Pueblo Ingles

Hello everyone! We are in Avila, Spain. We arrived late Friday night after spending seven days at La Alberca, Spain, teaching English to Spanish business people. Our hotel was located in a tiny, tiny village that is famous for its´black ham. (we ate a lot of it) The bungalows were two bedrooms, one downstairs, one upstairs with a common space. One Spanish person lived upstairs and an Anglo (as we were called) lived downstairs. We spent seven very busy days working from 9 am until about midnight each day. We were fed very well, and wine was everywhere! There were 43 people present for the program. Our Anglo friends came from the US, Australia, England, and Canada. The Spanish people were all from Spain and from a variety of indurstries including the Guardia Civil (the military police), Goodyear, Fujitsu, and many others. We spent our days in several one on one converstations, playing games, acting out skits, and role playing conference calls and telephone sessions. The weather in La Alberca left a little to be desired. Remember how we were bragging about no rain so far? Well, as fate would have it, it rained most every day - like cats and dogs! The wind picked up on our last two days, and was quite severe. The bus ride back to Madrid was interesting as several people got motion sickness. We were dropped off in a rest area on the outskirts of Avila, and caught a taxi to town. Avila is a beautiful walled city and the narrow, windy, cobblestone streets are full of great little shops! There is a dessert called a Jema, that is some sort of an egg pastry that Julie is sure to try today. We will stay here until Sunday morning (tomorrow) - again catch a taxi back to the rest area.... where the next group run by a different company will pick us up at the same rest area. The web site for this weeks adventure is www.vaughantown.com. You can look at our accomodations for the week, they look pretty nice. We are here for seven more days and on Sunday of next week will return to Madrid for two nights before heading to Paris, France! The spanish people are beginning to decorate for Christmas. They haven´t turned on the lights yet, but we sense it´s getting close to that time. Their decorations are fabulous, even unlit so we are anxious to see them when they are turned on. We spent Thanksgiving in a very old churchy cave. Very hard to describe. It was like dining in another century and very unforgettable. The staff of Pueblo Ingles made sure it was a very special night for us, as the Spanish don´t celebrate Thanksgiving. (obviously) We will post pictures when we are able to download. We are currently at the bilioteca in Avilla, which means library and only have 30 minutes of internet access. We made many good friends both Anglo and Spanish at Pueblo Ingles. Some of them gave us ibuprofen, food, and other items we were running low on. We hope to see them again in the future and really enjoyed spending our Thanksgiving with them. For our families, we missed you and thought of you and your turkey and pumpkin pie! (we had pork and rice pudding) We wish that we could find a satellite tv to watch the civil war (football game), but we also are wishing for world peace. Not a chance. So, for now, adios amigos. We are off to see what Avila has in store for us. Oh, one last thing. We got our first haircuts today. It is interesting to explain what you want done when you don´t speak the language. We look fabulous. We will once again have very limited or no internet access until the first week of December. We promise photos then.