My Euro-travels before coming home

I finished teaching at the end of May but I still kept a very busy schedule until I got home. (YES, I am writing this my from my home in CA, but I am going to keep the posts separate!)

First of all, I had to find an apartment for next year! This year finding housing was extremely stressful, and although it turned out well, our apartmentwas fairly expensive. Since I now have a years experience, I wanted to leave everything all set up. Following Macarena's advice, I used the somewhat archaic-seeming method of posting flyers around the neighborhoods I wanted to live in, saying that I wanted a room for rent. Much to my surprise, this worked amazingly well! Within the week a had a few good options and finally decided on one right next to the train station with 2 Spanish girl roommates. It is in a great location and the rent will be much cheaper next year. Check and check! Let's just hope my roommates what to be my best freinds for the final check.... well the one girl I met seemed really nice!

Then I was off to do some travelling! First I was off to London with mi amiga marvelosa Macarena! As I probably have mentioned before, this year Macarena has been helping me with my Spanish, taking me out with her freinds, and has just been generally awesome. SO, I thought it would be cool to go somewhere where I could be the one doing the guiding and helping. And that I did. Maca found a great guide with a little built-in itineray which we mostly followed to the letter since neither of us had been to London before. We found a moderatly priced B&B (NOTHING is "cheap" in London) that was right on one of the main tube lines, so we had the subway figured out in no time. We tubed everywhere and did a pretty good job seeing all of the sights by day and of course the pubs by night! Maca did a good job talking to locals too, crazy Brit accents and all :)

That Sunday Macarena had to head back to Sevilla for work on Monday but I had planned another leg of the trip for myself to go visit my freind Garret in Germany. My flight didn't leave until early Monday morning, so I went down to Sevenoaks to visit Lou, Mary and the girls. Eeeefs, Rosie, and Caitie are so cute it should be ILLEGAL. It was a lovely day so we played outside and had a great time. While winding down for bed time, I had both big-girls on my lap watching Finding Nemo. When I asked Rosie where the little fishies were going, she cleverly replied, in her charming gruff voice, " MAYBE THEY'RE GOING TO RONDON."

Thanks to Lou, I made it to Stansted in plenty of time and Garret met me in the airport in Stuttgart so I wouldn't have to say "No spreken duetch!". I had a great time with him and he showed me around his university, the towns around and also the bigger city of Stuttgart. I also really got into the Euro-cup! Nothing like sitting down at a bar or cafe with a truely enormous Kristal of Hefferweisen (sp?) and cheering on your favorite Euro football team!

NOTE: SPAIN historically beat the Italians and have FINALLY made it to the semi-finals! This is literally more than 80 years coming! You bet I will be watcing on ESPN! Spain plays this Thursday then the finals are on Sunday.

As always, pictures are the best way to explain:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mclauerman/LondresYAlemania


After that trip I had one weekend to fine-tune everything for my new apartment, pack up my old one, say GOODBYE to my roommates and have a final night out in Sevilla! Our landlord this year has an amazing summer terrace-bar that is really awesome, right on the river. It's beautiful. It's also rather shee-shee and pricey but luckily Pablo loves us and he invited us and our freinds for a few rounds of ron y colas! It was a pretty crazy-intense weekend but I managed to get everything done and have a fun last hurrah with my roommates.

Then I headed to Malaga to family-vaycay with mi amgia Hayley and her fam from Texas. We stayed in their grandma's time-share in Marbella which is a very beautful (although totally runined by rich, British tourists) beach town. From there we headed to Granada where Hayley and I were the tour-guides since we have both been there several times now. The high-light was definatly a flamenco show which Hayley and I breifly considered skipping since we have already seen a few. We were glad we opted to go because it was really awesome. (pictures to follow later)

From Granada I caught a train back to Sevilla to do some final packing and then head HOME!!!!