Spanish Beach Culture
In Spain, every worker (no matter the job) is legally guaranteed at least 22 paid vacation days per year. Once you factor in weekends and public holidays, this amounts to about 5 weeks paid vacation...
View ArticlePreparing for Halloween in Spain
Halloween is pretty new in Spain, adopted from American pop culture. It’s a bit more popular for adults to dress up and go to parties, but some very young children do go trick-or-treat-ing. The...
View ArticleThanksgiving in Spain, Year 2
This year, I went to TGI Friday’s with 3 Spanish friends for Thanksgiving. It was a set price of 17.50 for a bowl of cheesy broccoli soup, a huge plate with a generous amount of turkey, gravy,...
View ArticleVisiting WA (August 2013)
After finishing my 6+ week trip through Europe, I flew to WA to visit family and friends for 3 weeks. It was a whirlwind trip, I felt like I was constantly driving from place to place to see all my...
View ArticleSelf Discipline: Budgeting for Travel
I recently read a blog post titled How I Afford Travel: badass trips on a not-so-badass budget. I thought it contained a lot of great tips about fitting your dream trip into a tight budget. (Psst – I...
View ArticleAdvice for Living Abroad – Homesickness
This is the latest in my series regarding advice for living abroad. Past entries include: Language | Culture One of the biggest fears people have regarding living abroad is homesickness. I’ll start by...
View ArticleTug-of-war
I’ve been feeling pulled in two opposite directions lately, though one direction is definitely winning out – and I’ve been trying to figure out why. On one hand, I absolutely love Madrid. This city...
View ArticleMoving Back to WA
Well, it’s official! I’ll be moving back to Washington this summer. I guess I’ll have to change the name of this blog! I’ve been offered a teaching position in a tiny town called Mattawa… It’s a small...
View ArticleOne Week Left
A week from today, I’ll be spending my last night in my Madrid apartment, and then flying to Croatia the following morning. The goodbye will be a bit drawn-out as I travel around Europe for 5 weeks,...
View ArticleSlowly settling in
I guess I forgot how much work it is to unpack an entire apartment! The last time I did this was the summer of 2010, and at that time I had a smaller apartment and less stuff. Now I’m setting up a...
View ArticleToo busy for reverse culture shock?
There has definitely been a bit of reverse culture shock, but it hasn’t been as bad as I was expecting. Probably because I’ve been so busy starting the new school year! I feel like I’m constantly...
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