Where did November go?

Um, holy smokes! November just kind of flew by! Ahh! And the streets are already filled with Christmas lights!!

One of the greatest parts of November, by far, was Thanksgiving. As another auxiliar said, you can only teach so many lessons describing Thanksgiving and everything it entails without starting to feel a little homesick. So on the night of my Thanksgiving feast with my friends, I was super excited. I had volunteered to make the pie, even though I’ve never made a pie. I got so excited after the first one turned out though, that I went to the store, bought more dough, and made a second!

MY FIRST PIE EVER!!!!!! (a little burnt... but that's what whipped cream is for.)

With pies in hand, I went to my friend Colleen’s piso to find Thanksgiving decorations, a beautifully set dinner table, mashed potatoes in preparation and turkey (really chicken, but we called it turkey) in the oven.

Colleen with the "turkey"

Pretty table and decorations. And my pies.

FOOD! (and then my camera died.)

I think we were all feeling way too overexcited to be having Thanksgiving dinner, which resulted in the outburst of “AMERICA!!!” at various times throughout the night. It was a bilingual Thanksgiving feast complete with lots of wine, line dancing (a la Ryan sisters dancing in the kitchen), and too much food, and therefore, it was amazing.

So, so, so much to be thankful for.

Sevilla, a love-hate relationship

I went to Sevilla over the puente (long weekend) at the end of October. Since my travel buddy has to work on Fridays we were going to hop a bus there late Friday. But then that would have meant we would get right to the hostel and probably go to sleep. Since we're both penny pinchers, we decided instead to get the first bus leaving Saturday morning. Perfect! So what shall we do Friday? Go to a rugby team's toga party, of course!! We knew we'd be tired Saturday, but that's what the 6-hour busride was for.

Needless to say, I was a bit tired the next morning. I had to take two metros to the bus station, and I waited at least 5 minutes for each metro, which I had not calculated in my travel time. I got to the bus station at 8:57 for the 9:00 bus and was so happy I had actually made it! But as I sat down in my seat, I was looking around for my travel buddy and realized she wasn't there. Rut roh. The bus driver shut the doors so I quickly went up and told him my friend was there, but was just getting off the metro. I called my buddy and asked where she was. "I'm in bed" was her response, and my look must have been a good enough for the bus driver because at that moment, he put the bus in gear and started driving. So I was off to Sevilla sans my travel buddy! Sad face!! Miraculously, though, she somehow got up, packed, and to the bus station to get the next bus. Yay!!

Now, as the title says, I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Sevilla. First we'll talk about the love. I knew even from my first glances from the bus windows that I had a thing for Sevilla.

I mean, who doesn't love palm trees?

We stayed at a hostel complete with their own bar and pub crawl, so we went out to play with our hostelmates on Saturday. Sidenote: hostels can be so so so awesome. You meet people from LITERALLY all over the world!!

On Sunday we walked a bit around Sevilla, but called it an early day due to the increasing severity of my travel buddy's sickness. I woke up Monday to hear that she had already booked a bus back to Madrid. Womp womp!! So what is one to do? Wander the streets of Sevilla on a beautiful, warm, sunny "fall" day, that's what!

Plaza de Toros

A pub literally older than the United States

My favorite!! La Plaza de España! I literally let out a little gasp when it first came into view.

The narrow streets of Santa Cruz, the Jewish neighborhood of Sevilla

Sunday happened to be Halloween so I was delighted to see a wee black cat sleeping in the park. Well it was sleeping until I meowed at it to see if it was real. (Yep, that happened.) Then it glared at me, and I giggled in glee because it was like a real Halloween prop, which seemed so weird amongst the palm trees.

That night I took full advantage of the Halloween pub crawl the hostel hosted. Sidenote: in Spain, they're kind of just catching on to the whole Halloween thing. It's alright, but there are still some kinks they need to work out. For example, they believe that all costumes must be scary. You can be a witch or a vampire or a mummy or a zombie, but it must be scary. No clever costumes. No pop culture references. I didn't pay attention to this at all and I wore the costume I had planned.

el mar y un escocés (por supuesto)

I'm the ocean. (duh.) So many Spaniards were like, "Aren't you supposed to be scary?" After a few times of trying to explain that you don't need to be scary on Halloween, I resorted to pointing out just how scary the ocean can be. "Hurricanes. Tsunamis. Sharks." became my response for the rest of the night. 

The next morning a wandered around a little more before catching my bus back to Madrid. So it sounds all great right?? I mean, it stunk that my travel buddy had to leave, but other than that, it went pretty well. 

Until.

A few days later I woke up with this:

Hmm. Small bug bites all in a line. Please God, no no no no. But alas, I could not kid myself for long. As I investigated more and more, I found lines of bites all over my poor little cuerpo. Bed bugs. Effing bed bugs, man! And over the next couple days, the bites turned into really attractive welts, such as these:

I hadn't stayed in a hostel in weeks, so I can only assume I picked up these little monsters while in Sevilla. Which pretty much makes me hate Sevilla. 

But I'm trying to be positive. Like, at least it's not a flesh-eating virus. (That would be much worse than blood-sucking parasites, right? Right?!?!?)

Alrighty. So that's that! My love and hate for Sevilla. Since we always like to sandwich the bad with two slices of good, I'll end with this guy: three things that make Sevilla awesome. A gorgeous cathedral, palm trees, and carriage rides. 

Perfect.

So what exactly are you doing?

I've been trying to come up with a way to explain exactly what I'm doing here, but honestly, I'm still not quite sure yet. In general, auxiliares are supposed "language and culture assistants" or "conversation assistants". But as I've said before, I'm teaching at two different institutos here, so I'm in classes ranging from 6th grade through 12th grade, and in total I teach with 10 different English teachers in 14 different English classes of varying levels. So there are 10 different sets of expectations, 300+ names of students that I don't know, and 7 levels of understanding. So things aren't always clear.

There was an English department meeting this past week at one school, and one of the teachers finally explained exactly what their expectations for us auxiliares. After she explained for a little bit, another auxiliar asked, "So basically you just want us to plan lessons about things that we're interested in?" Her answer: "Yes." So next week I'm going to teach a lesson about fall in Michigan! Yay! I wish I had some apple cider to share or piles of leaves for students to jump in, but alas, a verbal description and powerpoint slides will have to do.

Despite not always knowing what my role is, I must say that the most frustrating thing is the lack of discipline the students have. From studying to be a teacher, I've been taught may different strategies for maintaining classroom control, but they're pretty much all based on a consequence/reward system (e.g. detention, suspension, extra recess, treats, etc.). Schools here (at least at my two) don't have this. One teacher told me you can give a student formal punishment, but the town government gets a copy of these and the school doesn't want to look bad, so they don't want to write a lot of these. Super! Totally makes sense! In this same school, the students simply don't stop talking until they're yelled at by the teacher, who resorts to mild insults if necessary. When I first asked about the discipline code, and the teachers told me I shouldn't have any problems because I'm in the best classes. Oh sweet baby Jesus.

But at the end of the day, I thank my lucky stars that I'm so lucky to even be here in Spain. And goodness knows I will be hella thankful when I'm back teaching in a school where only one person is allowed to talk at once. Or else! (dun! dun! dun!)

(That was the dramatic sound effect of shock/horror.)

Not all who wander are lost... but some are.

So last Wednesday we didn't have school because of a holiday, so I went with two other auxiliares to a town called Segovia. (Sidenote: Mark Zuckerburg is a genius. I posted in the auxiliares facebook group, "Hey, does anyone want to go anywhere tomorrow?" and literally within an hour I had made plans. So thanks MZuck!) We met at the bus station around 11am and took the 1.5hr ride north to Segovia for about $10. Segovia is a town most famous for its Roman aqueduct...

...because the thing is huge! Down at the bottom you can see the military ceremony that was going on (I'm assuming that has to do with the holiday). From the aqueduct we wandered around the whole town. I had heard before that Segovia is home to the castle that inspired the castle from Beauty and the Beast, so I knew I wanted to see that. But before we found the castle, we found a cathedral that looks like a castle!

Pretty! But not a castle. So we kept wandering. All the little streets reminded me a lot of the ones in Assisi - just so little and cute! We eventually found the castle (which is actually a reconstruction because the first one burned down) but it cost money to get inside, so we just sat outside and looked at it for a while. 

Time well spent, I say. We wandered back another way by taking a road we hadn't taken yet, and found a little cafe to eat tapas at -- pan, chorizo, and tortilla de patatas. Lovely! After lunch we went back to the aqueduct and followed that up the other hill until it ended. It's amazing how humongous this thing is! From there we wandered around until we stumbled upon the bus station and figured it must be time to go back. Perfect! I got back home around 6:30 (I think) so it was a short little daytrip, but super cool!

Now, all this wandering nonsense I'm throwing at you. ¿Por qué? Well, they say, "Not all who wander are lost", yes? So, using my mathematical logic (thanks UofM), that must mean that there is at least one who wanders that is indeed lost. Yes?

Yes. And that one happened to be me last Thursday. It was my first day babysitting for a family who lives about a 10-minute walk from my piso. (Another sidenote: Why are all 6- and 7-year-olds so insanely good at Memory??) It's basically a straight shot down a main road. Super easy. Why bring a map with me? That would be silly and would unnecessarily take up space! So I left their piso (sans map), and began walking. I had my FBHW podcast going and was giggling (not discreetly, no doubt) to myself when I saw a Gucci store. A Gucci store? There is not a Gucci store by my piso. That's when I looked at the time and realized I had been walking for a good 20 minutes. Hmm. But in what direction? Lots of things passed through my mind: Did I pass my street? WTH, I'm not even on the right street! Baaahhh! Where am I??? Well, at least I'm by a Gucci and not some crackhouse. I usually feel like I have a generally good sense of direction, so this was a completely new emotion. Utter panic set in. I really had no idea where I was. And it was dark out. But, again, I wasn't by a crackhouse (I think), so it's all good.

If you don't know anything about Madrid, at least know that the metro system is super well-connected. Sometimes you'll find different metro stations with 3-4 blocks of each other. I, in fact have 2 stations both within 3 blocks of my piso. So. What's the obvious thing to do? Ask someone where the closest metro station is, of course! The first THREE people I asked were like, "I don't know, I never use the metro." Seriously??? Gaahh!! Gucci shoppers!!! Too fancy shmancy for the metro!! I finally found a guy who told me I was basically nowhere near any metro station at all, but he was kind enough to point me in the right direction. Annnnd I finally made it home, an hour later than I was shooting for. Oh well! But at least I wasn't abducted by those crazy Gucci shoppers.

Piso, Strikes, and Museums, oh my!

So I've been meaning to write for a while, really! Like, I'll be walking down the street thinking "I should blog about what just happened today!" and then I'll tell my parents on skype or I'll write a facebook message to mis amigas, and I forget all about blogging it. Womp womp!

But anyways, here's what's been going on en mi vida!

I moved into my piso! Woo! I was camping out in a teeny room in the back for 5 nights until I could move into my real room on October 1. It is not an exaggeration to say that this room is literally smaller than the bathroom...

because the bathroom is huge! This is just a small taste of it.

Well I've finally moved into my new room and it's nice to have officially unpacked! I have two huge closets, lots of shelf space, a desk, and a bed! Yay!

It is now "slightly" messier than this, but you get the general idea. I also bought a cheap poster frame from the corner store so I have lots of pictures up on the wall above my bed. So I get to see all of your smiling faces every day!

In my piso I live with four other girls who are studying in Madrid: two other American girls, a Spanish girl, and an Italian girl. I've expressed this many times before, but I forget to whom I've expressed it, so I shall repeat it. Whenever I'm talking to the Italian girl and I don't understand her, I never know if it's because it's the Spanish I don't get or if she's just talking in Italian. The other day she asked me a question and I had no clue what she said, and after my quizzical look, she said "Oh!! Perdón, perdón!! Mio italiano!!!" So she is speaking in Italian!!! It is fun though because there are always people of different nationalities visiting so I've met tons of people I probably wouldn't have otherwise! Yay!

Let's seeeee. I was supposed to start working on Monday this week, but I had my NIE appointment (the appointment to get my residency card here, thus making me legal) on Monday and couldn't go. So then I was going to start Tuesday, and even though the coordinator at the school said there was a teacher strike on Tuesday, at orientation they told us all to still go unless you have direct permission from the headmaster. I woke up at 6:45 (by far the earliest I have woken up here) to take a metro and two trains to San Martín de la Vega (where one of my schools is located), and when I got there the headmaster was like, "There's a strike. Didn't you know?" So they told me to go home. Womp womp. The trains only leave every hour or so, so I had some time to kill on the platform.

The teacher strike continued through Wednesday and I finally went to school yesterday... but there was a student strike. So one class had 11 students, the next had 1, and the next had 0 so then they sent me home! The school I went to yesterday is a bilingual institute so many of the students have been taught in English for years, and even though many of them had pretty thick accents, I was still really impressed by their English. In the first class, all the students were 11-12 years old and they just asked me basic questions about who I am, where I'm from, do I have any pets, what sports do I like, yadda yadda. I asked them questions too, and got quite the variety of answers when I asked about the music they like. For example, one teeny little 11 year old girl answered, "I like Shakira. And Slipnot." Whhaaaa??

I have met TONS of other auxiliares (that's our official title) thanks to facebook. There are literally over 1400 of us in the greater Madrid area, so people are always posting things like "Hey, I'm going over to the park if anyone wants to join." or "Hey, there's a band playing at this bar tonight. Everyone should come." Someone posted about going to El Museo de Reina Sofía on Wednesday, and I'll be honest, I was a bit skeptical. I'm not the biggest art fan in the world, and after drudging through El Prado (sorry, portraits of old people I don't know is not fun to me) I wasn't sure if I wanted to go. But it was lots more interesting! Yay! Annnnd I got to see art by Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. Not just like one painting here and there, but they had whole rooms dedicated to each of them. Awesome! The only thing that would have made the trip better would be complementary wine to sip on while perusing.

Speaking of wine, there is a bebida here called Tinto de Verano, which is basically sangria with lemon Fanta. BEST. THING. EVER.

And it comes in two-liter bottles!!! Shweet!!

I'm hoping to take some day trips out of Madrid in the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned!! And if you have any suggestions of where to go, I'm all ears because I really have no clue and I'm relying on information from everyone else/facebook/spanish tourist websites.

P.S. Yesterday I learned the phrase for "I'm awkward": "soy patoso/a". Not like that would be a phrase that would come in handy or anything.

Telling Stories

So, story telling is fun, right? Normally you kind of have to set everything up right to have a good punchline or ending or whatever, but the story still usually flows.

In Spanish, this apparently causing me some trouble. I want to make sure all the pieces are there before I get to the ending so it all makes sense, but maybe I build up to it a tad too slowly...? Por ejemplo, I was at a pub crawl a few nights ago and met a couple Brazilian guys. We did the whole what's your name?/where are you from?/what are you doing here?/how long are you staying here? shabang. When they said they were from Rio de Janiero, I said, "Ooooo the capital.... WAIT!!! NO!!! Brasilia! Brasilia is the capital!" And they were impressed. They said no one ever knows Brasilia is the capital of Brazil and asked where I learned it.

Well...

Here's what could have happened:
Me: "So, the shower. Showers have curtains. When I was little my mom bought a shower curtain that was the map of the world. And when I took showers, I looked at the map."
Brazilians: "Neat!"

What actually happened:
Me: "So, the shower."
Brazilians: "Hahaha! Why are you talking about the shower?"
Me: "Hold on, just let me tell you! So, the shower-"
Brazilians: "Tehehehe." *pantomiming taking a shower*
Me: "Yeah, so showers have curtains."
Brazilians: "Yeah, showers have curtains. But why are you talking about the shower?? Hahaha."
Me: "Just wait, let me tell you! When I was little my mom bought a shower curtain that was the map of the world."
Brazilians: "Whhaaatt?!?!? Hahahaha Shower curtains don't have maps!"
Me: "Well my mom bought one. So when I took showers, I looked at the map!"
Brazilians: "Hahaha no way!"
Me and Brazilians: *pantomiming taking a shower and studying a map*
(And then we cheersed to Patty for furthering my education of global geography. ¡Salud!)

Other times, it seems like whoever I'm talking too is trying to guess what I'm trying to say instead of just listening. Yes, perhaps I paused, but maybe it was a comma. Maybe I just needed an extra second to look up the world in my brain's dictionary. Gosh!

Otro ejemplo (this one may be TMI for los chicos). A valid question moving into a new apartment that isn't exactly the newest place is if the plumbing is legit. So, I wanted to ask if you could flush certain feminine products down the toilet. I asked the only girl who lived here last year, who happens to be Spanish.

Again, the conversation could have been simple:
Me: "I have kind of a personal question. Do you use these? *Holds up tampon*
La española: "Yes."
Me: "Can I put them in the toilet or do I have to throw them in the trash?"
La española: "You have to throw them in the trash because the pipes are old."

Instead:

Me: "I have kind of a personal question. Do you use these? *Holds up tampon*
La española: "Yes, but mine are green."
Me: "Oh. Okay..."
La española: "Is there a wrapper on the floor in the bathroom?"
Me: "What?"
La española: "Did I leave a green tampon wrapper on the floor?"
Me: "No... umm... okay, come here." *Drags her to the bathroom, thinking perhaps the visual aid of a toilet would help*
Me: "Can I put them in the toilet or do I have to throw them in the trash?"
La española: "You have to throw them in the trash because the pipes are old."

Ahhh la vida. Good thing I'm planning some intercambios so I can practice my Spanish!!! And Spanish story-telling!!! (Although I did successfully convince some locals I was from Antarctica... because my parents are scientists... and I live in a house of ice and have lots of penguins... So my Spanish can't be all that bad, right??)

The Crosswalks are Alive with the Sound of Birdies

So, fun fact. In Madrid (perhaps in all of Spain?), when you are allowed to cross the street at a crosswalk - like when the man lights up green - it sounds like birds are chirping!

I just wanted to share that with you. Anywho, I´m in Madrid, yo! I was super dee duper tired after my day of delayed flights which involved lots of running through airports, crying, waiting, praying, asking for moral support from innocent bystanders, and ultimately ended with literally running on the plane to Madrid. I was legit the last one on. But just my luck, I couldn´t sleep (and the Filipina women next to me didn´t seem to even want to sleep... and they were apparently talking about a lot of funny things). So, I got to Madrid around 10ish Monday morning (4am Michigan time - super!) and I met up with another girl to take a bus into the city. It was actually a pretty easy trip, besides for my suitcase being a kajillion pounds and the final metro stop stop didn´t have an escalator. My hostel was a half-block from the metro station, and I was soooo ready to sleep in a nice wam comfy bed, but my room wasn´t ready yet. All the couches in the common room were being used, so I did what any good girl does and slept at a kitchen table. I slept a little more in my actual bed and then when out to have my first beer and tapas in Madrid! Wooooo!

The next two days I completely devoted to finding a piso (apartment), and that´s when I realized the crosswalks are cute and that they chirp to tell you to cross. The first time I heard it, I looked up expecting a flock of small colorful birds to descend upon my head, but alas, no birds.

The piso search was exhausting - I was using several different websites to find something - and after calling and emailing 30ish and visiting five (two were extremely dirty, one included an extremely pregnant lady, one was being offered to a good twenty-some people, and one was cute and pink), I decided to call it quits and signed a contract for 9 months! Eek! I´ll be living with a Spanish girl, an Italian girl, and another girl from the U.S., but I haven´t actually met them yet. But I honestly was about to poke my eyeballs out looking for a piso. So I´m happy with my decision. It´s in the neighborhood of Madrid called Salamanca and it´s near a big park called El Retiro, so I´m pretty pumped about it. I wasn´t supposed to move in until Oct. 1, but my landlady Maria Luisa says I can come Sunday and she´ll set up a bed for me. Yay!

Let´s see. Ooo! I´m staying at a hostel here and I´ve met quite a few people who are doing my program, but I´ve also met a lot of people who are just traveling through! People from England, Ireland, Portgual, Argentina, Chi-chi-chi-le-le-le!, Australia, Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands, and Canada!!! TWO Canadians!! The English ones said I have a good accent (I was practicing, of course). AND they even said that they would have guessed I was English if they hadn´t heard me talking with my American accent!!! BAAHHHAHAHA! I´ve also learned lots of Irish and Australian terms, many of which I suppose I shouldn´t write. Especially the Irish ones. Sheesh, they can bloody tear someone apart!

In celebration of finding a piso, I went out last night for a few soda pops with some kids from the hostel (this was after a kid from the Netherlands made us 8 different tapas!! Soooo good!!). Times flies when you´re having fun I suppose, because suddenly all the stores were closed, so we went to la Puerta del Sol, a plaza near our hostel. And there you can just buy more soda pop from men walking around with plastic bags full of cold soda pop! Shweet!!! Naturally we were attracted by a group of people with a guitar and so we joined their band of brothers. More Irish people and also some Americans and Scottish people. And Spaniards. And a Mexican guy named Edwin and his Cuban friend. Much fun was had and we made it back to the hostel around 5.... so I think I´m officially on a Spanish schedule. Woo!!

My goals for the next week before I start teaching is to open a bank account (halfway done), get a metro pass, and visit my schools. Like, totally so doable. Like, yeah.

One more thing I encontered today - sometimes instead of birds, the crosswalks sound like little toy guns!!! *pew! pew! pew! pew! pew!*. Ahh, sound effects make the world a better place. God bless the Spaniards!

Ah'os

Back to school. Back to school, to prove to Dad that I'm not a fool.

I got my suitcase packed up, my shoes tied tight, I hope I don't get in a fight.

Ohhhh, back to school. Back to school. Back to school.

Well, here goes nothing.

mom: "Oh shoooot!! The frosting melted! It used to say 'Adios'. Now it says...'Ah'os'."

My flight leaves in 5ish hours from Grand Rapids! Wooo!!! I'm traveling from GR to Chicago to Newark, and then off to Madrid, finally landing at 10:05am tomorrow. Yay!!

Ah'os amigos!

The First Goodbyes

Okay, so some people have calmed me down about the Madrid metro (THANK YOU GUYS!!) and they said it's not as hard as it looks. So I'm putting my trust in them!!

In other news, since I quit my teaching job kind of later in the summer, I've been at school helping the new teacher get situated. A couple days ago, I saw some of last year's 7th graders and they just kept saying how much they were going to miss me! And then the teachers had a good-bye meeting for me and they said seriously some of the nicest things anyone has ever told me. I FEEL SO LOVED!!! I mean, the support of my family and friends means the world to me, but to have colleagues saying that they're proud of you for what you're doing - oh my goodness!

So the countdown is at 17 days! Eek! I just can't wait to get there!!

I may have a small panic attack...

I just googled the map of the metro system in Madrid.

On a positive note, at least I'm not color-blind.

ETD: September 18

Holy shmokes, guys! It's really happening!!

Pick up visa - check

Book flight - check

Book hostel - check

Email my schools - check

Fight with the bank about extending the expiration dates on my debit and credit cards - check

Meet Yasar at the bank who is helping to fix everything - check

Things are looking pretty good!

So, the next couple of weeks will be filled with packing and researching pretty much anything and everything on life in Madrid - where to live, how to rent an apartment, what to do there, where to visit, what to bring, what not to bring, what I'll be teaching, what I'll need to teach, etc.

YAY!!!

¡A España me voy!

Holy smokes! I'm outta here again!!

Back in March, I applied to a program in Spain called "North American Language and Culture Assistants". It's a program run by the Spanish government, and they employ over 2000 people from North America (and I think Australia and New Zealand too) to teach English and "North American culture" in Spanish public schools. I applied super late and ended up being 5000-something on the waitlist, so I figured there would be no way I could get in. Buuuuut, on July 31 I got my placement saying I would be teaching at two schools in Madrid!! Woo!!

They are both secondary schools with students ages 12-18ish (so I've been told). Points A and B below are my placements. They're kind of far apart but that's okay because I'm planning on living somewhere in the middle. Annnd no worries, there is public transportation to both!

I'm still waiting on my visa (blah!), so I haven't booked a flight yet. I also haven't started looking for a place to live yet because I don't know when I'll be getting there. Because I don't have my visa. Hmm. I have an orientation in Madrid at the end of September, so the plan is to stay in a hostel before/during orientation and hopefully meet future roomies to find an apartment with! (In the off-chance that whoever is reading this knows someone in Madrid who would like a friendly Michiganian girl to live with them, let me know! :) )

So, yay! I'm super duper excited to be going to Spain and I can't wait to get over there! I'm just crossing my fingers in hopes that my visa will get processed quickly!

¡¡ESTOY TAN EMOCIONADA!!