Our first American visitors in Spain!

I feel so incredibly lucky to have two amazing friends who came to visit me (and Todd).  They came all the way to Spain to travel and to catch a glimpse of our new lives here in Linares.  It's amazing how quickly the time goes by...  Here are some of the highlights of trip, along with pictures. =)

We started off in Sevilla, which is spelled Seville in English.  As you can imagine this led to a little confusion in the initial planning stages... It was raining Saturday when Beth and Alexis arrived, but we made the most of it and got the day started out with some drinks and tapas -- what else is there to do when the weather is bad?!?  Besides shopping?  (Which we did immediately after.)  Then we ordered more tapas and headed to a flamenco show nearby...

Beth and Alexis were troopers going to a flamenco show their first night despite feeling a little jet-lagged and Alexis took drowsy Spanish cold medicine on top of it all (my fault)!

After the flamenco show we decided to call it a night, so my visitors could get nice and rested for all we had planned for the next, busy day of sightseeing.  We all slept in on Sunday and went to breakfast where we ordered 'tortilla española' one of my favorite dishes in Spain.  We sat eating breakfast, overlooking the cathedral which we planned to visit as soon as it opened (not until 2:00pm on Sunday).  It was a great view for breakfast.

The three amigos (amigas, to be proper) reunited at last!  Here we are at the top of the Giralda tower, an original minaret from the original mosque that was built on the same site in the 12th century, it is the only remaining part of the mosque.

Standing in front of Christopher Columbus' tomb inside the lavishly decorated Cathedral in Sevilla.

It's always an adjustment getting used to Spanish time... especially when you try to fit in some shopping into your sightseeing time.  But, ahhhhh, what a life!

We waited until the sun came out the next day (Monday) to take a picture in front of the Cathedral.

Our 'penthouse' in Granada!  We made it finally... after a little mishap trying to catch a bus.  Who knew there are TWO bus stations in Sevilla?!??  Oops!

I love the Moorish architecture!  Here we are eating falafels, kebabs and drinking tea... yummy!

A whirlwind, less than 24-hour trip to see Granada.  We visited the La Alhambra in the morning and then did some additional sightseeing and souvenir shopping after lunch.

Beautiful fall colors!  Not to mention two gorgeous ladies!

Enjoying the beautiful sunset from our patio in Linares... it never gets old and company only makes it better!

Delta Delta Delta

Proudly showing Beth and Alexis what our town does best --- tapas!  Which are free with each drink you buy!  In this picture we are out with some friends in Linares at one of our favorite places - La Carbonería.

I love it when you order something on a menu, and you have an idea in your head of what it might come out looking like, and then when the food comes it looks NOTHING like you ever would have expected, sometimes with ingredients that weren't even mentioned in the description.  Another favorite part of life here and very true for our week together.

We couldn't have asked for better weather in Madrid, beautiful, blue sunny skies!  Finally!!!  Here we are outside the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) which used to be the home of the royal family.  They have since moved locations to another home a little outside of the city center and today the Palace is only used for ceremonies and official events.

Jump!  Being silly in the streets of Madrid!

Mercado de San Miguel - always a Madrid favorite!

A delicious pre-siesta snack of patatas bravas and tortilla española with brava sauce.  Brava sauce is basically a creamy, slightly spicy tomato sauce... delicious?  YES!  But probably not the best idea to pig out on before laying down for a nap.  I don't think any of us felt the same when we woke up!

All in all, it was a great trip and I miss my friends already!  We can't wait for our next visitors to begin a whole new adventure and to discover all sorts of new places!

Thanksgiving = Día de Acción de Gracias

Thanksgiving = Día de Acción de Gracias (a Spanish mouthful of words).

Teaching my students about the Pilgrims and the Indians and the history behind Thanksgiving Day a.k.a "Turkey Day".   It was a little difficult to translate all of the traditional Thanksgiving foods - like stuffing or gravy, for example, because they have nothing like that here in Spain... but, from the picture you can see they understood the main idea - TURKEY!  And I also explained to them, that we use Thanksgiving as a day to express our thanks to God for all of the blessings in our lives.  You can see the little boy here wrote - school, family, girlfriend (!), and teacher.

Our Thanksgiving Day FEAST!

On our first Thanksgiving Day as a married couple in Spain, I'm proud to say that Todd and I were able to eat some turkey, it still counts even if it's sliced sandwich meat, right?!?  Really, we were just saving ourselves for a proper Thanksgiving Day feast on Saturday with a group of 'guiris' (Spanish for foreigners) and other Spanish friends here in Linares.  

We volunteered to bring garlic mashed potatoes.  I'm not going to lie, this was the first time I have ever made mashed potatoes in my life (sad I know).  I was a little nervous knowing that I was going to be serving them to other people, however with some very specific directions thanks to Beth and Alexis the potatoes were a hit!

Too bad we don't have any of our beautiful serving pieces here in Spain... Todd is carrying the potatoes through our main square, Plaza de Ayuntamiento -- definitely received some weird looks walking around the streets of Linares with a big pot.

 It's amazing that in our little town of Linares there are about 15 other auxiliares (English teachers) and combined with our friends from Linares we had more than enough food - it was delicious!

First plate.  Of two.  It was so heavy I was worried the plastic plate was going to break.  I couldn't help myself.  You should see most of the American Thanksgiving staples in the picture - mashed potatoes, mac 'n cheese, stuffing, cornbread, rice, turkey, sweet potato/ pecan casserole - pretty impressive considering the lack of "American" food in Linares.

Walking home from our Thanksgiving feast to see a big Christmas tree lit up in front of the main department store, El Corte Inglés (also in Plaza de Ayuntamiento)... I love the holidays!


We definitely have a LOT to be thankful for this year!  God is good. Celebrating Thanksgiving here in Spain with new friends is a memory we will cherish forever.

40 Hours/Week? Life is (not so) tough.

A quick update on life in Linares …

I am filling in for the Queen Nanc-y today as she is off gallivanting around Spain with the wonderful, newly married Beth Banta, er, Moneyhan and the always lovely (sometimes critical of my new haircuts) Alexis Snell.  Two of Nancy’s “besties” are visiting and I am sure they are sipping red wine and eating at a tapas bar at this very moment.

 Beth, Nancy and Alexis.  Beth and Alexis got off their flight 
looking like this -- pretty amazing.

I just got back from a run and was amazed how full of activity our small town can be, when only a 45 minutes before, the mood would best be described as ‘idle’.  I left our piso around 5:00pm and the town would just be ‘waking up’ from its siesta.  Allegedly, after confirming with many locals, not too many people actually sleep during the ‘siesta’ -- Nancy and I are choosing to ignore that piece of information – only during the summer do they actually take naps, because they normally aren’t able to sleep very well at night due to the heat.  Not sleeping well for an entire season … sounds pretty brutal.

One of the paths we have been known to jog ... on occasion.

Taking into account our travel, we’ve technically only been living in Linares for a little over two months.  I think things have finally started to slow down for us enough to feel like we are ‘living’ in Spain.  Before, it was one new experience after another, which was amazing.  But, it also didn’t feel like real life.  Now, Nancy and I have settled into somewhat of a routine.   Combining both of our official work hours, we work 24 hours a week in school – however, I’d like to add that, taking into account travel time and break time where we are stuck in the neighboring town of Bailen, it’s probably closer to 34 hours.   I guess that doesn’t deserve any sympathy either.  Nancy works Monday – Thursday and I have classes Tuesday – Thursday.  Between the two us, we have developed several private English conversation classes.  These classes are in the evenings, after we’ve finished our long day of work at school and had lunch.  I try to remember to appreciate the little things like having lunch together, because I can’t think of too many other scenarios where I will get to eat lunch with Nancy almost every day.  However, the point is … adding in our private English classes … we arrive at the magic number of 40 hours/week, just like all of you (even if it is between the two of us). So, you see, we aren’t that different, after all.

Feeling more settled has been great.  Here are some of our observations so far:

• We love living in the Comunidad Autonima (similar to what we call a ‘state’) of Andalucia.  What it may lack in infrastructure and income levels it more than makes up for in its strong cultural identity, rich history and the origin of several distinctive Spanish ideals, such as flamenco dancing and bullfighting. 

• There’s no better way to feel connected to the Spanish lifestyle than going for a walk in the streets.  “Vivimos en la calle” (We live in the street) – their self-proclaimed national slogan is very true.  We love late dinners and seeing crowded streets well into the night.

• Living in a town surrounded by olive trees will never get old.

• Likewise, I have eaten more olives in the last two months than in my entire life combined.

 

The olives are harvested in December.  These are about ready, and will eventually turn green.

•  It was a wee bit colder than we expected here in Linares.  It misses some of the coastal warm air, since we are more in the mountains than by the coast.  However, we love the lack of humidity.  Linares is located in the more mountainous region of Andalucia so it doesn’t receive any humidity from the coast.  The nights can be a bit chilly.

• Andalucian Spanish is a little bit more difficult than anticipated.

• We are pretty sure home-insulation doesn’t exist in Linares.  Who wants to start a business in Spain?

• Since the day we have arrived, we have yet to see a single cup of ‘to go’ coffee.  The idea doesn’t exist here.  Why would someone take it to go, when you can sit and enjoy it.  No one here is ever in a hurry.

• As great as my schedule is, I have to wake up way earlier here (7:00am), than I ever did in the US (at least on the three days I work).  Yes, it’s worth complaining about.  I don’t understand how teachers do it – or everyone else for that matter.

• I haven’t watched a single TV program in 3 months.   Likewise, I haven’t had a haircut in 3 months.  I’m not sure if the two are related.

• Nancy and I love Spanish food, tapas, paella, etc. but sometimes you just want a McDonald’s hamburger – well, let’s be honest … A Big Mac.  At first, it was difficult to get used to the Spanish diet because we didn’t exactly know to prepare their big meals and we ended up eating lots of ‘tapas’ which are more like heavy snacks, sometimes not as filling as you want.

• We love Spanish coffee.  They laugh at American coffee, “oh, that stuff is like water”.  There coffee is essentially what we call an ‘expresso’, however, there is about 20 different ways to order.  We are still learning.

• We love living in city where we don’t need a car and we can walk everywhere – except on days when we have to buy groceries.

• Every interaction in a large institution is an adventure (banks, post office, etc.).  Apparently, there is unspoken and unwritten etiquette that we have no idea how to follow.

• No matter how many or few hours you put in at a job, it will always feel like ‘work’ unless you want to be there.

• We miss burritos.

Tales of the Alhambra -- Granada, Spain.

Nancy and I just got back from an incredible 4 day trip to Granada, Spain.  It was a long weekend, but I guess we should simply use ‘weekend’ since our normal weekend in Spain is usually 3-4 days – not rubbing it in, just want you to be informed.

The town of Granada is nestled (great word, I think) alongside the Sierra Nevada mountains, which creates some pretty dramatic scenery.  Learning about the small city of Granada and its often-times violent history was one of the highlights for me, I think Nancy preferred the small-town feel, endless tapas bars and cafes – something for everyone.

Overlooking the 'nestled' Granada.  Almost all of the buildings and houses are painted white to reduce the summer heat.

I was really looking forward to this “puente” weekend, since I had never visited Granada, only passing through it for a couple of hours on my way to Morocco when I studied abroad 7 years ago.  Nancy had already visited Granada, but I’m pretty sure she had a better time this weekend, since she was with me.  Back to the term “puente”… It is Spanish for "bridge".  In Spain, Tuesday was a bank holiday, and the mentality in Spain (got to admire them for this) is that instead of working on Monday, they simply give everyone the day off on Monday to create a four-day weekend.  Why work Monday when you are already have Tuesday off?  God bless them and this country, yet another reason to love Spain.

The highlight of the weekend was our visit to ‘La Alhambra’.  This is Arabic for “the red fortress”.  It is an absolutely amazing 15^th century palace/fortress/garden/government building, overlooking the city of Granada.  In all of my travels, the amazing architecture was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen and I was in awe and admired each and every room that we entered.  For anyone that is able to visit, it would be one of the top things on our list for you to do, and it would be an easy daytrip from Linares.  Granada, and most of Spain, was ruled by the Moors (Muslims from Northern Africa) for over 700 years, until the areas was completely re-conquered by the Christians in the 1492 led by Ferdinand and Isabel (the same people that granted permission and funding for Christopher Columbus to sail to the Americas).  This petition allegedly took place in the Alhambra.  Admittedly, I was so smitten with the place that I bought Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra (which was written in the 1800's) and read it within the week.

Catching the sunset from the Mirador (lookout) de San Nicolas across from La Alhambra.  Amazing.

 

Granada is a lively, vibrant college town.  The streets are crowded in a good way, the town feels historically rich and there was a lot to keep us busy over the 4 days.  We were really lucky to end up in a hotel that not only was along the uphill path to the Alhambra, but we could actually see a slice of the Alhambra from our hotel room!  We stayed in a family-run pension that has been in the same family for three generations.  We are still debating if it was the cozy feel of the hotel we liked, or the fact that they served a breakfast of eggs and bacon.  Either way, we enjoyed the hotel and meeting the family that ran it.

The terrace outside our hotel room in Granada.

Nancy pointing at our hotel from atop the Alhambra.

One final highlight of the weekend was gaining entrance to a local, members only flamenco show.  In Granada, flamenco is very famous due to the fact that it was started by gypsies dancing in the mountains outside of the city.  On the outskirts of Granada, there is an area called “Sacromonte” where gipsy families have lived and still live, for hundreds of years.  There, the spontaneous dancing in the streets, backed by Spanish guitar-playing, formed the beginning of ‘flamenco’ in the late 1700’s.  Flamenco is now a national pastime of Spain and celebrated in all corners of the country.  Finding ourselves in the birthplace of Flamenco, of course we wanted to find a show.  Unfortunately, most shows were of the 30 Euro variety, catering to tourists, that didn’t even include dinner.  Of course, I was way too cheap for this.  Instead, I made a couple calls to check out other options.  We was able to use my recently acquired “gift of the gab” (see Ireland blog post) and ask the guy I talked to, if there was any way we would be able to attend the “locals only, members only” flamenco show that was taking place that night.  I also informed him that we were both very good-looking.

To our surprised, if we agreed to have dinner at their restaurant, they would allow us to attend the show.  For the price of dinner, which included a huge plate of paella and a bottle of wine, we were able to attend a private flamenco show on the hills of the Albayzin (the hilly Moorish neighborhood, opposite the Alhambra).  We were absolutely the only tourists at this Saturday night show and we were completely underdressed (who am I kidding, Nancy ‘backpacks’ with all of her accessories and no less than 5-7 belts … she would have been prepared for a trip to the opera)!  Regardless, we were able to see an authentic flamenco show at one of the highly-acclaimed ‘top 5 places to watch a flamenco show’ in all of Spain – La Peña de la Planteria.

Feeeeeeeeeria in Jaen, Spain!

On Saturday night we went to ‘la feria’ in the capital town of our province, Jaen.  Feria is a week-long celebration filled with parades, mobile tents that turn into bars, restaurants and even night clubs.  There is a part of the city that is sectioned off specifically for this week–long party.  Each town in the Andalucía province has their own feria at some point during the spring or summer.  The Jaen feria is special because each year it’s the very last feria celebrated in all of Andalucía, marking the “official end of summer”. 

Feria = Let’s see, think a fair that never closes, and add to that – loud music, and a lot of dancing and alcohol. 

Think flea market booths, however much larger tents.  At feria, there are rows after rows of booths, restaurants and clubs, each one carefully constructed for that single week of use.  For example, certain booths were entire night clubs, filled with laser shows, cages in the middle for dancing (I am not at liberty to discuss who entered these cages), and others were assembled as full sit-down restaurants.  And the streets are full of people; women to little kids are all wear the traditional, very formal “flamenco” dresses.  Nancy especially enjoyed looking at all of the different styles of flamenco dresses, and thought about purchasing one until she realized the cost was around 150 Euro and she might only be lucky enough to wear it a few times in the spring once feria season starts back up.  The dresses were eye-catching to say the least, usually very bright with multiple colors and polka dots were not uncommon.  Basically, having a feria gives each town an excuse to throw a week long party – as if they needed another excuse…

Yes... those are real ponies.

There was only one way to go to feria and that would be to “do it like the Spanish do”.  What does this mean exactly?  Well, let’s just say we would be arriving by bus at 4:30pm and wouldn’t be leaving (or sleeping) until the first bus back to Linares at 10:30am.  We were going to party the night away using the Spanish mantra “vivimos en la calle” (we live in the street) to encourage our group of 7 brave souls.

Each tent had its own group of people that it attracted, its own themes, and its own personality.   One thing that everyone had in common was the idea to “botellon”, which is the rough Spanish equivalent of “tailgating”.  It seems that very few people actually buy drinks inside the establishments, but rather choose to buy their own bottles of liquor, beer, or wine, and they carry it around all night, mixing their cocktails in between tents.  Obviously, this was a genius idea, so of course we followed the Spanish example.

The purchasing of alcohol deserves a quick mention, as it involved finding a non-descript door in the back of small grocery store where we had to knock and ask the attendant to bring us a bottle of alcohol.  They opened to door only enough to hear you and then again to hand you the bottle, all this occurring under the eyes of a vigilant police officer standing about 2 meters away.  Also, you didn’t really get to pick what you want … there was no menu or list to choose from, so when you said “rum” or “vodka”, etc. they brought you a bottle of whatever they wanted to give you … and you take the bottle and say “gracias”.

Now that we had our supplies, we joined the party.  The real party starts at night … It was complete mayhem; the booths were packed with people and it was amazing to see the different age ranges of people that were out all night.

Nancy made sure we experienced the “fair” part of feria by riding multiple rides – which absolutely added to the fun of the night.  I begrudgingly accepted her invitation to go on the over-priced rides, but am pretty sure I was the one asking her to do it again, once the ride was over.  I can admit it.

Our typical strategy was to roll up into a tent and create a circle, where the group would dump all of our backpacks/jackets/etc. since we were carrying a lot of supplies to get us through the night.  We would drop it like it’s hot for a solid hour, before deciding to leave and check out another tent.

I was mostly in charge of getting the group to try all of the different food options.  I loved the smorgasbord of edible treats that existed.  After getting some food, we would head to yet another tent, it was a beautiful cycle.

I think we all were a little worried when we started to get a little tired around 3:30am.  Admittedly, it was a little worrisome to realize how you were tired, but to also know you weren’t (couldn’t) go home for another 7 hours.  What should we do?

Thank you churros con chocolate!  We found a booth that served coffee and churros (deep friend dough, dipped in chocolate).  It was like a Popeye eating his spinach, we were all revitalized and put our ‘dancin’ shoes’ back on.  Catching our second wind, we were rocking the different booths of the feria, until Nancy decided to lead the group to yet another round of feria rides.

 Yes, Nancy, after drinking multiple cocktails, eating churros y chocolate and a patata asada (baked potatoes with tons of toppings) earlier in the night, thought it would be a wonderful idea to sit on a large circle and spin around very fast for about 5 minutes straight.  Needless to say, I didn’t join Nancy and her entourage that decided to ride these crazy rides, mid-feria, at 5:00am!!  However, the pictures were classic and wish I had joined them for pictures, if nothing else.

5:30am – We were heading down the homestretch of our trip and feeling strong.  We decided to get to the train station right when they opened at 7:00am to make sure we would be able to buy tickets for the first bus back to Linares.  This felt like an incredibly long (uphill) march to the bus station, only to realize that we wouldn’t be able to purchase our tickets until the bus arrives at 10:25am.  At this point, we suddenly lost all motivation ‘to keep the party alive’ and all remaining bodies quickly crumbled on the hard metal beaches – however, after a long night on our feet, they were actually quite comfortable.

7:15am – The night three hours could not get here fast enough, this was probably the least enjoyable part of the trip and we definitely looked like a pathetic crew.  Nevertheless, we managed to make it through these last few hours and somehow were coherent enough to get on our bus, only to pass out again on our 1 hour journey home to Linares.

Walking back to our ‘piso’ in broad daylight, we were exhausted, but felt like we definitely left our mark on the feria in Jaen.  Boom goes the dynamite.

Un cumpleanos muy bien

This year, I got to celebrate my birthday in Spain.  I think Nancy had it pretty easy this year, since my birthday was already going to incredible because … I was in Spain – I guess, it would be pretty difficult to top that anyways.

The day was fun, extremely busy and went by very quickly.  The only disappointing part of my birthday was the fact that I wasn’t able to talk to my family.  Because we don’t have the ability to connect to internet in our piso yet, it has been difficult to stay connected with friends and family.  Our only resource has been a short list of inconsistent WiFi connections at two local cafes and a McDonalds… all three of which, we have probably worn out our welcome over the last three weeks.

So that I can bring everyone along on the journey that was my birthday in Spain, I will provide a real-time, play-by-play summary of the events of Tuesday, October 11^th.

8:45am – Nancy’s alarm goes off at a time that I consider to be way too early, especially given the fact that her first class isn’t until 10:50am.  It’s become apparent that my lovely wife and I prefer quite different morning schedules. As Nancy disappears downstairs, I wonder “Why does Nancy always have to set her alarm so early … especially on my birthday.”

9:06am – After showering, Nancy saunters up the stairs with a grin on her face and a cup of cappuccino for me in bed … and what is this other thing?  Oh, just the best new find in Spain – a circle of dough plucked from the heavens and dipped into a sea of chocolate, a special birthday treat.  Sound lame?  You have to try this sweet nectar of the Gods for yourself.  I think, “What a wonderful wife”.

9:36am – I finally stir and stumble out of bed, walk downstairs and prepare my favorite Spanish breakfast, Tortilla Espanola.  And, by prepare, I mean take it out of its packaging.

11:25am – I’m literally running through the crowded sidewalks of Linares, dodging cars and old couples that take up more than their far share of the sidewalk, while holding hands (they’ve perfected the human obstacle course).  I'm late for my 11:30am bus to Bailen to get to school.

11:30am – I arrive at the bus station in the nick of time.  The driver fusses that I need to arrive early next time, I explain that “it’s my birthday”, as if this is logical defense.  He responds, “Una revalacion” as he rolls his eyes (What a revelation).  When I begin to assume Spaniards aren’t big on birthdays, he quickly smiles and tells me “pero, felicidades!” (… but, congratulations!).

11:36am – The bus is playing American music on the way to school.  Listening to a REM song "Shiny, Happy People" over the buses’ speakers – a band that just happens to be from Athens, Georgia.  I know it’s going to be a fun day.

2:42pm – My third and final class of the day, an English class filled with 15 year-olds, sing me “Happy Birthday” in English.  I will make sure they will all receive A’s this year.

3:06pm – I walk into our apartment and Nancy had already prepared our lunch, a tomato and mushroom pesto pasta – wow, I’m thinking about enforcing a ‘birthday week’, not just a day.

3:35pm – Before digging in for seconds, Nancy stops me.  And she returns from the kitchen with my first present – an assortment of three desserts from a local pastry shop.  We are still adjusting to lunch replacing dinner as the main meal here in Spain, but taking full advantage of being able to eat our biggest meal during the afternoon.  I think we made a strong statement on my birthday for our ability to eat a lot at lunch.

3:44pm – I finally get to open the first care-package my parents sent, we were very excited!

3:45pm – I’m still opening the package, at a painfully slow pace, just to drive Nancy crazy.

3:46pm – Cheez—Itz, I love it.

3:47pm – Cheez—Itz, White Cheddar.  What’s better than one box, yes, two boxes.

3:48pm – Sour Patch Kids, I guess Nancy deserves a present, as well.

3:49pm – Loved all the stuff, my parents are the best.

4:15pm – Had to leave for a private tutoring session with a local Pharmacist.

6:06pm – Finished our one and half hour private English lesson, only to receive a call from a local firefighter, requesting private English lessons for his son and daughter.  In Linares, English speakers are treated like local celebrities.

6:21pm – Meet with the firefighter, Juan de Dios (by the way, John of God is kind of an intimidating name) over coffee, to discuss the future English conversation sessions.  Yes, I will let you pay me to speak English.

7:01pm – Finally return home – Nancy and I have planned a little birthday shin-dig at our place for the night, inviting all of our new Linares friends.

7:46pm -- Enjoying an amazing Andalusian sunset with my wife and wine, on my birthday in Southern Spain – life doesn’t suck.

8:36pm – Our friends begin to arrive.  The wine begins to flow.

10:32pm – Amazing fruit cheesecake birthday cake complete with candles!  I’m officially 29.

11:35pm – Group picture before going out – headcount, 14 people, 6 countries.

12:05am – Departure to the streets, thank you Spanish holiday on Wednesday.

12:40pm – New friend Jose Faya and I make quick work of several challengers at the Foosball table, until getting blasted by two locals.  I’m pretty sure they were on Foosball steroids.

3:05am – Home, sweet, home.

Nancy's first day of school...

I survived my first day of teaching English in Spain!!!!!!!!!!!  Just being able to say that makes me realize that I crossed another big milestone in our trip today!  It feels soooo good to have the first day completed.  I still don't know everything by any stretch of the imagination, but I definitely have some questions answered, all of the teachers were very nice, and overall I feel much better about the next 8 months.  Plus, the best part of being an "auxiliar" (language assistant) is that I don’t have any lesson plans to make or papers to take home and grade! 

My day started with the shrill of my alarm waking me up at 7:00.  I turned it off and reset it for 7:15 – there was no way I was going to get up yet, it was still pitch black outside and I hadn't been up before 10:00AM in the last four days...  I don't even know if I fell back asleep but the alarm went back off at 7:15 and I was up – for those of you who have actually witnessed me getting ready, I don't mess around.  I do everything quickly and the same goes for this morning.  So when I was ready 5 minutes from being ready and Todd wasn't even up yet – I had to go wake him up (he claims he set his alarm for 7:30PM instead of AM... but I'm not too sure).  By the time we were both ready, ate breakfast, and were out the door it was about 8:15 and we were off to the bus station.  When we got to the bus station only one window, out of 5 was open.   After talking to the very unfriendly woman behind window #4, we realized she couldn't help us – we needed to talk to someone at window #1... but the curtain was pulled down, no one was there, and she didn't seem to know (or care) when and if someone would be arriving.  So... we went outside to see if we could find someone who was also heading to Bailen so we could ask them what to do.  I haven’t mentioned yet that we didn’t know how to pay OR what times the bus ran from Linares to Bailen, all we knew is that I had been given instructions to arrive sometime between 9:00-9:30.  After talking to a much nicer woman outside who informed us that the bus schedule for the Linares-Bailen route is taped on window #1 - DUH!  And she also informed us that we could pay the fare (1 Euro each way) to the bus driver on the bus if the window was closed.  So, we had a few minutes to wait, and right before our bus arrived I noticed another auxiliar (who I "met" on Facebook) waiting for the same bus to Bailen, so we hopped on the bus and I asked her close to 100 questions during the 15 minute ride to Bailen.  She was very nice and helpful, answering all of my questions; it was nice to have some reassurance the morning of our first day.

When we got off the bus in Bailen I was SO happy she was there with us, because neither Todd nor I had any idea where our schools were.  She pointed Todd in the right direction and actually walked me all the way to the front gate of my school!  I arrived around 9:15, perfectly in-between the guidelines.   I walked in the door and successfully asked for my coordinator in Spanish - a good start to the day!  I was directed into her office, right inside the front door, and she greeted me, introduced me to a few other teachers and she spent a few minutes finishing up whatever she was working on with them.  This means I was standing there feeling stupid, understanding probably 25% of what they were saying to each other for the first 3 minutes... which felt like 15!  Once she finished up with them we got down to business.  There have been auxiliars at my school for the past 8 years, so my coordinator is very organized and seems to have the process down.  We went through my schedule, what my days at school are going to look like, what days I have to work (when I have days my day off – Friday!), and my basic responsibilities. My 12 hour work-week is spread out over 4 days and I have to say, it reminds me a little bit of college.  Monday, Tuesday and Thursday I work from 10:50-2:00 and on Wednesday I work from 9:00-1:00 with an hour break in the middle of the day… I don’t understand how it works, but school is only in session from 9:00-2:00 here, which means kids are only in school 5 hours a day.  In my time at school I will spend each hour I’m there in a different classroom – I was placed in “grades” 1 – 4, I can already tell working with the younger students is going to be a new experience for me.  I also spend my time working with 4 different teachers (not all of the teachers speak English, so the ones that do share grade-levels)… but the funny thing is; of the 4 teachers I’m working with 3 out of the 4 are on temporary leave.  Two just had babies and the other one broke her leg, so that means I’m in the classroom with three different long-term substitutes– it should be interesting.  After explaining my schedule to me, Juana (my coordinator) gave me a tour of the school and introduced me to the teachers I was going to be working with.  Everyone was VERY nice!!!

After my tour, Juana took me back to her office, gave me copies of the materials we’ll be using in class – the immersion classes I’m placed in are Science and Art, so I’ll be helping to teach a Science (and Art) class in English… at this point I had about 30 minutes before I had to be in my first class, and she had some lessons to prepare of her own, so I spent some time looking through the materials she gave me and really just letting the anxiety build.  Everyone was so nice that I had met, but I still didn’t know exactly what it would be like once I stepped foot in the classroom.

The time actually passed quickly and before I knew it, it was time to walk to my first class.  And little did I know what I had coming for the next 3 hours – the first teacher I was with was one of the substitutes and she spoke very little English.  It’s still hard for me to completely understand people in Spanish, and it’s much more difficult when there’s background noise, like loud children in the background, but we made the best of it and I think I did very well and it will be an excuse to help me learn more Spanish even if that’s not exactly my purpose in the classroom.  I won’t go through and describe every class, just a few points that stick out in my mind.  All of the students were completely enamored by me and the fact that I was from the United States, I won’t go as far as saying they were on the best behavior, but they were definitely showing off.  This isn’t completely abnormal, my students at home would have probably acted the same way… for the first 5 minutes maybe, and then the excitement would have worn off.  But the students today were completely out of control.  Okay, maybe not completely, that might be an exaggeration, but there is definitely a lack of discipline in the school.  Throughout the majority of my three classes there was a running dialogue between the students while the teacher was speaking, and the teacher wouldn’t stop and wait for them to be quiet (only if they got too loud), she would just keep on talking over them.  In the case they did get too loud she would take the dry erase marker and pound it against the nearest hard surface until they were quiet.  “Time out” is also a popular punishment for those students who are especially bad – they’re told to stand facing the corner and be quiet.  Only, once they’re in the corner, the teacher ceases to monitor their punishment, so they basically stand there, with their back facing the corner chatting to the person who is closest… and this usually goes on long enough so that they get each other “riled up” and start chasing each other around the back of the room.  All of this while the lesson continues to drone on in the front of the room – thank goodness I’m not the official one in charge, I don’t know how I would handle it!  But I will say it seems that the teachers are relaxed, enjoy their job for the most part and the students are definitely having fun!  

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any crazier, the bell rang for “recreo”.  Like I mentioned earlier, students are in school from 9-2, but they don’t eat lunch at school.  For the most part, they all bring a snack to eat during “recreo” which is from 11:45-12:15.  This is literally recess, with snacks, where all 250 students run around like crazy all at one time.  Not only are they just running around, they have jump ropes going, smacking into other students, boys chasing each other, wrapping each other in head-locks, kicking each other, etc.  I honestly have to find some way to take a video of this madness before I leave so you can actually see what I’m talking about – in America it would be a lawsuit just waiting to happen.  And all of this is going on with the supervision of maybe 6 teachers at a time (they take turns during this time so they can have their break too).  I haven’t mentioned the sound level yet because I don’t even know what to compare it to – I’ll have to think on that one.  Towards the end of “recreo” one little boy came up with a scratch, bleeding down the side of his face from another kid’s nail and the teachers treated it like no big deal, there was no hurry to find out who else was involved, no talk of sending anyone to the principals office, nothing of the sort.  It was unreal!  

It really was a good day, and by the end of it, most of my worries had melted away.  I think it will just take some time to get used to how their classrooms are organized and run – it was a weird feeling today to be back in the classroom, but not to be the one in charge, but I don’t think it will be hard for me to enjoy taking a backseat!  As I walked out of the building at the end of the day, I couldn’t help but notice the mass of parents waiting for their children at the front gates to walk them home, sometimes I just have to stop and take it all in – life can be so different here sometimes, but I love it!  It felt like such an accomplishment to finish my first day, I was completely exhausted, even if it was only 5 hours – but I had students waving goodbye to me and practicing their “bye-bye’s” on my way out… so cute and heartwarming!  It was only a 5 minute walk to the bus station and Todd was waiting on me – boy did we have a lot to catch up on!