School/Moms Visit

Sunday October 3^rd-Thursday October 14^th

Sunday (my favorite day of the week)- Today I discovered a beautiful church not too far from my house- and when I say discovered I don’t mean stumbled across or anything because that would insinuate that it was hard to find- you can see the church’s steeple from about 2 miles away. It is a traditionally decorated Catholic church- a beautiful altar adorned with gold accents, and my favorite- stained glass windows at every glance. The past month of my life had been so crazy it was important for me find a peaceful setting in which I could sit and reflect on my many blessings. It is always funny to me, when you find yourself in the most overwhelming situations, the type when you feel emotionally drained and a bit helpless- once things start to go right, you soon forget most of your silly troubles…

I also wanted to go to a peaceful place to celebrate and remember the life of one of the strongest people I have ever known. Mary Bruckner you have inspired so many people to appreciate life to the fullest, you will be missed and never forgotten- Rest in Peace.

The rest of my Sunday was very relaxing- I got lost in my book for a couple of hours (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and after that I went to the Prado Museum. We decided to do the “tourist express” walk-through of the museum and check off all the masterpieces (To-do list: become more informed on Spanish art and its history) I want to visit the Thyssen Museum next- some art I’m a little more familiar with…

I had a lovely Sunday J  

My first full week of school:

I don’t believe I have mentioned anything really about my schools, so here is a bit of info on my school Juan Zaragüeta and the Madrid public school system-

All of the schools in which the auxiliaries are working are bilingual public schools (similar to Language Immersion in Robbinsdale)

Normally each school has an “infantil” program for children under the age of 5.

The elementary school consists of 1^st year-6^th year.

Most schools start at 9am and have classes until lunch, at 12pm (lunch is a two hour period). After lunch the kids go back to class at 2 and finish their schools day at 4:30pm (OUCH)

MY school starts at 9am- we have a coffee break (recess for the kids) from 11:45-12:15 then classes continue until 2pm. THE END! Some of the kids stay at school for lunch until their parents pick them up after work, but most leave school at 2pm for the day. It’s really rough…

My responsibilities: Speak English the way I know how, accent included. Help the teacher with their English> pronunciation, grammar, accent, translations, “sayings” etc.

P.S the students have NO idea that I speak Spanish… how? I haven’t the slightest clue. – every question they ask me is in Spanish, I respond in English and they don’t pick it up (at least not yet)….

A few words/sayings that I have had to correct thus far…

“Earth ball” (Globe)

“Rubbers” (erasers J) Yes, children shouting “WHERE IS MY RUBBER!?!” in class makes it hard for me to keep a straight face…

“Yokes” (jokes)

“Yogging” (jogging)

“Soccer boots” (cleats)

These are just a few I jotted down during the day…

After school this week I just did a lot of walking around, trying to get more familiar with Madrid- It is a pretty big city, but everything is “walkable” so I have been putting on a lot of miles on lately!

Weekend:

Friday night- Abby, Becca and I went out for a couple of beers. We sat outside and debated going out “Madrid” style but we decided it would be better to save up some energy for Saturday night. So we parted ways around 11pm and headed back to our pisos (apartments).

Saturday- My other roommate Rosa arrived from Murcia, Spain, with her parents to move all of her things into our piso. I hung around the apartment for a little while and then headed over to a friend’s place. We didn’t really have any plans for the day so we thought it would be fun to make chocolate chip cookies. After translating all of the ingredients to Spanish and converting all measurements we headed to the grocery store. We only had trouble finding two things: baking soda, we ended up with baking powder instead and packed brown sugar.  The end result was more or less chocolate cookie balls BUT they were tasty and made the apartment smell like home J

 We had a couple friends come over to use Abby’s internet (at this point she was the only one who had it) they wanted to watch the South Carolina v. Alabama football game. We sat around with a couple drinks and made plans for the evening >> at about 1am we headed to my piso so I could get ready to go out. Me and two other girls headed out shortly after to walk and meet up with the rest of the crew. We eneded up at an Irish pub and had a good time.

Highlights of the bar for me: Spaniards grooving and swaying to songs from Grease, the Beatles and a few other American pop songs…

I made it home by 4am- and I had called it a night early.

MOMS VISIT: (she arrived one bag short- the airline lost her big suitcase with everything she brought from home for me)

I met mi Madre at the Husa Princess Hotel at 10am Sunday morning. She flew in with Mary (she was working the flight) and was able to get us a hotel room for Sunday night at the hotel! After a short cat nap we decided to trek across Madrid to my apartment. It took us about 45 minutes to walk to my place, my mom was happy to find that my neighborhood was really nice J. We had told a few people from the crew that we would meet back at the hotel at 4:30 to get some tapas.

We met Mary, Tim, and Sam in the lobby of the hotel and headed to a restaurant where one of their boyfriends worked (and it was not Mary’s boyfriendJ). The next couple of hours were full of tapas, beer and side aches from laughing so hard.

We split ways with the “boys” and my Mom, Mary and I wandered around the Parque de Moro, it had a beautiful view of Madrid so we stopped to take a few pictures.

Dinner: Pimientas de pedron- AMAZING.

My mom had fried sardines, actually very good (granted we had no idea what this was when we ordered)

I had Tortilla Española

            Mary had a salad with sea food

            And of course wine for all of us

Monday: we woke up and met Mary for breakfast in the hotel, after we said our goodbyes to the crew.

We headed out of the hotel to my apartment to meet the driver from the airline who was delivering my Mom’s lost bag J yessss!! The bag was full of essentials: shower curtain, window curtain, tote bags, homer hanky, hot sauce, ranch, pickles (homemade), socks, tights, calendar, matches, headphones, my new book, and a few other things I’m forgetting to mention. It was in fact the largest care-package I have ever received> Thanks Mom and Dad!

Tuesday: TOLEDO> Today my Mom my friend Abby and I took a day trip to Toledo. We started off the morning in a spring through the metro because in order to make the 10am bus to Toledo, we made it onto the bus at 9:58 and it pulled out of the Bus Station at 10:02—The Spanish take bus times seriously, who woulda thought?

Toledo is a beautiful city on a hill, protected by large stone walls and 3/4s surrounded by a river. The bus dropped us off at the bottom of the hill and we made our way up to the city square to have Café con leche. We spent most of the morning wandering through curvy, narrow cobblestone roads admiring the city’s beauty. We were stopped in one of the main tourist areas and told to follow one of the side streets a little ways down to a workshop. This workshop was where they hand-made jewelry that Toledo is famous for, we got to watched a couple of men work on a few pieces and they explained how different types were made.

After this we went to the tourist center and got some free posters to hang up on my ever-so-white apartment walls. Then we headed to the city center to buy train tickets- the “train” drives you around the outside of Toledo so you can see the whole panoramic view, and it narrates some of the city’s history. Abby had studies abroad here last year so she showed us where her school was and conveniently down the street was the university bar. We had beers and tapas!

Wednesday & Friday: I had to get to school by 9am and Mom did a lot of walking around the city. At school the third graders had tests both days, they were extremely nervous! They keep asking me for the answers to the questions!!!

After school my mom and I did a lot more walking, we had some amazing lamb and chicken Kebaps—yum! Later on we went on a roommate outing to get tapas and beer, Rosa knew of a place nearby.

Getting the three roomies together is always entertaining, and putting my mom in the mix definitely made it fun! There are always such funny things that are lost in translation with our conversations... We taught Rosa a few English expressions like, “getting hammered,” She asked us if all university parties were like the ones she see’s in movies like American Pie… She now knows what it means to be “hammered,”  she knows what beer pong is, and solo cups (like all the ones she see’s in the movies).

Friday: today was such a funny day at school. The fourth graders sang “Here Comes the Sun” to me, the second time the teacher played the song she allowed them to get up and dance! The students immediately started a conga dance line around the room, shortly after we all were showing off different dance moves. I figured I had to go all out and decided to show them the moon walk—you would have thought I was the Queen of Spain> these kids went nuts “MIKAEL JAKSONE!!! After 3 or 4 performances I took a bow and told them the show was over!

As I was walking out of school for the day a mob of girls stopped me and asked me to do my dance again, I gave them a few pointers and had them all sliding across the hallway with me, Michael Jackson style J

Moms last night in town was wonderful, we walked around the city (both of our feet are killing us after this week) and grabbed some food, again no idea what we ordered… We had another beautiful day of weather! I am so thankful that my mom was able to come and visit! I’m sure dad is happy to have her back, because his fingers hurt so much from all his interesting text messages!

Thank you Mom for everything! I love you.

Sorry to everyone that this is the longest blog EVER. I will be better now that I have internet!

Besos,

<3 Kelley