The REAL First Day of School!

Today was really my first day of school!  I have come several other days, but today is the first day that I am really working and teaching the students.  I put together a presentation about the United States, Virginia, Mineral, my home, and me.  Today I worked with two first year classes and one second year class, so 12-14 year olds.  It is difficult because I it is really difficult to tell when they don’t understand and when they are just being shy. Also, I think I already have four private English lessons set up, which is nice and will bring in some extra money.  One of them is with my mentor’s son and husband, which will be fun.  I am also doing one with a group of 5 13-year-old girls who I met today in my second year class.  That will be interesting to say the least…at least they are paying me to venture back into 13-year-old girl world. 

My schedule has me working with 5 different teachers, though I spend the majority of my time with Chus, my mentor.  I have seven English classes in the bilingual section, 3 first year, 2 second, 1 third, and 1 fourth.  Then I will also be working with the 3 first year classes for 20 minutes in each of their social science classes.  I am also working with the 2 second year classes in their natural science classes.  I haven’t attended any of the content classes yet, so I will be interested to see how that will go.  I think I am mostly going to be there to help with pronunciation and vocabulary, but we will see what they ask of me.  I enjoy the kids so far…it is difficult for me to learn their names because they are so Spanish.  It is even harder when the name is similar to an English name and I struggle to pronounce it the correct way, like Victor.  My least favorite class was my last class of the day, my 2^nd class of first years, but I don’t know if it was because of today’s circumstances for them or another reason.  They seemed much less proficient and less attentive, but I was with them once before, when they asked me questions, and they did better.  I don’t know if it was because it was the end of the day for them, Feria is just ending so they are just back to school, because it is a different teacher, or because they were in a different classroom than usual, but if it is as much like pulling teeth as it was today, it will be a long year with that class.  Hopefully as they get more comfortable around me they will be more willing and excited about participating.  

Spanish food!

Una rosca

The past few days have included an exceptional amount of Spanish food, and I cannot say that I hate it.  There is a street stand with churros nearby; you can get una rosca (a churro circle) for ,40 euro cents!  It is awesome.  This morning, I got one and went to one of my favorite cafes with Internet to eat with a cafe con leche (coffee with milk).  Normally coffee makes me feel jittery and manic and ridiculous, but the normal Spanish coffee is like 8 oz, and I get it with a good bit of milk, so it doesn't affect me too badly.

Tortilla Espanola

 Two nights ago I decided to try my hand at a very traditional Spanish dish, known as Tortilla Española.  It is made with potatoes, onions, and eggs, and involves lots of frying, which of course means that it is delicious.  I was pretty successful, and judging by how surprised Marissa's teachers were at my success, I guess it is not very easy to get right the first time.  




Yesterday also may have been the last days of Feria, but I really don't know.  We had set the goal of eating some paella at some point during Feria, so headed off in search yesterday afternoon.  WE FOUND IT!  One of the casetas was having a special, so we each got a plate of it for 1 Euro.  It was AWESOME!!  It is definitely on my list of things to learn how to cook, and I plan on buying an Paella pan as soon as I have some extra cash (Read: when we get paid, which probably won't be until the end of November).

For now, I am doing well and having fun!  I am looking forward to some of the adventures we are already planning, and I cannot wait to start working with the kids this week!  Besos!!

Laundry Day

Today was my first laundry day here in Spain.  It is a little strange, but I love the way my clothes look hanging on the line.

La Feria--Day 3

Today was supposed to be the one day/night of Feria that we really went “crazy” and stayed out super late, dancing the night away.  Suffice it to say that did not exactly happen.  I did rest up all day, got 10 hours of sleep the night before, took a siesta, did nothing more taxing than a short walk, but I was still very tired and not feeling well by the time night came.

Rebecca made us a fantastic pasta dinner to thank us for letting her stay with us.  I like when she comes to stay; it gives us some social activity besides with each other, mixing things up a bit.  Afterwards we cleaned up and headed over to la Feria to meet up with Elodie.  Hanging out with Elodie is always fun because a) she is just a fun person, and b) we always have to speak Spanish, so I get to practice (she is the one from France).  We headed over to one of the temporary bars they put up just for Feria, where there are dancers on a stage that do routines for the crowd to copy (See the video below).  That was fun, but it was super crowded and people kept bumping into us.  We tried out one more bar, before deciding to head to a caseta, which are more low key, sell food & drinks, and still have music playing, though of the more traditional variety.  I was perfectly fine with that because I was really not feeling my best, but I didn’t want to miss the fun of la Feria.  Some of us got some more Churros (YUM!), but I restrained myself because I didn’t think they would make me feel any better.  Overall, I had fun, but I was very excited to see my bed at the end of the night.

Sick in Spain

Well, it has happened.  I am sick in Spain.  Luckily it is not anything too deadly for my first sickly experience in Europe, but it is still not terribly fun.  I am pretty sure I have some sort of cold.  I have been feeling a bit under the weather for a while, but today and yesterday it got much worse and seems to be settling into my chest.  I also have a low-grade fever which is usually not a good sign.  Because of this, I decided to brave the Spanish Pharmacy.  Let me tell you, I should have done my prep work because I realized when I got there that there is no grabbing the meds you want and leaving.  Also, not once in my many years of Spanish studies did we ever go over the proper vocab for describing symptoms of various illnesses.  With Marissa’s help I was able to muddle through and she gave me some medicine.  I am not entirely sure that it is the right medicine, but at least I can hope for the placebo effect.

For those who are interested in what medicine you can get by simply walking into a Spanish pharmacy, I decided to do some digging to understand what I was going to put into my body.  First on the list is 650 mg of paraceptol, which is acetaminophen.  There is also 10 mg of codeína/codeine. Yep I said it, you can walk into a pharmacy and buy a medicine with codeine in it for less than 4€; it seems so weird.  Finally there is a bunch of Vitamin C, which goes by ácido asórbico.  I don’t know what exactly it is supposed to be doing, but I think/hope that it is helping.  It is also weird that instead of a tablet to chew or swallow, or even a liquid to take, it is a powder to be mixed with water.  It tastes vaguely of oranges, but is not tasty at all.  Oh well, hopefully I will be feeling much better before I am working with the kids on Wednesday.

La Feria--Day 2

Today neither Marissa nor I had school, so we tried to get most of our errands for the weekend done.  Many of the businesses are closed or have reduced hours through Monday because of la Feria.  We had to figure out some problems with our phones, and Rebecca came to town with her NIE (Número de Identificación Extranjera), which meant we thought we could put her information down so we could get Internet.  Long story short, we were able to put her name down and bring home the modem for Internet, but we got back to the flat and failed miserably at getting it to work.  We will have to go back on Tuesday for help.

This afternoon we went back to Feria with the goal of checking out more of the animals.  Let me just tell you, I am almost positive that I saw every species of cow/bull that lives in Spain.  Here are a few examples (well they will be here, when I get a chance to upload the pictures…have I mentioned how much I hate not having Internet all the time?). 

We also saw sheep, which were definitely not white as snow, goats, and horses, which were very pretty and fun to pet.  Many of them were super friendly and living the good life, safe from every being eaten by the many humans who admired them.  We went back home to take a mini-siesta and make dinner.  Then we were on a super awesome mission to find “real” churros.  I had some terrible fake ones at orientation, but I wanted to try real Spanish, Feria Churros.  So we met up with our friend Elodie and headed back to Feria.  Suffice it to say, we were successful.  The churros, which we ate with this mix of hot chocolate/melted chocolate, were AH-MAZING! I think I may have a new dessert to add to my list of many favorites.  After, we watched some of the dancing and headed back to the flat for a good night sleep.