Dia de España and a Lazy Weekend

It was a good week at school in some respects because Wednesday was a national holiday so we got the day off. This day is a celebration of Columbus' discovery of the Americas. Michelle, Anja, and I went to Madrid. We got there at around 11 in the morning which was when the parade started. We only stayed for a little bit because there was a million people and it was a strange parade. The only things we saw were military personnel and tanks driving down the road. But, after this we went to Retiro Park which had a lot of really cool things to see. I was really exhausted from the previous two days of school so I ended up sleeping for an hour on a bench in the park in the sunshine. It's still incredibly hot during the afternoons in Madrid. It's starting to cool down a little in San Lorenzo, and I think by Wednesday it's supposed to finally start acting like fall.  We went shopping in the evening and had a good lazy day strolling around the city. One of the reasons I was so tired this week was because I had 5 different language exchange classes. I'm getting a lot better at listening comprehension which is wonderful. I think my speaking is getting better too, but that's a little harder to gauge.

This weekend, I didn't have any plans. I thought about going into a museum in Madrid today, but the one I wanted to go to is only open until 2:30 on Sundays. I really needed to sleep in so I didn't go. Anja came over yesterday when Marina and Stephan hosted a big BBQ for their friends, and after one thing led to another, she ended up staying until 6:00pm today.  It was great! We did nothing of importance; we ate a ton of food and played cards all day.  It was really good to do nothing this weekend because I'd just been so tired and slightly under the weather. It's time to get my head back into school mode, and hopefully I can get a good night sleep tonight to make my week a little less exhausting. I posted a new album to Facebook of the day in Madrid. Hasta luego. :D

Alcalá

First thing I have to say is: if you haven't watched the video of Sally's skit on my Facebook wall, you need to find someone with Facebook and watch it.  It sums up so much of how adorable she is.



On Thursday, I had my first exchange class. In a language exchange class, we're supposed to speak Spanish half the time and English the other half so that both parties can benefit. So I met with a man named Alfonso, he's probably around 40 and he's a music theory teacher and a really nice guy. He's all excited to show me around this area of Spain, and, being a teacher, he's really good at keeping the conversation going which is especially difficult for me to do in Spanish because, by habit, I just don't talk very much when people are speaking Spanish around me. I found this guy because Marina sent out an advertisement for me to around 25 people she knows in San Lorenzo who might be interested or know someone who is interested in exchanging languages.  I got about 10 emails back and started trying to fit people it. So far, I have 4 different people I'll actually meet with at some point.

On Saturday, Stephen made paella for lunch which is a very traditional Spanish dish and it was amazing!!! I really need to learn how to make this one, but it sounds extremely complicated so I'll have to do a lot of observing in the future if I actually want to replicate it well.

On Sunday, William had a concert in Alcalá which is a historical city (kind of like how San Lorenzo is historical for having the monastery) near Madrid.  William is the Escolania which is a boys choir at the monastery and it's one of the two best boys choirs in Spain. They sang for the pope who came to San Lorenzo sometime earlier this year.  Stephen, Marina, Sally and I went early to visit the town and we had no idea that it was Cervantes week which means the medieval festival was going on. Apparently, its the biggest medieval festival in Spain.  Alcalá is where Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, was raised. We took a tour of his house, and he was from a very well-to-do family, but compared to the mansions of today it was so small. It was really cute, and Marina is a great tour guide. She showed Sally and me different pieces of furniture and what they were famous for and used for during that era.  The town was absolutely gorgeous and still maintains so many attributes of the old cities. For the concert, we went to the Magisterial Cathedral of Alcalá de Heneres which is a breathtaking cathedral that was built hundreds of years ago.  It was an extremely pompous ceremony and when the boys started singing I had goosebumps. It sounded like what I imagine the angels singing will sound like.  I was shocked that my little escolanos could be so antsy and disruptive in class, but then turn around and sing so beautifully.  I could have sat and listed to them all day. We were all extremely exhausted by the time we stumbled in the door, but it was well worth it.

Today, I was almost dead from exhaustion when I got home. This morning, Emily had an appointment to maintain legal residency in the country, so I was teaching alone.  Teaching is SO tiring. I could never do it for the rest of my life.  It's especially hard when the kids literally have no clue what you're saying.  I was about toast by lunch time. In the second hour of lunch, I met with Alfonso to practice Spanish and he took me the Seat of Felipe II which is an overlook onto San Lorenzo. It's said that that's where he sat to watch the progress of the monastery. It was gorgeous! There were granite boulders the size small buildings and the expanse was really breathtaking. In the actual stone seat, there was the initial S.M. which when translated stands for His Majesty.  It was really cool! We happened to run into another couple of people who were practicing Spanish. The guy had overheard us speaking in English and asked us if we were also trying to exchange languages. This guy was from L.A. and he was traveling around to the different historical places with this girl who was helping him and learning English as well.  After lunch, I had the WORST class of the entire week. It's this one particular class of five year olds. There must be something wrong with their teacher because there is about 8 or 9 legitimately bad kids in this class. By the end of that hour, I was really struggling to remind myself why I go to work at a school every day.  Already dead on my feet, I had another language exchange class after school with a girl named Patricia who is 15 and was in L.A. for three months this summer. She doesn't want to lose the skills she's picked up so she was up for exchanging time.  Needless to say, I'm really tired now and  happy because tomorrow is the Spanish version of Columbus Day so we don't have school. Michelle, Anja, and I are heading into Madrid for sightseeing probably in the old part of town.  I'm sure it will be fun, and Thursday, I'm going to meet with another lady to practice Spanish. So, hopefully I'll be getting better soon.

Classes

I'm working hard to get into a comfortable routine here. It's hard to establish my role in the class because I'm often sharing the role with two other teachers which gets confusing at times. Also, I'm trying to keep into a routine of putting myself in places where I'm going to learn the most Spanish. This week is the beginning of routine because October is when the kids have gotten used to the class schedule then they can add additional classes for after school. Sally, for example, will have painting, dance, music theory and violin which means I won't see her until a bit later in the evening.  I had a good time practicing my Spanish with Anja yesterday over lunch, and I'm working to be more comfortable speaking to adults like the teachers at the school. The way of life is so relaxed here I just love it.  I can't really express how much I appreciate things like: having a coffee break from 10:45 to 11:15 every morning, all the restaurants have outside seating and you can sit and talk for as long as you want, eating tapas (a snack/ hors d'oeuvres they bring you for free when you stop for a drink), and working in a place as beautiful as the monastery.  Emily and I have been working a lot more to prepare our lessons for the classes. It's sometimes difficult because we work with 5 different teachers in every age group from 3-11 so trying to stay on the same page can be challenging. Today, Emily and I went up to the top of the monastery which is one of the privileges of working there and having all the keys :). It was really beautiful, and being able to stand up someplace so high to see your surroundings gives you a chance to take a step back and really notice how beautiful everything is.



As of right now, I'm making rough plans for a trip over Christmas break which will include: Rome, Vienna, Berlin, and Barcelona. (Hopefully). It's all so exciting.  Miss everyone back home, but also having a great time here! Hasta luego!

It Just Keeps Getting Better

So, I survived that horrible class that I was in all last week, and I'm so glad its behind me! Since my last post, Anja has decided to stick it out until December with that family. I'm really happy she's staying for purely selfish reasons :), but I think it'll be okay because now we're all used to this woman's insanity.  On Friday, Emily, my teaching partner, left for London and we only had one class so I said it was no problem for me to just cover it so she could head out on her trip. I was really excited to plan my first solo class. I was teaching them more about telling time in English. They had already been learning it for awhile so they knew what we were talking about with clocks. I had it all planned out. They had to write 3 hours of a schedule for a day. I wrote an example sentence on the board so basically they just had to fill in a couple of words to make it their own. Also, I had a fun game at the end. It, however, turned out to be a disaster because for some reason they couldn't understand what I wanted them to do, but they weren't getting my Spanish version either. I know I'm not crazy because one girl did it perfect the first time. The game also didn't work because I discovered most Spanish kids don't have quite the competitive drive that I do. All in all, it was great in theory, and I'm still pretty happy with the activities I planned.

I was really excited for this weekend because on Saturday I went to the Prado Museum in Madrid. It was fantastic! I went by myself which was good because I could go at my own pace. I saw Velasquez's Las Meninas which I was really pumped about because it's always exciting to see a famous painting that you recognize. There was also a lot of Goya which I could recognize.  These paintings were really fascinating and going by myself really gave me an opportunity to ponder what these works of art meant in their time and to their artist. The thing that amazed me most beyond the fact that I could never in a million years paint something like these paintings was how huge they are.  For example, Las Meninas is about 10 ft. high and 8 ft. wide. You would need a ladder to paint this. How can someone not only have a vision to create a painting from nothing but also be able to keep their thoughts straight when they can only see a tiny portion of the picture at any one time? I was really incredible.  

When I got home, I took a nap because a girl was picking me up at 11:30 pm to go the fiestas of Las Rozas, a town nearby.  Yes, this is extremely late at night, but one thing I've learned since being here is that on weekends, Spaniards don't do anything before midnight. These strange hours are very apparent on Sunday mornings when the city looks like a ghost town until about noon.  The fiestas was something fun to see. I guess every town does it, but really its like a big carnival. There were rides and tons of food. I had a "Kebab" which was basically gyro, and it was so good.  This picture is of a bull riding-type ride at the carnival which was hilarious.  It was a good experience, but carnivals aren't really my favorite. Something I learned while I was there is that every town in Spain has its own fiestas each year which includes running with the bulls. I thought that it was only a few major cities that did this, but apparently they all do there are just certain towns more famous for it.  

Today, I had the privilege of going with Stephen and William and their friends to a high-ropes course in the mountains in another town. It was a beautiful day! It was just a little chilly because we were in the mountains, but perfect because when you're doing something strenuous you don't want to be baking.  I listened to all the safety instructions in Spanish and passed the safety test.  After a couple courses with the younger boys, I decided to try the extreme course.  This guy was explaining to me in Spanish what to expect, but this time I didn't really catch enough of the instructions to fully understand what I was getting myself into.  Let me give you a hint as to how hard this extreme course was; you have to be over 18 to even attempt it.  One thing that I did hear from the man was, "point of no return." I was just thinking, "Ya whatever, I'm sure I can handle it." So, I climb up and do about two of the obstacles which were both drastically more difficult than the other courses I had already done.  Have you ever seen the show American Ninja or whatever it's called? Well the next challenges looked a bit like that.  Right as I was working to convince myself to try the monkey bars, which by the way I can't really do when I'm 6 feet off the ground let alone 25, this guy comes over and asks me if I was told the instructions. I replied with a simple si because I was trying to get in the zone for what was about to come. Then he asks if I speak Spanish and I admitted only a little.  He then proceeded to explain to me in English what was coming.  Basically he laid it out like this, if I can do the monkey bars and think it's easy I'll probably be fine, but if the monkey bars are a bit difficult there's probably no way I can do the rest. Should I get across the monkey bars and realize I'm too tired to complete the rest, I have to climb back across the monkey bars to get down. If I keep going past two more obstacles though there is a trapeze and once I go across that I'm forced to finish and the challenges are more difficult there.  So, needless to say, I quit. But, it was fun while it lasted and me and the instructor had a good laugh in Spanglish when I got back down.

In the same part of the mountain as the high ropes course, the guy we were with took us on a short walk to show us the road that was built by the Romans to get from the southern to northern plateaus.  It was built around 2500 years ago which is older than Jesus.  It was really cool to see and think about because we don't really have such old pieces of history in the States.  

I'm having so much fun here, and it's finally starting to hit me a little at a time that I actually live in Spain! Well, as much as I'd love to have a weekend forever, tomorrow is Monday and I'm hoping with this new week I can work harder in learning more Spanish and getting into a routine of speaking it more.