Introduction to Aguadulce

So, it’s been a few weeks, and I thought you might be interested to hear a thing or two about the latest place I’m calling home.

The Town

Aguadulce literally means “sweetwater”, which sounds like it would be better suited to a small town in Alabama. Instead, my little Spanish paradise is located 11 km from the city of Almería on the southeast coast of Andalucía, a stone’s throw from Morocco (map here). Aguadulce is basically a resort town and well-to-do suburb. This gives the town both good and bad aspects, as follows:

Bad:
- Since tourist season is past, it’s super-quiet.
- The architecture leaves something to be desired.
- The amount of ongoing developments in the region is astounding (today, as we walked to the nearby town, we counted 26 cranes in the distance!)
- There’s not a whole lot of cultural activity. Actually, there’s basically none.

Good:
- The sea is a 5-minute walk from my house, and the water is swimmable
- It’s easy to walk everywhere – school, the supermarket, the beach.
- The streets are lined with palm trees (actually, date trees!)
- Did I mention the 5-minute walk to the beach?

The Household

I live with 3 other language assistants. They are:

1. Neil, the goofy Belgian, who likes Elliott Smith and chocolate, plays a mean guitar, and makes self-deprecating jokes about his hairy chest.

2 & 3. Suzy and Greg, an American couple who are funny, energetic, and quick studies at card games (I taught them Spite and Malice, and they're hooked!).

As a household, we get along pretty well, and have had excursions to Almería and Granada together, as well as many an evening watching Scrubs and Heroes – we’re even developing inside jokes!

The Work

The school that I'm working in is basically a high school, with an age range of about 11 to 18 or so.

We are working in English classes as well as Immersion classes (Math, Music, Physics, Social Studies, etc.). We're there to help the teachers with their classes and plan communicative activities with the students. This, of course, works better with some classes than others. Most of the teachers seem pretty cool, and open to different ideas.

The nice bonus is that Friday is our day off, so if I want to travel, I always have a 3-day weekend...

The General Impression (so far…)

It’s always hard at first, when you hit the left-my-life-behind-but-haven't-made-a-new-one-yet doldrums… But that moment is always temporary, and I’m already starting to settle in. I've been missing Barcelona a lot, but I try not to compare the two experiences...

Mostly, I've been trying to figure out exactly what my goals are while I'm here, and to focus on those. The two major goals are to travel around Spain, and to gain as much teaching experience as possible. If I can work toward those goals, then this year will be a success…