Two Tuesdays Later...

Blog nog: 

With Halloween quickly approaching, we're doing more themed lessons in class, particularly since, in science, we're learning about the human body/skeleton right now. Very easy to have some fun, scary lessons about the skeleton! There's even a great youtube video called the skeleton dance that the kids love and even request at the end of class. This last week, I didn't post anything because I was sick on Tuesday and because not toooooo much exciting had happened, so I figured I'd wait another week before writing again. 

So two Saturdays ago I went to Alcalá de Henares

(A beautiful church in Alcalá de Henares). 

with Hannah, Steve, Julie, and Sam

 (Hannah slyly smiles, Julie speaks, Sam not pictured). There was a "festival" celebrating the author of Don Quijote, Cervantes, and so we went and saw his house and church and just generally walked around the city for a while. Alcalá is about 45 minutes out of Madrid by train, and it was really beautiful,

but as far as the festival goes, there wasn't too much going on. While there we toured Cervantes House

 (here we're posing in front of the well in the courtyard of his beautiful old Spanish home),

We also saw some pretty churches 

(complete with a choir!) 

Had a fun photo shoot with Don Quijote himself:

and debated about what the heck these weird clumps of hay at the tops of the buildings were (turns out: birds nests...) 

 Finally we got some cervesas and tapas and headed home. 

Then Sunday I was starting to get sick, so I've been dealing with that for a while. Monday and Tuesday I was really sick (hence no blog post), Wednesday I went back to school because I was feeling better, thought the doctor gave me a note saying I could take the week if I wanted to. The problem is that my science teacher is out of town on her honeymoon and so the kids are kind-of on their own without me, particularly because the "subs" are just other teachers in the school coming to hang out in the classroom for an hour, and most of them don't speak English. So that's a problem. It's actually been pretty good: I've had to learn quickly how to control the class, figured out which class is the worst to deal with and which is the easiest, and made sure we got through everything we needed to. It's been trying, but good experience, I think. 

Then Thursday was the strike, so we weren't allowed to teach the kids anything from the textbooks (I still don't understand why that is, since WE weren't on strike... but half the kids were gone from school anyway, so I guess it's good we didn't progress in the course. Anyways, then Thursday night was Sam's birthday and Steve and Melanie both played the open mic at Triskel's Tavern and we all hung out and drank there for a while. 

This last weekend involved watching el Clasico (the match between Barcelona and Madrid) at Steve's apartment with Grant and Eric joining, and then going to a performance we were an hour late for (to suppport a friend of Steve's) and heading home early on Friday. Saturday was very slow and Begoña and I watched the movie Australia together (so good!), then Sunday, we had pumpkin carving! I really wanted to do something for Halloween so I invited Melanie, Steve, and Julie, and Begoña came too, to carve pumpkins and enjoy roasted pumpkin seeds at my apartment while watching Hocus Pocus and The Nightmare Before Christmas. It was a really good time. I made an homage to Buffy: the Grr Argh monster (complete with grr and argh),

Julie made a bat, and Begoña did some super creepy scupltures. Steve and Melanie carved apples because they couldn't find pumpkins,

which was funny enough to begin with, and the apple ended up a little harder to handle than anticipated. I actually had to search for an hour to find three decent sized pumpkins, and to do so I first went to a market that occurs every Sunday a few blocks from my piso. Didn't find pumpkins there, but I did get a small backpack I can use for work and another pair of sweatpants, which I have desperately needed. 

Now it is Tuesday again, and I can happily say I am officially living in Spain (according the the Spanish government) because I have done empadronamiento (which basically is just telling the government I'm living here and them acknowledging it). Empadronamiento is only important because I need it to get my temporary residency card, and my appointment to turn the paperwork for that in is on the 14th of November, soooooo. 

I'm also considering doing National Novel Writing Month (November) this year, but we'll see how far I get...

And now you're all caught up! Congratulations! Here's me picking my nose and Don Quijote's nose because yes I am 12 years old. 

Not Quite a Quarter of a Hundred

Birthday! My birthday was a mix of happiness with my new found friends and sadness that I couldn't spend the day (and night) with my old friends and family. I get out of school early on Thursdays, but that didn't stop all the girls giving me homemade birthday cards (I got four from about eight girls, collaborative efforts, and zero from boys haha), and shouting Happy Birthday at me multiple times.

I got home from school and took a well deserved 4 hour nap, not only because I was tired from the week (3.5 days, soooo long!) but because I knew I would be out late that night. And I was correct. First, Steve, Alex, Julie, and Jesús and I met at Cien Montaditos, that favorite cheap food and alcohol place of mine, for drinks and dinner, at about 9:30. We migrated, getting Daniele on the way, to Tristel's Tavern (an Irish pub) to listen to Steve play an open mic night, and stayed long enough that it dissolved into anyone coming on stage, so Jesús played as well. It was really fun listening to all these players, there was a band there that was just phenomenal, and it was all really chill. By about 1:30, my fellow Auxiliaries Allyson and Violeta had joined us and we moved to a bar, the name of which I am blanking on, but that was decorated and even built like a ship. It was playing good music and also weird videos that were unrelated to the music, such as that creepy stop motion Peter and the Wolf and an equally depressing The Little Match Girl. They had fantastic Mojitos, though! By the time we left there it was about 3:30am, and Alex and I walked to Plaza de Cibeles to catch our respective night buses home (mine, I have now learned, is #22, though I took #23 that night. It got me close enough). I got to witness a belligerent drunk get kicked off the bus, and that was the end of my birthday night! 

Friday I hung out with Steve and company at Grant's apartment for a bit, because it was Grant's birthday. By about 11:00, I think, a whole group of his friends came over that were a little too crazy for my mood that night, so I headed home and hung out with my TV for a while. I hung with Steve Saturday, stealing use of his wifi and introducing him to Welcome to Night Vale (which, if you, gentle reader, haven't listened to: DO IT). We also had pizza/kebabs at a restaurant in the area and watched The Chumscrubber, still not sure how that happened. Not much has happened since the big birthday night, and I am still loving school, while also wishing I could change more about the school and how the students are taught (and, you know, the world). For now, I leave you with the happy thought that after searching for a week I have finally found a basil plant and can have fresh basil again! Okay, so it's much happier for me than anyone else, but it should be enough! 

-ta luego! 

PS: the pics I meant to post last week but couldn't figure out how to: 

Begoña, Laura, Carlos and I playing Mexican Dominos

A big egg sculpture thing at the Reina Sofia Museum. ;)

A Disney Kind of Day

I'm writing this in a great mood. I've been listening to Disney songs all day today since my "tutoring" session with two kids, Daniel and Andrea, involved my doing a Peter Pan puzzle with them and ended with me being desperate to listen to You Can Fly! AND since I just received a fantastic birthday/living in Spain package from my ever-so-thoughtful Aunt Cindy and Uncle Mark! They are literally the best. A beautiful new purse, peanut butter, a buckeye for good luck, and throat coat tea were among the contents. Thanks y'all! I also just finished reading Anna Karenina (long as HAY-LL, but so good!) and I have for the very first time read in a book the way I feel about my spirituality and soul, which is very exciting. Basically the whole last part of the book, I was thinking "This is me! This is exactly how I think about life and God!" (Not Anna's narrative; rather Levin, another character who is, in my opinion, the main character of the book! I won't get into how ridiculous Russian novels are now, though).

So, this last week has been pretty great! I am really loving working with the kids at my school. Today, for instance, I ended school by teaching two classes how to make origami frogs. We watched a video telling a version of the Princess and the Frog story and then made the frogs and then decorated the frogs. These kids are too funny. Every time I moved on to the next step they all said "Like this? Like this? Teacher! Like this?" 

(They have a tendency to say "teacher" instead of my name and whenever they do that I say "you know my name!"  and they look at me like I'm insane. And then they look down and say "Katrina" sheepishly). 

It's funny that we're supposed to pretend we don't understand Spanish, because most of the time when these kids are speaking in Spanish, I really, truly, have NO idea what they're saying. So it's kinda nice being able to say "I don't understand Spanish. Either speak in English or go ask Rebeca!" They try so hard. Some of them just look at me like "are you kidding? I have no idea how to say that in English." but most of them really try to ask their question in English. It's truly admirable. 

This last weekend was pretty good, too. My friend Steve and I talked a while ago about how, every once in a while, like 10% of the time, we get a "what am I even doing here? am I wasting my life? I should be home!" feeling, and I had a little bit of that this weekend. I am one of those people who can't be left alone with their thoughts for too long, else I'll start questioning literally everything about my life. To combat that, on Sunday I went to Parque del Oeste, (The West Park, very original name) and walked around and took pictures and wrote postcards to people (which I have not mailed yet...) The crazy thing was, there was NOBODY around! I mean, this day was BEAUTIFUL. Sun shining, hardly a cloud in the sky, a gorgeous 70 degrees, cool breeze, and not a soul in the park.

 No one there. 

Hmmm... no one there, either...

Oh, there's a person!

no, that's me... 

Still nobody! Nadie! No one!

At least where I was. You know what there WAS, though? 

The remains of the previous night. 

MMMMM, yeah. Boxed wine. Botellón. (The Spanish have a word for drinking in the streets and generally partying/drinking. Botellón. Literally "big bottle" hahaha. This is an entire collection of liter boxes of wine. 

When I saw this vast expanse of dirt, it was glittering, sparkling in the sun, because of all the broken glass in the area. Lovely. Can't really tell in this picture though... D:

Anyway, that was Sunday afternoon, earlier in the weekend was great! Begóna, Laura, and Carlos (Laura's boyfriend) played dominos together! And not just any dominos! Carlos has the exact same set of dominos that my family has, except his set goes up to 12 instead of 15! We played Mexican dominos, which I had never played before and which involved the little plastic trains in the set that I had always wondered about. It was very fun! Also this weekend, I watched The Abyss with Begoña and tried watch Isabel (a new popular show over here about, guess who!) with Laura. Isabel is in 14th Century Castillian so it's almost impossible to truly understand, but it was fun regardless! 

If I can, I will upload pictures of our dominos night later, but right now they are not working ):

And not to forget! Friday I went with my friend Hannah to el Museo de la Reina Sofia. They have an exhibition right now called "Is the War Over?" Which is basically "art after WWI" It was pretty cool! There were some rooms I couldn't even stay in because they just freaked me out, were really creepy, etc. My favorite piece was called "God is Dead" and it was just a big metal egg shaped thing that sparkled. Like... what. I love/do not understand art. I'll try to upload the picture of tha later, too. 

Anyhow, now I'm headed back to my piso to go to bed and sleep before school tomorrow! Buenas noches! 

First Day of School!

So as many of you may know, today was my first day of school. It was... PERFECT! But, a lot has happened in between this moment and last week, so I guess I have to start back there. 

Remember how the ATM ate my debit card and the bank said I would be able to get it back in the morning? Well... apparently being in the ATM all night demagnetized the card, and it was rendered useless. Thankfully, just before coming to Spain, I got a credit card to use in case of an emergency and (since I hadn't paid my deposit for my apartment yet), this was an emergency! I got the money out with my credit card and went to finalize everything. The landladies needed my passport information so they could put it in the contract before I signed it, so I paid the deposit and moved in to my new home. Happy dance! So, here, for your viewing pleasure, are some photos of my apartment. 

My bedroom, from the door. A bed, a dresser, a night stand, a window. Needs some decoration!

The terrace for our building, and my clothes hanging on the drying line. 

My living room, 

and dining area! 

Eventually I'll get pics of my roommates up here, but I haven't had an opportunity yet. 

So, I am now living here, except that the process was not as simple as that. The landladies came back the next day with the prepared contract for me to sign, except that, since it was entirely in very technical Spanish, I asked if I could wait for Begoña (my Spanish roommate, who is an English teacher for adults learning about financial English. She studied English and lived in the U.S. for a while, and even knows someone who worked at Truman! Que sorpresa!) to come home so she could help me read it. They said yes but didn't leave the contract, which meant that we would have to read it in front of them the next day (eh, awkward, but whatever). But then there was a bit of drama. Begoña has apparently lived here for two years and almost never saw the landladies, but at some point in the recent past she had a really bad, messy roommate. Now, the landladies are paranoid about anyone who lives here. So, for instance, when they came with the contract, they walked into my room and saw that I had my shoes in the wardrobe. They said nothing about it at the time, but when they came back again when Begoña was home, they brought a tray for me to put my shoes in. Keep in mind that they did not call and tell us they were coming. I was in the middle of cooking dinner and Begoña was exhausted, having just gotten home from work. SO it was really frustrating (more so because I could not express my annoyance without seeming rude, because my Spanish is not that great. Nuance is something you get when you become more fluent than I am). Anywho, when they finally left, I sat down and wrote out a little apology/demand for respect of our boundaries and privacy. (Begoña says they keep insisting they want to be like a family, but I'm like, great, then don't charge me rent, mom). 

Hopefully this has all been settled and they will call us before coming downstairs the next time they decide I'm living incorrectly. 

At this point, Laura, the other girl, has moved in as well. Laura is from Barcelona and is studying for her masters in International Business and likes Breaking Bad. We haven't really had much time to get to know each other yet, but I'm sure we will. She seems very sweet and likes watching TV and has a boyfriend who doesn't speak any English, named Carlos. 

Now, my apartment doesn't have wifi yet (crazy, I know) so I've actually been going out and doing things with my life (CRAZY, I KNOW). I went on a photo shoot of my neighborhood a few days ago, so here are some highlights from that! 

"The warriors" (hmm, very intimidating) "bop" (....)

A weird abandoned building on my street. 

Sunday, Begoña and I went to see the George Méliès exhibit at La Caixa Forum near Atocha. It was really, very cool. If you haven't seen Hugo or don't know a lot about early cinema, I suggest you check out some info on this guy: he was one of the pioneers of moving pictures. Some of his movies are in color because he hand painted each individual frame of the film. Can you imagine the effort it must have taken? Ah! Que Bueno! 

Then, last night (Monday) I met with this guy who wants to do a language exchange, i.e., we meet once a week or so and speak for some amount of time in English, then in Spanish. I don't know if I'll continue or do it very often, not because of wasn't fun but I just really need to do tutoring sessions where I get paid. I feel I'm getting a decent amount of Spanish practice with my roommates and there are language exchanges in Madrid basically every day, so meeting alone with one other person might not be as helpful or as practical as I want it to be. But we had a fun conversation and drank beer and ate spanish ham so yeah! 

Alright, alright, I'll talk about my first day of school! I woke up at 7:30am to get ready and get to school on time. I live in Tetúan and have to take the Valdeacederas metro stop to Chamartín, then switch from metro to trains all the way to Valdelasfuentes stop in Alcobendas, a five minute walk from my school. I got there a good fifteen minutes early and walked around the school a little bit before going to the meeting. There are two main school buildings, once for preschool and 1st and 2nd grade, and the other for 3rd through 6th grade. There is a separate building for the cafeteria, two gymnasiums, and a lot of open playground space in between, some covered, some not. 

I found out that I am going to be with the 3rd graders. There are about 100 3rd graders total, in four different classes (A, B, C, and D). They learn English from 1st grade and are taught science in English as well, so I'm switching between the science and the English classrooms. It's interesting that in elementary school, the students switch classrooms here (not so until middle school for kids in the U.S., if I remember correctly). 

So Kristina (I don't know if that is how she spells her name or not) is the English teacher (who really... doesn't know English very well at all), and Rebeca is the science teacher for the 3rd grade. Kristina actually started as a sub and is not used to teaching English, so I think I'm going to be a big help in that classroom (we are not allowed to speak Spanish to the students, in fact, the students are not even supposed to know that we speak Spanish at all, but Kristina tended to go into Spanish whenever she couldn't think of how to say something in English). She is not in control of the classroom at all, so I think we might need to work together to get the kids' respect. Rebeca seems very in control but very kind and fun to work with. 

The schedule these kids have.... you guys would not believe, and I almost can't believe though I experienced it! They have 45 minutes of recess every day. And then, TWO HOURS for lunch (which they only take thirty minutes for, and the rest of the time, it's another recess!). And then? can you guess? They have P.E. twice a week! So we go to school from 9:30am to 4:30pm and only are actually working in the classes for 4 hours 15 minutes of the 7 hours we're there! AH! I will be amazed if these kids learn much of anything in the course of a year... but then, I can imagine it is so much better for their spirits than the American school system with so much structure and so little free time. Will that make the difference? 

There are five other auxiliares at the school with me: all except one from the U.S. (the other is from Australia). 

And the students are SO PRECIOUS! I can't wait to get to know each and every one of them. I don't know how teachers can learn the names of so many kids in a year, particularly since they have to do it over and over again every year. 

So here are some things I've learned since the last time I wrote. 

1. Computer paper here is longer than in the United States. I don't know why. I have no logical way of explaining this difference. It just is. Not much longer. Maybe an inch. But long enough to be very noticeable to this American. 

2. In Spain, they teach that there are 5 continents. America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceana (Australia and all the Pacific Islands). No North and South America, just America, and no Antartica at all! What! I mean, I guess Antartica really is just ice, but the whole only one American continent thing is still blowing my mind. 

3. THERE IS NOT A SEPARATE NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICAN CONTINENT GUYS. 

4. Madrileños will protest just about anything. I had been told this, but now I have experienced for myself, having seen a protest about the governmental system. I think they just want to get rid of the royal family (not like guillotine, but in the sense that they don't think they should have any power anymore). They have a flag with a purple stripe on the bottom, which doesn't make sense to me because purple is the color of royalty! :/

5. There is a province and city in Spain called Soria. They are very anxious (in a humorous way) that we Americans do not confuse this with Syria and accidentally bomb them. They think this joke is hilarious. 

6. They also think it is ridiculous that any person could possibly be against public health care. They ask me: why? I cannot answer them. 

7. No one has a dryer. It isn't necessary: they all have drying lines! 

Now, I am going to the bar down the street called Cerveseria Marathon, which used to be called Pub to the Future and was Back to the Future themed, and where I go to use wifi when I need to. Buenas Noches! 

Oops: edit: I forgot that, one of the things I did today was introduce myself and say my favorite thing and then ask all the kids their names and their favorite things. After class, one girl came up to me and showed me she had written in her agenda, "Katrina is my favorite." DAWW