Dicho y Hecho

Después de 9 meses en España, esta es mi última semana. En diciembre, prometí que escribiría mi último blog en español así que voy a intentarlo. Mucha gente que lea mi blog no lo va a entender pero me puede preguntar que dice. En fin, voy a reflexionar sobre mi tiempo aquí en el idioma del lugar.
Para empezar, no puedo creer que haya llegado el fin. Por un lado, siento que llegué ayer pero por otro lado me parece que muchas cosas del otoño pasaron hace años. Por ejemplo, no me parece verdad que Anja y Michelle estuvieran aquí solo hace 5 meses. Casi no recuerdo San Lorenzo con ellas. También, estuve en Ginebra en diciembre y visité muchos países en las vacaciones de Navidad. He hecho cosas este año que no hubiera imaginado que haría en todo mi vida. Por ejemplo ¡fui a Londres y a Granada sola! He estado en diez países nuevos en solo nueve meses y también he visitado muchas ciudades por España.
Voy a echar de menos bastantes cosas de España, muchas cosas me van a recordar a este país. Una cerveza al sol siempre va a saber como una caña en una terraza española. Me encanta que la gente aquí sea más tranquila y aproveche el tiempo libre. Echaré de menos los camareros en la Chistera, el café donde Emily y yo tomamos café todos los días.
Estoy encantada de haber conocido a todos los profes del cole. Las profes de inglés me ayudaron a acostumbrarme a España y al idioma. Además, ¿en qué otro pais saldría con profes de la edad de mi madre y me lo pasaría genial?
Doy gracias a Dios porque Emily trabajaba conmigo. Me ayudó a no volverme loca cuando estaba muy agobiada con los niños y con mi familia. Proveía un lugar donde refugiarme después de una dura semana. Estoy super agradecida también por toda la gente que me ha ayudado a aprender español. Nuria, María, Alfonso, Patricia, y Ana me han ayudado muchísimo y no podría hablar español ahora si no fuera por ellos.
El otro día, vi un vídeo que grabé la primera semana que estaba en la casa de Marina y no podía creer cuánto ha crecido Sally. Tampoco puedo creer cuánto ha cambiado todo. No somos las mismas personas que cuando llegué. Solo espero que la próxima au pair tenga más suerte que yo. Rezo para que Sally pueda aprender algún día a respetar la autoridad de la au pair así como la de su madre. Ser una au pair es una tarea dificilísima porque no tienes la autoridad. De todas formas, Sally es una chica inteligente y un día se va a dar cuenta de que es una niña especial y que eso conlleva mucha responsibilidad.Yo, por mi parte, hice lo que pude y espero que recuerde algunas de las lecciones en el futuro aunque ahora no le importe.
Sin embargo, durante un año tan difícil he aprendido y cambiado también. He adquirido mucha más paciencia y he aprendido como callarme cuando más falta hace. Espero poder conservar esas virtudes durante toda la vida porque son muy valiosas.
Al principio del año, creía que me encantaría vivir en el extranjero y que querría vivir fuera de los Estados Unidos muchos años pero, en realidad, lo he echado de menos demasiado. Me ha encantado conocer otra cultura e idioma pero también me gustan los míos propios. Los amigos de mi país se van a reír cuando les cuente que la gente aquí cree que soy tímida e insociable. Eso me suena ridículo pero es mucho más difícil conocer a la gente de verdad cuando, al principio, no puedes comunicarte bien. Cuando llegué, no podía ni hablar ni entender español. Después de seis meses cuando pude empezar a comunicarme, la gente ya ¨me conocía¨ y ya sabeís lo difícil que es reinventarte otra vez.
Sobretodo, me lo he pasado genial en España y ahora sé un idioma nuevo. Espero poder usarlo en Arizona y no perder demasiado vocabulario cuando regrese. Ahora, estoy buscando trabajo en hospitales donde pueda usar el español para ayudar.
Tengo muchas ganas de regresar y ver a mi familia, especialmente a mi sobrina que ya tiene dientes y puede gatear. Echaré de menos a Emily, a todos los profes y chavales y también mis clases de intercambio. Gracias a todos por aceptarme en vuestras vidas y espero volver a veros a vosotros y a vuestro país en el futuro.
Adiós España. Te echaré de menos.

Asturias

For my last vacation during my time in Spain, I went with the family to the north of Spain to the province of Asturias. Ever since I got to Spain, people have been telling me I have to see the north and that it´s the most beautiful part. But, I didn´t understand what could be so great about it...until I got there. We stayed in a pueblito called Salas, and the original point of the trip was because the Escolanía, or boys choir that William sings with, would be performing in the church there.  We spent the first day driving around, and I can honestly say I´ve never seen landscape more beautiful in my whole life. It was all mountainous and everything was covered in green.  The ´road´ was a winding path through the mountains that hardly seemed like a road at times and in many places we would have had trouble if another car came around the corner. For the first lunch, we had a stew called Pote which has chorizo in it which is a Spanish sausage. I´ve had chorizo before and never got the big deal, but apparently the Asturians know how to do it right and it was the most incredible chorizo I´ve ever, and probably will ever, have.

On Saturday, we drove around to other little villages along the coast and something very common in Asturias are the aldeas. Aldeas are basically groups of houses, but it´s too small to be considered a town and they don´t have like a town hall or anything. There will be towns that include all the outliers, but these people can literally live in the middle of nowhere and that´s saying a lot coming from a girl from northern Michigan. We spent a lot of time on Saturday wandering around Luarca, a town by the sea. The lunch we had there was awesome. It included: fried squids and a black paella. A black paella is black because they put squid ink in with the rice. It was absolutely delicious.  Our hotel in Salas was in like a little old castle. It had a little courtyard in the middle and was extremely accomodating after all of the hostels I´ve stayed in over the past year. I´d forgotten you can go places where they make your bed for you and provide a towel.  The concert on Saturday night was awesome. I teach about half the boys in the choir so they were excited to see that one of their teachers had come all that way to see them perform.  In class, when they´re acting up, it´s hard to remember that these boys sing like little angels. We had another amazing meal afterwards and we sat around with some of the other parents and it was just so fun for me to sit there and watch Spanish versions of my parents and their friends sit around in a restaurant having a good time. It reminded me of being home a lot with how loud it was and all the jokes flying around.

On Sunday, we went to Oviedo, which is an actual city. We happened to be there during the Artesan festival and all the people were dressed up in period clothing and selling food and goods at stalls around the old town. The boys had another mass to sing at in the afternoon so we went to that too. I came the realization that I´ve now been to several catholic masses including several in Spanish, two in Italian, and one in German, but I´ve never actually heard one in English. We had lunch at the marketplace and set out for the long drive home. I had an awesome time, and it´s definately a place I would go back to. Maybe someday I can do the Camino de Santiago. It´s a very famous hiking trail through that part of Spain and it can take months to finish depending on the trails you take and stuff. It sounds like it would be an incredible experience, especially being able to enjoy all that landscape in the north. 
I started saying goodbye to my classes at school because I´m done teaching on Wednesday. But, last Wednesday was the last class with one group of 4th graders because they´ll be on a field trip this week. One group of girls wrote me a song and sang it. Another boy was crying and we thought someone hit him. When we asked him what was wrong, his friend said he was crying because I´m leaving.  I thought it was a joke and I asked him to tell me what was wrong and he told me, ¨me da pena,¨ which means like, I feel bad or it makes me sad.  It was the saddest, cutest thing ever. Then the teacher got all choked up and I got all choked up. Saying goodbye to the kids is the hardest part. I´m really antsy, however, to get back to my house, family, and country. Although it´s sad to be starting with the goodbyes, I´m ready to start something new again.

Long Overdue

Hi Everyone, I have had more adventures since Easter, but I´ve been really uninspired in my blog writing so I kept puting it off. Now, I better just get writing or once experience just roles over into another, and I´ll end up forgetting everything.

At the beginning of May, I went with my friends, Tiffany and Emily, to the south of Spain for a long weekend. We rented a car and took off towards Cádiz, but, being a zillion hour drive, we needed a break so we spent the afternoon in Sevilla, and they just happened to be having their Flamenco Fairs that weekend. When we arrived, we walked around the old town and saw the cathedral (of course we did because this is Spain and city is not a city worth seeing if there isn´t an old cathedral :). As we walked around, there were tons of girls in flamenco dresses and we were just not getting it. We couldn´t understand how someone could look at themselves in those costumes and this they were the best option of things to wear. Well, that was until we actually went and observed the culture at the fair. It was incredible! We met up with one of Emily´s friends, an American who loves flamenco, and we watched the people clap and dance for hours and hours. I could have stayed all night. I just felt like I understood so much about people and cultures in general after watching something as simple as a bunch of Sevillana´s getting together to clap and dance. I worked on my clapping skills, and lets just say, it´ll take me years to perfect. Before going, I never liked to hear Sevillana music, but now I look forward to hearing a song here and there.
We drove off to Cádiz, and arrived at our hostal late that night. On Sunday, we rented bikes from the hostal and spent the day cruising the port city and just relaxing and eating some good food. One of the dishes we had was deep-fried little squids. It was not what we were expecting to get at all, but it turned out to be a good experience and pretty tasting. It was a little creepy though if you looked into their eyes too long before you ate it.  As we spent more time at the hostal, we got to know the characters around the joint.  They were some of the most weird, fun, hospitable and just outside-the-norm people I´ve ever met all smashed into one place. My favorite was Nacho. He was very stereotypically from Andalusia, and he just never stopped cracking jokes. We didn´t quite know what to think at first, but by the end of the trip we were won over by this craziness.

On Monday, we drove to the most southern point in Spain, Tarifa, and hopped on a ferry to AFRICA! We went to the Moroccan city of Tangier just for the day. After fighting through the sea-sickness for an hour or so we landed and started to explore the city. Let´s just say, I have never been more culture shocked in my life. I felt incredibly uncomfortable with the looks we were given by about every single person we passed. Emily, Tiffany, and I kept a very open conversation about our feelings, but it was not making me feel any better. I just had a steady, nervous sweat going for the first three hours or so. We found a little cafe with Moroccan tea overlooking the ocean, and it was the most incredible tea ever and super sugary.  It cost about 50 cents and we quickly learned how rich we were in that country. I asked for the bathroom after we finished out tea and just started laughing when I walked in. I guess I should have seen it coming, but I didn´t. It was a hole in the ground, literally. But, if any of you know how often I have to use the bathroom, I just sucked it up and made due. We went exploring the old city and testing out different baked goods and breads which were all incredible.  When we stopped for lunch, the people were so excited to have us they literally gave us enough food for about 6 people and we were only 3. I couldn´t walk at a normal pace for awhile after that. We explored all the markets and things around town. I loved seeing the huge piles of spices, but what I didn´t love so much was the meat and fish market. It was the most disgusting things ever.  There were just heads and random body parts hanging everywhere and smelling awful. But, again, it was a good experience. By the end of the day, we were ready to be back on Spanish soil, but I think everyone was happy to have been there and explored.
The last two days we spent on the beach which was not as awesome as we could have hoped for, but we made the most of it. We ended up eating dinner at the hostel one night, and we couldn´t have ended up with more funny stories after sharing the meal with two German guys, a British girl, and an Australian guy. I´m not sure if I´ve ever laughed more in my entire life. One of the German guys told us it would be his birthday at midnight so we all asked how to say Happy Birthday in German. Well after saying it all night and singing in an awful German-English version of the Happy Birthday song, we found out that what we´d been saying was actually, ¨We are truffels.¨ Feeling really dumb, but taking the joke well, we all asked each other why the Germans would tell us to say something so meaningless if you could have a bunch of dopey English speakers saying anything in your language. We never got the chance to ask because they´d already left the hostal by the time we figured it out.



It was great to get out for a weekend and enjoy another part of Spain. My weeks have been winding down here which is bitter sweet because I know I have a lot of Spanish left to learn, but I miss my States and niece so much that I need to get back. I can understand Spanish fluently, but I don´t have the opportunity to speak enough to consider myself fluent. I have the vocab; I just lack the necessity to speak it because everyone speaks English in my job situations.  Within a few days, I will post another blog to tell about this past weekend in Asturias, a province in Northern Spain. Until then... :)