Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...in southern Spain???

Snow! Yes, here in the mountains of Andalucía it snows.

Today was our first snow day. This is the first time in years that I’ve actually been excited to see the snow. I slept in this morning and then when I woke up, peaked out the window and witnessed the beautiful, snowy view I’d been hoping to see.









(Click to enlarge photo)

Initially I had been planning on waking up early and going to school even though I’m not scheduled on Fridays. Sebas was going to be working with the 6th graders today and trying to get the Christmas cards done for Steph’s students. I thought I’d go in to help. Sebas can speak English of course but the vocabulary associated with Christmas is not something he really has to know or use very often, so I figured it would be best if I went in and helped and answered any questions they had. Good thing I decided at the last minute to sleep in instead because school was cancelled. I understand why they cancelled classes but I also think it’s kind of funny. Majority of the people that need to get to the school live within walking distance…I mean, hey, I walk to the school almost everyday…so…why cancel school? Because it’s more fun to play in the snow, that’s why! (And they don’t want people falling or trying to drive up the hill to the school, of course.)

I started to tidy the apartment a little and try to get ready but I didn’t get that far. We lost power again. I don’t know why this is happening so much more lately, but it’s obnoxious. When Ma Cele is home it isn’t a big deal, but today she was at work. Snowy days, with a wet head and no heat aren’t that much fun. Luckily the heat is never out for that long. I threw my wet hair up and bundled up so I could go to the bank and cash my check. The bank was going to close at 2 whether my hair was dry or not. I was hoping that by the time I went to the bank and walked around a little to take pictures that Ma Cele would be back.

Go to bank and get my cash? Check.

I walked around enjoying the snow and watching people play in it. There were more people out than I expected. I took pictures of the snow and went on an extra long walk to give Ma Cele more time to get home. I asked Almudena if she wanted to get a coffee but she was working. I sent Maria a text but she didn’t respond. Later on my walk I ran into her and she said she was out of ‘saldo’ on her phone and couldn’t reply.

I stopped at Parador to have a coffee by the fireplace. My feet were soaked. After my café con leche I walked home. I hesitantly flipped on the entryway light to see if we had power yet. No luck. I called Ma Cele and she left work to come home and turn the power back on. While she was here I also gave her rent money.

The rest of my day was pretty relaxing. I didn’t do much.

As an earlier post predicted I just about landed on my butt going down one of Siles’ hills. A lot of the snow melted by the end of the day, but the temperatures dropped in the evening and now we’ve got some ice problems.

In the evening I met up with Almudena, Maria, Rulo, Jose Miguel and a couple others at Mezquita. I had a hamburger there for dinner. Hamburgers at Mezquita come with egg, bacon, ham, tomato, onion…the works! It’s pretty good, but very messy. Thursday when Luis cooked me dinner I mentioned that I preferred wine over beer but had no clue how to order wine at restaurants (there are so many types, regions, years, etc, etc I just have no idea what the difference it). He taught me how to order so tonight was my test run. Success! Una copa de vino de Rivera del Duero. Thank you very much! :)

After Mezquita we went to Menphys. It was Tony’s (a friend of my friends) birthday so they brought balloons and a cake. Almudena, and that whole group didn’t stay that long but Maribel (who is living in Barcelona, and that I met during the last puente) didn’t feel like going home yet. She asked me to stay. I was tired, but agreed. I didn’t end up going home until 4:30am. Usually that doesn’t bother me, but only if we’re actually doing something and moving about until 4:30am. We were just sitting on the barstools and chatting and I was tiiiiiiiired.









Random side note: I noticed today that the stop signs here actually say “Stop” (in English). This was not something I noticed when I was in Murcia so I looked it up online to see if it was that way in all of Spain. Apparently so…I guess the European Union decided that road signs have to be in English so they are standardized throughout EU countries.

Another typical day in Siles

I really, really didn’t want to get up this morning, but it has turned into a very productive day. I visited the panaderia this morning to pick up a napolitana, then headed off to school. I ate my breakfast, bought a coffee and started working on my jeopardy board for the third grade science class.

I had class with the 4th graders and then headed down for the 3rd grade science lesson. We are at the end of a unit and they are going to have a test soon, so Maria del Mar wanted me to plan some sort of review lesson. I made the Jeopardy board with the categories invertebrates, vertebrates, ‘valoro mi mundo’ (about extinction, conservation, etc), and new words (words we didn’t get a chance to cover in class but that they should know). The new words category was a bonus and worth double the points. Overall it wasn’t quite as successful as I would have liked but the kids seemed to enjoy it. They didn’t remember hardly any of the words we’ve covered and were constantly looking things up in the dictionary. Also, some of the kids just didn’t get it…they would call out words that had already been guessed without consulting their team, or they would tell me over and over the same guess even though I told them it was wrong. Oh well…you live, you learn.

After class I had another cup of coffee. Thursdays are my half day but I decided to stay late to get more stuff done. I still had to finish up the Constitution Day mural and work on various Christmas activities. The egg carton Christmas tree is going up in the hallway and I am responsible for making the “Charity Christmas Tree” lettering. There’s also a Christmas mailbox and I need to make lettering for that too. Maria del Mar said next week we can do a Christmas lesson instead of a science lesson since they are at the end of the unit and we don’t have that much time left until Christmas break.

When I was working on the Constitution Day mural in the hallway I was so happy that the sun had finally decided to reappear. It’s been so rainy and gross here lately. Very Seattle-ish. I got paid again, which I wasn’t expecting. The school still hasn’t received money from the Ministry of Education to pay me so they are using their reserve and supply money to pay me. I didn’t think I was going to get paid for another couple of weeks so it was a lovely surprise. When I got the check I decided to leave school so I could try to cash it. When I got to the bank the door was closed and I was a bit frustrated. They were supposed to be open for another 15-20 minutes. Oh well, that’s life in Spain (Later I found out I was actually the idiot. One of the doors is always closed and you have to go in the other way). In the time I walked from the school to the bank the weather did a complete 180. It started hailing, and was windy with a mixture of a little snow and thunder. Madness! So much for my sun! I stopped at Mercardo Gerardo to pick up some groceries and Edu was laughing about all this crazy weather.



I picked up some bacon for dinner tonight (pasta carbonara is on the menu) and then headed across the street to another little shop. I had never been in before so I decided to check it out and see what was there. I met the people working there who were super nice. They chatted with me and I just looked around. On my way home I passed several shops selling Christmas stuff. I think I might pick up a strand of lights or something to make my apartment at least *a little* festive. I went home, had lunch, cleaned, and organized my fridge and cupboard. After having people over for a couple dinners I have so much more food than I did initially. I don’t know how I’m going to get through it before it all goes bad.

I got the ginger from Eve yesterday. I was going to bake my pumpkin pie today (finally!) but I forgot to take the pumpkin out of the freezer to thaw…maybe I’ll do it later…maybe tomorrow…

My private lesson in the afternoon got cancelled and then Luis came over to make me dinner. He is studying to be what I believe is the equivalent of a Certified Nursing Assistant. He had brought over some things he needed to study and I showed him the medical vocab that I have to study for my state medical interpreter’s test…basically the same stuff so maybe I’ll have him start quizzing me. We had dinner but he ended up spiking a high fever and headed home. Here’s hoping I don’t end up sick too!

December???

Whoa, it’s the 1st of December? When did that happen?

I don’t want blogging to become a weekly thing instead of a daily thing, but maybe it will. Things have really started to pick up…well…that or I’m adapting to doing nothing so I’m better at wasting time. It’s amazing how 12 hours of work turns into so much more. Lesson planning and executing and private lessons, as well as all the little projects I’ve been taking on leave me without much time or motivation to update the blog on a nightly basis, although I know I’ll regret it later if I don’t keep it up.

Today was absolute madness. I’m pretty sure it could be classified as a hellion rebellion. Really, it was hard to believe actually. Not only was today my long day but the kids were off the wall crazy. I think it’s because we’ve mixed up the routine a little and have started doing activities related to Christmas. I’ve been told that whenever they get to this point in the school year the kids just start to go nuts. At various points in the day there were desks overturned, kids screaming like banshees up and down the hallways, green paint up to their eyebrows and of course, tears. Heaven help me. It almost didn’t seem real. I was working on a mural in the hallway and all of this seemed to be spinning around me in a dream-like fog.

The third grade class was pretty typical. Read something out of the book, ask comprehension questions, do activities in workbook.

The sixth grade class we started the Christmas cards for Steph’s students. They spent the entire time coloring and we’re going to have to finish on Friday. I only have one class a week with the sixth graders but Sebas has 2 classes with them. I told him I could come in on Friday even though I don’t usually work so we could finish the activity and get them in the mail. The kids really liked this activity. Woo hoo!

After recreo I had my time with Antonio’s 4th graders. They were multitasking. Antonio had said that instead of doing a science lesson with me this week he wanted to do something related to Constitution Day (which is December 6th). I had started a mural in the hallway and brought in images of the different Spanish rights mentioned in the Constitution (not all of them, just the basics). The kids were supposed to color them so we could put them on the mural. Well, half the kids were in class being crazy, the other half were painting green egg cartons for the Charity Christmas Tree in the hallway downstairs and so really it wasn’t much of a lesson. The kids colored the pictures when they were in the room and I pasted them to the mural.

My last class of the day was with the 2nd graders. Oh goodness. What a way to end the day. My feet were aching and I just wanted to sit down. Inés and I went around helping the kids with one of their workbook activities about animals and body parts (sharks with big teeth, fish with big eyes, swordfish with long ‘noses’ etc, etc).

Thank goodness tomorrow is Thursday and my half day.

I went home, ate lunch and fell into bed. My feet and whole body hurt. I chatted with Maria briefly, then decided to take a 20 minute nap. Thank goodness. I certainly didn’t want to get up after only 20 minutes but it did make me feel better. Then it was back to school for the adult class. With my first group we ended up chatting for an hour. The plan is normally to chat for half an hour and then work on grammar for half an hour, but when we checked the time and saw that an hour had already passed we were shocked. Marta, the main teacher, pointed out that next week is “puente” (vacation) and the week after they have an exam, and the week after that Christmas break starts, so I don’t need to come back until after the 7th of January. Whoa! How’s that for an unexpected little break! After that I went to the other group and they were doing a listening activity. I felt bad for them because I even thought it was hard to understand at times because the accent was so thick! We chatted about our weekends, our plans for puente, and Christmas. At one point, all of a sudden, Fernando (the main teacher of this group) got this worried look on his face… “Erica! What are doing for Christmas??” Haha, staying here in good ol’ Siles. I assured him that a friend had invited me to spend the day with her family and that I would be ok.

Fernando’s last day of teaching in Siles is this week (tomorrow). He has been here basically as a substitute because the ‘normal’ English teacher was in a car wreck and on leave. I have never met her. Saturday Fernando and his friends are going out for one last hurrah, so I’ll probably join them. He said if I feel like going to the beach that I could visit him in Huelva. I assured him that after a winter in Siles I would probably need it!

Juan (one of my ‘pupils’) also invited me to go to Madrid for puente with him and his family. I thought about it, but I’ve been to Madrid already, so I think I’ll just stay in Siles for a few days to go out with my friends (including those who aren’t usually here) and then go to Ubeda and Baeza on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for a small trip. Originally I’d been thinking of going to Malaga and Cadiz but decided I didn’t feel like traveling alone in the rain.

Also, I found out last week at our Thanksgiving dinner that Ben and Eve have ginger in their apartment! Eve gave it to one of the teachers in my adult class, who passed it onto me…so this weekend…it’s pie baking time!

A few random side notes I’ve forgotten to mention the last few days…

1.) I scheduled a trip to Murcia next month to visit Brittany and Roberto. I will be going there the 17th and coming back on the 19th.

2.) I bought my very first lottery ticket ever! It’s a Christmas lottery ticket…wouldn’t a few million euros be nice for the holidays! Haha

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.