The last few weeks since winter break ended have been pretty uneventful. But seeing as I haven't posted anything new for a while I figured I should at least update those of you back home on what has been going on with me.
Every day at Gomez Moreno is starting to feel more and more comfortable. I am getting to know more of the students names, even if I have eight different classes with an average of 20 kids per class. The teachers seem surprised and pleased when I am able to call on a child by their name rather than pointing and saying "you." This also makes me feel like I am getting to know them better in general and getting used to their different personalities and learning styles.
There is one group of students, however, that never fails to create the most stressful classes of the entire week- and that group is 1° C ESO (first level of obligatory secondary education, group C). This is a group of 27 twelve-year-olds. They are literally the rowdiest group of children I have ever experienced. Every time I enter the class I look around the room and it's complete CHAOS. There will be a few girls singing and clapping, boys running around, other boys fighting, some kids writing on the chalkboard, some throwing paper, some running in and out of the classroom, some out in the hallways kissing their boyfriends (YES, these are 12-13 year olds), some screaming and then about two or three in their desks that are looking around the room, just like me, in wonder and confusion. It then takes about 5-10 minutes to settle these kids down and that is NEVER a guarantee that they will stay quiet during the rest of the duration of the class. It is impossible to control these kids, the only teacher who seems to be able to control them happens to be the principal and I think it's only because the kids are afraid of him.
Aside from this class though I have had a lot of random enjoyable and funny moments so far. For example, in one of my 2° ESO classes the students could absolutely NOT pronounce the word "comfortable" no matter how many times I repeated it or how slowly. Finally I just told them that "comfy" would work and they seemed so relieved and so happy to have learned a new word.
Another funny thing happened the other day in Physical Education class, again with the 1° ESO kids. The teacher, who happens to have about the worst English of any of the teachers in the English Department, was writing down vocabulary words on the board. All the words related to the human body. He had written the word "Heap" on the board. I would pronounce the word, the kids would repeat after me and then we would move onto the next word. He meant to write "Hip" but wrote "Heap" because that is how "Hip" would phonetically be pronounced in Spanish. I had to correct him in front of the class because I didn't want the kids thinking that "heap" and "hip" were the same thing. He was pretty embarrassed and I even had to show him my spanish/english dictionary to prove to him that I was correct.
Since the first day I started helping this teacher in class I noticed that when he calls the attendance roll he told the kids to respond "yes, me." For the longest time I never understood what the kids were saying when he called the roll because with their accents it sounded like "jess me." Now that it's been one entire term into the school year and we've started the second, I don't know if I should tell him that simply having them say "here" or "yes" would be more correct. Regardless, it never fails to put a bit of a smile on my face when I hear the kids respond this way when he calls their names.
Tomorrow, two groups of the 12-year-olds are attending a theater performance called "Nobody's Perfect." It is a silly play about high school kids. For the past week and a half we have been working on exercises and worksheets related to the play so that they will actually understand what is going on when they actually see it live and in English. I am excited to go on my first "excursion" with them and it will last the whole school day.
This coming weekend I am going to the beach with some of my friends! It will be my first full weekend away from Madrid so I am very excited. It is about a 4-5 hour drive from Madrid to a place a little further south of Valencia but not as far as Alicante. I forget the name of the city/village. I am going with 6 or 7 of my friends. It should be a relaxing and fun weekend.
Now, only 16 more days until my Brandon comes to visit me!!! I'm greatly looking forward to him coming as he is also looking forward to seeing Spain for the first time. I am sure it will be a whole new world to him. But it will be a lot of fun to show him around and give him a better insight to MY world here in Spain.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
The Metro
The Metro, for anyone who lives in Spain already knows, is the underground subway system. In Madrid, everyone uses the Metro. In fact I would say a huge portion of the population here don't own a car since the Metro is a cheaper and more rapid form of transportation. Since Madrid is huge and I happen to live on the opposite side of the city as my school, I use the Metro every day. In the two and a half months so far living in Madrid I have seen a lot of interesting things on the Metro.
Here is a list, not necessarily in order, of things that people do while riding the Metro:
1. Listen to their MP3 players
Here is a list, not necessarily in order, of things that people do while riding the Metro:
1. Listen to their MP3 players
2. Talk on their cell phone (which amazes me because I think many cell phones in the US would not have reception so far underground)
3. Read books (incidentally, many people put covers on their book so nobody knows what they are reading)
4. Beg for money (many homeless people come on and ask for money for food)
5. Drink beer
6. Make-out (many teenagers use this as a place for some serious "public displays of attention")
7. Play instruments or sing (for money)
8. Play games on their cell phones
9. Correct school papers/do homework
10. Roll their own cigarettes (with bags of tobacco and paper to roll the tobacco in)
11. Put on make-up/do their hair
12. Eat a snack
13. Socialize
14. Sleep
15. Take touristy pictures of people while riding the Metro
An empty Metro at 6AM on a weekend
I am sure by the end of eight months I will have many more things to add to this list...
The Lost Package (ANGRY post)
So I guess at this point we can pretty much ASSUME that the first package my parents sent me (containing the two left feet to the Converses that I brought) was lost in the mail. It has been two months now since it was sent to the me. I hoped that by some miracle I would come back to school after winter break and it would be waiting in the secretary's office for me...Wrong. It was never even sent back to the States to my parents. It is beyond me how a big box can simply disappear in the mail. I blame it completely on the Spanish Post Office (Los Correos). So now I am out two pairs on Converses, a sweatshirt, a few DVDs and a book. Converses cost roughly 100 euro in Spain (130 USD) since they have to be imported. If anyone is familiar to the cost in the US, they are roughly $30-$45 depending on the style. I can't even explain to you how angry I am about this happening.
So for future reference I would advice AGAINST anyone else trying to send me a package in the mail since it is likely it will never even reach me.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
El Templo de Debod, Nochevieja y Cercedilla
On Thursday, December 30th, after having spent what had seemed like days in my apartment doing nothing but surfing the internet, eating and watching movies I decided to go out and be a tourist in Madrid again. One place that I had failed to visit yet was the Temple of Debod. Located in Madrid, behind the Royal Palace and near Plaza de España. The Temple of Debod is an Egyptian Temple that was originally built in southern Egypt. It was donated to Spain in 1968 as a sign of gratitude. Spain had played a role in helping to preserve the temples of Abu Simbel in 1960 when the construction of the Great Damn of Aswan had threatened to destroy some of these important monuments and temples. The temple was then rebuilt in one of Madrid's parks called El Parque Oeste and opened to the public in 1972.
The temple seemed to be right in the middle of a big metropolitan city and it looked out of place. Or perhaps it was built in a different time and as the years have gone by the city has simply grown around it. It is certainly unique though so I was glad to have finally been able to visit it properly. I unfortunately came on a cloudy and rainy day but still enjoyed feeling like a tourist again in the city that I now temporarily live in.
Friday was New Years Eve or "Nochevieja" as they say in Spain. I didn't have any plans during the day so I pretty much slept in and took my time getting ready. I was meeting a friend in the center of Madrid at 8:30pm for dinner. I left my place early, knowing that the metro commute would take longer since everyone flocks to the center of the city on Nochevieja. One could compare a plaza in the center called "Puerta del Sol" (Gate of the Sun) to Times Square as the place to celebrate the New Year. People started lining up in this plaza as early as 6pm! Even the metro stop Sol was closed that evening to prevent traffic of people coming to this place.
So we met around 8:30pm a few stops from Sol at Callao which is right on Gran Vía. We walked around in search of food. It seemed like the closer it got to 9pm everything started to close. We finally ended up at El Museo del Jamón which is not a museum in fact but a restaurant/bar that has cheap beer (though disgusting beer) and cheap food. We got a couple of sandwiches and chatted until we noticed that they were closing up the place around 10pm. I guess what happens is all these places close around this time and then some re-open after midnight.
So we made our way out into Puerta del Sol and there was already tons of people there. It was still two hours till the New Year. One of the traditions on midnight for Spaniards is eating 12 grapes, one each time the clock chimes after the new year. I guess each grape symbolizes each of the 12 months of the year and if you successfully eat all 12 grapes within the time of the last chime of the clock you are supposed to have good luck in the new year, so everyone had their grapes ready. There were Chinese people in the streets selling packages of 12 grapes for 1€ a piece so we each got a bag. As the minutes passed more and more people started coming into the Puerta del Sol. The police blocked off each street that led to the plaza and checked each person that entered making sure they weren't carrying any glass bottles. It didn't matter if you had alcohol, it just had to be in a plastic container. I guess in previous years they had problems with people throwing glass champagne bottles in the air at midnight and people getting hurt from broken glass.
It was like a mob of people, everyone was getting more and more packed into this one plaza which now was starting to feel like it wasn't so big- even though it actually is a pretty decent-sized plaza. It was like we were in a mosh pit at a concert getting pushed around.
Another popular thing for people to do is wear crazy and colorful wigs. There were many multicolored mohawk wigs in the crowds or people with crazy sunglasses and sparkles in their hair. We actually started to feel like we were out of place not wearing such festive outfits ourselves. Surrounding the plaza are a number of buildings and some of them are nice apartments with balconies. Every year the Puerta del Sol is televised throughout Spain on the new year so there was a TV crew and camera set up not far from us. There were also some local TV celebrities in the penthouse of one of the apartment buildings overlooking the plaza. Every once and a while one of them would peek their head out of the balcony and wave and everyone would go mad. I honestly have no idea who those people were but I guess all the Spaniards knew who they were and were super excited about it.
Finally it was midnight and we had our grapes out and ready in our hands. Though the task to eat these within the allotted time was impossible. I would have chocked and I'm sure many people do choke in attempting to do this every year. The other unexpected delay was the fact that the grapes contained seeds so it wasn't very pleasant biting down or swallowing for that matter. So in the end I failed to eat all 12 grapes but it's not a big deal I guess. Soon I was getting Cava (Spanish champagne) sprayed all over me and the crowds started to get impatient and wanting to leave so there was a lot of pushing and shoving. There was even a fight between two men that broke out near us but was stopped before anyone was injured. I knew it was time for us to get out of there before we got knocked down ourselves. So we started to push our way through until we finally got out of that area. Now we were able to see the ground and I don't think I've ever seen so much garbage or broken glass before. It was pretty disgusting and I felt bad for whoever would have to clean that up later. We made our way out of there and walked past some armored police trucks with policemen standing nearby. They were just standing, smiling and watching as people were drinking and going crazy in the streets. I was surprised that none of them seemed to really care about all the wasted and wild people passing them or lingering. I figured they were there to prevent riots from breaking out but it seemed to me like there were already riots going on.
We finally made it back to Gran Vía and I felt like I had had enough excitement for the evening and was sick of the crowds of people. So I went to my bus stop and parted ways with my friend. At the bus stop there were a few girls my age that looked extremely intoxicated. One started puking about seven times before they finally got up and hailed a cab home. I was glad at this point that I was heading home. Then on the bus ride back there was some young kids in the back of the bus who kept pressing the button to stop and when the bus driver stopped and opened the door nobody would exit. The bus driver finally got fed up with this, stopped the bus and lectured at the entire bus and said she didn't know who was doing this but that if it happened one more time she could turn around and drop us off at the plaza de Cibeles which is where the buses first leave from. That would have tacked on about an hour minimum to my ride home so I hoped that nobody would do it again. Luckily no one did and I finally got home. It was certainly a night to remember and a once in a lifetime experience- one to be had once and never again that is...
I did nothing on New Years Day other than relax and then meet up with a friend for Chinese food. We found a place called the Wok. It was a little overpriced and certainly didn't taste as good as chinese food does in the US. Maybe I just need to look harder for a place with better Chinese food though.
January 2nd I met up with a friend and we went to Cine Doré. It's a theater in southern Madrid near the Antón Martín stop. Every night but Monday nights it plays movies in the original language. Each month there is a theme or a movie director that they celebrate and play their movies. This month it is Woody Allen so we went to see a 10pm showing of Manhattan Murder Mystery. The theater is small but beautiful and there was a line of people waiting outside to buy tickets before the show started. We got there at 8:30pm and got tickets just fine. The movie was excellent. It was in english with spanish subtitles. It was nice seeing a movie here that is not dubbed in spanish unlike the majority of movies shown in theaters throughout Spain.
The temple seemed to be right in the middle of a big metropolitan city and it looked out of place. Or perhaps it was built in a different time and as the years have gone by the city has simply grown around it. It is certainly unique though so I was glad to have finally been able to visit it properly. I unfortunately came on a cloudy and rainy day but still enjoyed feeling like a tourist again in the city that I now temporarily live in.
So we met around 8:30pm a few stops from Sol at Callao which is right on Gran Vía. We walked around in search of food. It seemed like the closer it got to 9pm everything started to close. We finally ended up at El Museo del Jamón which is not a museum in fact but a restaurant/bar that has cheap beer (though disgusting beer) and cheap food. We got a couple of sandwiches and chatted until we noticed that they were closing up the place around 10pm. I guess what happens is all these places close around this time and then some re-open after midnight.
So we made our way out into Puerta del Sol and there was already tons of people there. It was still two hours till the New Year. One of the traditions on midnight for Spaniards is eating 12 grapes, one each time the clock chimes after the new year. I guess each grape symbolizes each of the 12 months of the year and if you successfully eat all 12 grapes within the time of the last chime of the clock you are supposed to have good luck in the new year, so everyone had their grapes ready. There were Chinese people in the streets selling packages of 12 grapes for 1€ a piece so we each got a bag. As the minutes passed more and more people started coming into the Puerta del Sol. The police blocked off each street that led to the plaza and checked each person that entered making sure they weren't carrying any glass bottles. It didn't matter if you had alcohol, it just had to be in a plastic container. I guess in previous years they had problems with people throwing glass champagne bottles in the air at midnight and people getting hurt from broken glass.
It was like a mob of people, everyone was getting more and more packed into this one plaza which now was starting to feel like it wasn't so big- even though it actually is a pretty decent-sized plaza. It was like we were in a mosh pit at a concert getting pushed around.
Another popular thing for people to do is wear crazy and colorful wigs. There were many multicolored mohawk wigs in the crowds or people with crazy sunglasses and sparkles in their hair. We actually started to feel like we were out of place not wearing such festive outfits ourselves. Surrounding the plaza are a number of buildings and some of them are nice apartments with balconies. Every year the Puerta del Sol is televised throughout Spain on the new year so there was a TV crew and camera set up not far from us. There were also some local TV celebrities in the penthouse of one of the apartment buildings overlooking the plaza. Every once and a while one of them would peek their head out of the balcony and wave and everyone would go mad. I honestly have no idea who those people were but I guess all the Spaniards knew who they were and were super excited about it.
Finally it was midnight and we had our grapes out and ready in our hands. Though the task to eat these within the allotted time was impossible. I would have chocked and I'm sure many people do choke in attempting to do this every year. The other unexpected delay was the fact that the grapes contained seeds so it wasn't very pleasant biting down or swallowing for that matter. So in the end I failed to eat all 12 grapes but it's not a big deal I guess. Soon I was getting Cava (Spanish champagne) sprayed all over me and the crowds started to get impatient and wanting to leave so there was a lot of pushing and shoving. There was even a fight between two men that broke out near us but was stopped before anyone was injured. I knew it was time for us to get out of there before we got knocked down ourselves. So we started to push our way through until we finally got out of that area. Now we were able to see the ground and I don't think I've ever seen so much garbage or broken glass before. It was pretty disgusting and I felt bad for whoever would have to clean that up later. We made our way out of there and walked past some armored police trucks with policemen standing nearby. They were just standing, smiling and watching as people were drinking and going crazy in the streets. I was surprised that none of them seemed to really care about all the wasted and wild people passing them or lingering. I figured they were there to prevent riots from breaking out but it seemed to me like there were already riots going on.
We finally made it back to Gran Vía and I felt like I had had enough excitement for the evening and was sick of the crowds of people. So I went to my bus stop and parted ways with my friend. At the bus stop there were a few girls my age that looked extremely intoxicated. One started puking about seven times before they finally got up and hailed a cab home. I was glad at this point that I was heading home. Then on the bus ride back there was some young kids in the back of the bus who kept pressing the button to stop and when the bus driver stopped and opened the door nobody would exit. The bus driver finally got fed up with this, stopped the bus and lectured at the entire bus and said she didn't know who was doing this but that if it happened one more time she could turn around and drop us off at the plaza de Cibeles which is where the buses first leave from. That would have tacked on about an hour minimum to my ride home so I hoped that nobody would do it again. Luckily no one did and I finally got home. It was certainly a night to remember and a once in a lifetime experience- one to be had once and never again that is...
I did nothing on New Years Day other than relax and then meet up with a friend for Chinese food. We found a place called the Wok. It was a little overpriced and certainly didn't taste as good as chinese food does in the US. Maybe I just need to look harder for a place with better Chinese food though.
January 2nd I met up with a friend and we went to Cine Doré. It's a theater in southern Madrid near the Antón Martín stop. Every night but Monday nights it plays movies in the original language. Each month there is a theme or a movie director that they celebrate and play their movies. This month it is Woody Allen so we went to see a 10pm showing of Manhattan Murder Mystery. The theater is small but beautiful and there was a line of people waiting outside to buy tickets before the show started. We got there at 8:30pm and got tickets just fine. The movie was excellent. It was in english with spanish subtitles. It was nice seeing a movie here that is not dubbed in spanish unlike the majority of movies shown in theaters throughout Spain.
On Monday the 3rd of January I met my friend Katie at the Moncloa bus station around 10:30am. We were taking the 684 urban bus to a city called Cercedilla which is about 40 miles from Madrid in the mountains. Because of the stops along the way to pick up and drop off people it took a little over an hour to get there. I found out about this place by simply going online and typing in "day trips from Madrid." Surprisingly we seemed to be the only touristy-looking people in the small town. We were dropped off in the center of the city at a normal bus stop and since we had no map and knew very little about the city we sort of just wandered around and made it an adventure.
I knew there was a church to see and many hiking trails since it was essentially in the mountains. We found a little park with a trail and figured it was one of the many trails to go hiking on. We did a lot of walking up and up and saw many interesting farm animals along the way: horses, cows, hens and sheep. We also came across a small little chapel that was unfortunately locked. We climbed back down the trail back into the city in search for the church and any other landmarks along the way. We ran into a "lavadero público" which is a public bath. It was right alongside a very little stream. The public bathhouse was also locked and closed. We wandered around more and finally found the church- unfortunately that was also closed! But everything we saw was beautiful. We found a pretty lookout over the city and other small pueblos neighboring it. The whole town smelled of fresh mountain air and burning wood. We noticed that many of the houses had chimneys and most of the houses must have been heated by wood-burning heaters or had wood-burning stoves because there was a wonderful aroma all throughout the town of burning wood. The whole town was beautiful and we came on a wonderfully sunny day. It was a nice escape from Madrid. I could totally see myself living in a city like this because it is so small, beautiful and quiet.
We found a little café in the city and got some beers and shared a sandwich. Once the sun started going down it got very cold and we figured that since neither of us was properly dressed for such weather that we should be heading back to the bus stop. We caught the 5pm bus just in time going back to Madrid. On the way home I started feeling a little sick but didn't think much of it. I often have problems with motion sickness and figured it must have been all the jolting from the bus. We got back to the bus station in Madrid and I headed back to my apartment. By the time I got back to my apartment I felt horrible. I had the worst stomach ache and felt nauseous. I laid down in my bed hoping that a nap would make me feel better but within 10 minutes I was running to the bathroom. This is where I will stop with the details. Lets just say I got food poisoning from that little café we went to. It was the worst night of my life, spent almost laying on the bathroom floor waiting to get sick again. In addition, I had chills, a fever a terrible headache and my whole body ached. I have never gotten sick like this from food before. It's taken me two days to recover fully. The day after I was still not feeling back to normal. This was the worst experience I have had so far abroad. It was surely an unfortunate way to end a lovely day-trip but it happens. So, so is life.
public baths
abandoned and destroyed house
Overall it's been a very eventful winter break. I am certainly ready to get back to classes on Monday though, because too much free time is actually making me quite bored!
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