sweet treat after a long week at work.... because sometimes you just need a break." & actually, all of the Spanish do seem to know this phrase...jeje

:: PARK GÜELL IN THE RAIN ::

once in love with amy, always in love with amy you'll be...but amy rather stay in love with me

2010-03-18T01:08:00.001+01:00

(it's a frank sinatra kind of night)

7-year old Nuria

my student of six months

(P.s. Sunday was my 6 month anniversary in Barcelona)

gave me this wonderful present today:

It was so cute. She told me she was going to give it to me when we first started class,

but crayons were pulled out, games were played, and I forgot about it.

She hid it in my backpack when I wasn't looking.

I found it a metro ride & a flight of stairs later, when, in my next class,

it came sliding out with my Spanish/English dictionary.

It was the best surprise!

Nuria's sister,

6 year old Teresa also melted my heart today with a surprise

that literally made me gasp out loud and scoop her up while breaking into song.

I didn't teach this song to her, or ever hear her do this before,

and out of nowhere she started singing

perfectly clear

You say yes, I say no

You say stop and I say go go goooo!!

I don't know why you say goodbye

I say helloo

You say yes, I say no

You say stop and I say go go go

I don't know why you say goodbye

I say hello

The One Day it Snowed in Barcelona

2010-03-17T16:42:00.000+01:00

For one magical day (March 8th) it snowed in Barcelona!!
The next day it was 75*F and sunny. It was awesome. Just the kind of snow I like. Fleeting.
Mira la Vespa!! (Is what he was saying)

This little girl with the bumble bee umbrella and Hello Kitty rain boots was gossiped about all day for having the best spur-of-the-moment snow outfit in Barcelona:

I love all of the shop owners on my new street, there are so many stores and everyone is so nice! By the way, please note that the guy below is wearing sandals in the snow. I love it, we are birds of a feather!! Sometimes I get tired of boots and shoes. Especially this one week I had a killer blister... and come on, I'm from California, old habits die hard. Even though it was reasonably warm everyone and their Mom commented on my sandals to me. It didn't matter that the sun was out, it wasn't the season. I felt like I was being Euro peer-pressured into putting some shoes on... The blister healed, and I suppose it worked. I do want to fit in so badly ;)
The round-a-bout downstairs from my new place...

I remember I was so happy to see palm trees when I first arrived in Barcelona.

La Bonanova

Building snowmen... my roommate built a hilarious one on our balcony...

Flowers on Las Ramblas

Walking to Catalunya

It's nice to have someone to be in the snow with...

... and then I ran inside to help my students change out of their wet clothes (while teaching them how to say that in English).

bunnies on lasramblas ::puffs of fluff::

2010-03-05T00:21:00.000+01:00

Info for Freelance English Teachers in Barcelona

2010-02-26T23:12:00.000+01:00

I've had more than a few people email me about this, so I thought I would post it here as well:

How to Advertise Online in order to Find Private Students and Companies to Hire You

First of all, visit lingobongo.com. Take advantage of the site's offer to have your CV (Resumé) spammed out to every school in the area for 1o€ ($15USD). It is well worth the price. This is how companies will contact you. You can also use Lingo Bongo's "free slot filler" to give your availability via drop down menu and your CV is kept on record for schools possibly looking for teachers at that time. As long as you are still searching for work, I would recommend paying the spamming fee again to have your CV sent out every

two or three weeks. One of the school's I work for told me that when a teacher position opens up that none of their current teachers can cover, the first people they contact are the most recent round of CV's they happened to have received.

Secondly, on both Lingo Bongo and Loquo post free advertisements offering English tutoring. This is how you will find your private students. Before you write your own, read some advertisements to see what other English teachers are offering. List your qualifications and tell a little bit about yourself. I think it is best to include a picture so people feel comfortable contacting you. Private clients are most likely to inviting you into their home, perhaps to teach their children. Be friendly and personal. In return, so you feel comfortable with the people that contact you, feel free to meet them at a public cafe for the first class. To be honest, when mother's contact me to teach their children, I don't ask them to drag their children to a cafe to meet me. I usually just meet them for the first time at their residence (you can always dash if it looks shady upon arrival, although I wouldn't worry about that). Charge a decent amount for your time, and earn it. More on that later. (By the way, Lingo Bongo and Loquo also offer advertising for Madrid.)

How to Advertise Around Barcelona

Go to Come In (an English bookstore) on c\Balmes and take advantage of their offer to hang a 3x5 notecard in their front display mirror. You will see other English Teachers' advertisements, as well as schools looking for teachers. Come In charges something like 2€/for your advertisement to hang for two weeks. It is well worth the price. Most of my clients contacted me from this ad!! I would print out a small picture of yourself and bring it to paste on. I would also pay for your advertisement to hang much longer than 2 weeks.

P.s. Check out this awesome review of the bookstore (I love that place).

Make friends with fellow English teachers. If someone calls you asking you to teach a class during a time slot you are already working, recommend your friend. Ask your friend to do the same when potential clients contact them. Be generous and go out of your way to help your fellow teachers

and- it might be months later- but eventually something with come up that they pass to you.

To be honest, I haven't needed to do either of these yet... but some more ideas...

1. look up Language Schools in

Barcelona and bring your CV to them.

2. Post fliers on lamp posts (preferably in Spanish) with little tear-offs at the bottom with your contact info. I've never done this, but I know lots of teachers who get the majority of their students this way.

3. Go to schools around the time that class lets out and hand out fliers advertising yourself to the parents picking up their children.

Qualifications and Requirements

To teach English as a freelance teacher you need to be professional, friendly, and able to (fabulously) run an English lesson from a book of any level. Very few private students, families or even companies will ask to see a copy of your B.A. or TEFL certificate. Instead, they will just decide after a few classes if they like you and if you know what you are talking about. Although they don't check, if you plan to do this well enough to work "full-time," I recommend having a B.A. (preferably a degree that helped you significantly with your grasp of the English language) or a TEFL certificate. If you went to a University, don't feel the need to pay the grand or whatever for the TEFL certificate. Some of the schools will ask for proof of qualification, so it is better to have at least one or the other to show for yourself.

What you need is to know how to explain all of the verb tenses, proper use of prepositions, phrasal verbs, etc., etc., etc. Company classes and groups of adults will not stand for it if you can't explain why sentences function the way they do. Hopefully, you are coming to Spain knowing at least a little Spanish- and plan on expanding your vocabulary fast. Classes don't work if things can't be communicated. In Advanced classes you will be able to explain concepts without speaking in Spanish at all. In classes with Beginning adults, naturally you will be running and translating at least part (if not the majority) of your lesson in Spanish. Try to look up words you don't know before because you don't want to spend the whole class flipping through a dictionary. You have to know what you are talking about, and teach your students something worthwhile, in order for them to continue paying you 20€ /an hour($30USD/an hour). Your private students will be handing you cash after every class, and for them to keep calling you back you have to earn it.

If you want to make a decent amount of money as a freelancer (especially without papers) you have to be flexible and versatile. Basically that means you should be prepared to teach children and adults in both one-on-one and group settings. Hopefully your day will be mixed with a wide variety of both. If you are working without papers, you have to apply to twice as many places and be that much more persistent.

Useful Resources for First Arriving in Spain

A must-read if you are considering teaching abroad in Spain is the blog The Pain in Spain. Don't let the name fool you - the author had a love affair with Spain - and took away a lot of great experience and legal information about living and working abroad here.

Great prices on one-way tickets: Best Travel Store

To save fees on hostels, crash on someone's couch with couchsurfing.com

THREE of my favorite books on INDIA

2010-02-19T10:00:00.000+01:00

Sarah S. and Alisha, two of my lovely friends, are both traveling around India right now. Some of the same areas I was in March last year! I really want to return to India one day, I miss the lush green landscape, living in a hotel room for two weeks like Royal Tenenbaum (of course I miss that!), riding around in a Tuk Tuk for only a few Rupees, eating the delicious food (oh how I miss the Taj Deccan buffet! the fruit juice! fruits, hummus, curries and yogurts!), the humidity, the detailed hand paintings on the walls of a hostel in Rajastan, the lush hotel my Mom took me to in Kerla (it was a beautiful architectural mix of British and Indian styles), buying fabulous jewelry, hiking through huge mountains with endless magnificent statues, the spirituality, spicy nuts, actually I like spicy food more in general since my trip, long sleeves hot sun pretty patterns, camels on the street next to mercedes', dripping hot museums, cool lagoons, deep tissue massages, canoe rides through back waters, and of course, discovering something about the rich and complicated country, people and culture along the way. A lot of my discoveries had to do with the books I was reading while I was exploring. More than any other trip I've done this on, I loved reading about India while I was in India. These were my three favorite...

1. Before I left I read A Passage to India by E.M. Forster. (actually I listened to it via audio tape while sitting in LA traffic). It is set in the 1920's during the Raj and tells the story of what happens when a British woman falsely accuses an Indian man of raping her and the case goes to court. What happens to Aziz is so unfair so it's pretty depressing, yet he does have a comrade by his side who helps him survive legally, although the emotional and social damage is hard to revert. Forster explores layers in his complicated characters, meticulously revealing how so many of them mis-understand each other, and how a woman could invent such a horrible crime. Aziz is amazing, he is my favorite character, and the author's image of him riding gallantly into the sunset at the end has stuck in my mind. This particular cover picture shows the caves the group was touring when the alleged incident happened. Even though the plot is wrought with uncomfortable topics, it's so beautifully written that it is still enjoyable to read. I think that is saying a lot. One day when I parked my car in the downtown LA garage, this is the quote I replayed to write down, "Mrs. Moore pushed up the shutters and looked out. She had brought Ronnie and Adler together by their mutual wish, but really she could not advise them further. She felt increasingly, vision or nightmare, that although people are important, the relationships between them are not. And in particular, too much fuss has been made over marriage. Centuries of carnal embracement yet man is no nearer to understanding man. And today she felt this with such force that it seemed itself a relationship, itself a person, that was trying to take hold of her hand."

2. In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India by Edward Luce I read this book when I had first arrived in India. Luce gives amazing insight into the country, people, religion, politics, castes, or basically- as the author himself puts it- the order behind the chaos. Luce explores how India is in the running with China to be one of the world's next superpowers if they play their cards right. If you are traveling India, I would probably recommend this one first! The book is as juicy as the country itself, full of the most interesting statistics, politics and history..."Coming far too frequently from the opposite direction, but on your side of the road, you encounter decrepit scooters, bicycles, and even camel-drawn carts, whose drivers appear blissfully unfazed by the fact that they are breaking all known rules of traffic and common sense." / "But it is at the side of the expressways in the glaring billboards advertising cell phones, iPods, and holiday villas and the shiny gas stations w/ their air-conditioned mini-supermarkets that India's schizophrenic economy reveals itself. Behind them, around them, and beyond them in the unending vista of rural India, of yoked bullocks plowing the fields in the same manner they have for 3,000 years & the primitive brick kilns that dot the endless patchwork of fields of rice, wheat, pulse and oilseed."

3. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga I read this book in the middle of my trip. The narrator is a driver who is treated extremely unfairly by his boss in an horrible accident... and... the driver ends up getting the last laugh. I don't want to give too much away. The narrator commits a horrible act, but the chilling part is- you're going to love him. He is "the white tiger." I want to frame his speech about the importance of hanging chandeliers in bathroom's in my own bathroom... as soon as I have a chandelier that is (it's in the works). The novel is beautifully written and gives light to the injustice of a society in which some have so much and others have so little. "The book of your revolution sits in the pit of your belly, young Indian. Crap it out and read. Instead of which , they're all sitting in front of color TVs and watching cricket and shampoo advertisements."

Maybe, when I have a few months to dedicate to an ashram... I can go back to Rishikesh, India and live in a yoga community for a while. I wonder if I could find work there? The city is known as the "yoga capital of the world," and it is where The Beatles went for inspiration and wrote Magical Mystery Tour. Sarah L. and I wandered around the collapsing ashram that *had been* the Beatles' hideaway (such cool peaked rooms) and we went white water rafting down the ganges. The hostels are all run as dual yoga studios and the electricity flickers in and out through class. There is a cafe on one of the higher peaks of the mountain, that reminds one of the Robinson Crusoe house. Patrons lounge on low pillows drinking hot tea and passing rollies. You can see the water and the light show below. A huge bridge runs over the Ganges and connects the two sides of the city. I have a dream of, in a year or two, returning to Rikkikesh and spending my days strolling back and forth on that huge bridge... with all the camels, cows, yoga gurus, and hot hippie guys...

Also, check out this great blog Lost and Found in India, I love her style and have been reading it more lately (especially because it is written by a Yogi), and it is making me miss India...

I'll leave you with these quotes...

They didn't even like Margaret Thatcher but at least there was Margaret Thatcher. There have been women, you know, Sonia Gandhi for heaven's sakes in India. Kate Clinton

There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten. Indira Gandhi

What does "Hello Kitty" mean in English?

2010-02-17T16:24:00.001+01:00

Isn't this cute? It's Mocilla- cheaper than Nutella and just as good! Plus you get a Hello Kitty glass when you are done :) There is also Hello Kitty lady bug and Hello Kitty skiing...

The doors in my new place are green. There is a huge balcony, where we hang our clothes on taunt white lines, and duck under low doors into to the bathroom, a separate room outside, which looks cool at first, but can get cold, especially because there is no water pressure, but it's okay, the kitchen is long and tiled, where Francisco makes tea, and the couple fry the delicious and elaborate vegetarian concoctions. Everyone is chill, if you know what I mean. Reggae band practice in the living room. I love it. Individually some of the tiles and prints aren't that great but then when it's all together it's not that bad. The internet sucks (which is annoying when your guilty pleasure is watching back to back Brothers & Sisters episodes). Although less function-able than my last place this one has more charm. The walls are covered in my roommates father's work. My favorite piece of his is the moon- the surface sticks out. My roommate from Chile is an amazing artist, what he is working on now took my breath away, and I only speak in Castellano with everybody in the house which is the best part. One of them doesn't speak any English so I can't ever get lazy and revert, which is great. I think I will stay here until my birthday? My place is sooo cheap right now, which actually might be the best part, and I haven't even started to look again. The cool and strangely natural part about Barcelona is you can jump around between rooms so easily. So many rooms rent furnished, there is a huge thriving market for it, something I haven't seen in any other city. I'm guessing this is normal in other European cities? Paris? Berlin? You search online and these rooms are being posted and viewed nonstop. You can quickly look up a room and move within a week. You can quickly post a room, pictures or not, and tons of candidates will come to interview and it is easy to find someone. My old roommate moved something like 14 times in two years. Barcelona is a port city, people come and go- I like having the freedom of not having to sign a lease. I want to stay in Barcelona for a while. I don't feel like planning to move again already, but hot warm showers are something I live for. A shower definitely adds a lot of points to ones quality of life, and I don't like counting on the yoga studio for them. I feel like I need to move before my Mom and Sister come to visit. I want to stay in the same area. I live in El Barri Gòtic now. I feel like it's right in the middle of everything. It is in the middle. I love walking downstairs and boom there are people filming and the street is bustling and my "new" cafe is so good their cafe con leche is only .90 cents.

14 de Febrero

2010-02-14T22:03:00.000+01:00

Happy Valentine's Day!! I hope you had a lovely Sunday ♥ ♥ ♥
I used my laptop to take these pixs of my favorite flower shop on Las Ramblas...

As always Cup of Jo posts the cutest things, including this Valentine's Day Kissing Checklist. & I love her post about commuting to work- especially the New Yorker article she links.

Random Acts of Kindness

2010-01-30T18:39:00.001+01:00

On Friday, for an English lesson with two of my more charming and intelligent students (sisters in high-school), we read and analyzed an interview with Nick Hornby in Speak Up. One quote of his stuck out to me. When asked if he was concerned that the most popular (or rather best selling) books aren't necessarily "literature," he responded that people reading high literature aren't necessarily better than those who enjoy The Da Vinci Code or Harry Potter, so what does it matter?

Here is the quote:
"We all know- I'm sure you know as many as me- people who are extremely well read and they are also very bad people. So what have they learnt from these books? Nothing! These books are supposed to be great moral improvers and yet these people are just as likely to cheat on their wives, or cheat their expenses, as anybody else. So you think, "Well what is the value of this reading that we're always being told about?"

It was nice to remember it's not what you read, but how you act.

P.S. I haven't read any of Hornby's novels yet. Although I have been noticing them more and more and am excited to get to it- any recommendations of where to start?

Edit: Read & loved High Fidelity ;)

Thank you for Holden Caulfield, thank you for Franny, thank you for Zooey

2010-01-30T14:02:00.003+01:00

J.D. Salinger passed away at 91. I am a big fan of Nine Stories, Franny and Zooey and, of course, The Catcher in the Rye. I read all of three of his major works at different periods in my life. I can remember how old I was and where I was, how I was feeling and what I was doing when I discovered each of his charming characters that capture the unsatisfactory nature of life so well. My nickname for my first boyfriend was Holden Caulfield. As required reading, I finished The Catcher in Rye in high school while dating him. I was a sophomore at the time. So what, like 16? Holden Caulfield and I would spend hours aimlessly driving around Fullerton. We just wanted to get out of the house to smoke one of the cigarettes we weren't old enough to buy. We would frequent the same spots- "the top of the world," (I think every city has one), coffee shops, the movies, parking lots, and friends houses- just trying to stay out from under our parent's watchful eye while listening to mix cds we made for each other.

Four or five years later, I started reading Nine Stories one random morning while lounging around Maya's old apartment in Echo Park, waiting for Pamela to wake up. I remember being so inthralled by the stories I didn't even notice that just below the living room window a police man came and went while giving me a parking ticket. I read Franny and Zooey about six months later while living at home after college, and working ridiculous hours at a sales position in a telecommunications company. After hitting doors all day, I would read Franny and Zooey in the bathtub with the door locked, and it was soo good it really did help me relax and forget about Southern California traffic.

In the midst of mourning, everybody is very excited for all of his previously unpublished work to come out. He was a very private man, a "famous recluse." Certainly he planned for his work to be released after his death. Yet the day of his death is too soon to be making twitter jokes about being excited for his work to be released.

“Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behaviour. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as some day, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.” -R.I.P. J.D. Salinger

FC Barcelona vs. Sevilla

2010-01-28T22:50:00.000+01:00

I took this pic right after Messi scored his second goal of the game, which was also the winning score. Barcelona won 4-0.

We bought scalped tickets. At 30€/each they were 10€ less than the printed price. We were also able to sneak down a level, which was a huge improvement because it was sprinkling. Not only were we closer, but in a covered section of the stadium. They don't serve alcohol at the stadium, which was nice- we cheered on FC Barcelona while drinking coffee and eating peanuts.

The flat on Aragó

2010-01-28T01:16:00.000+01:00

The view from the back of my flat right now...
This is out of Warren's window...

Warren, you asked me before if I ever wrote about you. Now you have your answer ;)

I fought the war, I fought the war... but the war won

2010-01-23T02:38:00.002+01:00

Artists create out of a craving to express something. Obviously. Most people are artists, in some way or another.

I was wandering the Musee D'Orsay, my favorite museum in Paris, listening to short stories on my iPod and thinking about how painters, sculptors, and writers are all trying to capture a human truth.

If they can reproduce through their art the
misery and happiness of life,
the vain search for meaning,
love,
loss,
the difficulty and beauty of temporary things- if they can communicate their intuition about these things with others - then perhaps it will all be easier to deal with... because they won't be going about it alone.

This craving drives artists mad. Myself included. I was so impressed and awed by the art I was surrounded with, thinking that these artists should feel so satisfied and complete with their work on display. Yet we all know, from reading interviews and autobiographies, that even the most successful artists don't find satisfaction, inner peace, from their works of art... their craving to create more doesn't go away, they are always searching for more inspiration in life...

We will go mad, yes, there is nothing to do about that, continue to create, the world is grateful to you. Try to remember at the worst of times that there is nothing you sing that can't be sung...
Everybody already understands,and in their own way are suffering and thriving through the human condition with you. From the point of view of the artist or the audience, it is known before being painted that all things must pass, one day we will all die, and that's okay, because things are only precious if they don't last. And everything here is precious.

Thoughts on the over night train to Paris...

2010-01-22T21:42:00.001+01:00

True travelers pack light. They do not hesitate to try new things. They know that people who have to consider and plan things for too long won't ever see half of the things they see. When given an opportunity for flights or trains they jump on it before it passes them by. I was wishing a friend was on this train with me, trying to journey to the end of the earth with me.... but like I said, true travelers pack light, so they can pick up and leave again at the drop of a ball.

Do you think you can be in love more than once? The Spanish say you will have three loves in your life. While I was traveling through India a young doctor, a serious man, told me solemnly, "I believe you can only be in love once. Everything after that is compromise." He was in love with a Muslim doctor who he could not marry because his family was Hindu.

I think you can be in love more than once, because love fades... just like everything else.

Passage from The Great Gatsby that reminds me of Los Angeles...

2010-01-14T23:17:00.000+01:00

"I felt an unpleasantness in the air, a pervading harshness that hadn't been there before.
Or perhaps I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept West Egg as a world complete in itself, with it's own standards and it's own great figures, second to nothing because it had no consciousness of being so, and now I was looking at it again, through Daisy's eyes. It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expanded your own powers of adjustment.
*
Almost the last thing I remember was standing with Daisy and watching the movie picture director and his Star. They were still under the white plum tree and their faces were touching except for a pale, thin ray of moonlight between. It occurred to me that he had been very slowly bending towards her all evening to attain this proximity, and even while I watched I saw him stoop one ultimate degree and kiss at her cheek.
'I like her,' said Daisy, 'I think she's lovely.'
But the rest offended her- and inarguably, because it wasn't a gesture but an emotion. She was appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented 'place' that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village - appalled by it's raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand."

Dinaw Mengestu makes his debut

2010-01-14T23:13:00.000+01:00

Recent Columbia MFA Grad Dinaw Mengestu reading from his literary debut The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears. Overall it's much better than this clip.

Overcast by Richard Bausch

2010-01-13T23:24:00.000+01:00

Great story on disappointment in love, divorce, growing up, settling for what you have.

Once again at Narrative Magazine- if you make a free account you'll have access to read everything.

"The best true story on giving I know..."

2009-08-09T23:11:00.000+02:00

"Here is the best true story on giving I know...

An eight-year-old boy had a younger sister who was dying of leukemia, and he was told that without a blood transfusion she would die. His parents explained to him that his blood was probably compatible with hers, and if so, he could be the blood donor. They asked him if they could test his blood. He said sure. So they did and it was a good match. Then they asked if he would give his sister a pint of blood, that it could be her only chance of living. He said he would have to think about it overnight.

The next day he went to his parents and said he was willing to donate the blood. So they took him to the hospital where he was put on a gurney beside his six-year-old sister. Both of them were hooked up to IVs. A nurse withdrew a pint of blood from the boy, which was then put in the girl's IV. The boy lay on his gurney in silence while the blood dripped into his sister, until the doctor came over to see how he was doing. Then the boy opened his eyes and asked, "How soon until I start to die?"

- From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott