First of all, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!! After being homesick on Thanksgiving, I anticipated that Christmas would be even worse; however, I actually had a really great holiday season here so far.  One of my roommates went home to Wisconsin for break, another when to Wales to visit family, and my other roommate had her family come here to Spain, and they arrived Christmas afternoon.  So, Christmas Eve my roommate and I had dinner together around 8:30 and headed into the center to check out the lights.  It turned out though that the center was totally dead because everyone was still at home eating with their families. The only people out were tourists with their maps and cameras looking for a place to eat, except pretty much everything was closed.   So we decided to go back to our place for a few hours and try going back out later.  We invited a few other Americans over to our place to have some drinks.  Then around 1:30 -2 am I got a skype call from my family.  It was pretty funny because my friends and I were a bit tipsy by then and they were trying to talk to everyone too. Being with friends and being able to actually talk to my family made being away for Christmas so much easier.  Then after the skype conversation we went out to the bars and had a great time.  As usual, we stayed out until about 6am Christmas morning and I didn’t wake up until about 1.  Later that afternoon, my roommate’s family arrived and they all left to spend the week traveling around Andalucia.  After they left, I sat myself down on the couch and opened up the presents from my parent’s package and then bummed around for a while. At 7, I went to see a nativity play at one of the local elementary schools with some of my Spanish friends. It was actually really great and well done. After that I had dinner with some of my American friends and we went out for a little bit.  I started to feel kind of crappy so I went home early and went to bed. Unfortunately, I spent the next few days laying on the coach all day because I caught a really bad cold and cough.  My guess is a little too much partying and not enough sleeping.  So we’ll fast forward to New Year’s because I doubt any of you are interested in the quantity of mucous coming out of my nose and lungs or how many rolls of toilet paper I went through blowing my nose. But first, here are some pictures of the lights in the city and just some other randoms from my holiday season here in Sevilla:

My roomies and I in front of our stockings and mini tree. 

Great view of the lights from the center of Sevilla

Christmas lights in front of the cathedral

 

Ok, so a typical New Year’s here in Spain consists of a big dinner with your family at around 9:30ish, then the eating of the grapes and cheersing champagne, followed by a party at a club or a bar.  My friend Carmen invited me over to her family’s house for dinner, and I had a great time.  We started with a huge round of appetizers consisting of things like chorizo, ham, cheese, different kinds of bread and pate, shrimp and crab legs, and potato salad.  Then, we had a palate cleansing course of one of those creamy fruit salads, which was really delicious.  The main course was cordero lechal, which is basically a lamb that’s somewhere between 4-6 weeks old and has only been fed milk. I was a little weirded out by this, since I don’t like to eat veal since I know it’s baby cow. But then again, I ate suckling pig in Madrid, and that’s essentially the same idea.  So I pushed aside that pesky little moral dilemma and dug in.  It was really good and tender, but to be honest, I don’t think I like the flavor of lamb that much.  Slap it on a gyro with some tzatziki sauce and I’m a happy camper, but that was my first time eating regular lamb and I wasn’t too excited about it.  Overall all though, it was a really great meal.  As midnight drew closer, we flipped back and forth between different TV specials.  There didn’t seem to be a go-to like the Dick Clark Times Square ball drop, but various different programs.  The tradition is that at midnight, the clock strikes 12 times, and on each chime, you each a grape, and for each grape you make a wish (or just one big wish for the whole thing).  Then, if you don’t keep time with the chimes and finish all your grapes by the end of the chiming you’re said to have bad luck for the whole year.  This is actually harder than it sounds because a clock chime is pretty fast, especially when you have to eat another grape every time, and when you add the fact that I was trying to video tape this happening, it was pretty hard.  But I succeeded in eating all my grapes and getting it on tape, so good luck for me for 2012.

Getting ready to eat the first grape!

  After the grapes, we toasted the New Year with champagne, just like at home.  We stayed at her house until about 1am, and then Carmen, her cousin, and I all went to her cousin’s apartment when some more of his friends were meeting us. 

Cheers!

 

 

 There we listened to music and drank and danced and all that fun stuff.  One of my goals this year is to learn how to dance the sevillanas, which are the 4 typical flamenco dances of Sevilla, before the Feria in April.  As a result, my friends like to sing flamenco songs and dance with me when we’re drinking.  I keep telling them, though, that it’s going to take more than that for me to actually learn the steps.  We stayed there until about 4:30, then we went to a bar/club where all of our other Spanish friends were.  That was really fun because I got to see some more of my friends from last time that I hadn’t seen yet since I’ve been back.  We stayed there dancing until 7, right as you all were ringing in the New Year, and I made it to bed by about 8.  Needless to say, a fun time was had by all. 

 

Well I think that’s about all the excitement for the holidays. I felt really lucky to have such great friends because being with them combined with being able to skype with my family made these holidays really great.

"Thanksgiving was never meant to be shut up in a single day." - Robert Caspar Lintner

Thankfully, (no pun intended) I had the chance to talk to some of you about my holidays, but for those of you who I haven’t talked to personally, time to update.  Let’s rewind a month and talk about Thanksgiving.  My roommates and I decided that we would attempt the most traditional Thanksgiving dinner possible under the circumstances.  So what was on the menu? Cheesy potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, biscuits, and a red velvet cake for dessert. Unfortunately, (or fortunately for me) our oven is much too small to cook a turkey so we got a couple of rotisserie chickens to substitute.  I didn’t mind this one bit seeing as I don’t even really like turkey.  Sounds pretty basic right….wrong.  Here are just a few of the challenges we ran into.  The broccoli casserole was my dish.  That turned out to be the easiest because the only ingredient I had to substitute was cheddar for Velveeta cheese, no big deal. (I was shocked that I found Ritz crackers, though!)  The cheesy potatoes were made by my friend Hayley.  Two challenges:  1) You can’t just buy a big bag of frozen hash brown potatoes, so they were all cut and cooked by hand. 2) Sour cream does not exist in Spain, so she used plain yogurt.  Next, my other roommate Mary decided to do the green bean casserole with, again, two challenges:  1)No Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup.  (we later found out that they do sell it at one store, but it was too late by that time) So, she had to use this powdered soup and it took us a couple times to get the consistency right.  2)  No French fried onions – the key ingredient.  However, this was a blessing in disguise because she ended up frying onions in corn flakes, and they were absolutely delicious.  Lastly, don’t even get me started on the red velvet cake because that was a HUGE pain in the butt.  I had to go to about 4 different supermarkets and spend way too much money to find all of the ingredients.  The red food coloring was really weak, even with two bottles, so the cake turned out this weird mauve color, and I couldn’t find buttermilk, so I made my own.  Yes, I made my own buttermilk, be impressed.  On top of that, they don’t sell frosting, so I had to make that from scratch too.  Oh, so in case you try to contact me, I’ve changed my name to Betty Crocker.  So after slaving away in the kitchen all day with my roommates, I now know what all you parents go through every Thanksgiving and I appreciate it so much more.  I will say, the hard worked definitely paid off.  We had a few Spanish friends over, as well, to show them a real American Thanksgiving, and everything tasted sooooo good.  I couldn’t find my camera that day on account of my room being a pig sty, so here are some pictures my roommate, Hayley, took of our quaint little Thanksgiving away from home.

Me with the food - haven't even had time to take off the oven mitts!

Creepy pterodactyl shaped bone I pulled out of the chicken after "carving" it.

 

Bon Apetit! I took a page out of my Dad's book and served myself last : )

Everyone at the table, ready to eat!

And the grand finale!

So there ya have it.  And although our dinner was really great and so was the company, I still missed home like crazy.  I was able to skype with some of you for a little while, but the connection was terrible.  I was so frustrated by the end of the conversation that when I hung up I started crying. Not to worry though, just a wave of homesickness, but I realized that I have a lot to be thankful for on both side of the Atlantic so I let it all out and regrouped.  Next post will be a little out of order, because I'm going to post Christmas stuff, then Amsterdam.  Stay tuned!

A picture is worth a thousand words...

First of all, sorry for being M.I.A. for about a month.  Things have started to get pretty busy here and I’ve neglected my blog posting as a result.  I will do my best to get you all up to speed starting with my trip to Lagos, Portugal.  My roommates and I took a long weekend trip to Lagos during Halloween weekend.  I could sit here and write page upon page about this particular trip, but I will keep the words to a minimum because is this case the pictures will do most of the talking. Lagos is a small international beach town in the south-western corner of Portugal.  It seems you can walk the whole width of the town in about 15 minutes and for some reason, I felt really at home there.  Because they have so much tourism, pretty much everyone speaks English, so we were able to get by without speaking a word of Portuguese.  This was a relief, but also very humbling.  I feel very spoiled that I can travel just about anywhere and get by because I speak English.   

Another great thing about Lagos is how cheap everything was.  First off, the hostel we stayed in was the best I’ve ever stayed in.  It had free breakfast, linens, towels, and internet.  We had our own bathroom in our room as well as personal safes to put our valuables, and everything was really clean and secure.  Not to mention is was in a perfect location – walking distance to everything! Total cost: 36 euros per person for 4 nights.  Unbelievable.  Eating and drinking was also extremely cheap there, and they have amazing food.  Because there is such an international atmosphere there, they have so many different kinds of restaurants and they’re all amazing.  One afternoon we went to a tiny diner that prepares American style breakfasts – something we’d all been craving.  I got eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast, and a giant pancake all for 3 euro.  Ridiculous!  My stomach didn’t particularly enjoy this meal, but I sure did!

One thing Lagos is not lacking is beaches.  I think we made it to a beach at least once a day while we were there.  Lagos is lined with skyscraping cliffs that separate the coastline into small intimate beaches, each one more beautiful than the last.  On Sunday afternoon, we took a little boat tour along the coast line and into the cave areas.  I got a little seasick even with the Dramamine, but I managed to enjoy they tour and keep my breakfast down.  Win-win. 

Here are some pictures from the boat tour:

Monday we had planned a day trip to Cabo San Vicente in another small town called Sagres.  Cabo San Vicente (or Cape St. Vincent in English) is known as the “end of the world” because it is the south-westernmost point of Europe and people thought it was where the world ended.  Ya know, back when people thought the world was flat.  So we took the bus from Lagos to Sagres which took about an hour.  Poor planning on our part, we didn’t know exactly how far Cabo San Vicente was from Sagres or how far we would actually get there.  So when we got there we tried to walk around and find some signs to no avail.  Finally we walked into a gas station to find out that it would have probably taken us over an hour to walk there.  The man who worked at the gas station must have read the “what the bleep to we do now” looks on our faces and says to us “don’t worry,” summons his daughter from the back of his store, and tells us “she will drive you.”  Now to some of you this may sound shady, but this kind of hospitality, even among strangers, is actually very typical in Europe.  Now before you think, “but haven’t you seen that movie Taken???” And yes, I have.  And no, it does not make me afraid of Europe.  It’s just a movie.  So this man had his daughter drive us to the point without asking for a thing in return.  He did make it clear we were on our own when it came time to come back, but we all decided we’d cross that bridge when the time comes.  When we arrived at Cabo San Vicente, we knew we were in the right place because there we quite a few other tourists there, but it wasn’t too crowded because the weather wasn’t that great. We got lucky though because although it was cloudy and windy, we had the sun break through every once in a while which made the views from the cliffs absolutely breathtaking.  We walked around for a while taking it all in and taking a lot of pictures.  Then we saw a bus pull up, and the light bulbs went off.  We weren’t really sure where this bus was going, but we asked the driver if we could get on here and get off in Sagres and he said yes.  So we were able to take that bus right back to the other bus we needed to get on to get back to Lagos.  All in all is was a really successful day trip.

Me by the cliffs at "the end of the world"

Ok one more fun story about Lagos and then I’ll be done (so much for keeping it short).  There was a restaurant right by our hostel called Casa Rosa that had a deal called the power hour and for 12 euro, you got a meal and all the beer or wine you could drink in an hour.  My roommates and I decided to do it one night at 9 o’clock. The food was really great, and let’s just say we drank more than our money’s worth of beer. The cool thing about it was you didn’t have to finish your beer at the last minute, so we got one last beer right before 10 and stayed for about another hour sipping on our beers and laughing our asses off at absolutely nothing.  So it was about 11 by the time we left and I was trying to get my roommates to stay out for the night.  I mean we were already pretty drunk and I figured it would be a waste to go back to our hostel so early.  One of my roommates wanted to stop back and go to the bathroom, but I knew if we went back to the hostel, everyone would get in bed and that would be the end. And that’s exactly what happened. Luckily, since I’ve assumed the role of rallying my roommates to party, I set an alarm for 2am and miraculously managed to get them all back out of bed and back out to the bars with me.  A good time was had by all, haha.  Ok that’s it for Lagos, now I’ll work on getting you updated on my life in Spain! 

Here are some more pictures just for fun:

My roomies and I just climbing some rocks.

Getting into some precarious positions... anything for a good picture, right?

Our boat guide pointed out to us in sort of English that the side of this cliff was Michael Jackson.  If you look right in the middle you will see some kind of weird face with no nose. 

"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theatre." -- Gail Goldwin

The quote in this title has never been more true for me.

The tile sign outside of the front gate to the school

Now that I’ve almost completed my fourth week of “teaching,” I feel that I can aptly write about my experience so far. I’ll start with the basics.  I’m teaching at a primary school (pre-school through sixth grade) called Josefa Frías in a town called Santiponce.  The school is really great and the town is absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful.  I haven’t gotten a chance to walk around and take pictures, but I will post some soon.  My commute consists of a 20-25 minute walk to the bus stop and then a 20 minute bus ride, unless I catch the express bus which only takes 10 minutes.  It’s a really easy, convenient commute because the bus actually stops right in front of my school.

The front entrance to the school.

Now for the actual experience so far.  One word to sum it up: interesting.  There are two things that have been the most challenging these first few weeks. The first is the fact that my bilingual coordinator (the person who is essentially in charge of everything I do and how I do it) just arrived at school last week. So for the first two weeks the other teachers that have been covering her position have been scrambling, changing my schedule, shuffling me around, and giving really no direction at all as to what I was supposed to be doing.  Also, 8 out of my 14 classes (yes, I have 14 different classes every week) are taught with her. So, I had been working with a sub who seemed to be just about as clueless as I was.  Another result of her absence the first weeks was that in some of the English classes they had no sub, so they principal said to me, “well you can just teach the classes right?” Oh sure, I’m completely comfortable teaching classes I have never met, I have no idea what they are studying or what their level of English is, and I have no materials. Awesome. However, now that she’s here, there has been a complete 180⁰ change.  She is a really cool lady, extremely supportive and helpful, and I’m really glad I am going to be working with her so much.  She came right out and said “ok this is how it’s going to work, I’ll let you know at the end of the week exactly what you’ll be responsible for doing the next week. I’ll gather all the materials you will need and let you know at least two days in advance if I want you to prepare something, and if you need anything just let me know.”  Whew.  Finally I feel like I have direction and support for what I’m doing which makes me much more confident.  She even took away one of my classes so that we can have an hour for coordination every week.  This is huge, because the teachers don’t have plan periods like I’m accustomed, at least no plan periods that coincide with my schedule.  The school day goes from 9-2 with only a half hour break from 12:00-12:30, so that leaves no time to plan things with any of my teachers. But now I’m much more comfortable with what’s going on.

View of the front gate from inside

 The second part that has been most challenging is the fact that I completely underestimated how different teaching a second language to elementary students is from teaching one to high school students.  I realized that a lot of my personal teaching style is based on my ability to relate to my students and make jokes with them and be on their level.  That is nearly impossible to do with the 4-10 year olds.  When you’re working with kids that small, you are much more a parental figure   than a friend. 

the front courtyard

To compound the fact that they are younger kids, we are not supposed to speak to the students in Spanish at all. So, to try and avoid the inevitable blank stares, I find myself speaking really slow, being really animated and using gestures for just about everything I say (hence the title of this post.)

the back yard flooded with rain

   I’m pretty comfortable with the 5^th and 6^th graders, but the four pre-school classes that I have are totally out of my comfort zone.  The good thing about them though, is that really all you have to do is sing songs and draw pictures and do activities because they don’t even really know how to read or write in Spanish, let alone English.  Little by little, I’m getting used to working with the little kids, and I’ve come a long way since that first day. 

Last week was really fun because all week, all I had to do was talk about Halloween and do Halloween related activities, so it was a pretty easy week.  Well now that I feel like I’ve covered all the basics I’ll leave it at that, now I can just share short, funny stories when they come up!  Stay tuned for my next post about my trip to Lagos, Portugal.