I’m getting behind on my blog posts. With Christmas coming up and traveling happening then, I know if I don’t knock out a few entries in the next couple of days, I’ll just give up entirely. So, here goes the blog writing marathon…part 1…
The first weekend in December was a puente. Puente in Spanish means “bridge,” but in this case means, “really awesome long weekend that you have more than enough time to travel during.” I’m off Fridays (always), Monday and Tuesday were part of the puente (no school), Wednesday schools were open (but my wonderful teachers told me just not to come in), Thursday was another holiday (schools closed), and Fridays I don’t work. So, I only had to work the morning of December 1st (Thursday) from 8.30-9.30am, and then I was done. BUT, the teacher for that class ended up telling me her kids had a test to take and I didn’t have to come in. That meant my puente was going to be eleven days long! If only I had known sooner, I would have extended my trip to Rome. Maybe even visited the USA. But, tickets to Rome leaving Thursday and coming back Monday were already bought.
Thursday, I took a bus into Madrid and met up with a girl I had met at orientation, Alex, at the airport. She had gotten in before me and so I joined her in waiting at the gate that both she and I had been told our flight was leaving from. I was really happy to be traveling to Rome with Alex because she had studied abroad there for a semester and also spoke a decent amount of Italian…so things were going to be easy for me.
Our flight was set to take off at 4.55pm. Around 4.40, no boarding announcement had been made, so we were getting worried. Alex went over to a counter to ask someone about it. She called me a minute later and said, “Grab our stuff and run! It’s final boarding!” RyanAir had changed the gate number about 30 minutes before boarding and so graciously, had not bothered to make an announcement. We sprinted through Terminal 1 of Barajas Airport for 5 minutes, only to get to the gate, find it closed, and no one around to help us. We could see the pilot and the plane, just sitting there at the end of the gate…but we had no way to get on. We watched the plan leave without us and wanted to cry. We made our way over to the RyanAir info counter and after a lot of talk, they told us we could take a flight out the next morning for a small fee of 110 Euros. Ugh! We said we would think about it, then for the next hour talked to just about every airline in the airport to see if we had any other (cheaper) options. We didn’t. So, because we were dead set on going to Rome, we handed over our credit cards and booked the flight that would take off in 16 hours. We had a lot of time to kill.
We metroed back into the city center, ate some McFlurry and French fries comfort food, and then met up with my friend, Juan David, who lives in Madrid. The three of us walked around a bit, saw Madrid’s gorgeous Christmas lights, then went to a bar for a much needed drink (or two). About 1.00am, Alex and I got on the last metro to the airport. Getting to the airport around 1.45am, we soon realized that we would not be alone sleeping there that night. There were a ton of other people camped out for the evening. We found a cozy corner and settled in to try to sleep. After an unsuccessful hour or so and being incredibly cold, we eventually moved to the café area and stayed there until about 6.00am, when we checked into our flight, went through security again, and obsessively checked our gate number on the board until we took off at 9.25am. The flight was fine. Again, it was really cold (RyanAir can’t even be nice enough to heat their planes), so I didn’t really sleep. We got into Rome, very tired, but happy to have finally made it.
We were going to be staying that weekend with my friend, Erik, who I had met in Valencia. He was living there for a bit, but is really Italian. I had told him a few months ago I would be in Rome and we should meet up for a drink, when he said, “Why don’t you stay with me?” So incredible. So Erik and his sister picked us up from the airport. The reunion was wonderful…as if no time had passed. They dropped us off at a metro station with directions and the keys to Erik’s apartment (he had to go to work). We got to the apartment, showered (amazing), ate some pizza and supplí (think croquetas with rice and cheese) from a Kebab place, and felt more human. Then, we set off for our Roman holiday.
We first went to the Colosseum, thinking we could take a tour that day. But, we got there right as it closed, so we were content just to walk around the outside. My first sight of the monument was breathtaking. The Colosseum is something you see so much in films and on TV, that actually seeing it in real life was surreal. That’s actually the case with about everything I saw in Rome.
So we walked for a bit, then made our way over to the Pantheon and went inside. I guess I was pretty ignorant about what the Pantheon is and so seeing that it was a church was a big surprise to me. We then ate our first gelato of the trip, and were not disappointed. We walked through a long street with upscale stores (Gucci, Fendi…), climbed the Spanish Steps (138 steps), and then went to the Trevi Fountain. This was definitely one of my favorite parts of the trip. It, again, was breathtakingly beautiful. After throwing in a few coins and making a few wishes, we were very hungry, so we went to a pizza restaurant that Alex had remembered from her study abroad times.
At the restaurant, the pizza was great. The only catch that was because Alex and I were a party of two, we got placed with another party of two at a four-top table. Awkward. Luckily, the Italian couple was very nice. Alex was able to bridge the communication gap between their Italian and my English/Spanish…but overall we all just kept to ourselves. Still, every now and then, we would bump elbows or have to stand up so someone could get out of the table to go to the bathroom. Later, when we told Erik about the experience, he said, “And?” I guess dining with strangers isn’t as weird in Rome as we thought it was…
That night, we were absolutely exhausted. We went back to Erik’s apartment, and met his roommate and his roommate’s friend. Alex went to bed, while stayed up and chatted with the three of them for a while, eventually giving in to my exhaustion, and went to bed.
The next morning, we had planned to wake up by 9.30am so we could get the day of sightseeing started…but that didn’t happen. We both slept through our alarms and woke up around 11.30. I guess we needed the sleep. So after getting ready and grabbing a chocolate corneta for breakfast, we walked over to the Vatican. The Vatican was incredible. We didn’t have to stand in line for more than 20 minutes before we got into St. Peter’s Basilica. I kept thinking of scenes from “Angels and Demons” (worst movie ever) and again, couldn’t believe I was really there. After exploring the basilica and getting some gelato, we went over to the Vatican museums. We wandered for a bit, saw some gorgeous art, and then ended the tour seeing the Sistine Chapel. It was definitely not as awe-inspiring as I thought it would be, but it wasn’t a let down either. Despite all of the 10 guards in the room yelling, “No photo! No photo!,” I was able to snap a pretty perfect one of the typical fingers touching panel.
When we left the museums, we were sad to find it was raining. And it was raining hard. We walked over to the bus stop, passing a bunch of street sellers trying to sell us umbrellas. We were determined not to buy one because both of us had our own back at Erik’s apartment. But by time we reached the bus stop and were soaking wet, we kind of wished we had bought one.
We bused back to Erik’s neighborhood and had some delicious pasta for lunch. Then we went to the grocery store and bought ingredients to bake cookies for Erik and his roommate as a “thank you.” We baked and relaxed for a while in the apartment until Erik got back. We all got ready to go out, then went and met up with another Italian friend who was in Valencia with us, Diego. It was all very strange to be hanging out with the two of them again. Great, but strange. I think I thought that after I left Valencia, I had closed that chapter of my life forever. I kept saying, “This isn’t adios, just hasta luego,” but I don’t think I really believed that. But, this trip proved to me that you really should never say “goodbye,” but instead “see you later.”
Erik, Diego, Alex, and I put our name down on the hour wait list for a good pizza place, and hung out until our name was called. After taking shots out of a chocolate shot glass and standing in the rain for a bit, we went into the restaurant and ate really well. We had all different types of bruschetta and delicious pizza. After dinner, we went to a couple of bars, finally ending up at a Spanish themed bar…how appropriate. We ordered a jarra de Agua de Valencia (why wouldn’t we?) and settled in to watch the special that was on their TV all about Valencia’s Fallas (it was meant to be). We all headed back to the apartment and crashed.
In the morning, we made an American brunch for the boys, complete with French toast, pancakes, bacon, and the rest of the cookies from the day before. We ate for a while, said goodbye to Diego, then headed out. Since Alex had studied in Rome, she had already gone inside of the Colosseum and since it costs money to get in, she was going to skip that part of the tour. So I headed over to the Colosseum by myself and instead of standing in line and paying a cheaper price to get in, I sprang for the private tour and skipped the line. I was so happy I took the guided tour because without it, I wouldn’t have known what anything was. The Colosseum is one of the coolest places. There really aren’t words to describe it. I did, however, keep thinking of the movie “Jumper” (again, terrible film)...I’m, a product of the TV generation.
After the Colosseum, I walked through the Roman Forums (cool, but not my favorite) to meet Alex, making a quick detour to go inside the Piazza de Venezia. Alex and I met up, walked back to the Spanish steps, and then went towards the apartment. We picked up some supplí as a snack, showered, relaxed, and then headed out for dinner. Erik was eating with his dad that night, so Alex and I were on our own. Again, we ate pizza (so good, it never gets old), drank wine, and enjoyed our last night in Rome. After dinner, we explored the chocolate festival that was going on in the neighborhood, bought some goodies, and then went back to the apartment. That night, after Erik got back, we all hung out a bit, then went to sleep.
In the morning, Alex and I were determined to get to the airport early, so as there would be no possibility of missing our flight. We got up, packed, said a “see you later” to Erik, and then headed out. We grabbed more cornetas, and then took a shuttle to the airport. We were plenty early, even having time to do a bit of souvenir shopping before getting on our flight back to Madrid.
All in all, I think my Rome trip was by far my favorite trip I’ve been on since coming here in September. The whole experience was great. The city, the sights, the friends…except missing our flight, things could not have been better. I threw my coin backwards into the Trevi Fountain, so according to popular belief, that means I will definitely return one day. Let’s hope that’s true.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Black Cats and Broken Mirrors
When it comes to transportation here in Spain, I am cursed. I was going to write this blog entry last week, but didn’t want to jinx my trip to Rome (which I just got back from), so I held off. Maybe if I had written this before, things wouldn’t have gone the way they did…
So when I arrived to Spain on September 20th of this year, I made a deal with myself that I wasn’t here to save money, rather to have enough to survive the year until I could go back to working in the States. So, this meant that I also told myself that I would take as many opportunities as I had to travel.
My first trip outside of Navalmoral was to my orientation for the program at the end of September. I had bought an “ida y vuelta” ticket for a fixed price and took the bus into the city. At the end of the few days there, my “tutor” from my school in Navalmoral had shown up for the last day and offered to drive me home. No big disaster, if anything, a little more comfortable…but I did lose some money on my “vuelta.” But no big deal…
The second trip I took was when I decided, spur of the moment, to go to Salamanca with a friend. On the return from Salamanca (read that trip’s entry for more detail), I somehow slept through the two alarms I had set, missing my bus back to Plasencia, and thereby missing the ONE bus that went from Plasencia to Navalmoral that Sunday. Luckily, Sara’s “tutor” had been in Salamanca that weekend, drove me to Plasencia, and got me there with seconds to spare before the bus left for Navalmoral.
Next came my trip to Venice. I had planned to take the train into Madrid, but arrived almost half an hour early to the station to find out that the ticket office was closed. I ran to the bus station and was able to get a ticket for the last bus out that was leaving just a few minutes later. Then, after the weekend of gondolas and gelato, the five of us who had gone took the shuttle to the airport from the city center, only to find that at 1.30am, the Venice airport was closed and locked for the evening. It was freezing outside. Only by the help of a maintenance man were we able to escape the cold and spend the night on the airport floor. Finally, when we got into Sevilla, try as I might, there were absolutely no buses left that would get me back to Navalmoral that day. I ended up going with a friend to her town and spending the night there. In the morning, I went to the bus station, ready to get the direct bus to my town that I had looked up the night before online. However, the bus never came. I waited for almost one hour before a bus pulled into the small town bus station. It was going to the big city a bit north of my friend’s town. I blindly bought a ticket and got on, hoping I would find a bus in the city that would take me home. By the grace of God, I did.
Then, during my second trip to Salamanca, the bus ride to Plasencia that should be 45 minutes, took me over 2 hours because the bus stopped at basically every pueblo town in Extremadura. The only reason I was able to catch the bus (minutes to spare) to Salamanca in time for my concert was because I had the coolest bus driver ever, who definitely broke some traffic laws to get me to the bus station on time.
Finally, this past weekend I went to Rome (blog post to follow on this fabulous trip). My friend and I arrived to Madrid separately, planning to meet up at the airport. She had arrived around noon for our 5.00pm flight. She camped out at the gate until I got there, around 4.00pm and was told to go to the gate she was at. About 45 minutes later, we realized that the gate sign (that had said “Lisbon” for the past 4 hours) still hadn’t changed to “Rome.” My friend went to ask a man at an info desk and he told her that our gate had changed, the flight was on final call, and for us to run. We RAN through Barajas airport, out of breath by time we reached our gate, basically in another terminal as the other. When we did get there, no one was there to let us on the flight. We still had 8 minutes until the flight was supposed to leave. We could see the plane. We could see the pilot. But try as we might, no one could help us and we were on the verge of crying as we watched our flight to Rome take off without us. We ended up having to pay 110 Euros extra to change our flight to the next day (no travel insurance, the joy of RyanAir) and had to spend the night in Barajas airport.
I am definitely cursed. Hopefully by writing all of this down, my luck will change. Seriously, nothing can be worse than the night we missed the Rome flight. Luckily my friend and I were very positive, drank some beer and wine, and ended up having an incredible weekend in Italy!
So when I arrived to Spain on September 20th of this year, I made a deal with myself that I wasn’t here to save money, rather to have enough to survive the year until I could go back to working in the States. So, this meant that I also told myself that I would take as many opportunities as I had to travel.
My first trip outside of Navalmoral was to my orientation for the program at the end of September. I had bought an “ida y vuelta” ticket for a fixed price and took the bus into the city. At the end of the few days there, my “tutor” from my school in Navalmoral had shown up for the last day and offered to drive me home. No big disaster, if anything, a little more comfortable…but I did lose some money on my “vuelta.” But no big deal…
The second trip I took was when I decided, spur of the moment, to go to Salamanca with a friend. On the return from Salamanca (read that trip’s entry for more detail), I somehow slept through the two alarms I had set, missing my bus back to Plasencia, and thereby missing the ONE bus that went from Plasencia to Navalmoral that Sunday. Luckily, Sara’s “tutor” had been in Salamanca that weekend, drove me to Plasencia, and got me there with seconds to spare before the bus left for Navalmoral.
Next came my trip to Venice. I had planned to take the train into Madrid, but arrived almost half an hour early to the station to find out that the ticket office was closed. I ran to the bus station and was able to get a ticket for the last bus out that was leaving just a few minutes later. Then, after the weekend of gondolas and gelato, the five of us who had gone took the shuttle to the airport from the city center, only to find that at 1.30am, the Venice airport was closed and locked for the evening. It was freezing outside. Only by the help of a maintenance man were we able to escape the cold and spend the night on the airport floor. Finally, when we got into Sevilla, try as I might, there were absolutely no buses left that would get me back to Navalmoral that day. I ended up going with a friend to her town and spending the night there. In the morning, I went to the bus station, ready to get the direct bus to my town that I had looked up the night before online. However, the bus never came. I waited for almost one hour before a bus pulled into the small town bus station. It was going to the big city a bit north of my friend’s town. I blindly bought a ticket and got on, hoping I would find a bus in the city that would take me home. By the grace of God, I did.
Then, during my second trip to Salamanca, the bus ride to Plasencia that should be 45 minutes, took me over 2 hours because the bus stopped at basically every pueblo town in Extremadura. The only reason I was able to catch the bus (minutes to spare) to Salamanca in time for my concert was because I had the coolest bus driver ever, who definitely broke some traffic laws to get me to the bus station on time.
Finally, this past weekend I went to Rome (blog post to follow on this fabulous trip). My friend and I arrived to Madrid separately, planning to meet up at the airport. She had arrived around noon for our 5.00pm flight. She camped out at the gate until I got there, around 4.00pm and was told to go to the gate she was at. About 45 minutes later, we realized that the gate sign (that had said “Lisbon” for the past 4 hours) still hadn’t changed to “Rome.” My friend went to ask a man at an info desk and he told her that our gate had changed, the flight was on final call, and for us to run. We RAN through Barajas airport, out of breath by time we reached our gate, basically in another terminal as the other. When we did get there, no one was there to let us on the flight. We still had 8 minutes until the flight was supposed to leave. We could see the plane. We could see the pilot. But try as we might, no one could help us and we were on the verge of crying as we watched our flight to Rome take off without us. We ended up having to pay 110 Euros extra to change our flight to the next day (no travel insurance, the joy of RyanAir) and had to spend the night in Barajas airport.
I am definitely cursed. Hopefully by writing all of this down, my luck will change. Seriously, nothing can be worse than the night we missed the Rome flight. Luckily my friend and I were very positive, drank some beer and wine, and ended up having an incredible weekend in Italy!
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Thanksgiving Abroad
Thanksgiving in Spain was definitely something very different than the holiday in the States. I wasn’t really expecting anything spectacular, but this year, I came away with some really wonderful stories from the Thanksgiving season.
It all started a few weeks ago when I was making my PowerPoint presentation (I know, I know…I decided not to do a Prezi because of the stupid, old computers at my school…they don’t like Prezis…) about Thanksgiving. I made the show, complete with descriptions of food, the parade, football, Black Friday, the Indians (excuse me, “First People”), the Pilgrims…it was a pretty great presentation, if I do say so myself. But, I had some trouble figuring out what activity to do with the kids after I talked. I had already done a crossword for Halloween and a quiz/wordsearch for Guy Fawkes’ Day (don’t even get me started on why I had to present on this “holiday”), so I was at a loss for Thanksgiving. After searching endlessly online and coming up with nothing, I had a stroke of creativity and ended up making a printout of a turkey on one side of a paper, and a blank template for a letter on the other side. The kids would have to write in all of the feathers what they were thankful for (family, friends…chocolate, Justin Bieber…whatever). Then, on the other side, they would write a letter to one of those things/people saying why they were thankful for it/them. Quite an inspired idea, I thought.
So the first group I gave the presentation to was 1st bachillerato (16-17 years old). The talk went great, and then at the end, I showed some videos. The first was a montage of clips from a Black Friday at a Target in Utah at 4.00am (prefaced with “Not all Americans are like this…”). It showed people screaming, shoving, running amuck, and just general Black Friday mayhem. The second video was Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade clips. Then the third was what the class really had fun with. It was the Radio City Rockettes performing at the Macy’s Parade in 2010. In that particular year, the Rockettes were feeling especially homologous. The first (and I would even venture to say, the only) thing that these students picked up on was that there was only one African American Rockette. By the end of the number, they had all decided that there was indeed a second one as well, she was just a lot lighter in skin tone than the first. I don’t think they quite understood the point of the video…
Another class I gave the Thanksgiving presentation to was 2nd E.S.O (12-13 years old). I teach this class English on Mondays, then directly after English, I have music class with them. Because of this, they’ve gotten to know me a little better than the classes who only have me for one period a week. When I gave 2nd E.S.O the assignment to write down what they were thankful for, I walked around the room, seeing what everyone was writing. I was pleased to see that the majority of the class did not write that they were thankful for Tuenti (Spanish Facebook) like my 4th E.S.O kids did. But, as I was walking, I glanced at one boy’s paper (let’s call him Paco). Along with “my family,” “my friends, “ and “my spaghetti,” Paco had also written “Rachel.” I pointed to my name and said, “Paco! Thank you! That’s so nice!” and gave him a big smile. He blushed a little and didn’t say anything. Once the class moved on to writing their letters, I walked around some more. Each time I moved towards Paco, he would cover up his paper. Eventually I understood that he was writing his letter to me! Precious! I haven’t read it yet and while I’m a little scared to, I think it has great self-esteem boosting potential for me.
As far as the Thanksgiving Day, I had decided about a week before the Thursday that I needed to have a true Thanksgiving feast, so as not to be depressed and missing home. Since my apartment doesn’t have an oven, I asked my friend Josemi if in exchange for cooking, cleaning, and doing whatever else he asked, if I could use his kitchen (and oven) to host a Thanksgiving dinner for our Spanish friends. He graciously said “yes,” and I began to plan for the big dinner. I was determined to get as close to all of our traditional dishes as possible. I’ll make this part short (but don’t think that it was in any way), but over the week, I went into about 10 different stores, at least 20 times in order to get everything I needed. I found a turkey breast at a meat shop, dried cranberries at a store across town, celery (believe it or not, it’s rare here…my roommate had never seen it before) at a fruit and vegetable market, and eventually was pretty happy with my supplies.
On Thursday, I had to work at Zurbarán in the morning, then tutor in the afternoon. I had been prepping the food for a few days, letting home-cut bread cubes get stale on my counter, boiling and mashing fresh pumpkin (no canned variety here), and before I went over to Josemi’s house, I put the spice rub on the turkey that I had made. I trekked over to Josemi’s around 7.00pm with (not exaggerating) about 50 lbs. of food in three different (massive) bags. I definitely got my work out in that day. Once I unloaded everything, I got to work. I cooked straight for almost 3 hours. Everyone was so nice in offering to help, but I didn’t even really know what I was doing, so it was hard to try to direct people. So, besides some help with cutting vegetables, I can proudly say that I made the entire Thanksgiving feast by myself. We had told the rest of our friends that we would eat around 9.30pm, but this is Spain…so that obviously didn’t happen. Around 9.45, everything except the gravy was almost done. Since I had been cooking for so long, I felt gross. I ran home to shower while the turkey and everything else finished up. Feeling renewed and smelling much less like onion, I went back to Josemi’s, made the gravy, then we laid out all of the food. There were eight of us there and it really was like being with family. I’ve been so lucky with all of the friends I’ve made here and without them, my adjustment here would have definitely been a lot tougher.
Everyone made me say the “blessing” before we ate…but they insisted that I say it in English. Which is funny because only two of them know English really well, and only about half know any at all. After saying grace, we dug into the food. I was like a little Italian mother watching her kids eat and enjoy her meal. The turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, gravy, and mashed potatoes were all new flavors to everyone at the table and tasted just like home to me. For dessert, I had made pumpkin pie (like I said, with fresh pumpkins). I was pretty doubtful to see how it would turn out (I didn’t have any measuring cups/spoons, so everything was eye-balled), but in the end, it was delicious.
All in all, Thanksgiving was a great success. About half of the group made it out to bars to enjoy the rest of the evening (everyone else was feeling the effects of tryptophan, I guess) and we had a really fun time.
If I couldn’t be in North Carolina with my family for Thanksgiving, this year’s “Fakesgiving” was definitely the next best thing!
It all started a few weeks ago when I was making my PowerPoint presentation (I know, I know…I decided not to do a Prezi because of the stupid, old computers at my school…they don’t like Prezis…) about Thanksgiving. I made the show, complete with descriptions of food, the parade, football, Black Friday, the Indians (excuse me, “First People”), the Pilgrims…it was a pretty great presentation, if I do say so myself. But, I had some trouble figuring out what activity to do with the kids after I talked. I had already done a crossword for Halloween and a quiz/wordsearch for Guy Fawkes’ Day (don’t even get me started on why I had to present on this “holiday”), so I was at a loss for Thanksgiving. After searching endlessly online and coming up with nothing, I had a stroke of creativity and ended up making a printout of a turkey on one side of a paper, and a blank template for a letter on the other side. The kids would have to write in all of the feathers what they were thankful for (family, friends…chocolate, Justin Bieber…whatever). Then, on the other side, they would write a letter to one of those things/people saying why they were thankful for it/them. Quite an inspired idea, I thought.
So the first group I gave the presentation to was 1st bachillerato (16-17 years old). The talk went great, and then at the end, I showed some videos. The first was a montage of clips from a Black Friday at a Target in Utah at 4.00am (prefaced with “Not all Americans are like this…”). It showed people screaming, shoving, running amuck, and just general Black Friday mayhem. The second video was Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade clips. Then the third was what the class really had fun with. It was the Radio City Rockettes performing at the Macy’s Parade in 2010. In that particular year, the Rockettes were feeling especially homologous. The first (and I would even venture to say, the only) thing that these students picked up on was that there was only one African American Rockette. By the end of the number, they had all decided that there was indeed a second one as well, she was just a lot lighter in skin tone than the first. I don’t think they quite understood the point of the video…
Another class I gave the Thanksgiving presentation to was 2nd E.S.O (12-13 years old). I teach this class English on Mondays, then directly after English, I have music class with them. Because of this, they’ve gotten to know me a little better than the classes who only have me for one period a week. When I gave 2nd E.S.O the assignment to write down what they were thankful for, I walked around the room, seeing what everyone was writing. I was pleased to see that the majority of the class did not write that they were thankful for Tuenti (Spanish Facebook) like my 4th E.S.O kids did. But, as I was walking, I glanced at one boy’s paper (let’s call him Paco). Along with “my family,” “my friends, “ and “my spaghetti,” Paco had also written “Rachel.” I pointed to my name and said, “Paco! Thank you! That’s so nice!” and gave him a big smile. He blushed a little and didn’t say anything. Once the class moved on to writing their letters, I walked around some more. Each time I moved towards Paco, he would cover up his paper. Eventually I understood that he was writing his letter to me! Precious! I haven’t read it yet and while I’m a little scared to, I think it has great self-esteem boosting potential for me.
As far as the Thanksgiving Day, I had decided about a week before the Thursday that I needed to have a true Thanksgiving feast, so as not to be depressed and missing home. Since my apartment doesn’t have an oven, I asked my friend Josemi if in exchange for cooking, cleaning, and doing whatever else he asked, if I could use his kitchen (and oven) to host a Thanksgiving dinner for our Spanish friends. He graciously said “yes,” and I began to plan for the big dinner. I was determined to get as close to all of our traditional dishes as possible. I’ll make this part short (but don’t think that it was in any way), but over the week, I went into about 10 different stores, at least 20 times in order to get everything I needed. I found a turkey breast at a meat shop, dried cranberries at a store across town, celery (believe it or not, it’s rare here…my roommate had never seen it before) at a fruit and vegetable market, and eventually was pretty happy with my supplies.
On Thursday, I had to work at Zurbarán in the morning, then tutor in the afternoon. I had been prepping the food for a few days, letting home-cut bread cubes get stale on my counter, boiling and mashing fresh pumpkin (no canned variety here), and before I went over to Josemi’s house, I put the spice rub on the turkey that I had made. I trekked over to Josemi’s around 7.00pm with (not exaggerating) about 50 lbs. of food in three different (massive) bags. I definitely got my work out in that day. Once I unloaded everything, I got to work. I cooked straight for almost 3 hours. Everyone was so nice in offering to help, but I didn’t even really know what I was doing, so it was hard to try to direct people. So, besides some help with cutting vegetables, I can proudly say that I made the entire Thanksgiving feast by myself. We had told the rest of our friends that we would eat around 9.30pm, but this is Spain…so that obviously didn’t happen. Around 9.45, everything except the gravy was almost done. Since I had been cooking for so long, I felt gross. I ran home to shower while the turkey and everything else finished up. Feeling renewed and smelling much less like onion, I went back to Josemi’s, made the gravy, then we laid out all of the food. There were eight of us there and it really was like being with family. I’ve been so lucky with all of the friends I’ve made here and without them, my adjustment here would have definitely been a lot tougher.
Everyone made me say the “blessing” before we ate…but they insisted that I say it in English. Which is funny because only two of them know English really well, and only about half know any at all. After saying grace, we dug into the food. I was like a little Italian mother watching her kids eat and enjoy her meal. The turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, gravy, and mashed potatoes were all new flavors to everyone at the table and tasted just like home to me. For dessert, I had made pumpkin pie (like I said, with fresh pumpkins). I was pretty doubtful to see how it would turn out (I didn’t have any measuring cups/spoons, so everything was eye-balled), but in the end, it was delicious.
All in all, Thanksgiving was a great success. About half of the group made it out to bars to enjoy the rest of the evening (everyone else was feeling the effects of tryptophan, I guess) and we had a really fun time.
If I couldn’t be in North Carolina with my family for Thanksgiving, this year’s “Fakesgiving” was definitely the next best thing!
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Walking with Trees
I feel like bizarre things happen to me multiple times a day, that I’ve just stopped realizing that certain situations just aren’t normal. I definitely have realized that I need to start writing down the funnier stories so that once I’m back in the States, I will finally be able to see how ridiculous my life could be here sometimes.
First of all, I bought a Christmas tree yesterday. Buying a Christmas tree here is not like going to Target and buying a lovely, pre-lit tree, or going to the local farm and cutting down your own. Instead, I went to the local Chino shop across the street from my school. When I went in, I found a bunch of artificial trees up front. I asked the little Asian lady which one was the cheapest tree and how much it would be (I JUST got paid for the first time in two months…but that’s another story). She told me the cheapest was 6 Euros, but when she went to show it to me, as luck would have it, they didn’t have any left. No problem. I asked her what the next cheapest was. She showed it to me, and while it wasn’t ideal, for 8 Euros, I could handle it. However, the model she showed me had no top section on it (aka where you put the star), so I asked if I could get a tree that had all of it’s parts. She said “no.” Apparently that was the only one of that kind of tree they had. So one more time, I asked for the third cheapest tree. The one she showed me was 12 Euros, but was pretty perfect. A little wobbly, but standing at about 3 feet tall, it definitely had Charlie Brown Christmas potential. I let her know that I wanted that tree, she set it aside, and I went to find some ornaments to decorate it with. After finding some, I went to the cash register to pay. After I gave the lady my money, she put the ornaments in a bag for me and then turned away. I said, “Perdón, but can I have a box for the tree?” (remember, this tree is all pre-assembled). She said “No, this tree comes sin caja.” Aka without a box. I stared at her and the tree for a few seconds then said, “Okay, um, well, gracias.” I picked up my bag of ornaments, my school messanger bag, and my new three-foot tall Christmas tree and started the 15 minute walk home through the center of town.
Living in Navalmoral, I’ve definitely gotten used to stares. The first few weeks here, I felt like an alien with my light hair and light eyes. Now, I don’t notice the looks so much. But, carrying a tree through the streets, I had flashbacks of those first few weeks. I didn’t really care what people thought of me, as I obviously was just being festive, getting ready for Christmas. Still, as I walked and met eyes with the on-lookers, I could only place myself in their shoes and think of my reaction if I saw me walking down the streets of this tiny town, already very different from the typical-looking person, carrying a huge plant across basically the whole town. I kept having to stifle laughs as I was walking…which I think only added to the glares I was getting.
In any case, I made it home eventually, pride not shaken in the least, and set up my tree. I’m so happy with the way it turned out and now, whenever I come home, seeing it makes me so happy. Being away from my family and American friends this holiday season is going to be hard. I’m already feeling it a lot with Thanksgiving being tomorrow. I think having little touches of home (ie: the tree) are really going to help. Also, I’m making a Thanksgiving dinner for my Spanish friends tomorrow. Stories from that will definitely come soon. But for now, I’m just thankful to have my Christmas tree safe and sound in my piso, for getting paid after two months of work (only in Spain), for everyone in Navalmoral who have been so incredible to me, for my wonderful family who I miss everyday, and for radiators and braceros (that without I would certainly be an ice cube in my apartment by now). Happy Thanksgiving!!!
First of all, I bought a Christmas tree yesterday. Buying a Christmas tree here is not like going to Target and buying a lovely, pre-lit tree, or going to the local farm and cutting down your own. Instead, I went to the local Chino shop across the street from my school. When I went in, I found a bunch of artificial trees up front. I asked the little Asian lady which one was the cheapest tree and how much it would be (I JUST got paid for the first time in two months…but that’s another story). She told me the cheapest was 6 Euros, but when she went to show it to me, as luck would have it, they didn’t have any left. No problem. I asked her what the next cheapest was. She showed it to me, and while it wasn’t ideal, for 8 Euros, I could handle it. However, the model she showed me had no top section on it (aka where you put the star), so I asked if I could get a tree that had all of it’s parts. She said “no.” Apparently that was the only one of that kind of tree they had. So one more time, I asked for the third cheapest tree. The one she showed me was 12 Euros, but was pretty perfect. A little wobbly, but standing at about 3 feet tall, it definitely had Charlie Brown Christmas potential. I let her know that I wanted that tree, she set it aside, and I went to find some ornaments to decorate it with. After finding some, I went to the cash register to pay. After I gave the lady my money, she put the ornaments in a bag for me and then turned away. I said, “Perdón, but can I have a box for the tree?” (remember, this tree is all pre-assembled). She said “No, this tree comes sin caja.” Aka without a box. I stared at her and the tree for a few seconds then said, “Okay, um, well, gracias.” I picked up my bag of ornaments, my school messanger bag, and my new three-foot tall Christmas tree and started the 15 minute walk home through the center of town.
Living in Navalmoral, I’ve definitely gotten used to stares. The first few weeks here, I felt like an alien with my light hair and light eyes. Now, I don’t notice the looks so much. But, carrying a tree through the streets, I had flashbacks of those first few weeks. I didn’t really care what people thought of me, as I obviously was just being festive, getting ready for Christmas. Still, as I walked and met eyes with the on-lookers, I could only place myself in their shoes and think of my reaction if I saw me walking down the streets of this tiny town, already very different from the typical-looking person, carrying a huge plant across basically the whole town. I kept having to stifle laughs as I was walking…which I think only added to the glares I was getting.
In any case, I made it home eventually, pride not shaken in the least, and set up my tree. I’m so happy with the way it turned out and now, whenever I come home, seeing it makes me so happy. Being away from my family and American friends this holiday season is going to be hard. I’m already feeling it a lot with Thanksgiving being tomorrow. I think having little touches of home (ie: the tree) are really going to help. Also, I’m making a Thanksgiving dinner for my Spanish friends tomorrow. Stories from that will definitely come soon. But for now, I’m just thankful to have my Christmas tree safe and sound in my piso, for getting paid after two months of work (only in Spain), for everyone in Navalmoral who have been so incredible to me, for my wonderful family who I miss everyday, and for radiators and braceros (that without I would certainly be an ice cube in my apartment by now). Happy Thanksgiving!!!
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Gypsies, Tramps, and Entertainers
Since coming to Navalmoral, I’ve had a few nights out that had been really spectacular. Some of them were going out at night during San Miguel (one of the two main festivals here) and another was the night a bunch of us went dancing, ate churros at 6am, and got home around 8am. But, I think my favorite night here so far was this past Sunday.
After Venice two weeks ago, I wanted to just relax this past weekend. Friday night I went out with some friends in plan tranquilo, getting home around 2am. Then Saturday, I relaxed a little too much. My roommate was out of town, so I spent all day in my pajamas and didn’t leave my apartment once. It was pretty depressing. Sunday looked like it was going to be the same thing.
Sunday, I hung around in sweatpants until early afternoon, then decided to seize the day and went for a walk. The weather was beautiful, so I put on some jeans and explored Navalmoral a bit, then went back home. After that, it was back to the sweatpants. Around 7.30pm, my roommate (who had gotten home earlier that day) texted me that she had seen one of our friends on the street, (César) and that he was going to the Cultural Center that night to see a play. He knows that I’m a theatre geek, so he asked her to see if I wanted to go. Having already eaten dinner, I was ready to sleep in a couple of hours, so I said, “No thanks…maybe next time.” I sat around for another half and hour and remembered that I had made a “Yes Man” pact to myself while in Spain. I texted César and told him I would come. I met him at theatre (jeans back on) around 8.30 and the play started.
The play was pretty bad. The acting. The sets. The costumes. I think it was about homosexuals during the golpe del estado in Spain in 1981…but I could be wrong. I didn’t understand about 90% of the show (Spanish language and the content). César tried his best to explain what was going on to me during the performance, but at one point I just gave up, resigned that my Spanish and history skills just weren’t up to par. After the show, César and another guy who was there said they were going to meet two other friends for a drink, and wanted to know if I wanted to come. At first, I was going to say that I was tired and maybe another time…then I remembered “Yes Man.” We went to the only Irish pub in Navalmoral (only because it has the name “St. James” and serves Guinness) and met up with the other people. We all got a drink and sat around chatting.
When I had entered the pub, there had been a few gypsy men (darker complexion, more from the south), lightly playing the guitar. It was very nice, but quiet. However, as the night went on, more and more gypsy men came into the pub and soon, a full on flamenco show was happening around me. It was the five of us and the gypsies. They were singing, dancing, clapping, playing the guitar, and “olé”ing. It was amazing. Nowhere in the United States would this happen. They weren’t there to give a performance. It was just a bunch of friends meeting up to hang out. We hung around, enjoying the show for a few hours, then headed home.
That night was one of those that really make me appreciate that I really live in Spain. I think too often I forget that many people never even have the opportunity to leave their hometown, and here I am, living in Spain, traveling to all different countries and getting to know new cultures. My love affair with Spain began in Valencia and was so strong right from the start and Sunday night only added to the fire.
After Venice two weeks ago, I wanted to just relax this past weekend. Friday night I went out with some friends in plan tranquilo, getting home around 2am. Then Saturday, I relaxed a little too much. My roommate was out of town, so I spent all day in my pajamas and didn’t leave my apartment once. It was pretty depressing. Sunday looked like it was going to be the same thing.
Sunday, I hung around in sweatpants until early afternoon, then decided to seize the day and went for a walk. The weather was beautiful, so I put on some jeans and explored Navalmoral a bit, then went back home. After that, it was back to the sweatpants. Around 7.30pm, my roommate (who had gotten home earlier that day) texted me that she had seen one of our friends on the street, (César) and that he was going to the Cultural Center that night to see a play. He knows that I’m a theatre geek, so he asked her to see if I wanted to go. Having already eaten dinner, I was ready to sleep in a couple of hours, so I said, “No thanks…maybe next time.” I sat around for another half and hour and remembered that I had made a “Yes Man” pact to myself while in Spain. I texted César and told him I would come. I met him at theatre (jeans back on) around 8.30 and the play started.
The play was pretty bad. The acting. The sets. The costumes. I think it was about homosexuals during the golpe del estado in Spain in 1981…but I could be wrong. I didn’t understand about 90% of the show (Spanish language and the content). César tried his best to explain what was going on to me during the performance, but at one point I just gave up, resigned that my Spanish and history skills just weren’t up to par. After the show, César and another guy who was there said they were going to meet two other friends for a drink, and wanted to know if I wanted to come. At first, I was going to say that I was tired and maybe another time…then I remembered “Yes Man.” We went to the only Irish pub in Navalmoral (only because it has the name “St. James” and serves Guinness) and met up with the other people. We all got a drink and sat around chatting.
When I had entered the pub, there had been a few gypsy men (darker complexion, more from the south), lightly playing the guitar. It was very nice, but quiet. However, as the night went on, more and more gypsy men came into the pub and soon, a full on flamenco show was happening around me. It was the five of us and the gypsies. They were singing, dancing, clapping, playing the guitar, and “olé”ing. It was amazing. Nowhere in the United States would this happen. They weren’t there to give a performance. It was just a bunch of friends meeting up to hang out. We hung around, enjoying the show for a few hours, then headed home.
That night was one of those that really make me appreciate that I really live in Spain. I think too often I forget that many people never even have the opportunity to leave their hometown, and here I am, living in Spain, traveling to all different countries and getting to know new cultures. My love affair with Spain began in Valencia and was so strong right from the start and Sunday night only added to the fire.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Venezia: Part II
Saturday morning, we woke up around 9.30am so we could get ready and be out before the 11.00am lock out. We tried (unsuccessfully) to find the café from the day before, settled on a place for lunch (pizza again, obviously), then started the long trek over to Piazza San Marco.
Once we were at the piazza, we went into Saint Mark’s Basilica. The place was truly beautiful. I took some pictures of it, but pictures can’t even come close to doing the place justice. After the basilica, we went to the Doge’s Palace right next door. The doge (duke) was the head of Venice government, before being demoted to a figurehead, but either way, had an incredible palace. The place was huge. There were living rooms, map rooms, art rooms, senate rooms, prisons, and an armory. The coolest part, though, was seeing Tintoretto’s “Il Paradiso.”
We then walked around for a while, went back to the hostel, hung out with the hostel guys (Dan, an Italian-Australian, chatted with us for a long time), and then got ready for the evening. We had decided to save some money and eat for 5 Euros at the hostel. We met a bunch of other fellow travelers over some pesto pasta, bruschetta, and some questionable chocolate cake. After that, the five of us went out for a very calm night out. We went to an Irish pub for a while, then back to the students’ area. But Italy is more like the US in terms of its schedule. We got to the bars around 1.30am, so things were clearing out. We sat down on a bench and just watched the craziness around us. We saw some bizarre things that night.
In the morning, we had to check out by 10am, but daylight savings had kicked in, giving us one extra hour of sleep. Once out of the hostel, we headed over to the coast to catch the vaporetto (like a ferry) to another island, Murano. Murano is known for its glass-blowing. We were able to see a guy blowing glass for a few minutes, and then walked around the island, going in and out of glass shops. It was all very pretty. We got lunch, and then went back to the main land with the intention of getting a gondola ride.
Earlier that day, we had to get from one side of a canal to another and there were no bridges close by. Venice has set up a public transportation of sorts with gondolas. For .50 Euro cents you can get a gondola ride for about 2 minutes across the canal. We had already done this, so when we found out that for a half-hour private gondola ride we would each have to pay 20 Euros plus tip, we decided that the gondola ride earlier that day counted and that we didn’t want to pay the money. Instead, we went shopping for masks and other souvenirs. For dinner that night, half of the group went to get Indian food, while myself and another girl were more in the mood for more Italian food, so we got, what else, more pizza.
Having already checked out of the hostel and not wanting to pay money for a third night, decided to spend the night in the Venice airport instead. We got our bags, hopped on the last airport shuttle of the night (after missing the one before that one), and got to the airport. When we walked up to the airport doors, they were locked. We went to every door in front of the airport and they were all locked. It was 1.00am, freezing outside, the bus had left, and we were stuck outside! We could see a couple of people inside, sleeping (I guess they had gotten there before the doors were locked) and tried getting their attention to see if they could help us. Some of the girls even suggested spending the night in the elevator for warmth (not happening). The people inside couldn’t help us, but I eventually flagged down a maintenance man/janitor on the inside and after running around a bit, he pried a door open for us, setting off an alarm in the whole airport…but we didn’t care…we had made it inside! We found a section of the airport to try to sleep in (try being the key word). It was freezing, so I layered up. I was wearing two pairs of socks, boots, leggings, jeans, two shirts, two sweaters, and gloves. On top of all of that, we had found some cardboard boxes and (must to the disgust of one girl in our group), used them to lie on. We even got a thumbs-up from a homeless man in the airport. New low in life? Maybe. Do I regret it? Nope.
Around 8.00am, the café opened and we got some coffee and breakfast for fuel. We got on our RyanAir flight around 10.00am, happy to be going back home. When we landed in Sevilla, the original plan had been to spend the night there and go home on Tuesday. But, myself and another girl, Mary-Ryan, were so exhausted and couldn’t deal with another night in a hostel and decided to leave that day. After a ton of confusion and stress about what bus or train I would take home, I finally found a way.
When I got home, I couldn’t have been happier. The trip to Venice had been amazing, but I just wanted a hot (clean) shower and to sleep in my own bed. Whenever I leave Navalmoral, I always realize just how much I’m growing to like it.
Once we were at the piazza, we went into Saint Mark’s Basilica. The place was truly beautiful. I took some pictures of it, but pictures can’t even come close to doing the place justice. After the basilica, we went to the Doge’s Palace right next door. The doge (duke) was the head of Venice government, before being demoted to a figurehead, but either way, had an incredible palace. The place was huge. There were living rooms, map rooms, art rooms, senate rooms, prisons, and an armory. The coolest part, though, was seeing Tintoretto’s “Il Paradiso.”
We then walked around for a while, went back to the hostel, hung out with the hostel guys (Dan, an Italian-Australian, chatted with us for a long time), and then got ready for the evening. We had decided to save some money and eat for 5 Euros at the hostel. We met a bunch of other fellow travelers over some pesto pasta, bruschetta, and some questionable chocolate cake. After that, the five of us went out for a very calm night out. We went to an Irish pub for a while, then back to the students’ area. But Italy is more like the US in terms of its schedule. We got to the bars around 1.30am, so things were clearing out. We sat down on a bench and just watched the craziness around us. We saw some bizarre things that night.
In the morning, we had to check out by 10am, but daylight savings had kicked in, giving us one extra hour of sleep. Once out of the hostel, we headed over to the coast to catch the vaporetto (like a ferry) to another island, Murano. Murano is known for its glass-blowing. We were able to see a guy blowing glass for a few minutes, and then walked around the island, going in and out of glass shops. It was all very pretty. We got lunch, and then went back to the main land with the intention of getting a gondola ride.
Earlier that day, we had to get from one side of a canal to another and there were no bridges close by. Venice has set up a public transportation of sorts with gondolas. For .50 Euro cents you can get a gondola ride for about 2 minutes across the canal. We had already done this, so when we found out that for a half-hour private gondola ride we would each have to pay 20 Euros plus tip, we decided that the gondola ride earlier that day counted and that we didn’t want to pay the money. Instead, we went shopping for masks and other souvenirs. For dinner that night, half of the group went to get Indian food, while myself and another girl were more in the mood for more Italian food, so we got, what else, more pizza.
Having already checked out of the hostel and not wanting to pay money for a third night, decided to spend the night in the Venice airport instead. We got our bags, hopped on the last airport shuttle of the night (after missing the one before that one), and got to the airport. When we walked up to the airport doors, they were locked. We went to every door in front of the airport and they were all locked. It was 1.00am, freezing outside, the bus had left, and we were stuck outside! We could see a couple of people inside, sleeping (I guess they had gotten there before the doors were locked) and tried getting their attention to see if they could help us. Some of the girls even suggested spending the night in the elevator for warmth (not happening). The people inside couldn’t help us, but I eventually flagged down a maintenance man/janitor on the inside and after running around a bit, he pried a door open for us, setting off an alarm in the whole airport…but we didn’t care…we had made it inside! We found a section of the airport to try to sleep in (try being the key word). It was freezing, so I layered up. I was wearing two pairs of socks, boots, leggings, jeans, two shirts, two sweaters, and gloves. On top of all of that, we had found some cardboard boxes and (must to the disgust of one girl in our group), used them to lie on. We even got a thumbs-up from a homeless man in the airport. New low in life? Maybe. Do I regret it? Nope.
Around 8.00am, the café opened and we got some coffee and breakfast for fuel. We got on our RyanAir flight around 10.00am, happy to be going back home. When we landed in Sevilla, the original plan had been to spend the night there and go home on Tuesday. But, myself and another girl, Mary-Ryan, were so exhausted and couldn’t deal with another night in a hostel and decided to leave that day. After a ton of confusion and stress about what bus or train I would take home, I finally found a way.
When I got home, I couldn’t have been happier. The trip to Venice had been amazing, but I just wanted a hot (clean) shower and to sleep in my own bed. Whenever I leave Navalmoral, I always realize just how much I’m growing to like it.
Venezia: Part I
So I realize I haven’t really been updating my blog lately…but I see that as a good thing. It means I’ve been so busy that I don’t have the time to sit around and type out my life. And I’d much rather be busy than bored here.
So last week I didn’t stop working. After the most fun weekend spent in Navalmoral so far (a friend’s birthday), I was tutoring and teaching all week. On Thursday, I went into the elementary school across the street from my apartment and gave four, 1-hour long presentations on Halloween to the kiddies. Four of the exact same presentations. I was exhausted after that, but still had to tutor, then head to Madrid so I could go to Venice very early Friday morning!
So begins the weekend… I was planning on taking the 7:55 pm bus out of Navalmoral to Madrid, Thursday night. However, when I got to the station, I realized that the ticket office was closed. I dashed across the way to the bus station and was able to get on the last bus to Madrid that night at 7:40pm. Good thing I get places early.
The bus ride was lovely. I tried to sleep a little and listen to my iPod. When I got bored with that, I watched the movie that the bus was playing. It was dubbed in Spanish and starred Tim Curry and was absolutely ridiculous. I was so confused the whole time, and think I still would have been if it had been in English. I highly recommend YouTubeing the movie, “Bailey’s Billion$.”
When I got into the city, my friend Juan David (from Navalmoral but lives in Madrid) met me at the station. We dropped my stuff off at his apartment, and then went out to dinner. We ate at Foster’s American Restaurant (I had one next to where I lived in Valencia, but never ate there). It was actually really good, and really filling. It was “Buy 1, Get 1 Free” night, so we each got an appetizer and an entrée. I had some chicken fingers and tacos…just like home. After dinner, we met up with some of his friends at a bar and hung out. It was a great mix of Erasmus (study abroad in Europe) students: Dutch, French, German…very international. We spent the night dancing at a club and around 4:00am, Juan David and I made the long walk (metros stop running around 2:00am) to his apartment to pick up my bag, then he drove me to the airport. He dropped me off at Terminal 1, but once he left and I was inside, I realized I had to be in Terminal 4. I flagged down a taxi and had to pay the stupid airport fee on top of the regular fare to drive just a few seconds away. Once in Terminal 4, I went through security and by the time I was at my gate, the 5:45am flight was getting ready to board.
Despite a bit of turbulence, the flight was fine, though I didn’t get any sleep. When I landed in Venice, I had about an hour to kill until the flight that my friends were on from Sevilla landed. I ordered my first (of many) Italian cappuccino in the café and people-watched until the other girls’ plane came in. Once they were there, the five of us hopped on the airport bus over to the main island, tired, but excited to be there.
We wandered around for a while, figuring we would stumble across our hostel eventually, stopping for some more cappuccinos, then eventually asking (in broken Italospanglish) how to find the hostel. Once at the hostel, the real fun began. At one point in the past, the building the hostel was in used to be some sort of house of royalty. However, hundreds of years later, things have definitely changed. A skinny, wild-haired British guy named Sam greeted us. Sam told us that there was a mandatory lock-out every day from 11-2 so that they could clean the place, and that no one could be in the hostel at that time. What they spent the three hours cleaning, we never figured out. So we dropped off our stuff, tried to make ourselves look a little human (almost 36 hours with only about a half an hour of sleep), and headed out to explore the city.
When we had researched what the best things to do in Venice were, the thing we kept finding online was “Get lost in the streets.” We took this advice to heart and did just that for all 3 days we were there. We spent Friday afternoon walking wherever we felt was right. We found the cutest, most delicious café ever (took a picture of the street name so we could try to find it again later), ate wonderful pizza at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and took some beautiful pictures of all of the bridges and canals. It was so surreal that I was actually in Venice. At one point I said to the girls, “I feel like I’m in Busch Gardens.” Such an American/Virginian thing to say, but it was true.
So around 4.00, we headed back to the hostel, as Sam said everything would be ready by 2.00, we thought we would be able to check-in and take a much needed siesta. Wrong. We did check in, paying an absurd amount of money (5 Euros each if we wanted sheets and towels, 5 Euros a night in Italian tourist tax, plus the steep nightly charge) for a hostel that was looking more disgusting by the second. One girl even saw a rat on the first floor at one point. Then, after paying, Sam said that the room “wasn’t quite ready yet” and that we could hang out on the common room couches for “10 minutes” while he finished fixing it up. “10 minutes” turned into about an hour waiting. We did manage to make friends with a British boy who was also sitting on the couches and looked to be about 12 years old. He told us he was 16 (yeah, right), his name was Zak and he had “been done with school a long time ago.” This kid had spent the last month on the Camino de Santiago, before that spent time in Venice (training at the hostel to work there eventually), and had traveled a lot more. Was he a run away? Did his parents kick him out? Did he even have parents? So many questions. Now, Zak was starting to actually work at the hostel as a paid employee. Good thing, because he had showed up to Venice with only 4.80 Euros in his pocket…
When we finally were able to go into our room, we tried to nap for a bit, but only really managed to lay there. Still having not slept, we all took turns going upstairs to the one shower/bathroom. The shower was an experience in itself. The water pressure was non-existent (about 8 drops a minute) and it was the moldiest shower I have ever seen (on the walls, the shower curtain…).
That night we wanted to go out to dinner, but it took a long time to figure out where we wanted to go (many places were full, had creepy-looking people outside…). Finally we decided on one that looked good, had a lot of people in it, and seemed like it might have space for us. But, when I asked for a table for five, the waiter said that we would have to wait about 20 minutes. We all looked at each other, hungry and not wanting to wait, and the waiter said “one second.” He walked up to a table of two (man and woman) and asked them to move tables so he could push two together for us. They already had their drinks and had ordered their food and he made them move! I guess the waiter really wanted the American girls to stay…
So we sat down at our table, mumbling an embarrassed “grazie” to the couple who switched tables and ordered our bottle of wine and food. The food was pretty good (I had spaghetti carbonara) and once we were done, the waiter brought over a round of brandy shots for us. In many parts of Spain (and apparently Italy), it’s normal to get a free shot (to sip on) after dinner as a “palate cleanser.” So we reluctantly, but graciously sipped on our brandy. Once we were done, we asked for “il conto per favore” (the bill). But, instead of bringing over the bill, the waiter brought over ANOTHER round of brandy shots for us…now this was not normal. Again, we graciously sipped the shots, our throats burning from the alcohol. Finally, after getting through that, we asked for “il conto per favore” again. And what happened? ANOTHER round! Ugggh. So once again, we took our time and finished the brandy, telling the waiter that we could drink no more. Finally, he brought us the bill.
That night we headed over to the students' area of Venice and went to a few bars. A very exciting thing, I found a place with a mojito that is a close second to Laboratorio’s mojitos in Valencia. We hung out around there for the evening and at the end of the night, we could definitely say we went out full force in Venice.
So last week I didn’t stop working. After the most fun weekend spent in Navalmoral so far (a friend’s birthday), I was tutoring and teaching all week. On Thursday, I went into the elementary school across the street from my apartment and gave four, 1-hour long presentations on Halloween to the kiddies. Four of the exact same presentations. I was exhausted after that, but still had to tutor, then head to Madrid so I could go to Venice very early Friday morning!
So begins the weekend… I was planning on taking the 7:55 pm bus out of Navalmoral to Madrid, Thursday night. However, when I got to the station, I realized that the ticket office was closed. I dashed across the way to the bus station and was able to get on the last bus to Madrid that night at 7:40pm. Good thing I get places early.
The bus ride was lovely. I tried to sleep a little and listen to my iPod. When I got bored with that, I watched the movie that the bus was playing. It was dubbed in Spanish and starred Tim Curry and was absolutely ridiculous. I was so confused the whole time, and think I still would have been if it had been in English. I highly recommend YouTubeing the movie, “Bailey’s Billion$.”
When I got into the city, my friend Juan David (from Navalmoral but lives in Madrid) met me at the station. We dropped my stuff off at his apartment, and then went out to dinner. We ate at Foster’s American Restaurant (I had one next to where I lived in Valencia, but never ate there). It was actually really good, and really filling. It was “Buy 1, Get 1 Free” night, so we each got an appetizer and an entrée. I had some chicken fingers and tacos…just like home. After dinner, we met up with some of his friends at a bar and hung out. It was a great mix of Erasmus (study abroad in Europe) students: Dutch, French, German…very international. We spent the night dancing at a club and around 4:00am, Juan David and I made the long walk (metros stop running around 2:00am) to his apartment to pick up my bag, then he drove me to the airport. He dropped me off at Terminal 1, but once he left and I was inside, I realized I had to be in Terminal 4. I flagged down a taxi and had to pay the stupid airport fee on top of the regular fare to drive just a few seconds away. Once in Terminal 4, I went through security and by the time I was at my gate, the 5:45am flight was getting ready to board.
Despite a bit of turbulence, the flight was fine, though I didn’t get any sleep. When I landed in Venice, I had about an hour to kill until the flight that my friends were on from Sevilla landed. I ordered my first (of many) Italian cappuccino in the café and people-watched until the other girls’ plane came in. Once they were there, the five of us hopped on the airport bus over to the main island, tired, but excited to be there.
We wandered around for a while, figuring we would stumble across our hostel eventually, stopping for some more cappuccinos, then eventually asking (in broken Italospanglish) how to find the hostel. Once at the hostel, the real fun began. At one point in the past, the building the hostel was in used to be some sort of house of royalty. However, hundreds of years later, things have definitely changed. A skinny, wild-haired British guy named Sam greeted us. Sam told us that there was a mandatory lock-out every day from 11-2 so that they could clean the place, and that no one could be in the hostel at that time. What they spent the three hours cleaning, we never figured out. So we dropped off our stuff, tried to make ourselves look a little human (almost 36 hours with only about a half an hour of sleep), and headed out to explore the city.
When we had researched what the best things to do in Venice were, the thing we kept finding online was “Get lost in the streets.” We took this advice to heart and did just that for all 3 days we were there. We spent Friday afternoon walking wherever we felt was right. We found the cutest, most delicious café ever (took a picture of the street name so we could try to find it again later), ate wonderful pizza at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and took some beautiful pictures of all of the bridges and canals. It was so surreal that I was actually in Venice. At one point I said to the girls, “I feel like I’m in Busch Gardens.” Such an American/Virginian thing to say, but it was true.
So around 4.00, we headed back to the hostel, as Sam said everything would be ready by 2.00, we thought we would be able to check-in and take a much needed siesta. Wrong. We did check in, paying an absurd amount of money (5 Euros each if we wanted sheets and towels, 5 Euros a night in Italian tourist tax, plus the steep nightly charge) for a hostel that was looking more disgusting by the second. One girl even saw a rat on the first floor at one point. Then, after paying, Sam said that the room “wasn’t quite ready yet” and that we could hang out on the common room couches for “10 minutes” while he finished fixing it up. “10 minutes” turned into about an hour waiting. We did manage to make friends with a British boy who was also sitting on the couches and looked to be about 12 years old. He told us he was 16 (yeah, right), his name was Zak and he had “been done with school a long time ago.” This kid had spent the last month on the Camino de Santiago, before that spent time in Venice (training at the hostel to work there eventually), and had traveled a lot more. Was he a run away? Did his parents kick him out? Did he even have parents? So many questions. Now, Zak was starting to actually work at the hostel as a paid employee. Good thing, because he had showed up to Venice with only 4.80 Euros in his pocket…
When we finally were able to go into our room, we tried to nap for a bit, but only really managed to lay there. Still having not slept, we all took turns going upstairs to the one shower/bathroom. The shower was an experience in itself. The water pressure was non-existent (about 8 drops a minute) and it was the moldiest shower I have ever seen (on the walls, the shower curtain…).
That night we wanted to go out to dinner, but it took a long time to figure out where we wanted to go (many places were full, had creepy-looking people outside…). Finally we decided on one that looked good, had a lot of people in it, and seemed like it might have space for us. But, when I asked for a table for five, the waiter said that we would have to wait about 20 minutes. We all looked at each other, hungry and not wanting to wait, and the waiter said “one second.” He walked up to a table of two (man and woman) and asked them to move tables so he could push two together for us. They already had their drinks and had ordered their food and he made them move! I guess the waiter really wanted the American girls to stay…
So we sat down at our table, mumbling an embarrassed “grazie” to the couple who switched tables and ordered our bottle of wine and food. The food was pretty good (I had spaghetti carbonara) and once we were done, the waiter brought over a round of brandy shots for us. In many parts of Spain (and apparently Italy), it’s normal to get a free shot (to sip on) after dinner as a “palate cleanser.” So we reluctantly, but graciously sipped on our brandy. Once we were done, we asked for “il conto per favore” (the bill). But, instead of bringing over the bill, the waiter brought over ANOTHER round of brandy shots for us…now this was not normal. Again, we graciously sipped the shots, our throats burning from the alcohol. Finally, after getting through that, we asked for “il conto per favore” again. And what happened? ANOTHER round! Ugggh. So once again, we took our time and finished the brandy, telling the waiter that we could drink no more. Finally, he brought us the bill.
That night we headed over to the students' area of Venice and went to a few bars. A very exciting thing, I found a place with a mojito that is a close second to Laboratorio’s mojitos in Valencia. We hung out around there for the evening and at the end of the night, we could definitely say we went out full force in Venice.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Almost Stuck In Salamanca
This past weekend I went to Salamanca with an auxiliar in a nearby town, Sara and we met up with another, Henry, our second day there. Sara and I decided literally, Thursday night that we were going to Salamanca the next day. This was by far the most spontaneous trip I’ve ever gone on. But it was kind of exhilarating…
Friday morning I got up at 8am so I could go to the bus station and see what time the bus left for Palencia, the town where I would meet up with Sara and we would get the 3.00pm bus to Salamanca. The guy told me the bus didn’t leave Navalmoral until 12.30pm, so I had some time to kill. Instead of going home and going back to sleep, I stopped by the Mercadillo, the outdoor market that sets up across the street from my piso every Friday morning. I walked around for a bit before buying a new (p)leather jacket and deciding I wanted some fruit. Buying fruit and vegetables here is not as simple as saying, “I want 5 apples” or putting the stuff you want in a bag by yourself. You have to tell the vendor how many kilos of fruit/veggies/whatever you want and they load up the bag for you. Being a stupid American, I had no idea how many tangerines I would get it I ordered one kilo. So, I went ahead and did just that. As the man started filling the bag with handfuls of tangerines, I quickly realized that one-kilo was going to be waaaaay more than I wanted. But, I was too embarrassed to say, “Oh, sorry, I actually meant a quarter kilo” or whatever. So I watched in pain as I thought of lugging all of those tangerines home. I counted later. He gave me 27. I also bought some dried figs, tomatoes, and a pomegranate. So if anyone wants a tangerine, you know where to find me…
I got on the bus to Plasencia later that afternoon, met up with Sara once I was there, and we set off for Salamanca. The bus ride was fine. We slept for most of it and were being seriously judged by the Spanish when we were awake. We got into the city and started walking in search of a hostel for the night. We found one actually pretty easily, checked in, explored the city, and did some shopping. There were some seriously fashionable people in Salamanca, so we were in search of some European outfits. Sara ended up buying “slouchy pants” and I got some green skinny jeans. I really want to come home in June and people think I’m super stuck-up because I dress like a European. That’s definitely the goal for the year.
We had been sitting in the beautiful Plaza Mayor, when a Spanish man and woman walked up to us and said, “Sara??” Who was it but Sara’s mentor from her school! In a city of thousands of people, he just happened to walk by us. Not only that, but we saw him, his wife, and two daughters (who go to the university there) two more times that evening. Very strange. But he had told us some good places that weren’t very touristy to go to for dinner. We headed that way around 9.30pm and ate/drink so well. I had the best patatas bravas of my life, tried tripe (not a fan), and we split a bottle of Lambrusco. It was a wonderful night.
In the morning, we met up with Henry, who had gotten in that day and grabbed some lunch. After lunch, the sightseeing started. Salamanca has an incredible cathedral, gorgeous university buildings, convents, and so many more old and amazing sights. We hit up all of the big places and were completely exhausted after the day. After drinking 2 liters of water by myself in one sitting (it was ridiculous) and taking a little siesta in the hostel, we were ready for the night. We went back to the patatas bravas place, then tried some new places on the same street. After eating, we went to some bars (found one really classy one that only charged us 2.40 Euros for Bombay Sapphire martinis…must have been someone’s mistake) and discos. We got home around 6.00am and I set my alarm for 8.00am so I could be on time for the 9.30am bus out of Salamanca.
I had to leave earlier than the others because there was only one bus from Plasencia to Navalmoral on Sunday and it was at 3pm and the 9.30am bus out of Salamanca was the only that would get me there in time. So I woke up in the morning, not to my alarm, but by myself. Looked at my phone….it was 9.40am!!! I had missed my bus and now I no way home. I tried to stay calm, but was freaking out a little bit. I could have caught a train to Madrid, then Madrid to Navalmoral, but that would have been like 6 hours of traveling (instead of 2) and 40 Euro (instead of 12)…so I didn’t want that. I ended up getting in touch with a teacher from my school who goes home to Salamanca every weekend and she said she could get me as far as Plasencia that evening. She thought there might be a train from Plasencia around 6pm to Navalmoral. That was good enough for me. I just needed to get at least in the same region as my home. From Plasencia, I knew I could get to Navalmoral. But, in the end, one of the teachers Sara works with got in touch with her and said he was driving back to her town from Salamanca that afternoon and she could ride with him. When he came to pick her up, I told him my sad story and he kindly offered to get me to Plasencia in time for the 3pm bus. So, after a more comfortable and shorter car ride than the bus, they dropped me at the Plasencia bus station at 2.40pm…just in time. I got back into Navalmoral about an hour later, came home, and did absolutely nothing for the rest of the night. I was so exhausted.
Overall, I think Salamanca is one of my favorite places I’ve visited in Spain. Not only is it beautiful and historic, but just the energy of the city is wonderful. I took over 200 photos in the 2 days there…look at Facebook to see a few of them.
In other news, school and tutoring is going well. Last week the dog of one family I teach had three puppies. I got to see them the next day and they were adorable. The mom offered to give me one, but I had to explain to her that I didn’t think my roommate would be too happy…or my landlord. If only though.
I got a box from my wonderful parents today! Filled with requests (make-up, Spanish books…) and surprises (Halloween candy, nail polish, socks…), I was so happy showing off all of the stuff to Mamen. I told two of my private lesson kids that I would bring them a piece of candy tomorrow and they freaked out. Thanks, Mom and Dad!!
Friday morning I got up at 8am so I could go to the bus station and see what time the bus left for Palencia, the town where I would meet up with Sara and we would get the 3.00pm bus to Salamanca. The guy told me the bus didn’t leave Navalmoral until 12.30pm, so I had some time to kill. Instead of going home and going back to sleep, I stopped by the Mercadillo, the outdoor market that sets up across the street from my piso every Friday morning. I walked around for a bit before buying a new (p)leather jacket and deciding I wanted some fruit. Buying fruit and vegetables here is not as simple as saying, “I want 5 apples” or putting the stuff you want in a bag by yourself. You have to tell the vendor how many kilos of fruit/veggies/whatever you want and they load up the bag for you. Being a stupid American, I had no idea how many tangerines I would get it I ordered one kilo. So, I went ahead and did just that. As the man started filling the bag with handfuls of tangerines, I quickly realized that one-kilo was going to be waaaaay more than I wanted. But, I was too embarrassed to say, “Oh, sorry, I actually meant a quarter kilo” or whatever. So I watched in pain as I thought of lugging all of those tangerines home. I counted later. He gave me 27. I also bought some dried figs, tomatoes, and a pomegranate. So if anyone wants a tangerine, you know where to find me…
I got on the bus to Plasencia later that afternoon, met up with Sara once I was there, and we set off for Salamanca. The bus ride was fine. We slept for most of it and were being seriously judged by the Spanish when we were awake. We got into the city and started walking in search of a hostel for the night. We found one actually pretty easily, checked in, explored the city, and did some shopping. There were some seriously fashionable people in Salamanca, so we were in search of some European outfits. Sara ended up buying “slouchy pants” and I got some green skinny jeans. I really want to come home in June and people think I’m super stuck-up because I dress like a European. That’s definitely the goal for the year.
We had been sitting in the beautiful Plaza Mayor, when a Spanish man and woman walked up to us and said, “Sara??” Who was it but Sara’s mentor from her school! In a city of thousands of people, he just happened to walk by us. Not only that, but we saw him, his wife, and two daughters (who go to the university there) two more times that evening. Very strange. But he had told us some good places that weren’t very touristy to go to for dinner. We headed that way around 9.30pm and ate/drink so well. I had the best patatas bravas of my life, tried tripe (not a fan), and we split a bottle of Lambrusco. It was a wonderful night.
In the morning, we met up with Henry, who had gotten in that day and grabbed some lunch. After lunch, the sightseeing started. Salamanca has an incredible cathedral, gorgeous university buildings, convents, and so many more old and amazing sights. We hit up all of the big places and were completely exhausted after the day. After drinking 2 liters of water by myself in one sitting (it was ridiculous) and taking a little siesta in the hostel, we were ready for the night. We went back to the patatas bravas place, then tried some new places on the same street. After eating, we went to some bars (found one really classy one that only charged us 2.40 Euros for Bombay Sapphire martinis…must have been someone’s mistake) and discos. We got home around 6.00am and I set my alarm for 8.00am so I could be on time for the 9.30am bus out of Salamanca.
I had to leave earlier than the others because there was only one bus from Plasencia to Navalmoral on Sunday and it was at 3pm and the 9.30am bus out of Salamanca was the only that would get me there in time. So I woke up in the morning, not to my alarm, but by myself. Looked at my phone….it was 9.40am!!! I had missed my bus and now I no way home. I tried to stay calm, but was freaking out a little bit. I could have caught a train to Madrid, then Madrid to Navalmoral, but that would have been like 6 hours of traveling (instead of 2) and 40 Euro (instead of 12)…so I didn’t want that. I ended up getting in touch with a teacher from my school who goes home to Salamanca every weekend and she said she could get me as far as Plasencia that evening. She thought there might be a train from Plasencia around 6pm to Navalmoral. That was good enough for me. I just needed to get at least in the same region as my home. From Plasencia, I knew I could get to Navalmoral. But, in the end, one of the teachers Sara works with got in touch with her and said he was driving back to her town from Salamanca that afternoon and she could ride with him. When he came to pick her up, I told him my sad story and he kindly offered to get me to Plasencia in time for the 3pm bus. So, after a more comfortable and shorter car ride than the bus, they dropped me at the Plasencia bus station at 2.40pm…just in time. I got back into Navalmoral about an hour later, came home, and did absolutely nothing for the rest of the night. I was so exhausted.
Overall, I think Salamanca is one of my favorite places I’ve visited in Spain. Not only is it beautiful and historic, but just the energy of the city is wonderful. I took over 200 photos in the 2 days there…look at Facebook to see a few of them.
In other news, school and tutoring is going well. Last week the dog of one family I teach had three puppies. I got to see them the next day and they were adorable. The mom offered to give me one, but I had to explain to her that I didn’t think my roommate would be too happy…or my landlord. If only though.
I got a box from my wonderful parents today! Filled with requests (make-up, Spanish books…) and surprises (Halloween candy, nail polish, socks…), I was so happy showing off all of the stuff to Mamen. I told two of my private lesson kids that I would bring them a piece of candy tomorrow and they freaked out. Thanks, Mom and Dad!!
Monday, October 10, 2011
Cats and Chants
People-watching is one of my favorite parts of being in Spain. In between private lessons, when I don’t want to go all the way (all of 10 minutes’ walk) home just to leave again in 45 minutes, I usually go to a café, order a Fanta or a café con leche and people watch. Today was, by far, the best people-watching day I’ve had yet.
I was sitting in my usual café (Oceanos), ordered my Fanta and was slightly disappointed when the waitress didn’t bring me my free tapas plate (I was counting on that for lunch). But whatever, I drank my Fanta and worked on lesson plans for my private classes. While I was sitting, I saw an older man walk towards the café. At first, I thought he had two cats in his arms. Then, I realized I was wrong. It was only one cat. One cat. Hanging out with him. The man went inside, ordered a bottle of beer and got his free plate of tapas (Discrimination? I think so). The whole time, the cat was in his arms, meowing and meowing. He sat down at a table across from mine, with his afternoon cigarette in his mouth, he fed the calico cat bites of his food to stop her whining. Once satisfied, the cat started exploring the patio of the café, only traveling as far as its red collar and leash would allow. Yes, I said collar and leash. On a cat.
The white-haired man kept eating, drinking, smoking, and people-watching, like I was. When I realized he was also people-watching, I had a terrible realization that I could be the lady version of this man. Were people looking at me, like I was looking at him? In judgment, watching someone sitting alone? Was I doomed to spend my days in Spain, being the subject of blog posts? But then I remembered the big difference between the elderly man and myself. The cat on a leash. Nope, no way people think I’m as weird as him.
Also, today I taught a private lesson to, let’s call him “José” (I guess I should keep some professionalism). “José” is twelve-years-old and while very intelligent, has some issues. He gets distracted, doesn’t want to work, and just does strange things. Today, I was quizzing him on his vocab and he was just saying completely random words. I started shooting back random words at him. Finally, he said, “Jamaica!” in response to asking what “pencil sharpener” is in Spanish. So, naturally, I retorted with the “Cool Runnings” chant, “'Nuff people say, you know they can't believe, Jamaica, we have a bobsled team.” He just said, “Qué???” and stared at me, unable to continue his little game. Rachel- 1, José-0.
I was sitting in my usual café (Oceanos), ordered my Fanta and was slightly disappointed when the waitress didn’t bring me my free tapas plate (I was counting on that for lunch). But whatever, I drank my Fanta and worked on lesson plans for my private classes. While I was sitting, I saw an older man walk towards the café. At first, I thought he had two cats in his arms. Then, I realized I was wrong. It was only one cat. One cat. Hanging out with him. The man went inside, ordered a bottle of beer and got his free plate of tapas (Discrimination? I think so). The whole time, the cat was in his arms, meowing and meowing. He sat down at a table across from mine, with his afternoon cigarette in his mouth, he fed the calico cat bites of his food to stop her whining. Once satisfied, the cat started exploring the patio of the café, only traveling as far as its red collar and leash would allow. Yes, I said collar and leash. On a cat.
The white-haired man kept eating, drinking, smoking, and people-watching, like I was. When I realized he was also people-watching, I had a terrible realization that I could be the lady version of this man. Were people looking at me, like I was looking at him? In judgment, watching someone sitting alone? Was I doomed to spend my days in Spain, being the subject of blog posts? But then I remembered the big difference between the elderly man and myself. The cat on a leash. Nope, no way people think I’m as weird as him.
Also, today I taught a private lesson to, let’s call him “José” (I guess I should keep some professionalism). “José” is twelve-years-old and while very intelligent, has some issues. He gets distracted, doesn’t want to work, and just does strange things. Today, I was quizzing him on his vocab and he was just saying completely random words. I started shooting back random words at him. Finally, he said, “Jamaica!” in response to asking what “pencil sharpener” is in Spanish. So, naturally, I retorted with the “Cool Runnings” chant, “'Nuff people say, you know they can't believe, Jamaica, we have a bobsled team.” He just said, “Qué???” and stared at me, unable to continue his little game. Rachel- 1, José-0.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
First Week, Check!
I cannot believe that I’ve only been in Spain for less than 3 weeks. It truly feels like 3 months. Thinking of working at Clyde’s or sitting around with my parents watching TV at night seems like an eternity ago.
This week was pretty good. I officially started at the high school, but most of the teachers weren’t really ready for me, so I didn’t have to go to all of my classes. The ones I did go to were basically just the students interviewing me…”What’s your favorite movie?” (“Oh, I like all movies, I couldn’t possibly pick”), “Do you like Spanish food” (“Yes! Except for pig ear. Yuck”), “What do you miss from your country” (“Aw, my friends and family”)…but then there were some weird questions…”What is your favorite holiday resort?” (“Um, Disney World?”)“Do you want a Spanish romance?” (“No comment”) and finally “How old are you?” and when I said “22” they said “Woah!” as if I had just said I was 122. This is going to be an interesting year. I also had a one-on-one session with one of the P.E. teachers to help him plan out his lessons and to learn English vocab. Neither of us really know gym vocab words in our respective second languages though, so the hour consisted of us demonstrating squats, sit-ups, monkey bars, hopscotch, and countless other P.E. activities to each other in order to figure out what we were talking about. I think that is going to be one of my favorite classes of the week.
Private lessons are also going well. I’m only working 12 hours a week at the high school, but I’m also teaching 13 hours of private lessons a week. I like being busy and prefer it to sitting on my couch, watching TV all day…but 13 hours is going to be a lot. With most of the kids I either work with their school textbooks or make up some weird version of 20-questions or hangman to teach them vocab words. This week though, I started with one family where I teach a 9-year-old boy for 30 minutes and his 16-year-old sister for the other 30 minutes. Neither of them knows English very well at all. With the boy, we sat on the floor for half an hour, me speaking English to him and he responding in Spanish and not even coming close to answering any of my questions. We mainly talked about how strong Superman is and how Spiderman is super cool. Then with the girl, I couldn’t really have a 16-year-old playing tic-tac-toe with vocab words, so for the entire time we just sat and talked about movies, music, and boys. Again, me in English and she, for the most part, in Spanish. A lot of the parents here have a little bit of false hope when it comes to their kids. If your kids don’t know English, don’t expect them to succeed in a conversation class with a native speaker…
On the social side of things, this weekend was much calmer than the last (San Miguel). Thursday night, Mamen and I went out to dinner with two of her friends, and then she and I went to a bar called “El Abuelo.” While there, I met Navalmoral’s fourth auxiliar, a girl from Northern Ireland named Jessica. She and I made plans to hang out in the next day or two.
Saturday night, Jessica and I ended up getting tapas for dinner. Meeting at 9.00pm, we ate at the restaurant until 12.30am. I would say we’re getting used to the Spanish schedule and the sobremesa tradition. After that, we met up with two friends for botellón, then made our way to Boulevard (the closest thing to a disco here…but it’s still a long shot from actually being one). Boulevard was a sight to behold. It was about 75% men and of those men, about 75% of them were over the age of 35. It was a great people-watching place though. I definitely picked up some sweet dance moves from those grandpas. My favorite of the evening was the “driving the car” move. Classic.
So after a bit, we checked out to Boulevard and turned in for the night. It was about 5.30am when I got home, but I was pretty awake and didn’t end up sleeping until 6.30 or 7.00ish. I ended up sleeping until about 1.00pm today, which is huge for me. I usually hate sleeping that late, feeling like I’m wasting the day. But it’s pretty impossible to waste a Sunday here…everything is closed and no one is out on the streets. It’s now almost 5pm and I’m still in my glasses and pajamas. I’ve done a load of laundry, read my Kindle on my balcony, but mostly I’ve just been a bum all day. I’m looking forward to this week and getting into my full swing schedule. I so graciously volunteered to guest speak at a teacher’s class on Tuesday morning about the American revolution and American government (the kids are learning about it), so I should probably Wikipedia some things today so I know what I’m talking about. As long as they don’t ask me questions, it should be fine. I haven’t taken a history class (about America) since high school, so we’ll see how it goes…
This week was pretty good. I officially started at the high school, but most of the teachers weren’t really ready for me, so I didn’t have to go to all of my classes. The ones I did go to were basically just the students interviewing me…”What’s your favorite movie?” (“Oh, I like all movies, I couldn’t possibly pick”), “Do you like Spanish food” (“Yes! Except for pig ear. Yuck”), “What do you miss from your country” (“Aw, my friends and family”)…but then there were some weird questions…”What is your favorite holiday resort?” (“Um, Disney World?”)“Do you want a Spanish romance?” (“No comment”) and finally “How old are you?” and when I said “22” they said “Woah!” as if I had just said I was 122. This is going to be an interesting year. I also had a one-on-one session with one of the P.E. teachers to help him plan out his lessons and to learn English vocab. Neither of us really know gym vocab words in our respective second languages though, so the hour consisted of us demonstrating squats, sit-ups, monkey bars, hopscotch, and countless other P.E. activities to each other in order to figure out what we were talking about. I think that is going to be one of my favorite classes of the week.
Private lessons are also going well. I’m only working 12 hours a week at the high school, but I’m also teaching 13 hours of private lessons a week. I like being busy and prefer it to sitting on my couch, watching TV all day…but 13 hours is going to be a lot. With most of the kids I either work with their school textbooks or make up some weird version of 20-questions or hangman to teach them vocab words. This week though, I started with one family where I teach a 9-year-old boy for 30 minutes and his 16-year-old sister for the other 30 minutes. Neither of them knows English very well at all. With the boy, we sat on the floor for half an hour, me speaking English to him and he responding in Spanish and not even coming close to answering any of my questions. We mainly talked about how strong Superman is and how Spiderman is super cool. Then with the girl, I couldn’t really have a 16-year-old playing tic-tac-toe with vocab words, so for the entire time we just sat and talked about movies, music, and boys. Again, me in English and she, for the most part, in Spanish. A lot of the parents here have a little bit of false hope when it comes to their kids. If your kids don’t know English, don’t expect them to succeed in a conversation class with a native speaker…
On the social side of things, this weekend was much calmer than the last (San Miguel). Thursday night, Mamen and I went out to dinner with two of her friends, and then she and I went to a bar called “El Abuelo.” While there, I met Navalmoral’s fourth auxiliar, a girl from Northern Ireland named Jessica. She and I made plans to hang out in the next day or two.
Saturday night, Jessica and I ended up getting tapas for dinner. Meeting at 9.00pm, we ate at the restaurant until 12.30am. I would say we’re getting used to the Spanish schedule and the sobremesa tradition. After that, we met up with two friends for botellón, then made our way to Boulevard (the closest thing to a disco here…but it’s still a long shot from actually being one). Boulevard was a sight to behold. It was about 75% men and of those men, about 75% of them were over the age of 35. It was a great people-watching place though. I definitely picked up some sweet dance moves from those grandpas. My favorite of the evening was the “driving the car” move. Classic.
So after a bit, we checked out to Boulevard and turned in for the night. It was about 5.30am when I got home, but I was pretty awake and didn’t end up sleeping until 6.30 or 7.00ish. I ended up sleeping until about 1.00pm today, which is huge for me. I usually hate sleeping that late, feeling like I’m wasting the day. But it’s pretty impossible to waste a Sunday here…everything is closed and no one is out on the streets. It’s now almost 5pm and I’m still in my glasses and pajamas. I’ve done a load of laundry, read my Kindle on my balcony, but mostly I’ve just been a bum all day. I’m looking forward to this week and getting into my full swing schedule. I so graciously volunteered to guest speak at a teacher’s class on Tuesday morning about the American revolution and American government (the kids are learning about it), so I should probably Wikipedia some things today so I know what I’m talking about. As long as they don’t ask me questions, it should be fine. I haven’t taken a history class (about America) since high school, so we’ll see how it goes…
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
October 3, 2011
This weekend was so fun! Finally, I was able to go out in Navalmoral and meet people and have fun. Friday night, Whitney, one of the auxiliares here last year and Mamen’s former roommate, came back into town for San Miguel (she’s in Valladolid this year). We had been talking on facebook for a while, so it was nice to finally meet her. Mamen and I went out for dinner at a cheap tapas/bar and Whitney eventually joined us. We hung out there for a while, then collected our stuff, and met a bunch of Mamen/Whitney’s friends for botellón. Oh man, I’ve missed botellón. The Spanish police actually make it legal to drink on the streets on holidays (which is like, every day in Spain). We went to the big botellón place, called Ibiza (appropriate, no?) and hung out for a long time. After a while, Whitney and I went to a bar/the closest thing to a disco here called Boulevard to meet up with a few of her friends. When we got there, I was introduced to black vodka. Thanks, Whitney, you’ve officially converted me to a vodka negro supporter. After dancing at Boulevard, it just got so crowded, so we tried another place, only to find they had a 5 Euro cover (Really? In Navalmoral?), so we went to a bar called Canterville. We half heartedly bought ourselves tinto de verano, but were just sort of over it and ended up abandoning the drinks and just chatting with more friends. Around 5.30am we headed home. After being in Cáceres, over the past 3 days I had not slept at all, and Friday night was no exception….I woke up around 10.00am to a ton of noise in the street.
The party began early on Saturday. The fair that was set up directly across the street from my piso was taking shape, and people flooded the main street. Waking up on Saturday, I got dressed and headed straight to Mercadona. Knowing Sunday it would be closed, I was desperate to buy some groceries (I was down to my last can of tuna). After a magical trip to Mercadona and a hike with 50 pounds of groceries back to the piso, I ate some lunch, got ready for the day, and met Mamen/Whitney/friends at one of the best bars with a patio here, Zaragata. The streets were seriously jammed with people. San Miguel is a big deal, Navalmoral is a small town, so it was definitely a bit crazy. After drinks at Zaragata, we went to a tapas place for drinks and a TON of food. I definitely regretted even eating a lunch before going out for the day, because we ate so much food at this bar. We started with typical potatoes with egg, sausages, a type of pork, and some other, definite Spanish, but normal foods. Then it came out…la oreja! Ah!! After so much talk about it since my first day in Navalmoral when I tried morros (pig snout/cheeks/mouth/still not sure what) and chicken stomach, I was still not convinced to try the pig ear dish. Knowing that in order to fully commit to my experience here, I had to go for it...and I did….
I don’t regret eating it, but never again. The texture was the worst part. Ew. I can’t even think about it without feeling a bit nauseous. So after the pig ear, I compensated by eating a ton of delicious calamari and other things. After some café there, Mamen and I went to yet another bar, Final (the only café I’ve successfully connected to wi-fi in) to meet her friend, Julio. We hung out there with Julio for a bit, then went back to Zaragata. Writing all of this down definitely makes me realize just how many bars we were at this weekend. After a bit more time at Zaragata, I was feeling a bit sick (too many different drinks, pig ear, little sleep), so I went home to siesta. After a 30 minute sleep, water, some fruit, and general “me” time in the piso, I was ready for round two (or three if you count Friday night…). I dressed and went back to Zaragata to meet Mamen and her quasi-boyfriend, Oscár. The three of us went to check out a concert that had, sadly, finished by time we got there. But nevermind that, we picked up our botellón stuff and met the gang to go back to Ibiza. Once there, it was a lot like the night before, but more fun since I had gotten to know the group a bit more. Around 3.00am some of us were going to go to Boulevard, but I was just too tired and opted to go to bed and get some sleep.
Sunday morning I woke up with a cough and sore throat….which didn’t surprise me after the week. I remember after Fallas in Valencia (which was a million times more exhausting than San Miguel), I had the worst sinus infection of my life and was sick for about a month. I spent the day recouping with tea until I went to give lessons to Minerva at 5.00pm. After the lesson, I sat around talking with Paquita and her husband for a long time, then went home to the piso to mentally prepare myself for my first day of work on Monday (today).
School was good this morning! I usually will have four classes to teach on Mondays, but the teachers aren’t all ready for me yet, so I just had one today. I helped teach math to 12-year-olds. They were learning how to read and write numbers, like 3,435,562. What I learned about myself is that I’m not that great at reading big numbers in English…looks like I’ll learn some things this year. Also, cutest thing is just about every single kid mixes up 14/40, 15/50, 16/60…Almost none of them can differentiate them. After class, I hung in the teachers’ lounge using the computer until Isabel was done with her classes and could go with me to the bank to help me open an account. I was indeed able to open it today, so that’s one step closer to internet! Then again, I hung out until private lessons, came home, read with the bestie (Kindle) and ate a delicious salad while watching “Pasapalabra.”
Tomorrow I don’t have any classes, so Mamen is going to help me with internet stuff in the afternoon before I have more private lessons. My schedule is slowly, but surely filling up with these “clases particulares.” So far I have about 11.5 hours of them in the week and I know I’ll probably get another 5 hours in before I stop agreeing to do them.
Also, exciting news…I’m going to start planning my return trip to Valencia for sometime in November! More news to come on that though.
September 30, 2011
I just got back to Navalmoral from a few days spent in the main city of the region, Cáceres. Before I left, Monday and Tuesday were pretty normal. Tuesday I got to see the school I’ll be working at all year and meet a lot of the teachers. Everyone seems very nice and welcoming and the cafeteria has a coffee and bocadillo bar…so I’ll definitely like it there. Wednesday I got on the bus for Cáceres around noon, witnessed some old people fighting very passionately over who would sit in what seat, listened to a lot of music on my ipod, and two hours later, I was in the city. I went to check into my hostel, but it wasn’t ready yet, to I went to check out the Plaza Mayor and meet up with a few other auxiliaries from the program. After the awkward “I-think-you-look-American-and-like-the-person-I’ve-been-stalking-through-our-facebook-group” stare down, a few of us had some drinks and got to know each other. It was two auxiliaries’ birthdays that night, so a bunch of people had planned (through facebook of course) to meet up later for dinner and to go out.
I went back to my hostel, rested for a bit, talked to AppleCare for over an hour about my persistent internet troubles, and was back out in the Plaza Mayor by about 8.30pm. Again, meeting up with people was a huge guessing game because none of us had ever met before, but once we had our group together, we headed to 100 Montaditos (!), ate dinner, hung out, and then later a group of about six (as opposed to the 20 of us in the restaurant) went out dancing. It was definitely really nice to be out and be social. Until then, I hadn’t gone out in Spain since being back and it was really refreshing to be around people my age and making friends.
In the morning, I had to go apply for my N.I.E./T.I.E (Número/Identidad de identificacción extranjera) at the official foreginers’ office. It was just as time consuming and full of going to the office, leaving to make copies of stuff, going back to the office, leaving to go pay taxes, going back to the office…as everyone had told me it would be. But, at least that’s done and now I can open a bank account this week, then I’ll be able to finally get internet for my apartment.
After that excursion, I was in desperate need of a café con leche, so I headed over to the Plaza Mayor, had some breakfast and skyped my parents (free Wi-Fi in the plaza!). Some other auxiliaries met up with me and since we all had had to check out of our hostels early and didn’t have orientation until 5.00pm, we passed the time and bummed around the city for the rest of the afternoon. We toured the old part of Cáceres (cathedral, beautiful stone walls…), ate lunch in a park (I ordered a salad and received a bowl of salad dressing with a few lettuce leaves thrown in), and then took the bus over to the (huge) high school that our orientation was at. In typical non-Spanish style, we had arrived at 4.30pm, thinking we would be the first of the 80-some auxiliaries to show up…oh were we wrong. We were some of the last ones. Everyone was just standing around and since we were all basically there, the people in charge told us to get in groups of 5 and go find a room to sleep in (yes, dorms inside of the high school). It worked out perfectly that a group of 5 of us had been hanging out all day, so after some searching, we found a room, dumped our stuff, then were set loose in the main lobby to mingle with people for about an hour. It definitely takes a certain kind of person to do this program, so everyone was super out-going and we all made fast friends.
We then went into a small lecture room and after a very inefficient roll call/room number documentation (this is Spain, of course it was inefficient), we were given a crash course on everything Extremadura. Okay, see, a slideshow such as the one they gave us (all about the region, cities, food, people, agriculture…) would have been so helpful back in April when we were all assigned to Extremadura… However, we’re all products of the Wikipedia/Google generation and the one hour presentation didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. All of us were tired, hungry, and just wanted to be done with the meeting.
When the end was finally announced, we had about an hour to chill out in our rooms before dinner in the cafeteria. And oh, was dinner special. All of us gathered, lunch line style, and were served Dannon yogurt drinks, cold Spanish tortilla, two slices of tomato, some ham wrapped chorizo (didn’t even try this), and a piece of bread. It was basically prison food. Gross.
After dinner, we all got ready for the evening and a bunch of us took the 30 minute walk back into the center of town. Once there, we walked for a while before coming to a group decision to just go to any bar for a few drinks. That was a really fun time, as a few of us stayed inside (others were on the patio) and were served a bunch of free tapas with our drinks (made up for dinner, or the lack thereof). Some people left from there, but there was a HUGE botellón that night for Novetadas (pretty much hazing of the first year university students in Cáceres) a 10 minute bus ride outside of the center of town that some of us wanted to try to go to. Since it was already past 11.00pm and stores were closed, we went on a trip to try and find a Chino still open so we could get botellón materials. Once we did, it was almost midnight. We went to the bus stop, since the city government had extended the bus hours just to get people to this botellón, and were floored to see hundreds of Spanish students trying to get on the buses. The seven of us had a lot of debate as to if the botellón was worth all of the trouble and after a bit of discussion, decided just to sit in the park and chat with each other before we had to be back to the dorms before the doors were locked at 2.00am. Sitting and just getting to know each other was definitely the best decision. When we were ready to go, we ended up bumping into 3 other groups of auxiliaries and our group of seven turned into 20 or so again, and we started the walk back to our beds.
When my alarms went off at 8.00am, I didn’t want to get up at all. The night before in the hostel, I had slept maybe an hour and a half total (so many noises, awful bed), so all I wanted to do was sleep…but we had breakfast at 8.30am. We all got ready, went to breakfast, and after the last night’s dinner, I was in no way shocked to have cold churros, sickly sweet café con leche, and little crackers waiting for us. Again, we were all so tired and hungry still that the morning’s lectures/presentations were totally lost of us. After a lot of talk about what an auxiliar does (again, at this stage in the game, we know all of this), our mentors from our schools arrived. Oh my god, again with the inefficiency. I’ve been lucky enough to already know my mentor (Isabel), but a lot of people didn’t even know the name of theirs. Eighty-some of us were set loose among eighty-some mentors and told “just to find each other.” It was a mess. I didn’t see Isabel right away and knew she would probably be late, so just took a seat on a bench with another girl and waited. Ten minutes later, Isabel came in and she had a “let’s blow this joint” attitude, so we went to the cafeteria, also complete with coffee bar, and had a café con leche.
For the last hour, the mentors sat with us as there was a final presentation on how to get your N.I.E/T.I.E, open a bank account, and about medical insurance. Again, I was pretty zoned out, as I had already done/started most of that stuff. Isabel was kind enough to drive me back to Navalmoral with her. I just counted my 8 Euro loss on my roundtrip bus ticket, as she saved me an hour on the road.
I got back to my piso and completely crashed. Now, I’m just hanging out until the Fiesta de San Miguel activities start for the weekend. Apparently a ton of people are going to come here from other towns, it’s going to be really loud, and super crazy. Looks like I won’t be sleeping much tonight…
Monday, September 26, 2011
September 25, 2011
So things are definitely getting harder before getting easier. Yesterday I met with a woman named Nuria, whose husband works at the school that I’m going to work at. Nuria and I had been emailing a lot before I came here about Navalmoral and about me teaching conversation classes to her kids. So she invited me out to lunch with her and her family yesterday. I met them at a café where we each had a drink and chatted for a while, then we went to a restaurant and had a ton of delicious tapas.
After lunch, they had invited me to a barbecue on their friends’ rooftop terrace that night, so we parted ways until them. I came home, showered, took a little siesta, had a merienda, and just hung out until 7.30, when Nuria met me on my street and we walked to the barbecue. The friends’ house was right next to the school I’ll be teaching at, so she showed me the best walking route to get there.
Once at the barbeque, Spanish overload kicked in. Nuria knows a good amount of English, so we had been switching between English and Spanish all day. But, Nuria also has a cold/allergies and was losing her voice, so by the time we were at the BBQ, she wasn’t really in any condition to play translator. There were so many people there (all either over 35 years old or under 13) and they all spoke Spanish so quickly and loudly and all at once. I was definitely overwhelmed and though they all were trying to include me, most of the time I had no idea what was going on.
It was interesting seeing a Spanish BBQ versus an American one. At this one, there was bacon, other kinds of pork, beef, and morros…that’s right…the return of the pig cheek/lips/whatever it was I had to eat the day before. I stayed clear of the morros and had a bit of the bacon, bread, and salad. At a little after 10.30pm, I think Nuria could tell I was ready to leave and she was also still feeling sick, so the two of us left and she took me back to my apartment.
While it was lovely meeting all of Nuria’s friends and family, I do just want to meet and make friends with people my age. But still, I’m in Spain and am so happy to be here. It’s so good to finally get some of the things I’ve been missing since leaving Valencia…
Things I missed about Spain:
-La comida: All of it is so good (minus the weird stuff…eg: morros). Shopping at Mercadona and has definitely been one of the highlights since being here. I’m also thrilled to have café con leche back in my life.
-Casual day drinking: Everyone has a beer or two or three with lunch and it’s completely normal. I’ve been embracing the tinto de verano or when I don’t feel like alcohol, the fresh orange juice. So good.
-Walking everywhere: Cars are overrated.
-Spanish children: SO cute, dressed like little adults, but not in the creepy “Toddlers and Tiaras” way.
Things I didn’t know I would miss about the USA:
-WiFi in cafes (or really anywhere): I’ve been without the internet for almost a week (grabbing a few seconds of it here and there) and it’s awful. Now I know what drug withdraw must feel like….
-To-Go food: Now, I’m not talking about fast food, but if I don’t feel like cooking and if my hundreds of friends (ha) are all busy, I only have two other options. 1) don’t eat, or 2) sit at a café and eat by myself (which gets pretty boring)…neither option is very good.
So basically, there are definite trade-offs to being here, but I do really like it and know that my Spanish is going to be so good when I leave and that in a month, I probably won’t even miss the Wifi in cafes or to-go food anymore ☺
After lunch, they had invited me to a barbecue on their friends’ rooftop terrace that night, so we parted ways until them. I came home, showered, took a little siesta, had a merienda, and just hung out until 7.30, when Nuria met me on my street and we walked to the barbecue. The friends’ house was right next to the school I’ll be teaching at, so she showed me the best walking route to get there.
Once at the barbeque, Spanish overload kicked in. Nuria knows a good amount of English, so we had been switching between English and Spanish all day. But, Nuria also has a cold/allergies and was losing her voice, so by the time we were at the BBQ, she wasn’t really in any condition to play translator. There were so many people there (all either over 35 years old or under 13) and they all spoke Spanish so quickly and loudly and all at once. I was definitely overwhelmed and though they all were trying to include me, most of the time I had no idea what was going on.
It was interesting seeing a Spanish BBQ versus an American one. At this one, there was bacon, other kinds of pork, beef, and morros…that’s right…the return of the pig cheek/lips/whatever it was I had to eat the day before. I stayed clear of the morros and had a bit of the bacon, bread, and salad. At a little after 10.30pm, I think Nuria could tell I was ready to leave and she was also still feeling sick, so the two of us left and she took me back to my apartment.
While it was lovely meeting all of Nuria’s friends and family, I do just want to meet and make friends with people my age. But still, I’m in Spain and am so happy to be here. It’s so good to finally get some of the things I’ve been missing since leaving Valencia…
Things I missed about Spain:
-La comida: All of it is so good (minus the weird stuff…eg: morros). Shopping at Mercadona and has definitely been one of the highlights since being here. I’m also thrilled to have café con leche back in my life.
-Casual day drinking: Everyone has a beer or two or three with lunch and it’s completely normal. I’ve been embracing the tinto de verano or when I don’t feel like alcohol, the fresh orange juice. So good.
-Walking everywhere: Cars are overrated.
-Spanish children: SO cute, dressed like little adults, but not in the creepy “Toddlers and Tiaras” way.
Things I didn’t know I would miss about the USA:
-WiFi in cafes (or really anywhere): I’ve been without the internet for almost a week (grabbing a few seconds of it here and there) and it’s awful. Now I know what drug withdraw must feel like….
-To-Go food: Now, I’m not talking about fast food, but if I don’t feel like cooking and if my hundreds of friends (ha) are all busy, I only have two other options. 1) don’t eat, or 2) sit at a café and eat by myself (which gets pretty boring)…neither option is very good.
So basically, there are definite trade-offs to being here, but I do really like it and know that my Spanish is going to be so good when I leave and that in a month, I probably won’t even miss the Wifi in cafes or to-go food anymore ☺
September 23, 2011
Since there’s no internet in my piso and the cafes of Navalmoral (except one) seem to be against the institution of wifi, I’m going to start writing blog entries on Word, then posting them whenever I can…so days might be a little behind.
This is my second night in Navalmoral. I flew into Spain after leaving Dulles on Tuesday. The flight into Heathrow and the into Madrid were perfectly lovely. On the one to Heathrow, I was so disappointed at first when at the gate the lady told me they had to switch my requested aisle seat to a window seat…but then, the middle seat in my row ended up being empty! I had so much room to stretch out and eat my airline grade chicken curry. I slept on and off during the flight, but mostly read or watched bits and pieces of “Bridesmaids.” At Heathrow I grabbed some food before getting on the flight to Madrid. I couldn’t even tell you who I sat next to on that leg of the journey, I slept basically the entire time. When we landed at Barajas airport, it took a good 45 minutes to get my luggage and navigate out of the massive building, onto the streets of Madrid.
I hopped on to an airport shuttle bus and made friends with an Irish lady, who lives in Canada, and travels all over. We said goodbye and I took a taxi from the bus stop to my hostel. The taxi dropped me off “very close” to where I needed to be…but the thing was, I had no idea where that was. I was lugging 100 lbs of rolling luggage, a 25 lb backpack, and a purse through the streets of downtown Madrid in the extreme heat for 20 minutes. Finally after asking policemen, security store guys, and even a sketchy street vendor who was saying “I buy gold!”, I arrive at my hostel. I checked in, got settled, and decided to go out exploring. I wandered around Madrid for a while, went back to the hostel to rest and use their computer, then headed back out in search of some dinner. I found a restaurant in the center of everything, so I ordered some paella and sangria and sat with my kindle for a while. Towards the end of eating, a Valencia-Barcelona fútbol game came on, so I hung out for a while and watched.
I slept so well that night . The next day, I had a lot of time between check out (at 11am) and my train (at 3.30pm). I walked around Madrid for about 3 hours, stopping to buy cookies from nuns, eat at 100 Montaditos, and visit my sister’s old neighborhood. I taxied to the train station, got my ticket, and soon enough, was off on the two-hour train ride to Navalmoral de la Mata.
The train was pretty uneventful. I had my headphones in and listened to music for most of the ride…and thank god I had that. There was a lady a few rows behind me who, for the majority of the two hours, was singing her little heart out. It reminded me of when I worked at the gym and one night a lady on a treadmill was belting out whatever song she was listening to on her iPod. Everyone on the train was super uncomfortable with the singer….
When I got to Navalmoral, my roommate (Mamen) and a woman with whom I’ve been talking to about tutoring her kids, greeted me there. We loaded my enormous bags into Mamen’s car and she drove me to our apartment. The apartment is actually really nice and a good size. We each have our own rooms, bathrooms, there is one main terrace, one inner terrace (for doing laundry), a decent sized kitchen (no dishwasher or oven though), and a very big living room with a TV. Mamen is super nice and knows English very well (so in these first few overwhelming days, she’s definitely easy to be around).
Mamen took me around the town yesterday, helping me to get a phone, some living essentials (sheets, hangers, shower curtain…), and even offered to take me to a concert that she and some of her friends were going to. I really wanted to go, but I had to be a party pooper and say no because I was so, incredibly exhausted. She had even said, “Oh, we won’t get home too late…maybe 2 :30 or 3am?” Oh. My. God. I need to get used to the Spanish way of life again. I’m not as young as I was in Valencia…
Today I ran all over town. I woke up, got ready, and as I was walking towards the center to start shopping for more things, Mamen called me and asked if I wanted to have a beer with her and her friends. I got to meet about 4 of her friends, who are all very nice. I do feel like I’m from a different planet though. I really can’t add much to the conversation because I don’t understand most of it. My Spanish isn’t that great to begin with and the Extremaduran accents are definitely not what I’m used to listening to. But that’s why I’m here, right?
After beer and some tapas (they made me try everything before they would tell me what it was- I ate chicken stomach and either pig cheek or lips…I’m still not sure), I went to Mercadona (!) and stocked up on some food necessities. Oh, Mercadona, how I’ve missed you. Then I lugged my groceries home, ate, went back out, and was set on finding some place with wifi. I wandered from café to café asking with no luck. On the third or fourth one I went in, guess who was there? Mamen’s friends! One of them walked me to one of the TWO cafes with wifi in Navalmoral, where I stayed for a while and caught up on emails. The I wandered around some more and found a place called SuperSol which is about as close as you could get to a Kmart here. I was able to buy some things that I was pretty hygienically against buying at the Chino (a pillow), brought that all back home, went back out, went to a bunch of phone stores trying to find out about getting internet for the apartment, bought more stuff at the Chino, then finally came back home and SHOWERED. Now I’m lounging around after a wonderful dinner of pan integral, jamón, un tomate, y queso de cabra. For dessert I’m going to eat a Príncipe or two (or the whole sleeve).
So all in all, life here is good. I just want to start meeting people and making friends and stop spending so much money trying to get settled in here. I figure all of that will come with time though. On the plus side, I’ve made a pretty stellar picture collage on my wardrobe door…
This is my second night in Navalmoral. I flew into Spain after leaving Dulles on Tuesday. The flight into Heathrow and the into Madrid were perfectly lovely. On the one to Heathrow, I was so disappointed at first when at the gate the lady told me they had to switch my requested aisle seat to a window seat…but then, the middle seat in my row ended up being empty! I had so much room to stretch out and eat my airline grade chicken curry. I slept on and off during the flight, but mostly read or watched bits and pieces of “Bridesmaids.” At Heathrow I grabbed some food before getting on the flight to Madrid. I couldn’t even tell you who I sat next to on that leg of the journey, I slept basically the entire time. When we landed at Barajas airport, it took a good 45 minutes to get my luggage and navigate out of the massive building, onto the streets of Madrid.
I hopped on to an airport shuttle bus and made friends with an Irish lady, who lives in Canada, and travels all over. We said goodbye and I took a taxi from the bus stop to my hostel. The taxi dropped me off “very close” to where I needed to be…but the thing was, I had no idea where that was. I was lugging 100 lbs of rolling luggage, a 25 lb backpack, and a purse through the streets of downtown Madrid in the extreme heat for 20 minutes. Finally after asking policemen, security store guys, and even a sketchy street vendor who was saying “I buy gold!”, I arrive at my hostel. I checked in, got settled, and decided to go out exploring. I wandered around Madrid for a while, went back to the hostel to rest and use their computer, then headed back out in search of some dinner. I found a restaurant in the center of everything, so I ordered some paella and sangria and sat with my kindle for a while. Towards the end of eating, a Valencia-Barcelona fútbol game came on, so I hung out for a while and watched.
I slept so well that night . The next day, I had a lot of time between check out (at 11am) and my train (at 3.30pm). I walked around Madrid for about 3 hours, stopping to buy cookies from nuns, eat at 100 Montaditos, and visit my sister’s old neighborhood. I taxied to the train station, got my ticket, and soon enough, was off on the two-hour train ride to Navalmoral de la Mata.
The train was pretty uneventful. I had my headphones in and listened to music for most of the ride…and thank god I had that. There was a lady a few rows behind me who, for the majority of the two hours, was singing her little heart out. It reminded me of when I worked at the gym and one night a lady on a treadmill was belting out whatever song she was listening to on her iPod. Everyone on the train was super uncomfortable with the singer….
When I got to Navalmoral, my roommate (Mamen) and a woman with whom I’ve been talking to about tutoring her kids, greeted me there. We loaded my enormous bags into Mamen’s car and she drove me to our apartment. The apartment is actually really nice and a good size. We each have our own rooms, bathrooms, there is one main terrace, one inner terrace (for doing laundry), a decent sized kitchen (no dishwasher or oven though), and a very big living room with a TV. Mamen is super nice and knows English very well (so in these first few overwhelming days, she’s definitely easy to be around).
Mamen took me around the town yesterday, helping me to get a phone, some living essentials (sheets, hangers, shower curtain…), and even offered to take me to a concert that she and some of her friends were going to. I really wanted to go, but I had to be a party pooper and say no because I was so, incredibly exhausted. She had even said, “Oh, we won’t get home too late…maybe 2 :30 or 3am?” Oh. My. God. I need to get used to the Spanish way of life again. I’m not as young as I was in Valencia…
Today I ran all over town. I woke up, got ready, and as I was walking towards the center to start shopping for more things, Mamen called me and asked if I wanted to have a beer with her and her friends. I got to meet about 4 of her friends, who are all very nice. I do feel like I’m from a different planet though. I really can’t add much to the conversation because I don’t understand most of it. My Spanish isn’t that great to begin with and the Extremaduran accents are definitely not what I’m used to listening to. But that’s why I’m here, right?
After beer and some tapas (they made me try everything before they would tell me what it was- I ate chicken stomach and either pig cheek or lips…I’m still not sure), I went to Mercadona (!) and stocked up on some food necessities. Oh, Mercadona, how I’ve missed you. Then I lugged my groceries home, ate, went back out, and was set on finding some place with wifi. I wandered from café to café asking with no luck. On the third or fourth one I went in, guess who was there? Mamen’s friends! One of them walked me to one of the TWO cafes with wifi in Navalmoral, where I stayed for a while and caught up on emails. The I wandered around some more and found a place called SuperSol which is about as close as you could get to a Kmart here. I was able to buy some things that I was pretty hygienically against buying at the Chino (a pillow), brought that all back home, went back out, went to a bunch of phone stores trying to find out about getting internet for the apartment, bought more stuff at the Chino, then finally came back home and SHOWERED. Now I’m lounging around after a wonderful dinner of pan integral, jamón, un tomate, y queso de cabra. For dessert I’m going to eat a Príncipe or two (or the whole sleeve).
So all in all, life here is good. I just want to start meeting people and making friends and stop spending so much money trying to get settled in here. I figure all of that will come with time though. On the plus side, I’ve made a pretty stellar picture collage on my wardrobe door…
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Airports are interesting places.
So I'm sitting at my gate in Dulles and can't help but make silent judgments about the people around me. First off, today was full of packing and goodbyes. I'm good at the first, but terrible at the latter. That said, I think I was pretty good when my parents left me at the airport. I made my way through security, where I had to take up FOUR bins with all of my carry on stuff (backpack, computer, case, purse, small pillow...). After that, I took the tram to my gate where I took the escalator up a floor and was greeted by a wine bar like manna from Heaven. I debated for a bit if I wanted to give in to this temptation...a cute little Italian wine haven, or go sit at my gate for 3 hours (my flight is delayed). There was really no decision to make. I sat in a plush chair, pulled out my computer, ordered a lovely pinot grigio, and played an LATimes.com crossword puzzle. After my glass and winning the crossword, the waitress asked if I wanted anything else, hinting that if I didn't, I should leave. I took the subtle hint, having been in her position, bought a bottle of water, and moved to my gate.
Now I'm sitting here in a row of seats by the window that used to be empty but slowly passengers are arriving. A Spanish mom and teenage son just sat down across from me and confirmed my suspicion that I no longer know Spanish very well. Hm, I guess immersion truly is the best way to learn. Hopefully in a few months I'll be totally fluent...hopefully.
Next time I post, I'll be in España. I get into Madrid tomorrow afternoon and will probably have a lot of time to myself in my hostel. I foresee another post from there. But who knows, hopefully I'll be so busy with the city, blogging won't even enter my mind. Hasta luego!
Now I'm sitting here in a row of seats by the window that used to be empty but slowly passengers are arriving. A Spanish mom and teenage son just sat down across from me and confirmed my suspicion that I no longer know Spanish very well. Hm, I guess immersion truly is the best way to learn. Hopefully in a few months I'll be totally fluent...hopefully.
Next time I post, I'll be in España. I get into Madrid tomorrow afternoon and will probably have a lot of time to myself in my hostel. I foresee another post from there. But who knows, hopefully I'll be so busy with the city, blogging won't even enter my mind. Hasta luego!
Friday, September 16, 2011
So much to do, so little time.
It's Thursday night. Tomorrow is Friday. Then Saturday, Sunday, Monday, then Tuesday, then I'm in SPAIN! I seriously cannot believe how close it is. When I applied for the program back in November, the move across the ocean was something that was so far in the future. Who knew it would come so quickly?
The past week has been a blur of trying to buy things for the trip, start packing, finish working, and doing anything and everything else you could possibly think of. I've been updating every piece of technology in my life. I bought myself a new camera and iPod shuffle. I was able to complain enough to AT&T about the poor state of my Android and they kindly sent me a (hopefully) better Blackberry. Then tonight, I cashed in my graduation present promise from my parents and they bought me a new MacBook Air! It's a beautiful thing. Really. It weighs so much less than my old Pro and works so much better. With all of these new toys to play with, Tuesday is going to be here before I know it.
The last few shifts at the restaurant were actually really good. Knowing the end was in sight, I was in such a relaxed mood and really none of my tables got to me. If I go back next summer, I swear I'm going to start a blog about the stories I get from that place. I seriously think that if MTV wants the next "Jersey Shore," they just have to put some cameramen in Clyde's and follow the staff around, both during and after hours. One of my favorite stories of the last days was a woman who tried to tell me that instead of the Manhattan clam chowder she had ordered, that she received a beef and vegetable soup. When I told her we didn't have beef and vegetable soup and that she was indeed eating clam chowder, she showed me a piece of clam on her spoon and said, "See...beef!" This soup debate went on for a solid 3 minutes. I don't think I ever convinced her.
The past week has been a blur of trying to buy things for the trip, start packing, finish working, and doing anything and everything else you could possibly think of. I've been updating every piece of technology in my life. I bought myself a new camera and iPod shuffle. I was able to complain enough to AT&T about the poor state of my Android and they kindly sent me a (hopefully) better Blackberry. Then tonight, I cashed in my graduation present promise from my parents and they bought me a new MacBook Air! It's a beautiful thing. Really. It weighs so much less than my old Pro and works so much better. With all of these new toys to play with, Tuesday is going to be here before I know it.
The last few shifts at the restaurant were actually really good. Knowing the end was in sight, I was in such a relaxed mood and really none of my tables got to me. If I go back next summer, I swear I'm going to start a blog about the stories I get from that place. I seriously think that if MTV wants the next "Jersey Shore," they just have to put some cameramen in Clyde's and follow the staff around, both during and after hours. One of my favorite stories of the last days was a woman who tried to tell me that instead of the Manhattan clam chowder she had ordered, that she received a beef and vegetable soup. When I told her we didn't have beef and vegetable soup and that she was indeed eating clam chowder, she showed me a piece of clam on her spoon and said, "See...beef!" This soup debate went on for a solid 3 minutes. I don't think I ever convinced her.
Friday, September 2, 2011
The beginning...
Before I start Spain: Part 2, I thought I should make a new blog. The last one, "Semester Abroad in Valencia," just somehow didn't seem appropriate for my upcoming year in Extremadura. In about 18 days I'll be on a flight to Madrid, then take the train or bus (plans are still pretty nonexistent) to my small pueblo town of Navalmoral de la Mata in the region of Extremadura, Spain. But I'll be about 2 hours away from Madrid, so I don't think small town life should be too bad...
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I feel like I have SO much left to do before I leave. I stop working at Clyde's (waitressing) on the 15th, so I think I'm going to just wait until then to start packing. I'll go crazy if I start now. I've been collecting things here and there over the summer from Target and other stores (but let's be honest...Target is the best). Things that I wished I had had last go around in Spain: American deodorant, contact solution (one bottle is about $20 in Spain), peanut butter, the 4-wheel" suitcases (I'll never forget walking from my Valencia apartment to the metro rolling two of the regular suitcases on wheels and my backpack...never doing that again).
But in good news, I have a place to live once I get to Navalmoral! This whole summer when people would ask where I was living, I would answer, "Umm, I don't know...I'll figure it out when I get there." Luckily a few days ago, the Spanish roommate of the two girls who were Auxiliares in Navalmoral last year contacted me and asked if I wanted to take their place as her roommate this year. She found us a place and moved in the other day. So, thankfully I won't be homeless when I get there!
Now it's time to get a little sappy...This year (2011) has had some very distinct phases to it. I can divide it into 3 different "eras" almost. Era #1: Last semester of college. Definitely the best time I had in my four years at UVa. I got so close to so many people and was so sad after beach week and graduation to be leaving Charlottesville, my friends, and my home for the last four years. But then came era #2: Clyde's. Definitely nothing compared to my time at UVa, but it was a great distraction from the transition into the "real world". I had worked at Clyde's about 3 years ago, but this time was a lot better...this time I was over 21 and could go to the bar after a long shift. Such a necessary thing for restaurant life. Between Clyde's fun, my sister and her husband visiting from their home in Australia, and quality time with the parents, this summer was wonderful. So, now that I'm about to end the Clyde's era, I'm getting nostalgic. But, I felt this way (on a much bigger scale) I was when the UVa era ended. I'm just hoping that this means that when era #3, the Navalmoral era, comes to an end, I'll be sad to be ending that part of my life too. I have no expectations for life in Spain and am going into this adventure fully open to whatever happens. All I know is that I'm going to be eating lots and lots of delicious food. I'm going to miss everyone and please, please, please stay in touch!
Add me on skype, write me letters, and COME VISIT ME (seriously.)!
View Larger Map
I feel like I have SO much left to do before I leave. I stop working at Clyde's (waitressing) on the 15th, so I think I'm going to just wait until then to start packing. I'll go crazy if I start now. I've been collecting things here and there over the summer from Target and other stores (but let's be honest...Target is the best). Things that I wished I had had last go around in Spain: American deodorant, contact solution (one bottle is about $20 in Spain), peanut butter, the 4-wheel" suitcases (I'll never forget walking from my Valencia apartment to the metro rolling two of the regular suitcases on wheels and my backpack...never doing that again).
But in good news, I have a place to live once I get to Navalmoral! This whole summer when people would ask where I was living, I would answer, "Umm, I don't know...I'll figure it out when I get there." Luckily a few days ago, the Spanish roommate of the two girls who were Auxiliares in Navalmoral last year contacted me and asked if I wanted to take their place as her roommate this year. She found us a place and moved in the other day. So, thankfully I won't be homeless when I get there!
Now it's time to get a little sappy...This year (2011) has had some very distinct phases to it. I can divide it into 3 different "eras" almost. Era #1: Last semester of college. Definitely the best time I had in my four years at UVa. I got so close to so many people and was so sad after beach week and graduation to be leaving Charlottesville, my friends, and my home for the last four years. But then came era #2: Clyde's. Definitely nothing compared to my time at UVa, but it was a great distraction from the transition into the "real world". I had worked at Clyde's about 3 years ago, but this time was a lot better...this time I was over 21 and could go to the bar after a long shift. Such a necessary thing for restaurant life. Between Clyde's fun, my sister and her husband visiting from their home in Australia, and quality time with the parents, this summer was wonderful. So, now that I'm about to end the Clyde's era, I'm getting nostalgic. But, I felt this way (on a much bigger scale) I was when the UVa era ended. I'm just hoping that this means that when era #3, the Navalmoral era, comes to an end, I'll be sad to be ending that part of my life too. I have no expectations for life in Spain and am going into this adventure fully open to whatever happens. All I know is that I'm going to be eating lots and lots of delicious food. I'm going to miss everyone and please, please, please stay in touch!
Add me on skype, write me letters, and COME VISIT ME (seriously.)!
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