I think I'm getting the Black Lung, Pop

No, I haven't started smoking or become a coal miner. But it's possible that everyone else in this city has. Smoking, that is. Not coal mining, as far as I know. It's impossible to go almost anywhere in this city without smelling like an ashtray. I had to find a new place to hang my towel because it was hanging next to my scarves, which of course smell like smoke. Yuck. The sad inevitable day finally came: the end of my first month of teaching. And the end of the month means time to switch schedules with the other assistant, Jen. Now I'm working with Inma and first-grade groups A & B. They are fine, but I miss my other classes! The worst/best part about the switch is that my old students always give me hugs and shout my name every time they see me outside or in the hallways. It really makes my day when they start the sports-style cheer: Shaaa-na! Shaaa-na! Shaaa-na!

So, what have I been up to lately? I've started going to a conversation hour type of thing in which we all speak thirty minutes or so in Spanish before switching to English for thirty minutes, and back and forth for about two hours. After last week's session, a group of us went to the Feria de la Cerveza that was held inside the Plaza de Toros. They tried to set it up like Oktoberfest, with long rows of tables and giant beer mugs that hold a full liter!There was also a variety of different types of sausage for sale, but to me they just tasted like hot dogs and breakfast sausage.

I guess that's how it goes when you're trying to eat German food in Spain. Speaking of which, Jen and I are going to Germany in December! We have a long weekend, or puente, at the beginning of the month so we spent an evening looking at cheap flights all around Europe and found some cheap ones to and from Düsseldorf and Frankfurt, but our itinerary between the two stops is currently undetermined, so please send suggestions! We are hoping to see Berlin, Dresden, and Munich, but I am still very open to suggestions. Also, Mom booked her flight to Madrid for Christmas, so we will probably travel for a few days before or after New Year's Eve, which I have decided we must spend here to be a part of the NYE tradition in Puerta del Sol, where the madrileños eat twelve grapes at midnight--one for each chime of the clock.

Yesterday I had my first session teaching the teachers at my school! As part of my program, the school can choose to have the English assistants help with teaching English to the other teachers. On Wednesdays, they meet with an actual English teacher, but on Monday afternoons they meet with Jen and me and we split into two groups for an hour of conversation. Jen has had some experience teaching before and, well, she tends to talk a bit faster than I do, so she has a group of six teachers who already know a bit of English. I have a group of fourteen (!!!) teachers who know less English, but their levels range from a few who really don't know any English to a few who will probably move up to the second class once they feel more comfortable speaking English. One of the teachers in my class, María (not to be confused with the first-grade English teacher María), lives near me and we've gotten the chance to talk on the bus to and from school nearly every day, so it's nice to have a friend in my group to help me relax! The teachers have all told me that they're very nervous and embarrassed to speak English, but yesterday I was extremely nervous to teach them! The class went well and was mostly me getting to know them and answering their questions more than I was asking them questions. Jen and I will be meeting with the Wednesday afternoon English teacher sometime this week to discuss her lesson plans so we can sort of echo what she teaches and reinforce the ideas in practice. Listen to me, all teachery.

This weekend was known as "MTV Week" because the European Music Awards (EMAs) were held in Madrid this year. What does this mean? Parties, concerts, and more parties going on all week, all sponsored by MTV and all free! Well, sort of. A big stage was set up in the city center at Puerta de Alcalá where a bunch of Spanish artists played a show on Saturday, and on Sunday, during the actual EMAs, Katy Perry, Linkin Park, and 30 Seconds to Mars performed. Of course, Kanye West had to show up and do a song in the middle of one of the performances, and Jackass came out and crowdsurfed. My roommate managed to see Snooki and Pauly D from Jersey Shore at a hotel downtown, while I was out and about all weekend and managed to not see anyone. Such is my life. My friend Josh and I tried to go to the EMA afterparty that was held in Parque Retiro, but much to our dismay the doorman told us it was invitation-only, and since it was late on a Sunday night we couldn't stick around to see the celebs arriving.

Aside from celebrity-stalking, I spent most of my weekend with some people from the conversation hour, going out to lunch, visiting the Sunday morning market aka El Rastro, tapas-crawling on Cava Baja and around La Latina, and generally wandering around the city and speaking lots of Spanish. It's just so incredible how much better my Spanish has gotten, not that it was bad before, but I'm not nearly as afraid to use it as I used to be. At times I really miss my family, my friends, and my old routine... I am especially missing Raleigh's fantastic breweries. I haven't found anything to compare to Sweet Josie Brown, and the recent return of Aces & Ates has me feeling extremely nostalgic for tasty beers. But I guess that's why I'm going to Germany!

To be fair, what Spain lacks in amazing wintry brews, it certainly makes up for in fantastic food. I've recently become obsessed with Pimientos de Padrón, a dish of fried peppers from Galicia in the Northwest of Spain. There is a saying about the dish in the local language, Galego: Os pementos de Padrón, uns pican e outros non, which means: Padrón peppers, some are spicy and some are not. Padrón is a town in the community of Galicia where the dish originated. Usually, it tastes like sweet fried peppers, but sometimes you'll get a spicy one. I had some at a small bar near the Plaza Mayor a few weeks ago and have been crazy about them ever since. If you have the means, I highly suggest picking one up.

I have added lots more pictures to my albums online. Click here to see them, and until next time, un beso!

My new home

Just kidding. But really, this house is for sale in La Moraleja, Madrid, and it could be yours for only 15 million euros! Idealista.com just published a list of the 88 most expensive houses they are currently advertising. Check it out! The most expensive house is in the Balearic Islands for 18 million euros. Joder.

This has been a really nice, tiring week. On Tuesday, my friend Jessie and I went to see Future Islands at a club in North-Central Madrid. I just saw them in Raleigh during Hopscotch in September, and that club was completely packed--apparently it was one-in, one-out by the time they started playing. Not surprisingly, the show was set to begin at 9pm but got pushed to 1030pm because Real Madrid was playing in town (across the street, no less) against AC Milan (final score, 2-0 Madrid) so Jessie and I went to a bar around the corner called Klippers for a drink before the show. Moby Dick, where they played, wasn't packed, but it was certainly full. There didn't seem to be too many people there who knew the band, but I wasn't the only one singing along!

The kids at school are really starting to respond and I can tell that a few of them are actually understanding the words that I teach them. I'd hoped to avoid having "favorites" but there are definitely a few kids that I enjoy working with more than others. I also get along very well with my teacher, María. At first I was a little nervous to work with her because she seemed very serious, but in the past few weeks we've worked out a good system and we are able to laugh with each other when we have a little downtime. I am also getting along well with the other assistant, Jennifer. We get to chat during recreo and on the bus to/from Madrid/Torrejón and discuss how things are going in our classes, since we never actually work together except for special events.

On Wednesday, all of the first and second-grade classes took a field trip to see La Flauta Mágica at a nearby theater. Jennifer and I got to go watch the play with them, which was of course entirely in Spanish, but very easy to follow and of course none of the words were too complicated. I hadn't even thought about that because I am so accustomed to only speaking English with my classes, so it seemed very strange to go do something with them in Spanish. The play was weird, but it was a semi-opera, so all of the characters sang at one point or another. The kids went crazy there, shouting at the stage constantly... I just sat with the other teachers and enjoyed a few hours of sitting in a comfy chair while the kids were entertained. We got back to the school right at recreo so all of the teachers retreated to the lounge for break time, and I inadvertently ate empanadillas with tuna in them. Boke. But fortunately today there was a tray of different types of ham (very important in Spain, as my friend Meredith eloquently writes in her blog) and cheese to be put on baguette slices. Also in school today the students made pumpkins using orange paint to decorate the classroom for Halloween and somehow I ended up with orange hands and spots  on my clothes, despite never painting anything!

Hmm, what else? During my session with the 4/5 year-old class this week, a teacher came into our classroom asking if my teacher, Sara, would help her look for a missing boy from the 3/4 year-old class! She agreed and asked if I'd go watch the 3/4 year-old class, but they haven't learned any English yet, so I finally had a chance to speak a bit of Spanish with some incredibly cute little ones. And the missing boy? It turns out he followed the wrong class inside after recreo and was enjoying a second music class that day.

Mom is hoping to buy her ticket out here for Christmas soon! I am so excited! It is going to be cold at Christmastime, so we might take a trip elsewhere for a few days... the only problem is that we want to go to even colder places like Germany and Austria to enjoy good beer (almost non-existent in this country) and reenact The Sound of Music. Heh. I don't have any big plans for the weekend except for maybe visiting the railway museum and making a few stops on the free coffee day in honor of Fair Trade month. Un beso a todos!

Books!

After being a really lazy reader, I've finally finished Colum McCann's Let The Great World Spin. I really enjoyed it, so it totally validates all the long hours I spent gazing longingly at it from across the counter at Black Bear. But now that I am finally in a routine of reading, I still have quite a stack of books to get through as I move into the world of libraries and Spanish literature. Audience participation time! [polldaddy poll=3958718]

On Learning English

That's right--I'm learning English. "But Shana, you already speak English! And you are in Spain," you might say. However, because my roommates are from England and Scotland, I have been learning all kinds of fun new English words and phrases and realizing that even though the three of us speak the same language, we really don't speak the same English at all. Here are a few words I've picked up from them so far:

  • bolt - Scottish; get out of here, go away, etc.
  • busker - English; street musician. Verb: to busk.
  • boke/boak* - Scottish; to vomit, or to feel sick. "Total boakfest" or "That gives me the boke."
  • knackered - English; tired, exhausted.
  • steaming - Scottish; drunk.
  • skip - Scottish; dumpster.
  • Hank Marvin - Scottish; hungry, or if you're really hungry, you're "Hank Marvin and all his pals."
  • fit - English; extremely attractive (person).
*this is my favorite one so far.

There are more obvious ones of course, like lift, flat, dodgy, bin, rubbish, etc, but I don't think those need much explanation. I've also taught them a few that they particularly enjoyed, like "blowing up" in reference to an especially active cell phone, and "book it" for doing something really quickly--we were walking down Gran Vía and when a man ran past us I said, "wow he's really booking it," to much comedic effect.

More to come!

School is in session

I know, I know. It's been a while. I hadn't been updating because there was nothing going on, but now it seems like so much has happened since I last posted! Where to begin?? I had orientation about two weeks ago. It was useless at times and really helpful at others. However, the important stuff, like things regarding health insurance, national ID cards, etc, were all told to us in Spanish, while the less-important things, like ideas for teaching English, were told to us in our native tongue. Funny. I made a few friends, though I've only seen two of them regularly since then. One of them, Jessie, asked if I've heard of Broken Social Scene. Instant friend.

Last Tuesday, I went to visit my school so I'd know where I was going, how to get there, etc. before my first day. It was sort of overwhelming--hopping on a bus to a random suburb 22km (metric!) outside Madrid and having no idea where I was going or who I'd meet--but a nice lady from Torrejón sat with me and helped me get off at the right stop and pointed me in the right direction of the school. After a bit of trouble with the entrance (you have to use a buzzer to get in and out of the three choices on the buzzer I managed to choose the correct one last), I was met in the lobby by the director and the head of studies, who took me to meet the two English teachers in first grade, Inma and María. I'll be working exclusively with María this month, until I switch horarios with the other assistant and work only with Inma. The way our schedules work is that we switch each month to spend that time with one teacher and two of the four first grade classes. Right now I'm working with groups C and D.

Anyway, I digress. I went to visit the school, met the teachers, saw the kids, and then after school let out, Inma took me around the entire building (which is enormous) and introduced me to every teacher who was still around after the kids went home.

The next day was the 29th of September, or 29-S, the day of the Huelga General, or general strike. The recent economic crisis caused many of Spain's civil service workers to take a 5% pay cut, and it left a lot of people who lost their jobs without the typical severance package, about a month of pay minimum. The metro system was (allegedly) running 50% of its normal services during rush hours, and 20% for the rest of the day. I didn't notice a lot of strike-related changes in town other than some roads being shut down because of a bunch of protesters gathering in some plazas and roundabouts, but I also spent most of the day lying around in the park with my friends, eating bread and cheese and getting some sun.

My first real day at school was Friday, and I mostly observed but I did get two gifts already--a boy and a girl both said the pictures they'd drawn were for me, but unfortunately I couldn't accept them because they were in their student workbooks and part of the day's assignment. Hopefully they'll make some more for me!

Friday, I went out with my roommates to a pub quiz at an English bookstore in the Malasaña neighborhood. Photo of me, the roomies, and our friend Rachel (blonde) crammed into our tiny old-school elevator on the way to the pub quiz. We did pretty terrible. Considering the questions were done by an English guy and a lot of them were fairly UK-centric and we had a team of 3 Brits and an American, I would have expected to do a little better (especially considering my history with trivia nights!) but I guess not coming in last is good enough for our first try. We are probably going back this Friday, and the store has an intercambio night twice a week, and we have also been considering finding one to attend regularly so we can meet some more people and hopefully find someone to help us with our Spanish, since we really aren't supposed to speak it at school. I wouldn't mind meeting someone from Brazil, though, since I think it will be pretty easy to find Spanish speakers here (imagine that) but I'd really like to keep up with Portuguese in some way. If not, I'll just start skyping my old professor and classmates all the time. Hah. Speaking of skype, I have it! Add me by my email address if you have it, too!

I woke up Sunday with a sore throat and it has since progressed into cough and congestion. So, the bad news is that I've got my first cold in Madrid, but the good news is that I'm not necessarily allergic to Spain! Hooray!

This week, I've just been waking up at 7 (yuck) to catch the metro at 8 to the suburban bus at 820 to start school at 9 every day. I am in class from 9-2, and usually get home around 3 or 4, depending on which bus I manage to catch back to Madrid. A typical day has three sessions split between two classes, a 30-minute break, and then two more sessions with either one or both of the morning classes. During the 30-minute break, the kids go outside for recreo and the teachers hang out in the teacher's lounge which always has a delicious spread of coffee, juices, fruit, and a special tapa. Usually they are really good--today's was a slice of baguette with a red pepper/chorizo/cheese bruschetta-type mixture, but yesterday there was a plate of fried calamari rings, yuck! On Monday we had toasts with tomato, manchego, and the part that ruined it, tuna on top. I managed to find one that the chefs missed that only had tomato and cheese on it. Yum!

In general, I am really enjoying my "job" in the school (so far). It is obvious which kids are picking up on English quicker than others, and which of them are still afraid to try to use English with a scary native speaker. This is my school's first year doing the bilingual program, and when they start the program, they start from the bottom and work up. My first-graders are the only kids in the school taking English, and almost none of them have had much if any contact with English before now, so it is going to be an interesting year. I really hope I can make some progress with them, even if it is only that they know what "I'm fine, thank you" means rather than just knowing it is the acceptable response in the English classroom to the question, "How are you?"

fotográfica rápida

I don't have much to update on right now, as nothing's really happened for the past few days! However, I'll be taking a few quick pictures as I walk around town, so if you'd like to view what I've done so far, click on the Photos link or on the picture below:

Puerta de Toledo

Getting set up

We have internet! Woooooooo! The entire process was pretty painless, aside from a 20-minute wait at Telefónica yesterday and our technician having the thickest Madrileño accent ever--very difficult to understand on the phone.  Speaking of which, I have a cell phone now... not that it is very useful to those of you reading from the States, but if you happen to be a Madrileño (honorary or otherwise) let me know and we can get in touch! So, here I am, day 4 in Madrid. So far I've gotten some things set up, all that's left is to set up my bank account and get started on my National ID/residence card etc etc. We are supposed to hear a bit about that at orientation this week, but Erica, the girl who lived in this piso last year and helped me get set up here has been telling me a lot of useful information to keep in mind.

I've mostly been showing Tasha around Madrid since she's never been here before, and it's strange to think that I actually know this city better than someone after spending only a month here a year ago. We've been to the "must-sees" of Madrid already--Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor, shops on Gran Vía, etc--but we haven't yet hit Retiro or anything North of Sol, really. She said she's been giving an entire day for every task that she'd normally take an hour to do in England, and that isn't such a bad idea.

Last night, we watched the movie (500) Days of Summer to swoon over Joseph Gordon-Levitt rather than fight the throngs of people in Sol that we saw there all day yesterday. Near the end of the movie, around midnight, fireworks started going off very nearby. It sounded like they were going off inside our apartment and the ashes were falling on the roof! We couldn't figure out why fireworks would be going off aside from maybe the end of the Real Madrid game, but their stadium (Santiago Bernabéu) is nowhere close to where we live! Very strange.

This morning we woke up early and got out to the Rastro to see what goodies were being offered. Nothing special for me, unfortunately, but Tasha bought a few Spanish books to get back in practice. After that, a quick snack at 100 Montaditos before coming back here to deal with the internet (an obvious success) and watch Fear Factor in Spanish. Very strange.

Finally, Sonal has asked me to continue the Tour de Sangria, and so here are my first contributions!

Sangria 1: from La Soberbia, near Tio Pepe in Sol This sangria was absolutely perfect!

Sangria 2: from Cañas y Tapas near Sol This was on-demand sangria--wine, lemon Kas, and a few pieces of fruit.

de Madrid al cielo

I´m here!! We don´t have internet in our piso yet, so I am writing this from a locutorio around the block. The apartment is great--very well-connected via metro to the rest of the city, fully-furnished, and the "random" roommate is really nice and we seem to have a lot in common so far. I don´t have a lot to add right now as all I´ve done today is sleep and unpack, but here is a picture of the first bottle of wine purchased at my local mercado:

Visa update

The visa is here! After a brief period of worrying and not being able to get through to the consulate, my visa has arrived and now I can go to Spain. I haven't even begun thinking about what/how to pack... more on that later. 18 days!

The Challenge

Hi everyone! Please post your challenge ideas in the comments section below. Don't forget your name!! About the Challenge: I'll be abroad for about a year, so this is your chance to give me ideas of fun and interesting things to do while I'm gone. I will try to complete all of your requested tasks and blog about it as I go, hopefully with some photo evidence, of course.

Get creative! Think of it as a dare--something funny, interesting, outrageous, embarrassing, silly--that I should do.

Want me to try a weird food? Hike the Sierra Nevada? Marry Rafa Nadal?

Let me know!!

Bienvenidos!!

Hi, everyone! In 2009, I went on a study abroad trip to Madrid, Spain for a few classes while attending Appalachian State University. I liked Spain a lot. Actually, I liked Spain so much that when my friend Meredith told me to apply for a position with the Auxiliares Norteamericanos and come back to Spain the next year, I went for it, was awarded a placement, and now I have a blog to tell you all about it! I will try to post as often as possible about everything from my visa application (currently in progress) to when (if) I come back. Enjoy!