Birthday Weekend!

Well this past Sunday was my birthday, the 2nd that I have spent in Spain. So on Saturday night, a whole bunch of friends and myself had a Mexican themed tapas party at one of my friends apartments. There was also another birthday girl, her birthday being on Friday and she had invited friends too, so I didn't know everyone there. Besides Americans and Spaniards, there were people from Portugal, Belgium, England and Norway. It was a lot of fun; there was food, alcohol, music, a candle lit terrace and even home-made birthday cake with candles!! Around 1am, we headed over to Kapital, one of the biggest clubs in Madrid, with seven floors of music. I don't know how I haven't been yet, but it was my first time there and I absolutely loved it! They have everything from Spanish pop, hip-hop, reggaeton, techno and more. I didn't end up leaving the club until 6:15am.

So on Sunday, my actual birthday, there was a huge concert in the center of Madrid. The European MTV Awards were in Madrid, so they had a pre-concert, for free! The headliners were Katy Perry and Linkin Park, but I just went for Katy Perry since I don't like rock music. There were tonnnssssss of people there, and police everywhere. So while the opening band was performing, Kanye West made a guest appearance! I'm a huge fan, so I loved it. Then Katy Perry performed, and it was good, except for the fact that she was lip synching! But I guess that's just the standard nowadays. After her performance, I left to go to a bar to catch the big soccer game between the two Madrid teams: Atletico Madrid vs. Real Madrid (the equivalent of Yankees vs. Mets). In New York, they call it the Subway Series, but here in Spain its the Derbi Madrileño [Madrid Derby]). Apparently for the past 12 years, Atletico has lost to Real and this year was no different; Real Madrid won 2-0. Overall, it was a great birthday weekend.

So on Monday morning, being super tired from my birthday weekend, I arrive to my first class to find out that my teacher is not there. Now remember, I am just an assistant,(though of course to the kids I am a full fledged teacher). Technically, I can't be alone with the students, so I had different teachers with me, just sitting in the back of the classroom while I actually teach. My teacher wasn't in today either, so for the past two days, it's been just me, teaching all day long. I actually had to discipline them and threaten their recess time in order for them to be quiet and pay attention! That seemed to be the only thing that worked. All I can say is, thank goodness I'm only an assistant, because I don't think I have the patience to discipline three classes of 4th graders everyday...

Busy, Busy, Busy

These past two weeks, have been crazy. As you all know, Halloween was last week. Since I am a "cultural ambassador" for these students, the other four assistants and myself were responsible for turning the library into a haunted house. Now anyone that knows me knows I don't really like Halloween, because I never celebrated it as a kid. I have only celebrated Halloween two times, and that was the past two years, because in college, you're lame if you don't dress up and go to the parties. So I thought I would hate to do this, but I actually really enjoyed making the haunted house. We had scary music,carved pumpkins, amazing decorations and made tunnels out of boxes and the kids loved it. Some of the youngers ones were so scared that they had to leave before it was over!

So like most of the other assistants in the program I'm in, I too am giving private English lessons. English is very much in demand here. So, last week I started mine. Once or twice a week, I give lessons to the principal's husband, Victor. She had asked me if I would like to do it and of course I said yes. Most of it is just conversation, but I also make grammar worksheets for him to do for homework and then we go over them at the next lesson. At first, I was really nervous, because I have no teaching experience, just an English mother tongue. But I like it because I can talk about interesting topics like politics, Spain and traveling. Victor works for an airline, so he's been all over the world (someday I wish I can say "I've been all over the world"). His English is actualy really good, he just never has the opportunity to talk to someone for more than 5-10 minutes in English.

This past week was also election day in the states and the following day, Obama was on the cover of many newspapers. I find this interesting because in NY, the president of Spain wouldn't be on the cover of the NY Times (or any other newspaper) after a Spanish election day. I had a few people ask me about what's been going on politically in the U.S. and I love to enlighten them. It's crazy how many Spanish people actually know about our government, whereas I know absolutely nothing about the Spanish government. Maybe now I'll start learning about it since I'll be here for a while.

Last weekend was also another holiday, so I had a four day weekend instead of the usual three day weekend. So I went to Cuenca, a neighboring town, about two hours east of Madrid. It's a very old city and the old part has these "casas colgantes" or hanging houses. The houses don's actually hang off the cliff, but it's still pretty cool. I climbed all the way up to the highest point of the city and the view was breathtaking. Pictures coming soon...