Déjame en paz!

Well last night I didn’t end up going to bed right away. I stayed up late trying to prepare for my lessons and in the morning I woke up late. I was supposed to have a lesson with Isabel before school but I called and asked to reschedule. It was just going to make my morning so stressful. I headed to the ATM, the panadería (oh you tempting chocolate Napolitanas) and then to school. I sat in the teacher’s lounge and tried to update my agenda and relax a few minutes before class. There is snow at the altitudes just above us. Snow is coming!


After that I headed up to the English room and talked to Sebas about mixing up our routine. Usually he gives me 4-6 kids and we read something from their book, and then do some exercises in their accompanying activity book. I proposed that with the eldest kids we make Christmas cards and send them to Steph’s students (My friend Steph works in a Spanish immersion school in Vancouver). That way they could interact with students from the US and use their English in a fun way. It would also give me us a chance to teach them some Christmas vocabulary. He loved the idea. After that I had class with the 5th graders and then had a break to work on stuff for my private lessons, as well as get things prepared for Thursdays Christmas card making/lesson extravaganza. I printed out a bunch of Christmas drawing pages I had found so the kids could color them, cut them out and include them on their Christmas cards. I also helped Antonio and Silvia put up the backdrop for our “Charity Christmas Tree.” The kids are painting egg cartons green and we are putting them up in the form of a Christmas tree. I’ll try to put up a picture later when it’s done. We are putting boxes under our “Christmas tree” and collecting donations for people that don’t have enough for the holidays. After that I was supposed to work with the 1st graders. Inés is usually with me during this time, and we had planned on having the 1st graders make the typical Thanksgiving hand-turkeys so we could put it on our mural. I think I forgot to mention this mural before. Hehe. This is another thing I will need to get a picture of. I drew a basic, cartoon-ish turkey that says “I am thankful for…” The kids traced their hands and made turkeys out of them, then we cut the hands out and pasted them onto the mural as the feathers of the turkey on my poster. With just the second graders we didn’t have enough hands/turkeys so we were going to do the exercise with the first graders too. Well, Inés wasn’t at school on Monday and the normal 1st grade teacher was frazzled because the kids were being crazy. She asked if I could wait until 1pm to try and do the lesson…that’s only 45 minutes later so I said sure. I hung out until 1 but then the teacher asked if we could just do it the next week. I felt bad for her. She seemed exhausted and overwhelmed. Sure…one less lesson I have to plan I guess! I went to the small market/grocery store next to my house (Juani’s) and picked up some cream cheese, lasagna and chocolate. Quite the shopping trip, right? Haha. After that I went home, did laundry, had lunch, consolidated by clothes on the ‘tendedero’ (my new clothes rack) so they didn’t take over the entire apartment, chatted with Maria and then took a short nap.

I woke up and received a text message that I should come to her apartment right away so we can meet and go somewhere to watch the futbol (soccer) game. Barcelona and Madrid were playing so it was a big game. I met Almudena at her apartment and she was juggling dinner and laundry and cleaning the apartment. We headed off to Mezquita, had a mosto and watched the beginning of the game but there weren’t any seats. We got their too late. Almudena is a Barcelona fan but Rulo and Maria and a bunch of others are Madrid fans. I lean towards Madrid although I haven’t fully formed an alliance yet. Most of the people in Mezquita were Madrid fans. Shortly after we headed over to Nicols. Nicols was filled with all the Barcelona fans. Almudena’s parents were there as well as a couple other friends of hers. There were still no seats but the environment in Nicols was better…mostly because it was filled with Barcelona fans and Madrid was getting their butt kicked. The final score was 5-0. Yikes. It was really funny to see Almudena’s dad. He comes off as being SO serious all the time, but every time Barcelona scored he was up dancing and cheering. Luis showed up sometime in the second half and hung out with us. Also the group of teachers I’ve been going out were there too. When the game ended Almudena headed home but I stuck around with Luis and the other teachers. I had planned on going right home after the game…it was a Monday after all and I needed to teach in the morning. Haaaaaaaha. Foolish me. Going home after a big game, even if it is a Monday? Noooooo. Not until 2:30am.

A guy Luis knew (as well as a bunch of others throughout the night) came over and was trying to convince me to root for Barcelona. I mentioned that my dad had a Barcelona jersey and he got really happy and Luis buried his face in his hands. Haha. I told them I would watch the rematch in May and then decide who “my” team would be.

We were at Nicols for quite awhile. Initially I had fun there but there was a group of guys there that I’ve had a hard time with since the beginning of my stay here. I don’t understand them and I know they are saying suggestive things. I always get really uncomfortable and although I know good things to say/do in English, Spanish leaves me at a loss. It’s more upsetting and frustrating that my Spanish isn’t good enough to defend myself than the actual things they are saying. They say “Oh, I’m just joking” but then they continue. They’ll say something, and even though I don’t understand the words, the fact that the other guys around him start cracking up put up a large red flag. Luis was close by and keeping an eye on the situation, but also told me that he wanted me to learn how to defend myself. When I shoved a guys arm off from around my shoulders Luis stepped in. I’m sure I was visibly frazzled and Luis talked to them. We stayed for a little while longer but not long. We headed over to Pub JJ. Luis could tell I was upset, and he thought I was mad at him for not knocking their lights out. No…starting or dealing with a bar brawl really wouldn’t have made me feel any better. I explained my language frustrations and he started trying to teach me phrases for situations like that. At Pub JJ we ran into another guy we knew, and another guy that had studied English awhile back. The guy we knew started teaching me Spanish tongue twisters. I didn’t stay too long. I had a Coke, chatted it up with our little group long enough to relax and feel better, then headed home. 2:30am. Goodness. On a Monday!

My Thanksgiving

Ahhh, Sunday…my day of rest.

Now to catch you all up on the last few days.

Thursday was “Real Thanksgiving.” It was at least half way through the day before I even realized it was Thanksgiving. I woke up, got ready and headed off to work. After work I ran errands, went home, ate…normal, day-day stuff. I bought a new pair of boots. I still absolutely love the ones I bought in Murcia, but now that I’ve worn them religiously for 2 years they are pretty worn out, plus the small heal really hurts my feet when walking up and down all these Siles hills. About 3:15 I went back to school to meet Antonio and Inés. Inés had a physical therapy appointment in La Puerta and asked Antonio to come along and watch her son. I tagged along as something to do. Antonio, me and Inés son (who is about 16 months old) walked from one end of La Puerta to the other looking for a place to sit and eat, or at least get a cup of coffee. Everything, except the hair salon, and two cafes were closed (you could die of hunger but at least your hair would look nice!). La Puerta isn’t that big but my feet were so tired by the time we settled at one of the cafes for a coffee. Antonio “invited me” to a coffee and when Inés was done with her appointment she met us there. Here, “to invite” someone doesn’t just mean they can come along with you…it means they pay for you. I learned this during my stay in Murcia. I never really thought about it but when I mentioned the different between the word in Spanish and English one of my Spanish friends was surprised…”so you invite someone to come with you, then make them pay?” Haha…ummm…yes?

I think we must have been quite a site as we were walking around town. Walking with Antonio and a Spanish-looking little kid I feel like more people overlooked the fact that I was blond and blue-eyed and gave me the benefit of the doubt that I probably spoke Spanish...or that I was Antonio’s wife and Inés son was my own. Haha. Inés son had fallen asleep during our walk and woke up just before we left the café. Poor kid…he seemed so confused to wake up in an unfamiliar place and he cried basically all the way back to Siles.

Anyways, after Inés appointment and our coffee we went back to Siles. Inés dropped me off at my apartment.

People don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here so there was no time off from work, no turkeys cooking, and no big dinners being prepared all day long. I was doing totally fine not being home for Thanksgiving until late afternoon/evening. Things kind of started to go downhill from there a little. I was in my apartment by myself. None of my friends were available to get together and “Happy Thanksgiving” status updates started taking over Facebook. I got to talk to my family a bit which was really nice, but then I debated just going to bed early. I was feeling a little sad and trying just to remind myself that “My Thanksgiving” was tomorrow. That thought reassured me a little, but I was still afraid that everyone was going to bail on our dinner plans. So many people had given me wishy-washy confirmations, or jumped back and forth about whether or not they were coming. I eventually just watched a little bit of the movie “Elf” online, had a good chuckle and hit the hay.

I’m a little nervous that I reacted this way for Thanksgiving. I really was totally fine with it until the very last minute. I don’t think it will be the same for Christmas though. I think part of the issue was that no one here was doing anything. A holiday that’s normally pretty important went completely unrecognized by everyone except me. At least everyone here celebrates Christmas, so even though I’ll be without my family there will still be celebrating and I’ve been invited to spend the day with Almudena’s family.

Friday was “My Thanksgiving” and it was a total 180 from the night before. Friday was absolutely fantastic. I slept in a bit and then got to work. I needed to clean my apartment, try to bake my pumpkin pie from fresh pumpkin, get the food for dinner and do some laundry. I had dressed up a little for the day, just for the heck of it, so I felt like Suzy Homemaker all dolled up, making pie, doing chores and getting ready to play hostess all at the same time. I talked to Ben and Eve (the 2 auxiliares from La Puerta) and they said that they were going to come for dinner. The bus schedule is really irregular around here so I wasn’t sure if they were going to get here at 4, 7, 10 or God knows when. Also Luis was coming over to start preparing the food. I decided to cancel my Friday evening private lesson so I could have enough time to get stuff done.

Of course, Thanksgiving wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without a few hiccups. My main hiccup was the fact that in the middle of cooking and doing laundry I lost power in my apartment for two hours. Initially I wasn’t concerned. There was still light outside and I figured as soon as my landlady got home she would switch the power back on like normal. I actually loose power on a fairly regular basis, but usually Ma Cele is home and can fix it (the breaker box is in her apartment). So I waited…and I waited…and I waited…and got more and more anxious that maybe we wouldn’t have power for our Thanksgiving dinner. Then the sun started to go down and I realized I had no candles, lanterns, etc so I called Ma Cele.

“Hey Ma Cele…it’s Erica. When are you coming home?”
“Sunday, why?”
“Oh. Hmmm, well we lost power again.”
“Hmmm…Are you home?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, I’ll call my brother and have him come fix it.”
“Awesome. Thank you!”

So her brother Pedro (who is one of the police officers in town) came to the apartment and got the power back on. The minute he left the power went off again. I called him and he came back. He flipped it on again and then waited. I didn’t have very many things turned on, so we turned on almost everything in the apartment to see if we were going to loose power again as soon as he left. Everything seemed ok so he headed out and said to just call him again if the problem persists.

I finished up cleaning, but knew I wasn’t going to have enough time to bake the pie now. About the time that my private lesson would have been my doorbell rang. “Gosh dang it!” I figured it was the private lesson family in yet another scheduling communication mishap. I went upstairs and luckily it was just Almudena and Maria. They had been going back and forth with me all week about whether or not they were coming. They kept coming up with lame excuses not to come. They had stopped by to talk to me about the dinner. I explained who was coming, who wasn’t, and that Ben and Eve were coming now too. The latest excuse,

“Well maybe there are too many people now and we should just get a coffee or something with you later.”
“It’s up to you but for Thanksgiving the more the merrier and we really only have 2 or 3 more than originally planned.”

So they caved.
“Ok. We’ll be back about 9.”

Luis showed up about 10 minutes later and we headed to the store. He brought me some homemade tomato/pizza/pasta sauce and jam from his mom and the mixer that I needed for my pie. We picked up everything we needed and went back to prep…well…for him to start prepping and for me to drink wine and find music for us to listen to. Haha! Thanksgiving at my house without having to make anything? Lucky me!

By some miracle almost everyone showed up right about nine. We still had a couple no-shows but since Ben and Eve decided to come it worked out evenly. We had 7 people total for dinner and 3 more joined us a little later.

The food was awesome. We had Spanish tapas and Luis even used some of my pumpkin on one of them. There was no turkey, and the only potatoes we had were in the form of our Spanish tortilla, but it was really good. The portion sizes were good too, so none of us fell into the normal American-Thanksgiving-induced coma after dinner. Quite the opposite in fact. Fun fact...the two most requested songs of the night from the Spanish guys..."Empire State of Mind" by Alicia Keys and "Love the Way You Lie" by Eminem and Rihanna. We all hung out, ate, chatted and drank wine and after dinner we headed out for our “First Annual Thanksgiving Spanish Bar Crawl.” We started off at Menphys, then off to Nicols, then over to 1900. Our last stop was supposed to be Pub JJ but it was closed so we went back to Menphys. At 4am they flipped the lights on and it was time to go home. Ben and Eve decided to wait at Menphys because one of the bartenders lives in La Puerta and offered them a ride home. They ended up staying there until 7am. I went home and crashed.



Saturday I spent most of the day in bed nursing my first Spanish hangover. I eventually got up to get some water, some food and a shower and then felt much better. At 5 I had plans to go over to Almudena’s house. They were having dessert and coffee with friends to celebrate Almudena’s daughter’s 2nd birthday before the family came over for dinner. After this mini-celebration Maria and a few others left but Almudena invited me to stay for the main party. A bunch of family showed up, blew up balloons, put up decorations, brought food, etc. etc. Adriana had been in her room playing so the living went from normal to party central without her evening knowing it. When they finally brought her out she was visibly went through a series of emotions…especially ‘frightened’ at all the people shouting “Feliz Cumple” and then quickly to crazy 2-year old excitement. It didn’t take her long to find and open the confetti filled piñata that popped and spread confetti-happiness all over the living room. The rest of the night was spent listening to music, eating, watching Adriana open her presents, Adriana giving people makeovers with her new Barbie make-up set and more eating. All in all there were 3 cakes/desserts in addition to the pizza, sandwiches, chips, tapas and drinks.





Just before 10pm I headed out. Luis had called to see if I wanted to do something. Obviously after Friday night neither of us was totally thrilled about the idea of going out. We decided on a movie at my place.

Ok…I didn’t really think about what a challenge that was going to be. You would think, yes, for a nice, relaxing evening at home, a movie is just the thing…wrong. First problem…I don’t have a DVD player attached to my TV and DVDs in this region are different from the US (so I can’t play them on my computer). Luckily Luis brought over a DVD player. Ok, problem number one fixed. Problem number 2…Luis’ Castellano (what we know as Spanish) is basically flawless, but he is from Catalonia, where they speak Catalan. I never notice any errors in his Castellano but every now and then, especially with things like movies, he’ll comment on how fast they speak. I speak English, and although my Castellano is good, watching movies in Spanish is still taxing. I have to really concentrate, which makes the purpose of watching a movie to relax basically impossible. Then began the debate over what language we watch the movie in, do we have subtitles, what language should the subtitles be in, which movies do we have that fit all those requirements, etc, etc. Goodness gracious. We ended up watching “Noise” which I think is a totally weird idea for a movie. It was in Castellano but we didn’t have subtitles, so I listened and followed along with the general idea.

Today, Sunday, was a totally lazy day. I did a load of laundry and tried to get caught up on the dishes from Friday’s dinner. I also made a pizza. It certainly wasn’t hard because I used a pre-made crust, and I definitely used too much tomato sauce but it was still good. I wish I could have been a little more productive, but oh well. I’m heading to bed so I can try to be up early in the morning to make up for not doing anything today.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Feliz día de acción de gracias!

They don't celebrate Thanksgiving here, but I can celebrate with you in spirit.

Today, and every day, I am thankful for lots of things.

I am Thankful...

-for my friends and family
-that by the grace of God and the love and assitance of my parents I am living in Spain, fulfilling my dream.
-that I have new friends and connections here in Siles.
-that I've had offers from people to let me spend Christmas with them.
-that I wake up every day to a beautiful view.
-for the days I get to chat with old and new friends.
-for the people that look at me a little harder and listen a little more attentively to try and figure out what I'm saying in Spanish (rather than giving up on me).
-for the days that I feel I actually taught my students something.
-for letters and visitors.
-for the ability to see a little more of God's creation every day.
-for my jobs.
-that I'm having a Spanish Thanksgiving dinner in my house tomorrow with my new friends.

And finally...

today I am thankful for my landlady, who surprised me today with an extra blanket and a rack to dry my clothes on. Yay Thanksgiving presents! :)

The Week Recap

Ok, so my first three weeks here I was really good at blogging, but week 4 I was really bad. Because of that, this is going to be one giant hodge-podge of a post. It’s also going to be long…sorry!

Tuesday I felt pretty tired, unmotivated and useless all day. I wanted to take a nap but had too much to do in between class and my private lesson. I woke up, had a napolitana for breakfast and headed off to teach the pequeños (the 3-5 year olds). Today was only my second time working with them, but it was worlds better today than 2 weeks ago. The first class was with the 3 year olds. We went over colors, the weather and the days of the week. Next was the 4 year olds. This was the only class I had to prepare something for. I had made flashcards to put up on the wall for the 3 year olds a week or two ago. Someone had told me that they were learning about castles so the night before I had tried to find pictures of English castles easy enough for them to color (I couldn’t use American castles since…well…we don’t have any). I didn’t have much luck with that so I tried to think of something to do with the White House. I made a color-by-number worksheet with some vocabulary but that didn’t seem like much fun since…well…the house is white. I added a flag on the back for them to color. As soon as I finished the worksheet I decided it was too complicated for 4 year olds. Back to the drawing board. I decided to do something with Thanksgiving instead. We ended up making the traditional turkeys made by tracing their hands and then I had “Happy Thanksgiving” written in dashed lines for them to trace. It was the best lesson I’ve had with the 4 year olds but it was also hectic. The 5 year old classes were easy. Sebas was in charge and we just had to teach them a song and dance moves about autumn. I know singing and dancing is a good way to teach the little kids but when I’m in charge of lesson planning I kind of avoid it. Making up songs and dances just really isn’t my thing. It’s a little funny that I’ve overcome so many uncomfortable situations (like going to bars solo) but singing and dancing in front of the kids still just makes me uneasy. I had my private lesson from 5-6 and then got a drink with Luis. I headed home, tried unsuccessfully to be productive and decided to go to bed.

On Wednesday I got paid! Heck yes!

On Thursday I had my most successful science class, and it went great, even though the normal teacher wasn’t there. We were talking about invertebrates. I had printed out pictures of the invertebrates mentioned in that chapter of their book. I also printed out flashcards that had the names of these animals in English and another set in Spanish. I put up the pictures on the chalkboard and then put the Spanish word up next to them. As a class we went through and I taught them the English word, and stuck the flash card up next to the picture. We did this for each animal and they repeated the word back to me. After the last animal I took the English flashcards down again and lined them down the side of the chalkboard. Next we went through again and the kids had to tell me which English word went to which animal. When that was done I gave them a crossword I had made. The clues were the words in Spanish and they had to put the word in English in the crossword. It was perfectly timed and went pretty well. I was very happy and proud that I managed to plan a successful lesson.

After classes I went to the bank to cash my check and then went to the farmer’s market. I was on a mission. Find a pumpkin for Thanksgiving dinner. I didn’t have any luck. However, as I was searching I ran into Fernando. It was a little funny because it was the first time I saw him struggle with English. His English in class is really good. I had caught him off guard and he had to re-set his brain to think and speak in English. I know exactly how that is. If I’m at home chatting with friends or family in English, or listening to music or TV shows in English and then I go out in the town I have to make a conscious effort to switch over. It really feels like I have to do a quick re-boot of my brain. Fernando was on his way to have coffee with another teacher who is new in town and he invited me to tag along. We had coffee and then as we were heading out I caught the tale end of the farmer’s market on El Paseo (the farmer’s market is divided into two parts…one is mostly fruits and veggies and one has everything. I had already gone to the one with fruits and veggies but not the main one.) There I made my first non-essential, semi-practical purchase…a new purse. I actually had a practical purpose in mind for it, but it was my first fun purchase since I could enjoy finally being paid. I wanted a purse that wasn’t too big, but big enough to put my high heels in if I was at the discoteca and in agony. Here it is… There were also people there selling clothes and I almost bought some sweaters/coats/sweatshirts but decided that I will wait until next week for that. The vendors were trying to tear everything down.

Thursday was shaping up to be a pretty good day until a little later that afternoon. I got a call from a dad of one of my private lesson students. This is the same dad that roped me into giving his daughter a lesson on Fridays when I didn’t want to work. Around 4pm on this THURSDAY he calls me. This is approximately the conversation we had:

“Hey, we’re going to come today.”
“Ummm…but it’s Thursday? Didn’t we decide Fridays at 7?”
“Yes, but I have to go to Jaén tomorrow, so we’re going to come today.”
“Ummm…ok?? What time?”
“What time is good for you?”
“How about 6:30?
“6:30. Great. We’ll see you then.”

I’m grumpy. I’ve had a weird vibe from this family since the beginning and I’m just not thrilled about working with them. This makes that even worse. I putz around a little and then decide to take a little nap.

Fast forward to 5:45. I’m taking a nap. My doorbell rings. (Here we have phone-like devices that open the door. I’m taking to the dad through this.)

“Hello???”
“Hey, it’s us!”
“Your lesson is at 6:30.”
“Oh…Ok…we’ll come back.”

This family lives in a town about 20 minutes from here. What are they going to do, sit outside my door for 45 minutes? I head upstairs.

“Would you like to have the lesson now?”
“Yes! That would be great.”

Uhhhh huh. Sure. Not like I have a schedule for a reason or anything, or that I wanted to continue my nap. We have our lesson and this little girl is kind of shy. Her dad had her bring her school English book so we could practice the same things that they are learning in school. Only problem? It’s a 3 part set…a class book, a work book and a CD. She brought the class book and nothing else. Many of the class book exercises involve listening to the CD for the answers. Blaaaaaah. I told them to bring everything next week.

Recapping this week it doesn’t seem so bad, but it really just felt like an off week for me. It was the first time I felt lonely which is a little ironic since I’ve finally made friends. I think that’s part of it though. If you don’t have friends you expect to be lonely and try to deal with it or change it. I had friends but really wasn’t able to get together with anyone last week. That mixed with the fact that Thanksgiving and the holiday season are approaching contributed to my loneliness. My friends and I had planned on having a Thanksgiving dinner at my house this week but slowly more and more people were dropping out, so something I had been really excited about was just making me sad. I talked to Ben and Eve over the weekend and they said they struggled last week as well. We must just be at that point in our journey.

So, by Friday I really, really wanted to get out and do something. I wish the discoteca was more happenin’ on a weekly basis. It seems like most people don’t go unless it’s a special occasion. I had talked to Fernando and he said that he was going to be going out with the same group of teachers I went out with a couple weeks ago. Yes. Thank goodness…short lived…Fernando sent me a message Friday afternoon saying he had changed his mind and they weren’t going out after all. I started going through my list of friends and got basically the same answer from everyone “No, I don’t think we’re going out tonight.” Uhhhhhhhh. Sucky. Luis called a little later saying him and Fausto were going to grab a drink but not staying out late, and I could join if I wanted to. Then Ben and Eve contacted me and said if I could find a ride to La Puerta I could go out with them. There was only one more mini-bus left to La Puerta so I decided I would stay in Siles Friday night and go to La Puerta on Saturday to meet up with them. Finally Fernando contacted me again and said the group had convinced him to go out and everything was going on as originally planned. Yessssssssssss. I met Luis and Fausto for a drink, and Luis showed me the Thanksgiving menu he had prepared. Even though 4 of our friends have bailed on the dinner we’re still going to have it. It may only be Luis, me and one or two others, but we’re going to have it. Thank God for Luis. With so many people bailing I thought the dinner was going to get cancelled and I’d be eating alone. When I showed up at Mezquita and he had that menu prepared I was so thankful. He seems excited about it (and he’s cooking!) It’s definitely Spanish and not the traditional Thanksgiving meal but it sounds like it’s going to be fantastic. We’re going to have Thanksgiving dinner on Friday instead of Thursday so we have the freedom to go out afterwards if we want, and people don’t have to worry about leaving early to go to bed because of work/school/etc in the morning.

After I met up with Fausto and Luis we headed over to 1900 (another bar) to meet up with the teachers. For a group that didn’t want to go out they sure were crazy. We didn’t go home until about 3:30am. We stayed at 1900 most of the time, but headed to Nicols for one drink at the end of the night. There I met Paco and Gregorio. Gregorio I had met previously because he is the one guy with a scanner in town and does things like photocopies, sells electronics, etc. Paco is his friend that Luis also knows. In order to go to La Puerta in the morning I was going to have to take the 8am bus (rough after staying out until 3:30am). The only other bus I could take was at 3pm, but Eve and Ben wanted me there by noon so we could go to a country house and celebrate their friend’s birthday. Luckily Paco offered to drive me there in the morning. I was a little hesitant because at 3:30am in a bar Paco was a little tipsy. I was afraid he wouldn’t remember, I would have missed the bus and wouldn’t be able to meet Ben and Eve. Luis assured me that if Paco said he was going to take me, he was going to be there and take me. Well…ok. It only got me about an hour and a half more of sleep, but it was worth it.

Around 3:30-4am I went home and climbed into bed. I woke up to my phone ringing at 9am. Dang it. It was Paco calling to say whenever I was ready he was ready. He was supposed to pick me up at 9 and I hadn’t heard my alarm. I rushed to shower and get ready and ran out the door. Paco was there with a headache, but very friendly and ready to take me to La Puerta. He has olive fields and was going to work in the olive fields. We got to La Puerta, had a cup of coffee and then I walked over to Ben and Eve’s house. Supposedly their friend Alberto was going to pick us up about noon. In reality he ended up picking us up around 1:30pm so in the meantime we chatted about teaching, watched some web mini-series and drank tea. Alberto came and picked us up and we headed to the ‘cortijo’ (little house in the country). It was a gross, rainy day that didn’t seem like a very good day for a party but at least we were inside with a fire, so it ended up being fine. The lights flickered on and off all day and the music cut in and out. Eventually some people took over playing instruments themselves and people danced around. This party was a joint birthday tradition and a bunch of Alberto’s friends were in town to celebrate. From 1:30-10:00 we drank, ate and danced. Seriously it’s hard to describe Spanish parties. You both completely know what to expect, and have no idea what to expect at the same time. Complete craziness. We had tapas, lunch, drinks, dessert and then things seemed to be winding down a little. Some people disappeared but we continued hanging out. (We were after all car-less and there until Alberto decided it was time to go). It seemed things were dying down and I wondered if the party was going to end earlier in the day so they could all go back to La Puerta and party there at night. Wrong. Around dinner time the people that had disappeared all reappeared with even more people, and the party started over again. One of the guys that was there was the bartender from Menphis in Siles. When I initially walked in he shouted “SILES!!!” when greeting me. He was the one who ended up taking me back to Siles on his way to work so I didn’t have to spend the night and try to find a bus the next morning. When I got back to Siles I was exhausted, but I hopped in the shower and changed (I felt gross since I didn’t really get a chance to wash my hair or anything in my morning rush). I went down to Nicols to meet Luis and his brother Javier. Javier and his son are in town from Granada. I think I may end up taking pictures of his son sometime this week like I did with Almudena’s daughter. Anyways, we sat and chatted. I had some Coca-Cola and then around 2:30am headed home. My head hardly hit the pillow and I was out like a light.




Luckily for me the next day was Sunday and I could sleep in and re-coup from a crazy weekend. Seriously friends…if this is your idea of “not going out” you shouldn’t move to the US. You’ll be really, really disappointed when you do try to go out.

Yesterday (Monday) I had two classes and then I went shopping. First I bought a couple baking dishes. I was going to cook chicken parmesan on Sunday but didn’t have anything to cook it in, so I was going to try it yesterday instead. After that I went to Mercado Gerardo where Edu (Stefi’s husband) works. I picked up some milk and tomato sauce and chatted a little bit with Edu. Stefi and the kids are in Holland for the week visiting Stefi’s parents. Edu is planning on having Thanksgiving dinner with us on Friday (although Luis is a little afraid he’s going to bail at the last minute too). After that I went to the frutera (person who sells fruit) next door and lo-and-behold! A pumpkin! I proudly purchased my pumpkin and was in high spirits as I accomplished my to-do list and headed back home. Upon arriving home I saw a letter attached to my door. My cousin Garrett had sent me a letter! Yesssss. This day was really shaping up. I got a load of laundry in the washing machine, started to make chicken parmesan and chatted with Maria online. We decided to get together with Almudena and all have dinner at my house. We went over to Almudenas house around 4:30, hung out with Adriana (her daughter) and discussed what we would make for dinner. At six I had plans to meet Luis at the grocery store so we could see if they had everything we were going to need for Thanksgiving. It was good timing because right at 6 Almudena and Maria were ready to go to the grocery store to buy things for the dinner at my house. We all shopped, got some tortilla, tuna, lettuce, tomato, and hot dogs and headed out. Almudena had to work at 6:30 and I had a private lesson at 8.
Adriana (Almudena's daughter) went with us to the grocery store. She was playing with the cashier and another woman that works there. They put price tag stickers on her and tried to ring her up and gave her a receipt. haha)

At 9:15 everyone gathered at my place (Almudena, Rulo (Almudena’s boyfriend), Maria, Luis and me). Almudena prepared a ‘tortilla rellena’ (stuffed Spanish tortilla) and we had wine, listened to music, and looked at my pictures of Siles and my life in the US. I also showed them a video of my church. They were flabbergasted. Here there is only one church and it has Catholic mass. Seeing my contemporary church with coffee, a band and computer screens was just crazy for them. I miss going to Eastlake. I think I’m going to go to the mass here for Christmas but other than that I haven’t been going. One of my goals before I got here was to find a church to go to (since during my stay in Murcia I didn’t go to church at all). However, I didn’t really expect that there wouldn’t be ANY protestant options for church-going.

Anyways, everyone that was at my house last night (expect me of course) smokes. It’s SO normal here. I’ve only met one other person here so far who doesn’t smoke. My apartment was completely filled with smoke by the end of the night. It’s cold outside so lately people just light up without opening windows or anything. My lungs are not happy with me today, and I feel like I was the one smoking. Luckily most of them are pretty respectful about at least not blowing smoke in my face, but with 4 people smoking for 3 hours in an apartment as small as mine…the smoke really can’t be avoided.

I really enjoyed having everyone over last night. I hope we do it frequently. I feel like I’ve gotten comfortable with my group of friends. I want to spend time with them, but I also feel like I should still be going out to try and meet new people. I still don’t have anyone that I can take trips with. Everyone here works or has other obligations on the weekends and can’t just leave like me. I don’t mind doing small trips by myself but they are always more fun with other people.

Today I was back with the ‘pequeños.’ The three year old class was basically the same, but we add a couple new words every week. For the 4 year old class I had printed out 8 pictures of different toys. They said “B is for ball, T is for teddy bear,” etc, etc. We went through and I taught them the words and then I gave them a color-by-number worksheet of a toy drum. This was great because it combined learning colors, numbers and toys. We didn’t have time to finish, but I was still happy with how well the kids did. Initially it looked like they were going to struggle, but they really did a great job once they got the hang out it. I asked the teacher (Ana) if it was an appropriate activity for their age level and she said yes, it was perfect. Next we had ‘desayuno’ and ‘recreo’ (breakfast and recess) for an hour. The kids at the other school only get 30 minutes but the little ones need more time to run around. After recreo Sebas was at the school and we worked with the two 5 year old classes together. There was a small word search that the kids didn’t understand at all (it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who makes activities too hard sometimes) and then a coloring activity that the kids could cut out and paste into a bookmark. The first class of 5 year olds was craaaaaaazy and hard to tame. It didn’t help that the main teacher was trying to build a cardboard castle in the room and the kids were way more interested in that than our lesson. The second class we did the same activity, tweaked a few details and it went much better.

After class I went home, ate some leftover tortilla rellena from last night, watched How I Met Your Mother, and took a small nap. I had another private lesson from 5-6 and have been relaxing (and catching up on this blog) ever since.

I also listened to my first Christmas song of the season. Normally my rule is that I don’t listen to Christmas music until Thanksgiving, but hey, there is no Thanksgiving here so I get to listen to it early…right? Heck, it’s only a couple days early anyways. I went to Napster to play a Christmas radio station or playlist and the first song that tried to play was Lady Gaga’s “Christmas Tree.” I didn’t feel that was the right tone I wanted for my first Christmas song of the season so I skipped ahead to the Glee cast’s version of “Baby its Cold Outside.” That seems like a more appropriate song to the holiday season, especially since it is freakin’ cold outside! They are predicting possible snow here this weekend. I also listened to Miranda Crosgrove’s “Christmas Wrapping” which also seemed appropriate.

“Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! But I think I'll miss this one this year.”

I think I’m going to end up spending the day with Almudena and her family for Christmas. I also received an invitation from one of the teachers to go to Cordoba but I think I’d prefer to stay here with a friend and have the possibility of traveling last minute and sleeping in my own bed. After having Almudena and Rulo over for dinner last night I feel better about having Christmas with them without it being an intrusion. I really want to do something fun for New Years. Hopefully something good comes up.

On a random note, this is another note I received from my student Marta.
I think I should put it on my bathroom mirror and be reassured on a daily basis that I’m basically the most wonderful, prettiest person on the planet. Haha.

Another random fact: There are no elevators in Siles (at least that I’ve seen). I didn’t realize this until Brittany and Roberto visited. Most people here live in multi-story apartment buildings but still there are stairs everywhere, not elevators. I was talking with Ben and Eve this weekend and they said it’s basically the same in La Puerta. There is an 89 year old man in their building and it takes him about 20 minutes to get down all the stairs. I’m always amazed too, to see the elderly people here hiking up the hills. Go them!

Tomorrow the 4rd grade science class is having a test so I don’t have to prepare anything. Ahhh, how nice! It will be a little boring tomorrow when I’m sitting in class watching them take a test, but really, I don’t mind. Antonio wanted me to prepare the test but I told him I wasn’t comfortable with that. I don’t want to make a test that’s way too easy or impossible so I told him if he would prepare this test I would look it over and know what to prepare for future tests. It will be interesting to see what it’s like. The 4th graders have an extremely hard time paying attention, and I don’t think a lot of them do the work that they have to study…so we’ll see how the test goes.

Also tomorrow I’m doing a Thanksgiving lesson with Inés and her second graders. On Monday Inés and I are going to be doing the same lesson with the first graders. Lots of people here think that Thanksgiving and Christmas are the same, or very close together. Most people are surprised to hear that Thanksgiving is this week. I believe Inés wants to do more turkey handprints with the kids and then have them write what they are thankful for. We are going to put them all on a mural and put it up in the school hallway.

Ok. This is definitely the longest blog post I’ve ever written. I’ll try to be better about keeping up with the blog and not letting another week go by without a post.

Weekend visitors and a crazy Monday

Saturday and Sunday:
On Saturday I slept longer than I anticipated, got up, got ready quickly, finished cleaning the apartment, and put the sheets and blankets near the heaters so they would dry faster (no worries, the heaters here are designed so you can put things on them without having anything go up in smoke). Brittany and Roberto got here about 2pm. I met them on El Paseo and then we walked with their stuff up to my apartment. They got to see the apartment for a few minutes, drop off their stuff and then we headed back to El Paseo to get their car and drive to the restaurant. The restaurant really wasn’t that far away but we were going to be driving to the waterfall after lunch. Luis, our tour guide for the day, met up with us at the restaurant. We had about a two hour lunch complete with salad, calamari, patatas bravas, chicken, fries, ice cream and flan, coffee and wine. It was definitely quite the lunch! Brittany and Roberto had compiled a list of questions on their way over (such as “how the heck did you get here?”) so we chatted about my small town life and how beautiful and relaxing Siles is. After lunch we piled into the car, stopped off at Luis’ house for a jacket, at the Mezquita for a bottle of water and then we headed off to Rio Mundo to see the waterfall. I wish we could have gotten to the waterfall about an hour earlier because the light would have been a lot better for pictures, but the drive over there was beautiful. It was really nice to take a little field trip away from Siles. We really don’t go far, but it was a nice escape, especially with Brittany, Roberto and Luis for company. We snapped a bunch of pictures but didn’t stay too long. It was really pretty and made me wish I had a car here so I could make more of these little trips. I’m sure there are a lot of nearby hidden gems that I could see, if only I could get to them. After seeing the waterfall we went back to my apartment, then headed to a café/restaurant I hadn’t been to yet. It had a fireplace so we warmed up, had a beer and some tapas and continued chatting. From there we moved to Mezquita, had more drinks and more food, then went to Menphys were we had another drink, and then to Pub JJ for another drink (granted all of that took place over many hours). Brittany and Roberto got a small taste of most of our hang out spots here in Siles. We had sooo much food today! We got home about 1:30 and went right to bed. I got to test out my futon, which is fairly comfortable except for the fact that it is diagonal. In the morning Luis brought over churros and chocolate and we had breakfast together (admiring the view from my window) before Brittany and Roberto hit the road.
















I still haven't figured out what I'm doing for puente or Christmas vacation. I have the 3rd-8th of December off from work and the 23rd of December through the 7th of January. Brittany mentioned that she and Roberto might go to Norway for puente. I've always wanted to go there (although going there in December maybe wasn't my original plan) but we'll see. I can't believe it's already the middle of November. If you have ideas of what I should do for my vacations, let me know! I'm not totally thrilled about the idea of traveling solo but haven't totally counted it out either.

The rest of my Sunday was very unproductive and relaxing. I watched a movie (Definitely, Maybe) and then tried to take a nap. Not long into my nap I got a phone call from one of the dads that wants me to give his daughter private English lessons. He said he was in Siles and wanted to drop by to talk about the specifics of getting lessons set up. (He couldn’t understand me very well over the phone). I shouldn’t have pulled out the hard copy paper of my schedule, because then he could see that I don’t work on Fridays. I had told him I wasn’t available to give lessons on Fridays and I still tried to stick with it, but I failed. I got conned into giving a one hour lesson on Fridays at 7pm. What a lame time. I really wanted to maintain Fridays as my free day to clean house, do laundry, hang out with my friends, etc, but he said that Fridays or the weekends was really the only time he could bring her, at least until Christmas. Grrrrr. I was in a bit of a bad mood after he left, but I listened to some music, got my Bella Baby orders taken care of and tried to get some photos updated and eventually I felt fine. I went to bed super late…one of those days were I did basically nothing and time still managed to just fly past.

Monday:
This morning was my first private English lesson. I got up, rushed to get ready and headed out the door. Luckily Isabel (the woman who I was giving the lesson to) lives right next to Steffi, so I had a pretty good idea about how to get there quickly. I got there and we had breakfast (toast with olive oil and honey and coffee with milk). Her word for the day was ‘wheat bread.’ Isabel is actually a teacher at my school, but she’s on sick leave until about Christmas time. She loves speaking English and wants to pass the level 3 exam so she can be qualified to teach English. We chatted a little bit about learning second languages, the necessity/non-necessity to learn another language in the US, her husband’s work, and our weekends. After breakfast she got out her English book so I could see what she needed to work on. She let me take the book with me so I could prepare for the following week. Isabel asked me if there’s anyway we could do two 45 minute sessions on Monday and Tuesday instead of one hour long session. I generally don’t mind, but told her I can’t do that until I make up some of my October hours at the school. The school is going to pay me for the entire month of October even though I was only there for half of it. To make up for the hours I missed I will be going to the school early and preparing class materials, posters, etc. She said that was fine, and when I was done making up my hours we could switch. I also agreed that instead of paying me at each session she could pay me at the end of the month. I hope this doesn’t end up being a problem. It makes me a little nervous.

I headed out a bit later than 9:45 and rushed off to the school. Luckily I happened to run into Pepe who was in his car. He drove me to school and I got there just in time. Today I got to work with the 5th graders first. Veronica, Migel Angel, Vicente and Angel were with me today (I’m trying really hard to actually learn their names). I had Miguel Angel with me last week as well, and I’m beginning to wonder if it’s Sebas way of giving himself a break. Miguel Angel makes me want to pull my hair out. Today’s session actually ended in tears and bloodshed. Yep. That’s how great it was. Miguel Angel and Angel were screwing around and Miguel Angel knocked Angel in the mouth and cut his gum. He started bawling, of course just as class was supposed to be getting over and Sebas was coming with the other students to tell everyone to go back to their normal classes. Great. That makes me look *real* good. Sebas didn’t seem too concerned though. He reassured me that those two tend to be a handful and overreact. Really it was basically the smallest amount of blood possible to still be considered bleeding, but Angel milked it for all it was worth. Ay, ay, ay. Really, besides that, and the fact that once again the students wouldn’t stop chatting it really wasn’t soooooo bad. We did get all the exercises done, which doesn’t usually happen.

After that fantastic class I had an hour and a half break until my next class. I hung out in the teacher’s room, and tried to find pictures of lungs, heart, etc. for my body systems mural. I also made up a schedule for myself so I could get a better feel for what spaces I had available for private lessons. I chatted with Antonio and some of the other teachers about lesson plans for Christmas and had a cup of coffee and napolitana.

Finally it was time for English class with Ines and the 1st graders. Welcome to extravaganza number two of the day. Inés said the kids were really good last Thursday but on Mondays they tend to be atrocious. They were up and down and chatting and to make matters worse all the toilets were out of order except for one. This class was right after recess, when they get to eat breakfast and drink their juice boxes, so of course every single kid in the class had to go pee…and we’re not talking the can-I-go-to-the-bathroom-to-escape-class “I have to pee” request. We’re talking twenty-some first graders holding their crotches and doing the pee-pee dance. Oh. Joy. By the end of class we had gotten them all to the bathroom, gone over the new English flash cards (talking about toys), sang the One-Two-Buckle My Shoe song and done 2 worksheets in the book. We had a few minutes left so we played a game (reminiscent of Marco Polo only we were sitting in a circle and the person in the middle was blind folded and had to figure out who in the circle was making the cat noises). End of class was signaled by one of the other teachers coming in with a few of Inés’ 2nd grade students who were apparently being extremely difficult. Poor Inés…she got to leave the 1st grade class to go deal with her own class of hyperactive, juiced-up kids…and me? I went home. Thank you God!

When I got home I was determined to be productive (unlike I usually am in the middle of the day during the week). I set up my computer so I could listen to music, then set to work on my list of chores.

-Laundry? Check.
-Dishes? Check.
-Clean kitchen? Check.
-Make bed? Check.
-Finish making schedule I started during recess? Check.
-Compile list of possible Christmas lessons? Check.
-Update photos on Flickr, Tuenti, Facebook and my blog? Check.
-Make lunch? Check.
-Put clothes away? Partial check (some aren’t dry yet).
-Look for pictures of British castles for my 4 year olds to draw? Getting there…

I also chatted with Maria for a little bit. She wanted to see the pictures I took at the park so I got those up and she really liked them. Not bad for an afternoon. My apartment looks a lot better now than when I left the house this morning. The time did go by really quickly though and I still have a lot more to do in the next 2 days. Ahhhhhhh. I hope I can get it all done! The only thing I *have* to get done tonight is finding pictures of those castles. I can find general pictures of castles, but I’m not really sure how to go about finding simple pictures of British castles that 4 year olds can color. Blllllllah. Welcome to the life of teaching I suppose.

Tomorrow is my second time working with the 3-5 year olds at the other elementary school. I’ve been here a month and it will only be my 2nd time working with them (due to my trips to Jaén). Last time I was overwhelmed because the teachers didn’t know I was coming, I didn’t have anything planned, Sebas was out of town and the teachers just turned their classes over to me. I’m hoping it’s going to be worlds better this time. I arranged to work with the 3 year olds during the morning routine when they talk about the weather, the date, the day of the week…stuff like that. The 4 year old class is the only other one I have to plan for, then Sebas is back in town and will be leading the two 5 year old classes. I really, really hope tomorrow goes well. Luckily, even though Monday-Wednesday is overwhelming, it goes by really fast. I like having all my classes crammed together.

I think my cough is starting to get better too. I still have some fits but it seems better. Good thing otherwise I think Luis would have personally drug me off to the doctors to get checked for bronchitis.

I’m enjoying having my heat on, although it makes going outside rather unpleasant. It’s not snowing yet, but it has gotten so cold in the last week!

On another random note, they are opening a gym here in Siles sometime in the next month-ish. I hope it's sooner rather than later. After the last few days I feel gross. So much food! I would love a good run, although running up and down the hills of Siles sounds both painful and awkward. As if I don't have enough people looking at me normally I can only imagine what they would think if they literally saw me running around town. People here don't do that.

Well I’m off to find pictures of castles (as long as my internet works…it started cramping my style about an hour ago and is having a hard time connecting). That’s the internet’s way of saying I get to have a break for the rest of the day, right? Riiiiight.

Jenny and Me

A couple weeks in my blog entry I mentioned going to the discoteca for the first time. Jenny, from the TV series Hombres y Mujeres y Viceversa was here in Siles that night and I had a photo taken with her. I said when I got a copy from Maribel I would post the photo, so here it is!

Estás contenta?

Yay for Fridays! I love having Fridays off. Seriously, everyone should have a long weekend every weekend. I slept in, then quickly showered so I could run down to the grocery store and get something for lunch before they closed. This was only partially a good idea. Yes, I got something for lunch, but I also bought a bunch of junk food and not very much real food. That’s what I get for shopping hungry and with a sweet tooth. I ran into Pepe on my way to the store, who recently bought his new car and is quite happy because it is bigger than his old one (It doesn’t seem that much bigger to me, but whatever makes him happy). I went back home with my groceries, made some lasagna and watched last week’s episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice. I finished actually getting ready and then got a message from Almudena saying that she was going to the park with her daughter and I should come. I headed towards her apartment. She showed me around her apartment. It’s very modern. They are nearing the end of a remodel and I like their place a lot. They also have a very nice view. I took some pictures of Almudena and her daughter on the balcony and Almudena said I should come back when it snows and take a picture of their view then.

We headed off to the park and Maria and Jose Miguel were there waiting for us. I took a bunch of pictures of Almudena’s little girl who is suuuper cute and really smart. We hung out there for awhile chatting and taking pictures and then Almudena had to work at 6:30. We dropped her daughter off at Almudena’s parents’ house and I got to meet them. They actually live pretty close to me and said whenever I needed anything, just come over.

























Almudena, Maria and I had decided to go to Mezquita when Almudena was done with work (she only had to work an hour…she spends time with a bunch of the senior citizens in town, making sure they get groceries, have company, etc, etc). As I got home Luis also called me and I told him he could join us.

I started to clean my apartment (laundry, sweeping, cleaning the shower, etc, etc). Luis sent me a text saying they were going to Mezquita at 8:30 so I rushed through my cleaning, threw on some different clothes and headed down there. Almudena, Rulo, Maria, Jose Miguel and Luis were all there. We had mosto, cerveza, tapas and hamburgers. Almudena volunteered Luis to be Brittany, Roberto and my tour guide tomorrow, so with the help of Roberto’s car and Luis’ knowledge of the area we should have a fun time. I think we’re going to do a tour of the town, go out for lunch, see a waterfall, go to the castle in Sierra de la Segura and come back to Siles to have a couple drinks at the bar tonight. Almudena wasn’t feeling very good. She has a lot of the same symptoms I had, and she still needed to prepare food for Rulo’s hunting trip in the morning. So, they headed home and Maria, Jose Miguel, Luis and I went to Menphy’s for a drink and then went home.

It was a good day. It felt so incredible to have preset plans with everyone to go to Mezquita. I feel like I walk in their now with a little more confidence because I’m not alone anymore. Even Almudena noted “Estás contenta? (Are you happy?)” Yes. Yes, very much so.

Tomorrow Roberto and Brittany get here. I’m SO EXCITED!

Yes, I speak Spanish.

Word is out. I’m not quite sure who is doing my advertising for me, but I’ve had so many people track me down in the last few days asking for private English lessons. I have 3 people call my phone at times when I couldn’t answer, another woman came to the school today to find me, another picked me out of the group of teachers when we were heading to lunch and another called me tonight. I’m going to have to decide how many lessons I actually want to do. I don’t want my life to be consumed by lessons but it will be nice to have a little extra money. I’m charging 8 euro an hour. That is what Steffi said that she charges. She said Claudia (last year’s auxiliar) tried to charge 10 euros last year and people got upset. I don’t really know how I’ll go about doing these lessons…yet another thing I’ll have to learn as I go.

Today I had to teach the 3rd grade science class. It’s one of the classes I have to do the most preparation for, but I was feeling pretty good today because I’d spent a good chunk of time last night planning for today’s lesson. Well, majority of my lesson involved materials that I had e-mailed to myself that I needed to print out. I can only print things off at school. I got to school and…no internet. It wasn’t working. Grrrr. So instead we had an impromptu science lesson that wasn’t a total disaster, but it was frustrating. The 3rd graders are learning about animal, plant and fungi classifications. A lot of the words I could at least recognize in English. The problem is that I don’t know what the words are in Spanish, to translate into English. Therefore the kids have concluded that I must be the worse native English speaker in the world because I can’t answer their every question about vocabulary (with their only hint to me being the random word in Spanish that I’ve never heard before in my life). That is why planning for my science classes is especially important. That gives me the ability to control the material and vocabulary we learn, and allows me to look up any words ahead of time that I think they might use or ask about…it makes me look so smart! One of the boys in my 3rd grade science class knows so much about animals. His grasp on vocabulary and what animals I was referring to was really amazing.

I hung around the school from 11:45-1:30. I wrote a bunch numbers, dates, basic classroom words, etc on white cards that I’m going to put up around the 3 year olds’ classroom. I also traced Silvia’s (the school secretary) body onto a piece of butcher paper to prepare for next week’s 4th grade science lesson on the body systems. I ran a quick errand to buy a thumb drive and a snack, and then headed back to school. I hung out again until 2 when school was out, and then went back to my apartment to drop my things off. After that I went to Mezquita to meet with the other teachers before our fancy lunch at el instituto. I had a mosto and just before 3 we headed to the school.

Every Thursday the culinary students at el instituto cook a multi-course meal and you can reserve a spot to go eat there. It’s 10 euros and includes bread, appetizers, 2 main courses, 2 desserts, drinks and coffee…and it’s fabulous. They did a really nice job, and of course it was way better than anything I’ve managed to make myself here. There were 3 tables full of teachers from my school, and most of the other two tables were filled with teachers and students from my adult English class on Wednesday afternoons. It was nice to walk into a place like that and know more people than I didn’t know! We sat and chatted and ate and were merry. Inés husband and son were there, as well as another teacher’s husband and son. This little boy, Fernando, was shy, but looking at me constantly, and eventually took a liking to me. He was so cute. He started calling me Eri and gave me a kiss on the cheek to say goodbye. He tried talking to me but I didn’t have a clue what he was trying to tell me (neither did his dad). Fernando is 2 years old, so little-kid-speak in a foreign language is pretty difficult for me to interpret.


(puree de patatas with a cool design on it)


(the main course)


(one of the desserts)


(Fernando, 2 years old, in his chef hat made by the culinary teacher)


(Ines and her son)

After lunch I walked with Ana (one of the teachers, whose son is one of the culinary students) back to her house. I proceeded to have a long coughing fit so she gave me several blankets, gave me a glass of water and some hot chocolate, told me I should wear a scarf and go to the doctor the next day. Needless to say, I am well cared for here. That is definitely one of the benefits of being in a small town like this. I sat with Ana for a couple hours chatting about families, food, traditions, holidays, etc, etc. She is from a town outside of Cordoba and has two kids. Her husband is still in their town outside of Cordoba. Her eldest son is in Madrid. Her youngest son is studying cooking here. I’ve been really shocked at home many teachers here have husbands, wives and children in other cities and are only able to see them on weekends at best. The economic crisis here has made finding jobs difficult (just like in the US). Ana mentioned that she (based on the movies) likes how American houses look, and loves the Christmas lights in winter time. She also told me more about Día de los Reyes. Día de los Reyes is the 6th of January. This is when Spanish children get most of their Christmas presents. The children put their shoes outside on the balcony with snacks and glasses of water. The three wise men come, on their camels, let the camels drink the water, and they leave gifts in their place. In reality, the parents drink the water and put the snacks away. Ana said one year her sons tried to put out a pair of her husband’s shoes instead of their shoes thinking, if the shoes are bigger, the gifts must be too! Ana also invited me to spend Christmas with her in Cordoba if I end up with no other plans. She doesn’t want me to be alone that day. We also talked about Franquismo and how difficult those times were for Spain (especially for her grandfather who had 28 children). We covered an amazing range of topics. We went in search of lana (wool) that Ana’s mother requested. I was shocked at how much yarn this little shop in Siles had. Sadly though, they were out of the kind that her mother wanted. We left the shop but almost immediately went back so Ana could ask when the ‘consultorio’ (doctor’s office) closes during the week. Here there is one doctor’s office. It closes at 3 pm during the week and is closed on the weekends. So, don’t get sick or injured on the weekends because you’ll have to go to another town to get help. She said if I don’t start feeling better I should go get checked out…it is free after all! Why people don’t want this kind of health system in the US, I’ll never know. It’s freakin’ awesome.

Every now and then I get a pleasant satisfaction from the realization about how much my Spanish is improving. I just had a three hour conversation with a native Spanish speaker completely in Spanish with fairly minimal comprehension problems. Yeeeeees.

I went home, had a sandwich, put my clothes away, unclogged my shower, caught up on e-mails and photo orders and relaxed. Oh, I also finally had victory over my fly “friend” that had made himself too comfortable in my apartment. He was doused with hairspray, smashed with my power converter and flushed down the toilet. I was quite content…until his angry brother landed on my computer screen. I thought there was only one in my apartment, but it appears that there are two annoying flies that like to spend their time circling around me. Sigh.

I’m going to bed. I’m not setting an alarm. Tomorrow I will be cleaning my apartment so it’s ready for Roberto and Brittany to come visit me. Dust collects so fast here! The weather is supposed to get better. I hope that’s true so we have more options of things to do this weekend. At least it didn’t rain today. It was just SO cold. The temperature has dropped really quickly over the last week. Every time I go outside the cold irritates my cough. I turned my heat on for awhile yesterday and today. I’ve also had my towel rack going in order to dry my clothes. Winter’s coming!

Buenas noches todos!