Halloween

Sorry, I do not seem to be a very good blogger! I am approaching the end of my 5^th week already ahh.  So much has happened.  First of all, I want to mention this place in Santander, it is my favorite place in the city.  It is called La Peninsula Magdalena- it’s about an hour walk from my apartment, but when it was nice out it was no big deal to walk there, because I would just walk on the beach the whole way.  Now that it’s getting colder/rainy/windy, I haven’t been able to get over there to take photos.  But anyways it is a little peninsula in Santander that has a castle, a “zoo”, and incredible views.  The castle belongs to King Alfonso XIII who made it his summer home for him and his family in 1913.  I haven’t taken a tour yet of the inside, but it’s pretty cool that I can take a morning jog to a castle that belonged to a king in the early 1900’s.  As well as the castle, there are some penguins and sea lions swimming in small pools on the peninsula…these are the only animals, which is why I referred to it as a “zoo.”  However, it is almost like an “infinity zoo.”  You know those infinity pools they have at fancy hotels, where the pool overlooks a larger body of water and it looks like the two are combined?  Well this is sort of the same, the bodies of water the animals swim in are right next to the sea, it is amazing.  Also on the peninsula are big wooden ships on display that went on expeditions in the early 1900’s.  The peninsula is almost like one big hill, with the castle at the top.  But along the walk to the top are random benches between trees, and you can sit on one and overlook the sea for miles and miles.  And THIS is why the peninsula is my favorite place…so everyone should come visit and see for themselves!!

So the other thing I wanted to mention is school…  I have 3, 4, 5, and 6 year olds, from 9:30-12:30 Monday-Thursday (pretty nice schedule huh?)  In the beginning weeks I’ve just sort of been figuring out how the classrooms work and what the teachers expect from me.  Since the school is brand new, they have never had an “auxiliar de Ingles” before, so no one is used to having someone like me in their classroom.  The headmaster didn’t really give any set instructions to the teachers or me about my exact role.  So basically each teacher has their own ideas for how I’ll help.  I have two 3 year old classes, and in one of them, the teacher likes to speak mostly Spanish and slowly introduce English words to them, while the other 3 year old teacher sits at her desk the whole time and wants me to speak only in English to them for an hour- this is my hardest class.  Imagine trying to keep 3 year olds calm for an hour in their native language, let alone in a language that means nothing to them.  The first days were pretty hectic, but now I’m getting used to them and switch activities immediately when I see they’re getting restless (which is about after 3 minutes).  The 4/5 year olds also need to be constantly doing something different and stimulating, but they’re not like the 3 year olds who are always pushing and grabbing each other.  And the 6 year olds are by far the easiest- well, there are only six 6 year olds in the class, so that makes  a huge difference.  But they sit at desks instead of in a circle on the carpet.  And they catch on to what I’m saying pretty quickly, so it’s nice to see that I’m actually helping them.  This week was especially fun, because we did many Halloween activities.  Many families carved pumpkins and they put them in the entranceway of the school.  Halloween just started getting popular here in Spain in the past 5 years.  Although every little girl told me she was going to be a bruja=witch, and pretty much every single boy said he was going to be “Eh-spee-der-mon”-Spiderman.  So they need a little work on finding new costumes.   I handmade a pumpkin (although it is almost impossible to find construction paper around here), and left off the nose, and then we played “pin the nose on the pumpkin.”  The 4-6 year olds loved it, the 3 year olds didn’t really know what was going on.  But it was a lot of fun.  I also brought in my laptop and played the Monster Mash video on YouTube-  this resulted in the 3 year olds all trying to climb on my lap at once to get closer, which resulted in them saying “I can’t see” “Now, I can’t see”, and soon they were just in a heap on the floor.  For the 6 year olds I brought in a Halloween word search- it was nice, because it was clearly the first one they had ever done, and it was in English!  I think all the holidays we have will get me through the rest of the year, at least I hope.              

My roommates, Tomy and Arantxa, are still doing good.  We pretty much always hang out in the common area watching TV together.  They are not from Santander, so they don’t know too many people.  I was explaining to Tomy last night all of the different sports people in the U.S. play.  He said when they were little, at recess the whole class would get one soccer ball, and that was it…so that is, obviously, what pretty much everyone plays.  And when I told Arantxa one day I just went for a jog, I thought she was going to freak.  I have seen a few girls running outside along the water, but it is very scarce… and they could have been foreigners, who knows.  So we’re liking the apartment, except for the fact that all the power shuts off usually about once a day.  It happens when there is a couple things plugged in to the wall at once…this place is obviously really old.  Also if you’re using hot water in the shower or in the kitchen, the faucet will get so hot you will burn yourself… I don’t think this place meets all the standards it would have to in the U.S…  But it’s all part of the experience so I’m okay with it.             

First weeks in Espana!

So…..my adventure here has begun.  I can’t believe it has already been more than 2 weeks since I’ve been here...although at the same time it feels like I have been here for years.  The trip over was a pretty long one.  Started with an 8 hour plane ride to Madrid, then a metro ride to the Madrid train station where I carried with me about 80 pounds worth of luggage down more staircases and escalators than I could have ever imagined, had a 5 hour wait at the train station, and then took a 4 hour train ride up to Santander.  Long day/days but it was worth it. 

The hostal seemed pretty nice upon arrival, the first group of people I saw were some Italians, who were discussing with each other how to say “elevator” in English as they saw me trying to, once again, drag my 80 lbs. worth of stuff up the staircase.  So they seemed friendly although we couldn’t communicate much beyond that.  The lady showed me to my room and it was what I had expected, single bed, TV, small bathroom.  I pretty much just put my stuff down and went to explore.  I headed straight towards the body of water I saw in the distance, because I really had no idea where else to go.  It was about 7:00 P.M. so the sun was just setting, and the sky was all different colors, it was beautiful.  A ton of people were standing at the edge of the water fishing.  The water, the Bay of Santander, was about a 10-15 minute walk from my hostal, so I felt very lucky to be so close.  As I walked on the concrete alongside the Bay (The beach is further down, here there is just the walkway and about a 15 foot drop to the water, nothing in between), I saw many old people and many people eating ice cream.  This kind of reminded me of Guadalajara, Mexico, because the exact same thing applied there too.  All of the old people, the abuelos, love to sit on benches and people watch.  And they are everywhere.  I later found out this is an “aging” city, haha.  I didn’t walk around for too long, because I was so exhausted from the trip.  So I went back to the hostal and went to sleep (although my body clock was so messed up so that is another story).

The next day I walked around for probably 4 hours straight.  This city has a population of about 180,000.  Everything seems relatively close, but it is usually a little further than you think, so I just kept walking because I knew it wasn’t THAT far, and I ended up exploring the whole city in about 4 hours.  The part my hostal was in is called “the centro” or main part of the city where the restaurants and grocery stores are.  And about 15-20 minute walk east of the centro is “Puerto Chico”, where all of the bars are and everyone goes out at night, and about 25-30 minutes east of Puerto Chico is “El sardinero” where all the beaches are located.

So when looking for an apartment, I took all of this into consideration.  I really liked where my hostal was located, and wanted to be near “el centro” area.  I saw an ad on easypiso.com for a room open in an apartment a few doors down from the hostal.  I checked it out and it was pretty small, and the bedroom just had a bed and this random table in it, but the landlord told me two Spaniards who are university students were living there also, and they just moved to Santander from a different part of Spain.  Even though I really didn’t like the appearance or size of the place at all, I had a really good gut feeling about it.  I could live with two Spaniards and they were new to town so maybe they wouldn’t always be out with their friends, and instead stay at home and talk to me in Spanish, haha.  I saw two more places afterwards, and ultimately decided on the first one! And here I am sitting on my couch typing this.  And here they are sitting next to me hanging out.  We’re watching some quality Spanish TV- a competition where they build “torres humanos- human towers”- a bunch of guys climb on top of each other and they see who can build the highest tower of humans- pretty entertaining show.  My guy roommate’s name is Tommy, pronounced (Toe-me), and the girls named is Arrancha (Although I accidentally called her Adriana for a few days..).   They are both so nice, they didn’t know each other before moving in, but come from the same area of Spain.  So the gut feeling I had definitely came true.  We have already had a roommate dinner consisting of tortillas with beef, mushrooms, corn, and guacamole, also some chicken nuggets and wine.  The next morning we ate churros con chocolate, a typical Spanish treat on Sundays mornings…the best thing I have ever tasted. 

So since I came here to work, I should probably mention that part… Since I did not hear from the school EVER before coming here, I just showed up one random Monday.  They said they weren’t expecting me, I thought “of course not.” As everyone knows, things are a little backwards here.  I actually had to ask two abuelos (grandpas, or old people) where the school was, because you would never know it was a school from the outside.  It looks a little bit like a factory from the outside.  And upon entering, it looked like a hospital.  Long hallways, everything was white, but the school was just built this past summer so I think that is the reason it was so dull looking (since that day, they have added some posters.) The headmaster was giving some other woman a tour when I got there, so I joined in.  You can tell how proud they are of the school, I think it may be nicer than a typical Spanish school.  She said it cost around 6 million to build, and it has automatic lights which they loved.  After the tour, the headmaster, “Puri” introduced me to many of the teachers…I was very overwhelmed because EVERYONE was named Maria.  And in order to differentiate them, she would tell me their second or middle name.  I knew there was no chance I would remember all of these.  The best part was all of the teachers and students wear matching outfits.  They are called “babys” pronounced “bobbies”, and they are these plaid long apron looking things, but with sleeves.  Some of the teachers reminded me of Miss Lippy from Billy Madison, but nonetheless, they are all sooo nice.  I only made one embarrassing mistake while I was there…..one teacher asked me if I have worked with kids before, I told her yes, in a “campo”. what I was trying to say was summer camp –“campamento”….instead I said “campo” which means in the countryside.  So I worked with kids in the countryside.  She just nodded, sort of like I do when they’re speaking to me and I don’t have a clue what they’re saying.  But yes, I found out that mistake much later when my roommates told me what I actually said…So that first day I just toured around and got to know the school and people a little better. Since then I have been working with the kids, but I will talk about that in my next update J

So that is my update thus far… I wanted to immerse myself as much as possible, and here I am sitting with two Spaniards (who smoke like chimneys while we watch TV), I dry my clothes by hanging them out the window, and my breakfasts consist of pastries and coffee, so far I have been successful.