This week was pretty average. I was back to my full schedule, plus a little bit more. I felt super stressed, overwhelmed and exhausted the whole week. Not cool.
Tuesday
- I helped Arturo with his English class. His students are really kinda interesting. One of them makes me really sad for the youth of Spain. I ran into my friend Chupi there (since classes are held in his house) and Arturo was so surprised that I know his brother.
Wednesday
-After all of the craziness that is my normal Wednesday, I went to dinner with Miguel Angel, Maria, Bea, and Celia at Pilar’s house. Whenever we have dinners together, there’s an endless supply of amazing food. I always end up eating until I feel sick.
-I’m too much like my dad. I insisted I could find a shortcut from one of my private conversation classes to the high school but I think it ended up taking more time…
Thursday
-I had to spend the day in Toledo for something with my program. It was lame. I was mad I had to wake up early and waste my morning on my day off to sit and not pay attention to someone ramble in Spanish about something I felt was highly irrelevant. Eddie and I passed notes about fútbol gossip like we were high schoolers
-the only practical thing about the morning was the one workshop we had to go to where we listened to 2 others talk about their experience and the things that they do with the students. It gave me a few ideas. But this was the thing I was asked to speak at, but thankfully they told me last week that they had asked too many people to speak and they didn’t need me to do it. That would have just made my week way more stressful. But apparently I’m signed up to speak in May…
Friday
-I decided I’m taking a super chill weekend and just completely relaxing because I felt super stressed and exhausted all week. So I slept in, then went for a 6 mile run, later I went to the park to sit and enjoy the beautiful weather.
-we got a new fruit shop across the street. I’m super excited about it. And it’s all like super cheap. We got a whole bunch of fruit for under 5 euros. And then they gave us free lettuce. Haha. They’re totally going to know me in name before I leave here.
Saturday
-Another beautiful day so I started my day reading in the mini-park. I went to the actual park after lunch.
-later Eddie and I went to Cuevas and watched 2 games of fútbol then went to watch a 3rd one with Angel and Chupi in the local but it didn’t work so we ended up coming back to our piso.
-my favorite moment of the 6 hours of fútbol was that Angel asked me a question and I responded “uh, what? Sorry, when fútbol’s on, I’m like a guy and don’t pay much attention to what’s going on around” and he said “like a guy? Eddie and I are sitting here having an actual conversation during the fútbol game…”
Sunday
-There was a British girl at church. She just arrived from Portugal and is here focusing on her Spanish. She was super sweet and I had fun chatting with her about our different experiences.
-So overall it was a really calm and restful weekend which was more than necessary.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
and then I became a blonde...
Tuesday
- I had this obnoxious cough and whatnot so Pilar told me not to come to school at all.
-I went to the doctor’s for the first time in Spain. He just confirmed my symptoms and prescribed me some new meds and sent me on my way. Woo.
Wednesday
- I was feeling better so I went to school a little late. We took one of my group of 4th graders to the pool and that was pretty funny.
-I canceled 2 of my afternoon classes so I could rest up.
-I discovered that one of my high school girls loves Sergio Ramos too. If this was a class where I gave grades, she would totally get an A. I’m not the only one in this town, let alone in Spain :)
Thursday
-I continued with all of my afternoon classes because I was feeling a heck of a lot better. Definitely not perfect, like not good enough to go for a run, but a lot better.
-I went over to Manuel & Ana’s for dinner because I hadn’t seen them all week.
Friday
-I stayed inside all day sending out updates on my life to friends and cleaning up a little bit.
Saturday
-Eddie and I were invited to Angel’s best friend’s birthday party even though we’ve never met him. It was a lot of fun. Pedro’s uncle prepared this amazing lamb, just like they had done at Pilar’s mom’s birthday. It’s soooo good.
-this group of people gave me a new nickname… they call me Rubia, which we would translate as blonde, but here in Spain my hair is considered blonde since most Spanish people have really dark hair. At first I tried to fight it (I’m NOT blonde!), but then I just embraced the new nickname.
-I’m teaching Eddie some good east coast/Philly/PA dutch words. This weekend he learned “outten the fire” haha.
Sunday
-Eddie and I went over for lunch at Angel’s house with his family. They’re a super nice family and his mom makes a good paella :)
-later us and some of the boys went to see the Quintanar fútbol game. My first time going. It was fun but I had to leave early to go to church.
- I had this obnoxious cough and whatnot so Pilar told me not to come to school at all.
-I went to the doctor’s for the first time in Spain. He just confirmed my symptoms and prescribed me some new meds and sent me on my way. Woo.
Wednesday
- I was feeling better so I went to school a little late. We took one of my group of 4th graders to the pool and that was pretty funny.
-I canceled 2 of my afternoon classes so I could rest up.
-I discovered that one of my high school girls loves Sergio Ramos too. If this was a class where I gave grades, she would totally get an A. I’m not the only one in this town, let alone in Spain :)
Thursday
-I continued with all of my afternoon classes because I was feeling a heck of a lot better. Definitely not perfect, like not good enough to go for a run, but a lot better.
-I went over to Manuel & Ana’s for dinner because I hadn’t seen them all week.
Friday
-I stayed inside all day sending out updates on my life to friends and cleaning up a little bit.
Saturday
-Eddie and I were invited to Angel’s best friend’s birthday party even though we’ve never met him. It was a lot of fun. Pedro’s uncle prepared this amazing lamb, just like they had done at Pilar’s mom’s birthday. It’s soooo good.
-this group of people gave me a new nickname… they call me Rubia, which we would translate as blonde, but here in Spain my hair is considered blonde since most Spanish people have really dark hair. At first I tried to fight it (I’m NOT blonde!), but then I just embraced the new nickname.
-I’m teaching Eddie some good east coast/Philly/PA dutch words. This weekend he learned “outten the fire” haha.
Sunday
-Eddie and I went over for lunch at Angel’s house with his family. They’re a super nice family and his mom makes a good paella :)
-later us and some of the boys went to see the Quintanar fútbol game. My first time going. It was fun but I had to leave early to go to church.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
When Justin came to visit
Random stuff since the last time I wrote
-I started teaching my first high school class. Since it was the first one it was all getting to know the students and whatnot. There were 7 of them and they were really quiet. But I really like them. I think they’ll be fun; I just have to get them to talk more. I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy these classes more than with the little ones. However, now my schedule is even more ridiculously busy.
On Thursday the 3rd my cousin Justin came to visit. I got to get up nice and early and take the 5 am bus to pick him up at the airport. We couchsurfed in Madrid for the weekend, meaning we slept on a strangers couch. Haha. It’s this network I heard about and had always wanted to try it and figured the best time to try it would be with Justin around and it’s totally legit. Our host Luis and his girlfriend were awesome. Super sweet people. I toured Justin around to all the main sights. We walked around everywhere. Literally. I discovered I know my way around the city a lot more than I had thought. And I finally got to take advantage of Rebajas (Spain’s sale season) and do some shopping.
On Saturday we went on a day trip to Segovia, which was one of the cities on my list of places I didn’t want to leave Spain without seeing. And it was beautiful and charming and even a little bit more so than I had hoped. I absolutely fell in love with the city. It has Roman aqueducts from like the 1st or 2nd century, for goodness sake! I think we covered that whole city by foot too. For dinner, back in Madrid, I took Justin to Casa Mingo, the place with the best chicken I’ve ever consumed. I like it so much so that I ate a whole chicken by myself. Yes, that’s right folks. A whole chicken.
On Sunday I woke up not feeling so great. I blame it on the chicken. Not the fact that I ate a whole one (I swear I’ve eaten more than that in one sitting before) but on the meat or something. But I sucked it up, not wanting Justin to miss out on the experience of Retiro, the huge outdoor market. I ended up throwing up in the metro station on our way home. Luckily I was prepared. But because of that, our plans to go to Toledo were changed and Monday was spent with me on the couch all day except for a short tour around Quintanar.
Tuesday- I felt completely better. After school, Esther took us to Campo de Criptana, a town close by that has the windmills that are famously linked with Don Quixote. On the way back we stopped in Toboso so see the house museum of Dulcinea. It was all pretty cool. And in the evening, I even convinced Justin to go on a 5 mile run.
Wednesday- Justin got to come to school with me for a bit and see part of my hectic schedule, although I did cancel one thing. My 4th graders loved him- like all the girls thought he was cute and all the boys thought he was great because he could dunk a basketball. My kids in the afternoon loved him as well and they behaved super well so he didn’t get to see the bad side of them. Haha. He also got to meet Manuel and Ana- we went over for dinner and he loved them as well because they all made a point to use as much English as possible.
Thursday- we squeezed in our trip to Toledo, we just had to leave on the 6.30am bus. But I like Toledo a lot and figured it was one city he shouldn’t miss out on since it’s so close and so pretty. I got to explore a few things I’ve never seen before either so that was cool. In the evening after my classes, we had dinner with the whole crew- Miguel Angel, Celia, Pilar, Lourdes, Bea and others. It was a lot of fun and they made sure to have a lot of typical Spanish food for Justin to try.
Friday- we caught another early bus to Madrid and I dropped Justin off at the airport. I had a lot of fun with him and was glad he got to come visit and see part of my life over here. Finally someone took me up on my offer! After dropping him off I went back to the bus station and met up with Alisa, an Australian girl from my program that’s teaching in Madrid. We met on Facebook and had talked about traveling together so it finally worked out for us to do just that. So we caught a bus to Salamanca together. And luckily, we got along great. She’s a super sweet girl and I had a lot of fun traveling with her.
Salamanca is quite beautiful. Smaller than I had thought cuz I think we saw like everything from the outside on the first day, but saved touring some things for Saturday. And I ran into Tomas and Alex (Eddie’s friends that had visited us the other week) so that was funny. Later we ran into 3 other auxiliares that Alisa knew and so we went out for dinner with them and that was fun. It was refreshing hanging out with a group of girls again. It was actually a really relaxing weekend. Since neither of us were feeling fabulous, we rested and slept as much as we could, while still being able to see things. And eat ice cream every day. I think Alisa and I will try to travel together again, one of us just has to become a little more decisive so we don’t struggle to decide on a place to eat. Speaking of eating, she took me to a Japanese restaurant and I learned to kinda use chopsticks. I even managed to eat rice with them. but yeah, it was a really nice weekend. And now I have another city to check off my list :)
-I started teaching my first high school class. Since it was the first one it was all getting to know the students and whatnot. There were 7 of them and they were really quiet. But I really like them. I think they’ll be fun; I just have to get them to talk more. I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy these classes more than with the little ones. However, now my schedule is even more ridiculously busy.
On Thursday the 3rd my cousin Justin came to visit. I got to get up nice and early and take the 5 am bus to pick him up at the airport. We couchsurfed in Madrid for the weekend, meaning we slept on a strangers couch. Haha. It’s this network I heard about and had always wanted to try it and figured the best time to try it would be with Justin around and it’s totally legit. Our host Luis and his girlfriend were awesome. Super sweet people. I toured Justin around to all the main sights. We walked around everywhere. Literally. I discovered I know my way around the city a lot more than I had thought. And I finally got to take advantage of Rebajas (Spain’s sale season) and do some shopping.
On Saturday we went on a day trip to Segovia, which was one of the cities on my list of places I didn’t want to leave Spain without seeing. And it was beautiful and charming and even a little bit more so than I had hoped. I absolutely fell in love with the city. It has Roman aqueducts from like the 1st or 2nd century, for goodness sake! I think we covered that whole city by foot too. For dinner, back in Madrid, I took Justin to Casa Mingo, the place with the best chicken I’ve ever consumed. I like it so much so that I ate a whole chicken by myself. Yes, that’s right folks. A whole chicken.
On Sunday I woke up not feeling so great. I blame it on the chicken. Not the fact that I ate a whole one (I swear I’ve eaten more than that in one sitting before) but on the meat or something. But I sucked it up, not wanting Justin to miss out on the experience of Retiro, the huge outdoor market. I ended up throwing up in the metro station on our way home. Luckily I was prepared. But because of that, our plans to go to Toledo were changed and Monday was spent with me on the couch all day except for a short tour around Quintanar.
Tuesday- I felt completely better. After school, Esther took us to Campo de Criptana, a town close by that has the windmills that are famously linked with Don Quixote. On the way back we stopped in Toboso so see the house museum of Dulcinea. It was all pretty cool. And in the evening, I even convinced Justin to go on a 5 mile run.
Wednesday- Justin got to come to school with me for a bit and see part of my hectic schedule, although I did cancel one thing. My 4th graders loved him- like all the girls thought he was cute and all the boys thought he was great because he could dunk a basketball. My kids in the afternoon loved him as well and they behaved super well so he didn’t get to see the bad side of them. Haha. He also got to meet Manuel and Ana- we went over for dinner and he loved them as well because they all made a point to use as much English as possible.
Thursday- we squeezed in our trip to Toledo, we just had to leave on the 6.30am bus. But I like Toledo a lot and figured it was one city he shouldn’t miss out on since it’s so close and so pretty. I got to explore a few things I’ve never seen before either so that was cool. In the evening after my classes, we had dinner with the whole crew- Miguel Angel, Celia, Pilar, Lourdes, Bea and others. It was a lot of fun and they made sure to have a lot of typical Spanish food for Justin to try.
Friday- we caught another early bus to Madrid and I dropped Justin off at the airport. I had a lot of fun with him and was glad he got to come visit and see part of my life over here. Finally someone took me up on my offer! After dropping him off I went back to the bus station and met up with Alisa, an Australian girl from my program that’s teaching in Madrid. We met on Facebook and had talked about traveling together so it finally worked out for us to do just that. So we caught a bus to Salamanca together. And luckily, we got along great. She’s a super sweet girl and I had a lot of fun traveling with her.
Salamanca is quite beautiful. Smaller than I had thought cuz I think we saw like everything from the outside on the first day, but saved touring some things for Saturday. And I ran into Tomas and Alex (Eddie’s friends that had visited us the other week) so that was funny. Later we ran into 3 other auxiliares that Alisa knew and so we went out for dinner with them and that was fun. It was refreshing hanging out with a group of girls again. It was actually a really relaxing weekend. Since neither of us were feeling fabulous, we rested and slept as much as we could, while still being able to see things. And eat ice cream every day. I think Alisa and I will try to travel together again, one of us just has to become a little more decisive so we don’t struggle to decide on a place to eat. Speaking of eating, she took me to a Japanese restaurant and I learned to kinda use chopsticks. I even managed to eat rice with them. but yeah, it was a really nice weekend. And now I have another city to check off my list :)
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