I know that Halloween isn't as big here in Spain as it is in the US, but my school is most definitely an exception. I have never seen a school go all out like mine did today. Not even in the US.
First of all, everyone here dresses up as something scary. Whether you are a child or an adult, you have to be scary. So a majority of the teachers dressed up as the girl from The Exorcist. But there were other costumes such as zombies, demons, witches, and basically anything that included blood all over. On top of everyone dressing up, there were decorations all over, music blaring all day in the halls, and a pretty legit haunted house. I spent three hours this morning scaring little children. And adults. I found a scream mask in my apartment so I just dressed in black and wore the mask all day. Alex and I were at the end of the haunted house, where the students had to put their hands into three boxes that were labeled as "Zombie's Brains", "Vampire's Stomach", and "Monster's Saliva". We had 6th grade students who thought it was "lame" and 2nd grade students who nearly peed their pants. However, it was the definitely more fun scaring the adults.
When the students entered, they had to knock on the door and say a riddle. A couple days ago, the English coordinator asked us to come up with a riddle in English that the students could say before entering. Alex and I Googled a bunch of riddles and jokes but couldn't come up with anything simple enough for the students to understand and say. So that's when we created our own:
"Trick or Treat
I'm so sweet
I want to see more
Please open the door!"
That's right, we created that in five minutes on our break. Whaddduppp.
Okay, I know it's not that great, but we were pretty proud of ourselves.
all of the students' pumpkins
in the haunted house
in the teacher's room... about to start the crazy day!
The teachers wanted Alex to be the "scary woman in bed"
Seriously, everything was gory.
The boxes at the end of the haunted house
The teachers who worked in the haunted house all morning!
And of course a video of me scaring the poor children...
More Halloween stuff - Last night, Alex and Alex came over to carve pumpkins. The only pumpkins we could find were little ones, but it still worked! The night before, when Diego and I were having an intercambio, I was telling him about carving pumpkins and he said he's never carved a pumpkin before! So he joined in on the fun, too.
Diego's first pumpkin!
Alex having a great time
Our finished pumpkins!
Last weekend was my first real "fun" weekend since I got here. On Friday, Alex came over and we went to the Irish Pub across the street from my apartment. There was a free live band that played cover songs. Then we went to a club around the corner with Diego and his friends. We were true Spaniards that night and didn't go home until 5:30 in the morning. On Saturday (after sleeping very late), I went out to meet Grace, a girl from Illinois that I met on Facebook. She and I went to Tapapies (the same festival I went to with Alex and Alex last week). Some of her friends came and some of their friends came so we had a big group of about 20 Spaniards and Americans going from bar to bar trying tapas. I even met a girl from Omaha, Nebraska!
Alex and I at the club on Friday night
Grace and I had a lot of fun on Saturday night, so we decided to meet up again on Sunday afternoon to go to El Rastro Market. It's a big flea market that happens every Sunday afternoon near the La Latina neighborhood. I went to meet her at 2:00pm and couldn't find her and I couldn't call her because I'm out of phone credit, so I waited for a half hour, then came back to my apartment. When I walked in the door, she started calling me and asked where I was. I had completely forgotten that Spain went through Daylight Saving Time the night before. Whoops. So I went back to La Latina and she and I walked around for a little bit. She bought a scarf and I bought some slippers, then we went to an overly crowded tapas bar to get some lunch.
Grace and I after El Rastro and tapas... with our coke cans that have cool names.
It has been a successful week! I even got my "empadronamiento" today, which means I am one step closer to becoming a resident in Spain! You wouldn't believe the process I have to go through to get a green card here! Oh! And other good news! I got my first paycheck yesterday!!!! Yeahhhh! After spending the entire summer all over Europe with Pia, this paycheck is definitely needed.
It's a little strange writing this post because it will be the first one about my time living in Madrid as an English Auxiliar, not about my time as a backpacker across Europe with my best friend!
I began my job on October 1st, working at an bilingual elementary school in Alcorcon. (http://www.educa.madrid.org/web/cp.carmenconde.alcorcon/) Alcorcon is a suburb southwest of Madrid. From where I live (near Santiago Bernabeu), it takes roughly 45 minutes to get to my school everyday. However, I can make it in 37 minutes if I make all the green light crosswalks, if my metro happens to come right when I get off the escalator, and if I run at the Principe Pio station where I transfer from the metro to the bus, which drops me off on my school's street. And just so you know, running for a bus at Principe Pio station isn't anything like running for CyRide at ISU. No one stares at you or makes fun of you; everyone runs there, so it's cool. ;)
the classic 'first day of school' picture!
So let me explain my job as an "Auxiliar", or English assistant. I work with 1st grade - 5th grade and I only spend an hour or two with each class per week. I move around from class to class all day (except Fridays) and help out in any way I can. In some classes, I take two students out in the hall at a time and practice conversational speaking with them. In some classes, all I do is read so the students get used to hearing a native English speaker, and in some classes, the teacher gives me the book and says, "teach these two pages today" and I take on the whole class for an hour.
I have to be at the school by 9am every day and my schedule looks something like this:
9-10: Class 1
10-11: Class 2
11-11:30 - Break (this is when all the teachers hang out in the teacher's room eating tapas and drinking coffee)
11:30 - 12:30 - Class 3
12:30 - 2:30 - Break (yes, we have a 2 hour break every day. It sometimes gets annoying, but it's also a great time to do lesson planning)
2:30 - 3:15 - Class 4
3:15 - 4:00 - Class 5
There are a lot of things that I like and dislike about this job. I love the people I work with and I love the students. I like that I don't have to do much lesson planning (nothing like a teacher in the US), and I like that there are new tapas in the teacher's room every day. However, there have been some challenges since I've started this job. I knew from student teaching in Caceres last Spring that a Spanish classroom is way different than an American classroom, as I'm sure all of you know. Here, education is all about academics and it's as if nothing else matters. The teachers don't seem to care about self-esteem, bullying, classroom management, etc. I'm not trying to say that all the teachers here are mean; they're far from it. But there's no "sharing time", there's no working in groups/any kind of collaboration among the students, the teachers have NO patience with the students, and there's absolutely NO classroom management. So you can sense the frustration I have after having spent the last 4 years of my life studying these concepts and knowing how important they are in a classroom. (Hence my new background on my blog...)
How I feel some days.
Aside from teaching, I have taken on a few of my own private tutoring sessions. I have my own session set up every Wednesday after school with a very nice family that lives in Alcorcon and I tutor their 12 year old boy. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I work for an academy in the city of Madrid and I have 2 clients - an adult who is studying to take the First Certificate Exam next summer, and 2 brothers (11 and 12 years old) who have a low level of English. So every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I'm pretty busy, but I sure do love my 3 day weekends. Also, shortly after I began teaching 3 weeks ago, my roommate and I starting doing "intercambios" every night. So we spend about an hour speaking strictly in Spanish, then an hour speaking strictly in English. I think this is a big reason why my Spanish is improving! And I now know all the "palabrotas" and "palabras de la calle", aka all the slang and swear words in Spanish. :)
There are two other girls that are English Assistants at my school, too. Both of their names are Alexandra, so in the future, I will refer to them as Alex PA and Alex FL (One is from Pennsylvania and one is from Florida.) On Wednesday, the three of us went out to a festival in Lavapies, a very eclectic neighborhood in Madrid, for a 2-week festival called, Tapapies. Which of course includes... tapas. Each bar (that participates) has a special tapa that they created for this festival and you go from bar to bar trying each tapa for 1 euro (add a beer and it's 2 euros). So on Wednesday, the Alex's and I went to 5 different bars trying all the tapas. Obviously I took a picture of each one....
rice with vegetables
a very large tater tot?
similar to a spring roll
more Mexican than Spanish
Fish!
Me with the Alex's
Yesterday, many of the public schools in Madrid were on strike because of a new education law that was passed recently. If my sources are correct, it has to do with the exam that the students take when they are about 14 years old. The exam determines whether or not they go to a university or a vocational school. A lot of the teachers and parents are upset about this new law, so yesterday was the strike. Only about half of the teachers showed up and less than half of the students were at school. So we spent the day coloring and watching movies....
We watched "Aviones"... aka "Planes"
Okay, that's all for now! I will add some more shortly :)
Missing you all... only 8 weeks until I come home for Christmas!
So I think it's been about 3 weeks since I've blogged. I told many of you that I was going to keep a blog while I teach English this year in Spain, and I still plan on it! I kept telling myself, I'll just wait until my computer gets here, then I'll blog. Well, let me tell you about that. Right before I left to meet up with Pia in Rhode Island 3 months ago, I laid out everything that I thought I wanted my mom to ship to Spain once I arrived here. She very graciously packed everything (clothes, camera lenses, jewelry, toiletries, etc.) into two large boxes, and shipped them to my new address here in Madrid. Maybe I had forgotten to add my computer to the pile, because when I asked about it, she said, "you want your computer?" and I thought she was joking. So she packed yet another box and shipped it with the other two boxes. After about 6 days, I received two of the boxes, the two that didn't include the computer. A couple days later, I received a notice in the mail, and after a lot of translating and some help from my roommate, I figured out that my computer was stuck at customs. So this week, I took Monday off of work and went to Barajas to find my computer. To make a long story short, it took 3 hours, lots of paperwork, and I was sent to 4 different buildings just to get my computer. I thought I was going to have to pay an arm and a leg (or 'cobra una pasta', as they say in Spain), but it only ended up costing 5 euros! So now I have my computer! Which means I can blog more regularly and edit those 2,000-some pictures from this summer. And watch Breaking Bad. :)
It's hard to believe that three weeks ago, Pia and I were in Caceres, visiting my host family from two years ago. We stayed with Lola for 3 nights, which included lots of home-cooked meals, lots of translating, and lots and lots of amor, brazos, and besos from my Spanish family. That Friday, Pia and I spent the day at the school where I did my student teaching, where I was able to see some of my favorite teachers and students of all time. On Saturday night, Lola, her daughter, Maria, Pia, and I all went out to Club Boogaloo (love that name) to see a concert. On Sunday, Pia and I left to come back to Madrid. Here are some pictures of that weekend...
Yep, that's my host mom... bored in a museum.
A nice dinner out with Lola and Pia
Love my Spanish wine and love my host mom
At dinner
Pia and Tito created a special friendship
One of my favorite beers!
Lola and Maria at Boogaloo
Concert at Boogaloo
Sitting in on a music class at my school in Caceres :)
our last train ride together
On our train ride back to Madrid, Pia and I reminisced about our adventure this summer. We made a list about our "favorites" and a list of statistics, which I will share in a moment. The three months I spent backpacking Europe with my best friend this summer were by far the best three months of my life. However, this trip was more than just a vacation. It was also the most challenging 3 months of my life. The most challenging part was being with the same person 24/7 for three whole months. I love Pia. She is still my best friend and probably forever will be, but there were many times where we felt like we were married to each other this summer. Not only did we learn so much about each other, we learned how to adapt to each other so we could make the three months traveling together enjoyable, and we learned so so so much about ourselves. Pia probably knows me better than any other person on this planet, all because of this summer. Right before we left, Pia's parents said they would be surprised if we were still friends after this trip, and I'm so happy to say that we are. Not only that, but we are better friends now than we were three months ago.
Since I studied abroad two years ago, I had a taste of what it was like to be away from my home and my own culture. Two years ago, I spent a semester in Spain and I was hardly ever homesick. However, on this trip, I was homesick more than a couple times. I think part of the reason was because Pia and I didn't have a "home". We just kept moving from one place to another every 3-ish days. I learned so much about all these different countries and cultures, and I really do appreciate them. But I've never appreciated the US and my home more than I do now.
A lot of people asked us how and when we decided we were going to go on this trip together. Pia and I first talked about it five years ago, our freshman year of college. We both had always wanted to do it, but we never really brought it up again until last year, summer of 2012. We both knew we were graduating the following year, and we weren't ready to enter the 'real working world', so instead, we wanted to see what the rest of the world has to offer. Then last October, we bought one-way tickets, and that's when we knew it was really going to happen.
And I'm so glad it did.
Pia left Madrid on October 2nd, the day after I began teaching. (I promise I will get to all of that in my next post!) It was very bittersweet saying goodbye to her. We weren't just saying goodbye to each other, we were saying goodbye to the best summer of our lives. But we also know that the end of this trip means a beginning to many other things: a beginning to an even better friendship, a beginning to better relationships with other people in our lives, a beginning to new perspectives, and a beginning to a new life. This year, I am teaching abroad and next year, Pia plans on going to grad school abroad. She and I also know that we will travel together in the future. We already have a couple trips planned... so stay tuned for more adventures! ;)
However, as far as the adventures from this summer... here's our list:
The number of...
countries we visited - 18
cities we visited - 31
hours we were together - 1,952
hours we were separated - 40
hostels we stayed in - 16
hotels we stayed in - 2
airbnb hosts we stayed with - 1
couchsurfing hosts we stayed with- 1
bottles of wine we drank - 29
beers we had - countless
trains we took - 20
boats we took - 3
buses we took - 10
convertibles we rode in - 2
planes we took - 5
languages we tried to learn - 11
tours we took - 7
times we missed transportation - 1
items Pia lost - 5
items Shea lost - 1 (that's right!)
times we were caught in the rain - 15
boys we kissed - 6
times we lost each other - 5 (2 of which were on the cruise)
movies we watched - 8
times we did laundry - 6
blisters we got - 21
live performances we saw - 23
bad/creepy hostel roommates we had - 13
times Shea spilled or dropped something - countless
cats that Pia became friends with - 3
The best....
Meal - Pasta in Rome, Italy
Ice cream cone - Brussels, Belgium
Gelato - San Valentino, Italy
Pizza - Venice, Italy (Shea) Pescara, Italy (Pia)
Scenic views - Swiss Alps and Cinque Terre
Hike - Cinque Terre, Italy
Country - Ireland
Cities - Berlin, Edinburgh, Helsinki, and Salzburg
Beer - Duvel from Brussels (Pia), Paulaner from Munich (Shea)
Wine - Red Aussie Shiraz in Rome
Hostel - Royal Mile Backpackers - Edinburgh
The worst...
City - Glasgow
Hostel - Hyde Park Inn, London
Meal - Hot dogs and beans in Glasgow, or the steak we tried to make on a hot plate in Vienna
Pia and I both know that we are so fortunate to have had this experience. Even though it sometimes wasn't fun planning and saving money for it, it is something that we created and it is something that we will always remember.
Friends 5 years ago...
Even better friends today :)
Now stay tuned for the next chapter in my life - teaching English in Madrid!
