Abroad in Spain: Travel Blog

“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 small part of an email that was recently sent to me by the MEC about the scholarship that I’ve been awarded. I’m glad I got this email… it means that the visa process is about to begin (I was starting to wonder if the visa thing was EVER going to happen). Anyway, according to the email they need my passport number and confirmation of my home address before they can send me the necessary documents for the visa. Soooo, I sent off my home address and passport number in an email to the appropriate place and now I just have to await their response.  Continue reading this post…

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.  Continue reading this post…

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.  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).  Continue reading this post…

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. Continue reading this post…

Prime Minister or Comedy Star? You be the judge...

There is a joke in Spain that says that José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the current Prime Minister of Spain, looks a lot like Mr. Bean, the ridiculous British comedy character.  I’ve decided to place a little image above to allow you to compare the two.  Zapatero, of course, is on the left and Mr. Bean is on the right.  What do you think?  Continue reading this post…

In recent years immigrants have been arriving to Spain in swarms looking for better lives.  They have mainly come from places like Africa, Romania, Bulgaria, and some South American countries like Colombia.  Immigration, of course, is something that Spain hasn’t really had to deal with much before and the topic of immigration nowadays is quite “hot” in the country.  In fact, Spaniards are now finding themselves faced with the question of what to do with immigrants arriving to Spain.  But those immigrants who are just arriving are not the only worry of Spaniards; according to this recent article in El País, the future of the sons and daughters of new immigrants is also uncertain.   Continue reading this post…