My dearest readers, I need your help.  I have recently made some changes to my webserver and when I made those changes, I think I may have messed something up with the comment function on my page.  Please send me an email and tell me if you're having trouble leaving comments on any of the entries in my blog.

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In a world where gas prices are rising more and more each day, finding an affordable airline ticket to Spain has become quite difficult.  The key word here, however, is difficult - finding affordable airfare to Spain doesn't have to be impossible.  In this post, I hope to share some of the most basic "secrets" that I keep in mind when I'm looking for a cheap flight to Spain....

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Well, today I finally got my "official" letter which contained the information that I needed to apply for my visa to study abroad.  More importantly, this letter contained my "official" placement for the scholarship: I found out that I am going to be going to the city of Burgos, Spain (see the map above).  I was quite excited to get the letter and know once and for all where exactly in Spain I'm going....

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Well, I'm still waiting on a letter from the scholarship "leaders" that states that I have been officially accepted into the scholarship program.  This letter is the last document that I need in order to go and get the visa to study abroad in Spain.  I know the letter will come soon... that's why, over the last week or so, I've been working on getting an appointment with the Spanish Consulate in New York City in order to do the Student Visa application (people from my region of the USA have to go to NYC to get the visa).  The appointment process didn't go as smoothly as I had planned....

You see, my original idea was to get an appointment to go for the visa at the end of June because by then I'd be sure that I have all the documents necessary for the visa application.  What's more, an appointment with the Consulate in late June would have given me plenty of "buffer time" before my departure date in the event that something in the visa process goes wrong.  Good plan, right?  Too bad things didn't work out that way.  You see, the bureaucracy that is Spain has thwarted my little plan.

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A lot of my regular readers have asked me to recommend some books/tools that they may be able to use to help them hone and practice their Spanish skills.  It is for that reason that I'd like to tell you about a great book entitled "The Ultimate Spanish Review and Practice" by Ronni L. Gordon and David M. Stillman. 

I purchased this book after completing four years of high school Spanish in order to review what I had learned over the past four years.  I more or less felt as though I already had a good understanding of basic grammar; however, I wanted to "revisit" some of the things that I had learned and go more "in-depth" with the language.  Over the summer between my high school graduation and my first year at college, I read this book cover-to-cover and, by the time I entered college in the fall as a Spanish major, this book had put me light-years ahead of my peers.  Don't get me wrong, I attribute much of my Spanish success in college to my high school teacher; however, I feel as though this book really did help out quite a bit as well. 

Just so you know, this book is not for those of you who do not speak much Spanish at all; instead, it's for those of you who already know the basics of the language and want some review of what you already know as well as...

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The next step in preparing for the scholarship that I have been awarded is to apply for a Student Visa to go to Spain.  I have studied abroad in Spain before so this is actually the second time that I have had to apply for a Student Visa.  I'd like to outline the general process for applying for a visa to study abroad in Spain in this post.  Please remember that this information is just a guide - always check with your local consulate for updated information before applying for a visa. 

Find a Spanish Consulate in the USA:
In most cases, you must apply for a visa in person at the appropriate Spanish Consulate.  There are several Consulate Generals of Spain throughout the USA.  Each consulate has a different jurisdiction and it is your responsibility to get to the one that serves your state.  You can use this webpage (in Spanish) to look up the consulate in your jurisdiction.  Remember to make sure that you go to the right consulate - you may want to call and make sure that the one you are planning to use serves your state.  Also remember that you may be required to make an appointment before showing up at a consulate.  Call to find out.

Once you find the consulate in your jurisdiction, you can go to their webpage and get specific instructions for obtaining a student visa.  I'm going to outline the general procedure below....

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"Ya sabes que vamos a proceder a las adjudicaciones de las plazas en los diferentes centros educativos de nuestra Comunidad Autónoma. Para llevar a cabo este proceso necesitamos urgentemente:a) Una dirección a la que podamos enviarte todos los documentos necesarios para la obtención del visado. Te pido la dirección concreta porque muchos de vosotros habeis marcado dos direcciones dentro de los datos personales del programa PROFEX. b) Número de pasaporte. Sin él no puedo mandarte la carta de nombramiento."

Well, that's a small part of an email that was recently sent to me by the MEC about the scholarship that I've been awarded....

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It's been a while since I've posted anything about the scholarship that I have received from the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (MEC) so I thought I'd write a quick post to let you know my status.  As my loyal readers know, I have been awarded the scholarship and I will be going to the "Castilla y León" region of Spain this coming September to teach English for one year.  As I see it, I now have three big goals that I need to accomplish this summer to prepare for my departure...

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According to this article in El País, there was a political demonstration held to protest ETA today in Vitoria, a city in the Basque Region of Spain (I have highlighted Vitoria on the map above - for your reference, this map shows the northeastern corner of Spain).  This demonstration was organized by members of various political parties in Spain and was a reaction to the recent death of a Guardia Civil officer after an ETA bombing in Legutiano (another city in the Basque Region).  Because prominent members of several opposing Spanish political parties were present, the article points out that today's demonstration was a symbol of the ability of all Spaniards - regardless of their party affiliation - to unite and fight against terrorism. 

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Ok, you may be wondering why I've decided to upload a picture of John Paul II to this post.  After all, this isn't a Catholic blog - it's a Spain blog.  Well, my loyal readers, the reason is simple.  You see, this image illustrates a point.  The image came from a popular pamphlet distributed by the Catholic Church in Spain and the caption of the image proves that the vosotros verb form is used quite often in Spain ("venid" and "veréis" are both verbs conjugated for vosotros). 

Many Americans (including myself) struggle with the vosotros form of verbs in Spanish because in the United States it is typical to teach Latin American Spanish rather than the Spanish of Spain.  Since vosotros does not exist in Latin American Spanish, many students of Spanish from the USA do not learn how to conjugate verbs in the vosotros form.  That's why I've decided to put together this little summary of how to conjugate verbs in the vosotros form.  I figure that other Americans like myself are probably interested in studying in Spain and need to know how to conjugate verbs for vosotros in order to communicate in Spain successfully. 

First, I should mention here that vosotros is the informal version of ustedes (just like tú is the informal version of usted).  In other words, you would want to use vosotros when you're talking to a group of friends.  Also remember that vosotros is only used in Spain (not Latin America).  Now that we have that straight, I'd like to list a summary of the conjugation of vosotros below along with some simple examples of how the verb is used....

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