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.