Semana Santa

It's been a while so this might be a longer post! This week is Semana Santa (Holy Week) so we don't have school until next Tuesday. I spent the last 5 days in Madrid and I just got back to Caceres late last night.

Last Friday was the last day of school before break, so neither the students nor teachers were really focused on school. We spent the entire first two periods watching "Hotel Transylvania". Then I went with a fourth grade class and they were supposed finish up some homework. The teacher said "la clase es tuyo" and then walked out of the room and didn't return for a half hour. I tried so so hard to keep the class quiet, but it was challenging. Then I went downstairs to a third grade class (this class is definitely one of my favorites) and they were going around the room saying what their favorite thing was about the trimester. So many of the students said "la visita de Shea" and it just melted my heart. These kids are so sweet!! Then we all had a big group hug and they went off to recess. Now, every day, all the students/teachers have recess at the same time for a half hour (11:45 - 12:15) and most of the teachers sit in the teacher's lounge. I was sitting there talking with another teacher (she practices her English as I practice my Spanish) and I noticed it was already 12:30. I said something to her about the time and asked if the schedule was different that day or something. She got up and said to the rest of the teachers that is was already 12:30 and someone needed to go push the bell. I didn't know this, but the bell isn't automatic, and the teachers are in charge of pressing it every day. No one wanted to press the bell... so the students had a 90 minute recess that day... 

After school, a bunch of the teachers and I went out for tapas to celebrate break. Afterwards, I came home and took a short siesta and then Paige and I went out for tapas. After tapas, we went to a small concert at a nearby bar where we went to see one of the teachers that I work with play piano. It was a great mix of Spanish music and they played keyboard, guitar, and the box drum. Here's a short video :)

Rachel and me in Retiro Park!

After getting only three hours of sleep that night, I caught a bus to Madrid at 7:30am the next day. I arrived around noon and met up with my friend, Rachel. Rachel and I go to church together in Ames and she was in Madrid for 10 days with a group of Iowa State students. She had the whole day on Saturday to hang out so I thought I'd come up a day early to see her and I'm so glad I did! We spent the whole day walking around Retiro Park. We ate lunch at the cafe there, got some ice cream, and took lots of pictures. We were sitting on the benches when a large group of pretty cute boys walked by.. and we heard them speaking English.  A couple of them overheard us talking and came up to us and said "Hey, we heard you speaking English! Where are you from?" We introduced ourselves and the next thing they said was, "Do you know what Mormons are?" We said, "Yes..." They said, "Yeah that's us." So for the next 15 minutes, they talked about what Mormons do and they gave us each a Book of Mormon. Then they asked for our addresses so they could send a fellow Mormon to come talk to us in the near future. Good thing I don't know my address here in Spain. 

Templo de Debod

The next day, I was intending on spending the day by myself and seeing a bunch of free museums and such in Madrid, since my friend McKinzie wasn't going to arrive until late Sunday night. I went down to breakfast in the hostel and sat next to a girl who was sitting by herself. Her name was Gabby and she was just in Madrid for the day because her flight was cancelled. She's from Uruguay and didn't speak much English, so it gave me the opportunity to speak in Spanish! (I'm so worried that I'm going to fall behind on my Spanish this week since I don't have school for 10 days.) She had made a list of things that she wanted to do that day.. and our lists matched up perfectly so we decided to spend the day together. First, we went to the Egyptian temple that was brought to Madrid in 1971: Templo de Debod. Next, we went to the American Museum, which had a huge cultural exhibit with artifacts from both South America and North America. For lunch, we went to the famous San Miguel market where we ate so many delicious tapas... and we ended the day at Reina Sofia Art Museum.

American Museum

San Miguel Market

Reina Sofia Museum

That night, I walked a couple blocks over to the hostel that McKinzie booked for the next three nights. (McKinzie and I also know each other from church.) McKinzie is studying abroad in Wales this semester and she and five of her friends just began their month-long Spring Break! I'm so thankful that our breaks matched up and we were able to meet each other in Madrid!! She and I hung out in the lobby the first night and tried to catch up, but we were often distracted by the large rugby team from Uruguay. Not only were they extremely loud and obnoxious, but they decided they wanted to make a "Harlem Shake" video in the middle of the lobby. It was good entertainment I guess...

At the Royal Palace during the tour

The next day, McKinzie, her friends, and I all went on a 3 hour walking tour of Madrid (in the rain) with a group from the hostel. I didn't think I would learn anything new on this tour, but I did! The oldest restaurant in the world is in Madrid.. and we were able to take a tour of it. It has been running since 1725 and their specialty is 3 week old pigs. After the tour, we went to the San Miguel market again (I love that place) so they could try a variety of tapas. Then we went to my favorite pastry shop. As I write more about my time in Madrid, you'll notice that almost everything we did was based around food...

Plaza Mayor

The 3 week old pigs in the oldest restaurant

A little something from my favorite pastry shop :)

On Tuesday, we took a day trip to Toledo, a place that none of us had ever been before! Toledo is a beautiful, beautiful city with great views from the top of the hill... which meant lots of photo opps of course :)

When we got back, we took a short siesta and then went out for tapas. I took them to "El Tigre", a place that I learned about two years ago from a girl that I met in a hostel in Malaga. For every drink you buy, you don't just get a little tapa, you get a huuuuge plateful of food. I ordered seven drinks (just to be clear, they weren't all for me...) and he handed me plate after plate after plate. We took our buffet of food to the back of the bar and ate so much... we couldn't even finish everything!

Sipping on a mojito at El Tigre

When we got back to the hostel, they were giving free Salsa lessons, so we decided to try. We actually learned something and we had such a good time! That night, we decided to go out with a group from the hostel... we weren't having a whole lot of fun so some of us decided to go get food instead. (Surprise, right?)

Churros con chocolate

On Wednesday, we had to check out by 11am and then we had a few hours to spend in the city before I had to catch my bus back to Caceres and before they had to catch their flight to Barcelona. We had three destinations for the afternoon: churros con chocolate, a Mexican restaurant, and cookies from the convent. (Notice the theme here?) We were able to hit up all three places and by the end of the afternoon, we were all satisfied :) You're probably wondering about the cookies from the convent... there's a convent near the center of Madrid where the nuns make a variety of baked goods. You have to press the button and say "dulces" or "galletas" and they'll buzz you in. Then you follow the signs that lead you to a lazy Susan where you order whatever baked goods you want, and as they turn the lazy Susan, you exchange your money for the baked goods, without ever seeing the nuns. It was a fun and different experience, and the galletas were delicious!

Last night, I took a 5 hour bus ride back to Caceres... it was dreadful. I love the transportation system here in Spain, but I feel like some of the drivers here need more practice driving... 

I'm spending the next few days in Caceres alone. Lola is in her pueblo until Monday and Paige is traveling around Spain with a friend until Sunday. And I just noticed that Lola bought a big jar of Nutella right before she left.. great. Well, I know what my diet is going to consist of for the next four days.

I hope everyone has a Happy Easter! Missing you all back home!

Getting Accustomed...

Pictures and notes from the students :)

This week, I've really begun to enjoy my time at the school with the kids. I'm now receiving hugs in the hallways, they're writing letters and drawing pictures for me, and when I walk into a room, they all scream and wave, as if I'm some sort of celebrity. This week was the first time that I had recess duty and you should have seen all of the students that came up and surrounded me. At one point, I think there were about 25 kids around me at once, asking questions nonstop (I think the most popular question is "What's your favorite color?") and sharing their snacks with me.

On Tuesday night, we made another one of those Nutella/Peanut Butter wafer desserts. Don't ask me why. I think I've eaten an equivalent of 2 whole Nutella jars since I've been here. We refrigerated it for a couple hours and ate it after dinner. It was so so delicious. 

Wednesday at school, I went with the art teacher again and helped the students create some Easter eggs. The art teacher asked me to do an art lesson after Semana Santa so I am now accepting all ideas...

At the end of the day on Wednesday, I went with the art teacher again to hear her middle school students present their art projects in English. This was one of my favorite things about this week and I enjoyed this age group way more than I thought I would! The students were full of questions after I introduced myself and their English-speaking skills are obviously more advanced than the elementary students, so they asked me questions in English and I responded in Spanish. They were so much fun to talk to and they weren't as crazy as those younger ones can be sometimes :) Their presentations were entitled "My Sweet Corner" and they read a paragraph that they wrote in English about their favorite place in Caceres. 

There are a few other practicum students in the school that I'm at and I'm not sure if they're in high school or college, but three of them asked me if I would help them with their English a couple times a week starting the week after Semana Santa. Of course I said yes, and the money I'll earn from that will pay for my own Spanish tutoring that I mentioned in my last post, so it works out well! Also starting the week after Semana Santa, I will be helping two 7 year old sisters with their English as well. They are the twin daughters of one of Lola's friends. I guess all of this afternoon tutoring  means that I won't be taking as many siestas or eating as much Nutella. 

Paige and me before the Flamenco show

The weather yesterday was beautiful: 70 degrees and sunny. I took a walk to the park nearby our piso and started reading one of the Spanish books that I got from the school library. After lunch, Paige and I booked a one-day trip to Rome (we found a pretty good deal and we'll be spending April 13th in Rome). We went to the old town of Caceres where we walked around and took some pictures. I came back to the piso and went to a concert with Lola and Susana. We went to see my supervisor's son play guitar and the son's girlfriend play cello. However, we couldn't stay for the whole thing. We left at intermission to go to a Flamenco show, where we listened to three incredible Flamenco singers sing songs about Semana Santa. Here's a video that I recorded of one of the singers: 

Today was another good day at school. I'm finally starting to feel more and more comfortable with my Spanish and speaking to both the students and staff. In the last period of the day, we were on the internet in class and using a projector. Once the lesson was over, one of the 3rd graders wanted to show the rest of the class his own "Harlem Shake" video on YouTube. Here it is: 

 Tomorrow will end my first full week student teaching in Spain and it will also be the beginning of Semana Santa and my 10-day vacation. On Saturday, I will be going to Madrid to meet up with my friend Rachel. She is visiting Madrid with a group from Iowa State and Saturday is their last day there so we are going to spend the afternoon together! On Sunday, my friend McKinzie, who is studying abroad in Wales this semester, is coming to Madrid with a few of her friends and we are going to hang out until Wednesday. Then I will come back to Caceres. I'm not sure if I will blog tomorrow or while I'm in Madrid, so it might be a while before you hear from me again!

Hasta luego :)

Weekend in Miajadas

Lola's backyard in Miajadas

This past weekend, I went to Miajadas with my host mom to visit her family. She and I took the bus there on Friday afternoon and once we got there, Maria (my host sister) and her boyfriend picked us up and we went to Lola's mom's house... my Spanish abuela :) The weekend was full of going from piso to piso, drinking coffee and talking. On Friday night, Lola, Maria, and I walked around around the town for an hour or so and then we met up with more of Lola's family, where I met her brother, his children, and his baby granddaughter. For dinner, we had one of my favorite foods: tortilla patata with asparagus in it. Yummm.

On Friday night, I went to bed at 11pm and I slept until 1:30pm the next day... and the only reason I woke up was because Lola woke me. I still can't believe I haven't adjusted to the time here! So I went to the kitchen and Maria was making what looked like something I knew I would love because it involved Nutella. She was putting layers upon layers of Nutella and peanut butter on these tortilla pastries. It was incredible. 

So much PB and Nutella...

Mi hermana, madre, y abuela :)

Then we had an Italian dish for lunch... Spaghetti Carbonara. After lunch, I took another siesta with the brasero. Sometimes, I feel like I don't do anything here except eat and sleep. After my nap, Lola and I came back to Caceres and she made another one of my favorite meals... pescado. 

Spaghetti Carbonara

Pescado

Homemade Coconut Cookies

Yesterday, I went to church with my friend, Audra. I met Audra in Spain two years ago when I was studying abroad and when she was doing her student teaching. We went to the same church that I went to two years ago, where one of the pastors is from Iowa as well! It was good to see a couple familiar faces. Then I walked home in the pouring rain and I guess that was my excuse to do nothing for the rest of the day. On top of the fact that I was completely lazy, Lola decided to make these coconut creme cookie desserts. Not good. I think I ate three or four in one sitting. For dinner, we had salad so we wouldn't feel so guilty for eating so many cookies. We ended the night by watching Harry Potter in Spanish... it was Lola's first time watching it and I think she was a little scared.

Today at school, I followed around three different teachers. First, I was with the art teacher and I helped the students make Father's Day gifts. (It's Father's Day in Spain tomorrow... Happy Father's Day, Dad!) During second period, I observed a math class... and for the last three class periods of the day, I followed around the music teacher who is also the science teacher. In the first music class with 6th graders, he asked me to introduce myself and talk about my musical background. I said that I can play piano so I guess that means that I can sing, too, because the teacher asked me to sing "Imagine" by John Lennon in front of the class. That didn't go so well. I also got to play the box drum today while the teacher played the Spanish guitar. And now I want to be a Spanish music teacher.

 After lunch today, I took yet another siesta (I don't know why I keep doing this... now I won't be able to sleep until 3am tonight). Then Paige woke me up two hours later and I went with her to her internship at a Spanish tutoring place. I decided to sign up for tutoring because I'm not feeling so good about my Spanish speaking skills. So after Semana Santa, I'm going to try working with a tutor a couple times a week. Then I did a little shopping for the first time since being here (I know, I'm shocked, too), Skyped my good friend Sarah B for a couple hours, ate some cookies and Nutella with Paige, and then ate dinner. 

Burning off all that Nutella

Paige and I are starting to feel like "gorditas" lately given all the food we've been eating, so tonight we decided to do some exercises in the living room. As we were doing our excercises that we got from Pinterest, Lola and Susana walked in and Lola started leading our workout (which wasn't very effective). Then she said she'd be right back and she went to go get her exercise ball. Enjoy the video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiNR4hvZeBI

My First Two Days

·         I feel like I just wrote my first blog post and I already have so much more to say! Wednesday evening, I went to the store to buy some things that I forgot to pack... like socks... not sure how I forgot those. I also bought some slippers because it gets pretty cold in the piso sometimes. Then I went to find my school! The location is perfect; it's about a fifteen minute walk from where I live, so it will be good for me to walk to and from the school everyday given how much food I've been eating here lately. Ahhh so many tapas and Kinder Bueno bars... and SO MUCH BREAD. Speaking of food, on Wednesday night, I learned how to cook another Spanish dish with my host mom. This time, I'm going to write down all the recipes so I can make them in the U.S. Then after dinner, my other roommate, Paige (who is in the study abroad program here from Iowa State), and I came up with the greatest idea of dipping our Spanish galletas in Natillas. ("Natillas" is a very rich chocolate pudding.) I could probably talk about the food here forever... I'll move on.

·          

Mi colegio :)

·         So yesterday was my first day student teaching here in Caceres. My host mom walked with me to the school in case I needed help with my Spanish, finding my way around the school, finding my cooperating teacher, etc. We got there a little before 9 am, when both the students and teachers get there every day(how nice is that?!) and she left me with one of the teachers. Well, apparently, that teacher isn't my cooperating teacher like I originally thought she was and there is no teacher in the building that goes by the name "Josephina". So I was sent to the office where I waited for the "head teacher" to arrive. She came with her daughter, who is the English teacher at the school, so she did a little translating. I don't know if I was having a hard time understanding the head teacher due only getting two hours of sleep the night before or the fact that her accent was thick, but I was really struggling. She was asking me questions like "Why are you here?" and "What do you want to do while you're here?" as if she had no idea was coming... so she decided to have me follow the English teacher around from class to class all day until she figured something out. 

·          

·         When I walked into the first classroom, I think that is where I had the biggest culture shock. The kids were running around all over the room, yelling and screaming, throwing pencils, hitting each other with books, and when the teacher tried to get their attention (by either yelling at the top of her lungs, banging her hand or a book on the desks, or blowing her very annoying whistle), it didn't help much. After 15 minutes of getting them to calm down, she wanted me to introduce myself. I introduced myself in English very slowly and she let them ask me questions. This is not only what we did for that entire hour, but for every class we went to for the rest of the day. There were so many questions... but here are some of my favorites:

·          

·         1. "Do you have Whats App?" (Not sure if you all know what this is because I had never heard of it until this week... but it's a free texting app. The reason I like hearing Spaniards say it so much is because they pronounce it "Waaassssaaaaap")

·         2. "Are there dogs in America?"

·         3. "Do you like Obama?" (The kids here LOVE Obama...)

·         4. "Do you watch the Simpsons over there?"

·         5. "Why do you want to learn Spanish when you already know English?"

·          

·         Once the day was over, I had one of the biggest headaches of my life and I don't know if it was because of the annoying whistle, the screaming kids, or the fact that I was running on two hours of sleep and hadn't eaten in 6 hours (it's so hard not eating lunch until 3pm...) 

·          

The Plaza in Caceres

·         Once I got back to the piso, Lola made lunch and I took a nice long two hour nap with the brasero. For those of you who don't know what a brasero is, it is something that we need in the U.S. It's a heater under the table and you put the blanket from the table on your lap to keep warm. It'll put you to sleep in an instant. When I woke up from my nap, Lola, Susana, and I went for a walk around Caceres. We did a little shopping and walked to the plaza and "Parte Antigua" (The old town of Caceres). On our way back home, we stopped to have a small glass of wine. Well, that turned into two glasses of wine and lots and lots of tapas. As we were walking back to the piso, we started laughing so hard that we couldn't even walk and we all had tears in our eyes from laughing so much. And honestly, I don't know even know what was so funny, but it had something to do with the moon. (Lola kept talking about how there was supposed to be a full moon that night and there most definitely was not.)

·          

·       

Having some wine and tapas with my host mom

Susana and me at the first tapa bar

Our first tapa that we shared

      We came home and the three of us Skyped with Claire (Claire was my roommate in Spain two years ago). It was so fun to talk with her in Spanish and for Lola and Claire to see each other for the first time in two years! Now we just have to convince Claire to come back to Spain within the next seven weeks... ;)

·          

·         Today was a much better day at school. The classes seemed a little less chaotic and the English teacher wanted me to teach them about The United States' Easter traditions. She also brought in a large map of the U.S. and I talked more about the different regions. I was telling one class about the U.S. and I was talking about major cities on the map such as L.A., New York, and Miami. The only thing that the students wanted to know about New York was if I watch the TV show, "CSI: New York". Also, when I was talking about Washington D.C., they all started cheering because that's where Obama lives.... I still don't get it. Another reason why I felt a little better after today was because we now have a plan set up for after the week of Semana Santa so I at least have some idea of what I will be doing with my time there. The plan is to teach both Science and Reading in Spanish as well as teach English. So I guess I'm going to be all over the place and I'll have three cooperating teachers during this student teaching experience!

·          

·         This weekend, I'm going to Lola's village to spend time with her family. I'll write another post when I return!

·          

·         Hasta luego!

·         Shea