Happy October!

I hope everyone back home is enjoying one of my favorite months!  It certainly doesn't feel like fall here... still 90 degrees and sunny all week - not complaining!  Yesterday I walked past a party store and noticed tons of Halloween decorations/costumes... so there is still hope for celebrating my favorite holiday of the year :)

I suppose my biggest update is that, after all the debate, I was able to go on a vacation.  We went to Malta for an entire week.  For those of you that don't know, Malta is a tiny country made up of small islands and located in the Mediterranean off the coast of Sicily and directly north of Libya.  We booked our flights 4 days in advanced, and our hostel 2 days in advance.  I have to love living in Europe/the availability of Ryanair flights to allow me to plan a trip with such spontaneity.  I highly recommend traveling to Malta, especially if you're already in Europe, as it's very close and inexpensive.  For the amount of tourists in the area, I would have expected this to be a much more pricey vacation.  This destination fits multiple preferences, from quiet lazy days on the Mediterranean beaches to wild partying at night.  Although extremely touristy, with a little travel savvy you can travel throughout the entire island to very "authentic" areas. Elliot and I were able to see most of the main island of Malta.  An added bonus is that we flew over Africa on our way to/from Malta.  I have aerial pictures of Algeria for sure, and I'm assuming Tunisia, and possibly some of Morocco.. depending on when the plane cut back north to go to Spain.

One day after returning from Malta we had to go to orientation in Cáceres, a city in Extremadura about an hour away from Badajoz.  There I met most of the other people in my program.  It wasn't the most helpful orientation because I had already taken care of most of the topics on the agenda.  Oh well, it was a chance to see a new city.  Unfortunately I didn't have time to explore the city until it was dark.  It's a beautiful city, awesome architecture, a pretty good nightlife.  I didn't post my pictures to Facebook because they were all a little dark and don't do the city justice.

Today was also my first day of work.  I didn't actually teach today, but I will be teaching tomorrow. Today Elliot began teaching, and it seems like everything went really well for him.. but kids always naturally love him.  I'm feeling hopeful that tomorrow will go well for me too.  I met 3 (out of hundreds) of my students today and they seemed like really nice kids.  More to come as my work week progresses...