Well today was a day of many farewells and an emotional day for some, especially my mom. She is/more emotional than anyone else today which was quite funny. After our short jont in El Rastro this morning we headed out to the Vegas house, my other family.

My family(immediate) and I took the bus there because I had some left over bus passes. Now normally on my trip to Santo Domingo I almost always fall asleep, this time not the case, however some on my family members were nodding off or sleeping.

We arrived to the Vegas and greeted the dogs first. I didnt hear anyone outside, when I entered the house still didnt hear anything. I said hello and Miguel answered, my entire family was greeted with hugs from him.

He then went to find the rest of his family to tell them of my arrival. It was great to get a hug and to see all of them again. It has only been a week and it feels like something much longer.

After all the introductions were out of the way I went right to work. I was in charge of making the paella for this meal. I got to work preparing some things with Miguel while everyone else chatted. Oscar came in and started helping me along, his commment was "If this process goes any slower we wont eat until tomorrow." Im guessing that he was hungry but this was actually great. He ended up helping me out with the paella quite a bit.

The cooking actually went quite well, I received some great tips from Oscar(who makes some of the best paella) and well I cooked. Throughout the process the kids were popping in and out; checking on my progress and tasting the food, making sure that it was up to par with their fathers.

Dinner started with some of Oscar's home made gazpacho, which was excellent. Then we had a nice lunch. Although Oscar helped me a bunch, it didnt turn out as good as his, it was still great, just not the same as his.

We talked about various thing over the meal, from politics, to Oscars work, economy, mischief that finds me, activities with the kids, etc. We finished and moved onto dessert. As soon as that was all finished the playing began. A squirt gun found its way out, we played basketball, soccer, had piggy back races, and other activities.

Eventually we had to start winding down which was very sad. I gave the family/kids their last presents, mostly candy and some corpus cristi cookies. The kids then had to go, tenis and swimming after. So I said my last goodbye's to them and Irene. Oscar was very kind and gave us a ride to Madrid.

He was heading to the airport because he had to leave for Paris around seven. As I took my last looks around, gathered my things,(almost left without my main backpack) we headed towards Madrid. It's hard to believe that I have spent three months with this family. I was very lucky in coming across them. They are great and this was such a great experience.

It was a bit sad leaving the neighborhood, knowing that this is the last time that I will see most of it again. Oscar dropped us off at the metro and we said our last goodbye's. Like I mentioned before was my mom gets to emotional and almost started crying. Some brighter news is that Oscar would love to come visit in Montana, so we will be in touch and hopefully one day soon I will see them again

Well this trip is coming together great. My family has came to visit, I havnt seen them in almost 4 months. I got one of the best hugs from my brother when he came running out of the airport terminal on Saturday.

However I was thinking about leaving the exit, they took about an hour to get their luggage and find their way out. After about a half hour I was thinking: "Man, did they exit from another terminal and are wondering around lost in the airport?" Luckily I stuck it out for a bit longer and they made it out.

We have been quite busy walking around the city and trying to fit in as much as we can. We have already hit some of my favorite things: ice cream, churros, pastry's, Plaza Mayor and part of the Retiro.

I feel a bit bad because it seems as though some of my bad luck has been rubbing off on my family since they got here. First, we can never get a waiter/server to take our order, after about twenty minutes or so I have to ask(which I hate but they always stand their and wait for new customers. I guess I will just have to start yelling obscene things.). When I tried to take my brother to the zoo, it was closed for cleaning the park/pens.

But the most frustrating thing is that we were trying to buy tickets for Sevilla. When we tried to buy them online it failed, when we tried to buy them at the station, after waiting for about forty minutes for our turn, it failed. So we spent about an hour(most of it spent on hold) with the credit card company trying to figure this out. We were told to wait an hour and everything should be fixed. Before you know it an hour rolls by and we are anxious to purchase the tickets(we dont have hostel reservations in Madrid, only in Sevilla). Well sure enough it doesnt work.

After another strenuous process on the phone we concluded that the internet just wants to play games with us. So my dad and I return to the station, pick are number and wait. Finally when all is said and done we now have tickets!

This is kinda going backwards a day but o well. On Monday, I left my family to fend for themselves in Madrid. I had one day left with the kids. I didn't have to pick Sofia up because she was at her end of the year field trip to Valencia.

As soon as Gonzalo went off to tennis lessons, Miguel and I started some summer redecorating. We cleaned my old room and moved in the pool table, new computer desk and tried to fit the foosball table in their but their just wasn't enough room.

We just hung out and had a good time for the remainder of the evening. Miguel gifted me some of his shirts, one of them being my favorite shirt. Filled it with sports and FIFA.

Dear Landlord was playing in Madrid that same night, but I chose to stay with the kids and have one last dinner with them. After dinner I said my good byes and expressed my gratitude and returned to my other family.
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Well we are here in Sevilla right now in the south of Spain with my family. We took a the AVE Highspeed train down here; it was sweet, this was the first time that they had been on a train.

Being only my second time traveling by train, I still haven't found any flaws in taking a train, its just a great/relaxing time

So many things to do, but so few days. I guess when it comes down to it thats every day life. Just have to make the most of what you have/had and hope for life in the future.

Things have been great, we have basically thrown all teaching out the window, moved to ping pong, futbol, obstacle courses, and cooking. But i guess that meets the criteria of my job. Alright that sounds like Im complaning, surely not folks. I love waking up relaxing or going to Madrid, waiting for the kids to come home and then spend time outside until dinner. Pretty easy life.

The kids have been swearing a lot in English. They have already knew them and have been letting them fly. Today Gonzalo dropped the MOTHERFUCKER when he missed his point. I couldn't do anything but laugh, which now looking back wasn't the best idea; my game when to shit after that and ended up loosing.

Today like any day it seems like I was faced with many decision, like I mentioned before, since Im coming short of time they seem to be of some importance.

I asked myself why had so many expectations when I came to Madrid. I thought this experience was going to change me so much, completely change/mold who I am as a person. Shooting high sometimes can be bad news. Now, four months later I'm completely devastated, I still have no chance of growing a beard anytime soon all hopes are lost.

Tomorrow I have the chance to go to a bull fight, well actually Im going, Irene gave me tickets that were givin to her. Seeing this bull fight is going to be very interesting, even more so because when talking with Irene and Oscar tonight(separately) I seemed to get both extreme ends of the spectrum.

Irene loves bull fighting. When it is at it's best it is a completely different thing, more as a style of art. She loves bull fighting and absolutely loves Jose Thomas. She says he is a brilliant bull fighter who loves the fight of the bull. She also explained to me the history of bull fighting. It used to be for the people but now it is for money, bull fighters dont want to risk their lives for nothing. Bull fighters in Spain were switching to a less aggressive style of bulls, which was safer for the toros(fighters) but was less of a show. Then Jose came around and started showing everyone that he wasn't scared and loved to take on aggressive and highly dangerous bulls.

Then I talked to Oscar, I dont want to give a bad image of Oscar, he is a great guy and I dont think he ever gets mad. The kids call him and angel because he has never yelled at them. But to hear Oscar talk about bull fighting you could hear the bitter hate in his voice and body expression. He actually called it "human stupidity pushed to its extent." He also wants me to express that not everyone in Spain loves bull fighting, that almost half of the population doesnt like it. He views it as a thing of the past that will soon come to an end like the gladiators in the Roman times.

So tomorrow night will be very intersting, I have to different views on the sport to decide from myself. However, I will enjoy it cause it is my first experince.

Now onto more imprtant news, since I cant grow a beard, should I come home? I have been offered a job. There is a young spanish family. They said that they like to do anything but be at home. They have a 2 and 5 year old. They want to learn English from a native in return: spanish, place to stay, and weekly alowance.

I dont know all of the detals of this but im working them out right now. I think this would be fun becuase I get to use my spanish more, and well I dont know if I want to come back yet or not so we will se

So on some brighter news, I went traveling this weekend. I went to Toledo and Segovia; small city's about an hour from Madrid.

Both of them were beautiful cities. Both enriched with culture. Toledo has three different influences in the city and is theoretically split into three sections, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish.

You could easily tell when you moved from one section to the other. The style of the buildings changed, the way they were decorated, etc. Toledo is like a fortress, inner city is surrounded my castle wall with gates to move in and out.

Walking through the narrow streets on Toledo, you definitely felt like you were in the Mid Evil times. The numerous sword shops on every corner definitely help maintain that feeling. Toledo is famous for their swords, they are very beautiful and fun to look at. However some of the shops wouldn't let you look/touch the swords and I didn't like that because you couldn't see if they were actually made in Toledo or not.

Oh one thing that I forgot to mention, the historic part of Toledo is up on a hill that is about a twenty/thirty minute walk up. Matt(an aupair in Madrid) spotted what looked like the top of an escalator. Sure enough there were outside(though well hidden) public escalators that brought you up the steeper half of the hill.

Normally I never take escalators, actually I hate them, but since I've always heard stories of how people bitch about the hike to the top, it thought I would enjoy the escalator for all of them.

Quite a funny thing happened in Toledo, we were walking along when we noticed some english speaking men in front of us that looked lost and sounded confused. Sure enough they were lost(which is hard to do in Toledo cause it's small), so we decided to help them out and point them in the right direction. Right before they left one guy said: "Are you guys tourist too, just showing us up?" We replied with well we have been here for about four hours so we've gotten to know a lot of the city.

Sunday I went to Segovia by myself, I actually preferred this because I was able to see everything that I wanted and not walk at a snail's pace. Segovia is another fortress like city. Historical part in in cased in huge castle walls. However Segovia for me was so much better.

It has a huge Roman Aqueduct that was built to transport water from one part of the city to another. This thing is massive, it contains some 150 stone arches. It was a truly spectacular site, I have never seen anything like that before and probably won't again.

Another great thing about Segovia is the Alcázar. Huge castle built between 11th-15th century. Absolutely breathtaking and reminds you of fair tales. They even let you tour inside of it to see all the different room: diner room, bedrooms, weapon room, suit room, so many things to see.

I put up pictures of Segovia and Toledo, check em out if you bored

Well it looks like I have some catching up to do. I have been quite busy doing many things trying to best fill final time here. Its hard to believe that I have been here for 3 months already. There is so much I still want to do so Im trying to fit in.

I have been spending a good amount of time playing with the kids. Are classes have turned into more playing but totally in English. Gonzalo and I have been playing a lot of basketball together and he has came up with two phrases that are now used daily between us "totally tonto"(totally stupid/dumb) and my favorite "Are you ready to get oxidated?" He just made that up one day and we use it in place of: Are you ready for this, you ready to lose, etc.

Last thursday I believe it was I saw something that was quite unusual and it makes me think about using the metro at nights now. This event took place actually at like two in the afternoon. I was followed onto the metro by a guy and girl. The guy was much younger in his twenties and didnt look so good. He was having a hard time walking and sat on the floor next do the door. The girl took a seat on the same bench about three from me.

It was going to be a long metro ride so I put in my music, relaxed, and wasnt paying that much attention to either of them. I could here this girl mumbling something in this deep raspy voice while digging through her pockets and purse. I thought she was talking to herself but she was talking to the guy that boarded the metro with her. I now noticed that he was sprawled out on the floor, back against the wall, head hanging down and responding to what the woman was saying.

I never thought I would ever see what happened next. The girl pulled out of her a small, straight glass pipe. I wasnt paying any attention and didnt realize she had done that until she sparked her lighter. I looked over in disbelief that anyone would smoke in the metro. As soon as I layed eyes on her and her pipe. Im glad she wasnt paying attention she was to fixed on her task at hand.

This wanst no marijuana pipe, but a crack pipe. I was just staring, completly shocked to see this. It was incredible to see someone so hooked on a drug that she didnt care about smoking it on public transportation with twenty or so people around. It didnt just stop at one puff either she was going to town and it smelt fucking terrible.

Soon her pipe starting getting to hot for her to hold so I figured great she will take a break(by this time I was using my peripheral vision and fully paying attention to everything). Nope I was wrong she pulled out of her purse: rag, two metro tickets, clothes pin, and roll of tape.

Put the pipe on the rag so it would quit burning her leg. Rolled on ticket up slid in onto the pipe, taped it so that it wont come unraveled. Fastened this new extension to the pipe with the clothes pin. Took the other ticket rolled it up and fit it over top of the the other ticket and tapped it together. Now she can still get her fix without burning her lips and hands.

This whole time I forgot about the guy that came with her. He was still looking in some ruff shape head still flopping up and down with the movement of the metro. Finally my stop came and I got off the metro not bothering to look back. Well Im smelly and sweaty from traveling, hiking, getting rained on, and spilling things on me; Im gonna shower and shave, check out my pictures i put up, toledo and maybe some new things with the kids. Ill put up segovia tomorrow as well as another post

Well today was great, it was international free ice cream day for ben and jerry's. After spanish class thats what I did for about two hours. Get a gracious scoop, leave the store, go to the end of the line and repeat as many times as desired.

It was quite sunny today so ice cream seemed to fit really well. Later some of my friends joined me and aided in my ice cream hoarding. Then it was time for some good food at mastero churreo. Felicia is nearing her last days in madrid so we had lunch at her favorite spot.

After much time spent in the sun having lunch and some laughs with some friends we returned for on last round of ice cream before heading our respective ways. I returned home and relaxed for a while, music , guitar, the usual before the kids arrived.

Today was really hot, we decided that today was great for a water balloon fight. Miguel and I prepared most of the ammunition while Gonzalo and Sofia were at Tenis practice.

Before I tell you about the rest of the evening, I want to mention something about the kids, something i havnt done and really need to do:

Miguel-13
Oldest of the group, very funny. He is always singing, dancing, acting like a fool during class and the rest of the time. Really into futbol, loves real madrid and christiano ronaldo. Very self motivated and outgoing. Likes to explore the boundries of things every now and again; he thinks thats ok because with out doing some things life would be boring-which he is absolutely correct.

Sofía-12
Great, doesnt sit aside and let the two brothers boss her around. Loves to play tenis and is really into fashion. Very creative and likes to tell me jokes or things she has made up at the beginnings of class. Can be a little shy at times, like when she doesnt want to do english. But if we talk about something fun or something she likes and cant get her stop.

Gonzalo-9
Younger, most creative and expresive kids in the house. Loves to have fun, speak english, learn new things. Taken quite a liking to getting piggy back rides everywhere and setting the table. Really into futbol as well, lives to be outside and create new games. Always wants to do new things and always remember to remind me of things we are supposed to be doing(making muffins, pancakes, water balloon fights, etc)

We filled a good amount of balloons and filled the rest when Sofía and Gonzalo returned. This was soon filled with the normal riff raft the goes along with water, kids, and an immature adult.

We set off for quite the battle that I will remember for quite some time. Sometimes the balloons didnt break but made for good hunting and revenge. Miguel came out with actually the two best shots of the day. The first, I was chasing him down. He is quite a fast kids so it took some time to catch up. As soon as I got close he turned around and threw the balloon in a last ditch effort. It struck me so hard in the face it put me off balance.

Now for the second throw and something quite fantastic yet not the best. We were filling the last round of balloons after we had already extinguished our previous supply. Miguel made his small and wanted to make a bigger one. Ok fine with me. He wanted to throw it to the neighbors house but I said no to the street, we heard someone speaking. Miguel motioned, should i throw it? Well sure enough it goes over the bushes; you hear the water balloon break and someone yell coño(what the fuck in spanish).

We disappeared fast. This lady was furious she was looking in the yard, the kids had retreated inside and were looking out from the balcony and windows. Miguel made eye contact with a very upset woman. Irene either knew or saw this happened and went and talked with the lady. Not sure what was said and dont really want to know.

The kids and I just cant stop laughing about it, the fact that Miguel threw it, it actually hit the lady. This opened up a whole new window of things to talk about. Oh one last story that Miguel wanted me to share just in case anyone thinks its as funny as I did.

About a week ago Miguel was studding down in his room, he must put his whole brain process into it because of the next event that happened. He went to use the bathroom, the laundry bin was open which is quite near the toilet. Not paying any attention, starts peeing in the laundry. He said it was a good ten fifteen seconds before he realized what he was doing.

He didnt tell anyone right away. He waited until dinner time when it was just me and the kids. When he told me this I was only half paying attention and half eating. As soon as he got the the peeing part I choked on what ever I was eating at the time. We have had some good times and have been sharing a lot of stories. Things couldnt be much better

We Can Do It, We're Obama

Now I havnt heard something funny like that in a while since im apart from the US politics. But the hysterical part is that the nine year old here, Gonzalo said that to me. No I dont know all that they teach here but it must be pretty good if a nine year old knows the campian slogan for a president of another country.

With that said I feel like I havent been on here in a while so I need to catch up. Whenever im in Madrid(especially since it sunny) girls have been appearing everywhere. While Im not complaning about that in the least bit, but the amount of tube tops that I keep seeing kills me. A definitely have seen them on a lot more english speaking girls but many spanards as well.

Im not sure weather it the fact that they are incredible tight so it appears to be cutting off the upper torso of your body. They just haunt me and some reason I just cant stand them and they should have left with the 90's. Oh, especialy jean tube tops, quite repulsive on all levels.

Well in other news, the sun how been out in full force in Madrid and things have been nice. Its continually getting hotter every other day. This past weekened, well two days ago I went to Salamanca in the west of Spain. Very nice little town full of cultural. All the buildings appear to be hundreds of years old. It was very nice and I enjoyed it a lot.

Got to see some interesting things there, I was introduced so something that sound and smeels quite disgusting. Callimocho fifty fifty mix of cheap red wine and coke. Im usually up for trying new things; drinks, foods, adventures, naked activities, but this drink doesnt appetize me in the least bit.

No, Salamanca was great, sunny out the whole time, got to relax in the sun near a cathedral, got to see the work of students at the university.(They had to help design the school building, and for revenge for having to do it they put up a nice bit of man jackin' it. Great stuff, probably why kids are not incharge of a lot of things at their schools.

I will be posting pictures soon, great place, fun time but bed is needed now