Homemade Wine and White Roads

Aside from teaching at the local school I also teach private English lessons, that is how I make extra money for traveling and spending; I have 12 students. Among those 12 students 2 are from Georgia (not as in Atlanta). Their parents immigrated to Spain about 5 years ago in search of better financial opportunities. As as result, both kids-one named Jamal who is 11 and the other Saba who is 7-already speak 2 languages, Georgian and Spanish. However, their parents understand that learning English will drastically help their chances at making it in the world, so they hired me. They are super-friendly and each time I go to their home, they give me a cup of coffee and homemade cookies/bread/whatever. This past week I was chatting with their father (who I have only met twice in the past month of teaching his children because he usually works late) and he informed me that he has been upholding the Georgian custom of making homemade wine. He takes discarded or leftover grapes from the factory he works at and makes wine out of them. He proved this to me by showing me the 20-or-so 5-gallon jugs of wine in his storage room. The father proceeded to fill an old 2-liter coke bottle with wine telling me that if I ever were to run out, the family would provide me with free wine, in addition to the money they pay me to teach their children English...yuss

In other news, Spain is freezing over. A couple days ago, it snowed here in Autol, a rarity but something that is manifesting itself throughout the country. In fact, this weekend it is supposed to drop to about 10 degrees F. The snow makes the town take on a completely different appearance and the constant dodging of snowballs thrown by my students adds some adventure to my life.

Finally, my family will be arriving in Spain on Tuesday to spend Christmas with me...I am super excited about that.

pics from granada have been posted on facebook