Dia de la Hispanidad

So as I previously mentioned, it was a five day weekend for Dia de la Hispanidad (aka Columbus Day). Apparently here in Spain, October 12 is also the Festival of the Guarda Civil (local police/military) so there was a huge military parade here in Madrid on one of the busiest streets.
Once I got off the metro, there were hundreds of people lined up on opposite ends of the streets. The miltary band played for a while, and apparently the King and Queen of Spain were there too, but I didn't spot them. It was a really cool experience: people were waving their Spanish flags everywhere, chanting random stuff about their government and what not. They even had jets and helicopters flying overhead for a mini air show! The only thing that could have made it better if it was a parade for the Spanish soccer team!




Red and Yellow for the colors of the Spanish flag!


Apparently, Spain has some sort in snow/ice military. These guys wore snow gear and skis on their backs!

Five Day Weekend

So I'm still loving my job and the kids, even more so because Spanish students are always having some holiday that doesn't require them to be in school, so this was a five day weekend for me. In America, it's called Columbus Day, but here its called Dia de la Hispanidad, acknowledging Spain's influence in South and Central America. So on Friday, I went out to a club for the first time here. Unlike in NY, their metro doesn't run all the time: it closes at 1:30 am an then opens up at 6am. So the young Spanish people leave their houses to catch the last metro at 1:30 and then party hard till 6am! I was sooo skeptical at first, but when in Spain, right? So after having a good time at the club with friends (besides almost dying from the continuous smoke all around me) we ended up leaving around 5am, only to wait for an hour for the metro! I don't know how long I'll be able to do this for, these Spaniards are hard core partiers!

So on Sunday, I ended up going to Segovia, a town about an hour and a half north of Madrid. It was gorgeous! They had a huge castle, cathedral and ancient Roman aqueducts from the Roman influence in Spain thousands of years ago.I absolutely love seeing things like this throughout the world and it's made me so interested in history, which I never liked before. Segovia is also full of tiny narrow streets, which I'm still shocked as to how cars fit. Maybe because their cars look like this!



Here are a few of the many pictures I took of the beautiful Segovia:

First Day of School

Well since I've last written, the day long strike in Spain has ended and transportation is working just fine. =) On Thursday, I ventured out a bit more, but called it an early night since Friday I went to meet the staff of my school and what not. So after about an hour and ten minute commute to my school, I get off in the smallest town I have ever seen in life. I think the whole town of Meco has maybe a 10 mile radius. On the way there, you can see the town as nothing bus grass and open land surrounds it. All the houses look exactly the same and it's just soooo small town. So I knew the school wasn't far from the bus stop, so I stopped at the first place I saw, (a photocopy shop) for directions. The lady was so nice, she walked me all the way out to the end of the street and told me exactly where to go! Since the buses to Meco only run at certain times, I was an hour early so decided to walk around and see what was around. After 15 minutes of walking and seeing nothing but a few school and houses galore, I stopped in the bar down the street from my school for a cafe con leche. While reading the newspaper, I recognized another girl from the program who happened to be teaching at my school too! So we chatted for a while and then headed to the school. After going to the opposite end of the school, we get buzzed in and introduced to the principal, secretary and some other teachers. Then we had a brief informational meeting with the language assistant coordinator. Speaking of language assistants, I am one of five at my school. There is an Irish girl, and three Americans (though one girl was born in Venezuela) and myself (with only one boy). We got to pick our grades and I picked 4th grade which is 9 and 10 year olds. I will be teaching with two teachers in three different classes in the subjects of English, Science and Art.


So after we met our prospective teachers, the five language assistants decided to go out to lunch in Alcala de Henares, a neighboring city between Madrid Center and Meco. As it was my first time there, I had no idea what it would be like. It was absoluetly gorgeous! It's like a mini-Madrid with the local charm. Here are pictures of Plaza Cervantes, named after the author of Don Quixote. We went to this amazing restaurant with a great atmosphere, packed with people and the food was great too!

On Saturday, I met up with one of the language assistants from my school for yet another day of exploring. We walked all around another neighborhood which I absolutely loved. It's right in the center of the city, yet has all the local necessites, like a grocery store, clothing stores, banks and bars! Store after store, I wanted to buy everything. I've never really been into fashion, but I think living in Spain might just make me more into it after seeing all the great clothes they have!

Yesterday, Sunday, I met up with a new friend, from Peru but now living in Spain. We went to El Rastro, which is Madrid's weekly flea market which has everything from clothes, shoes, produce, linens, jewelry, Spain souvenirs and anything else imagineable for dirt cheap. I wanted to buy almost everything I saw, but I only ended up buying a purse and a pair of shoes for 15 euros(about $20)!!!! It was huuuugggeeeeee and everything was sooo cheap! So I definitely have to go back when I'm actually in the mood to shop. After that, we went to her apartment, in yet another part of Madrid (I've seen so much already!) for a great Peruvian lunch. Since everything here is closed on Sunday, the big stores are only allowed to open on the first Sunday of every month. So we went to this outlet mall that had everything! All the fashionable stores of Spain, plus international ones as well. I went in almost every store just to check it out and it was great! I didn't get home till 9pm after being out allll dayyyy longgggg.

So today: my first day of working!! I was half excited/half nervous because 1. I've never been a teacher before and 2. kids can be very judgemental and say whatever so I was skeptical as to what they would say. Unfortunately for me, I have to arrive an hour early to work everyday because there's only a bus that leaves at 7:15 or 9:05 and I have to be at work at 9am. So I arrived at 8:00 but don't start classes until 9. As I previously mentioned, I teach three 4th grade classes. Classes are only 45 minutes long, so I bounce from class to class to class until 2pm (1:15pm on Tue/Thu) with a break at noon while the kids have recess.

So, of my three classes, one all stared at me as I walked in and started bombarding me with questions: What's your name? Where are you from? How old are you, etc. The teacher had to tell them to be quiet so she can introduce me. They were all so inquisitive they were great. The second class has already had an assistant from NY so I guess I wasn't that interestig to them, but they were still inquisitive and asked a bunch of questions. The third class was great too, a little unruly, but good. I work with two teachers and both had me involved already! There was a spelling test today so I recited the words and helped correct the tests. I also helped to check homework and also with an activity on the digestive system. The teachers love having an extra pair of hands and also someone to help them pronunciate their English. So, all summer long I have been preparing for my first day and I have been collecting stuff from and about NY. I had NY maps, a ton of postcards (Empire State Building, Ellis Island, Times Square, Statue of Liberty, Adirondack Mountains, etc) my metro card, some money and a little more. Only with one class was I able to do my NY presentation as the other two had tests and needed to cover material today. So I talked about NY for a while, showed them where I was from, asked them what they knew and they were soooo quiet because they wanted to hear everything I had to say! But once, I pulled out my bag, they could not sit still. I passed out all my stuff for them to look and they were in awe! One boy even started crying because he didn't get to see the $1 bill, which eventually got passed around to see. I didn't think my metro card would be that great, but one boy wanted to keep it! I told him he could have it once I did my presentation to the other classes. Even the brochures of the MET and other NY stuff they were super interested in and asked me tons of questions about everything they were looking at. At the end, I had Silly Bands for them: Hannah Montana for the girls and Superman for the boys. The girls practically fell out of their seats when I said Hannah Montana and one girl already had a HM backpack. All in all: they loved it. They all said thank you a thousand times each and some even gave me hugs! At the end of class, one girl gave me a hand drawn picture of the Statue of Liberty which she copied from the postcard. I forgot how cute kids can be sometimes.

Analysis after day one: I LOVE MY JOB!

International Intercambio Night

Well a couple nights ago, I went to this bar for "International Intercambio Night", a night where people from Madrid and everywhere around the world go to meet up and speak in different languages. The bar was packed with people chatting away and it was sooo much fun! I met people from Scotland, Uruguay, Italy, Barcelona, Galicia, Peru and of course Madrilenos too. The entire night I was switching from English to Spanish, because not everyone who goes speaks more than one language. I made some more friends and we plan to meet up sometime next week! And yet another reason to make it better, they had soccer playing on the tv the entire time! Aaahhhh I just love living in Spain.

So since then I have done more exploring as I am trying to find 1. a CHI flat iron 2. latin spices and 3. a hair shop that can do my hair. So a variety of people have told me to go to a certain neighborhood called Cuatro Caminos, so a friend and I ventured out and it was amazing! Apparently this neighborhood is filled with immigrants and a lot are from the Domincan Republic, so there are stores everywhere (owned by Dominicans) that sells the products I want. And apparently all of the Dominicans think I'm Dominican (even though I'm Puerto Rican) and once they hear I'm from New York, they just start chatting away! So we easily found some stores to go to since they all pointed us in the right direction. Andddd....as we were walking we ended up walking to the Real Madrid Stadium, which was only 10 minutes away! Long story short: next year I definitely want to live near the stadium. Not only will I be right in the middle of all the bars to watch the games, latin food stores and hair shops are only a 10 minute walk away!

So today there is a national strike in Spain. All public transportation workers are striking about their wages, the economy of Spain, etc. Even flights in and out of Spain are cancelled! So I am staying inside because I don't want to get caught in the middle of the city-wide demonstrations and get mistakenly arrested. Also, I live in the north of the city and to get to the center, it would be over an hour walk and I don't really care to do that in this heat. Yes, it's still hot in Madrid.

Another observation: the prostitues in Spain have no shame whatsoever. On my way to intercambio night, the prostitues stand along this busy street with their skin tight, super short dresses and just wait for men to come up to them. It was a pretty entertaining sight as I just couldn't believe my eyes! It's not like I was walking up a dark alley at 2am. It was only around 7pm and the street is full of shops, restaurants, etc! Only in Spain.

So Friday, I'm going to visit my school, meet the teachers, get my schedule and I'm super excited! Till then!

First Week

Well, I have been here for one week so far and I LOVEEEEE it! It's just like I remember, but better. The family that I'm living with picked me up from the airport and have been really nice. They have 3 kids, a 3 year old boy and two girls, aged 5 and 8. Both the parents are auditors and the dad does a lot of international traveling. The kids are all super excited to have me living with them and I'm excited to be living with a family too, since I don't have to worry about immediately finding an apartment after hauling my luggage through the Madrid Metro.

I feel like I've been here for much longer than a week, because everyday has been so busy. So the first day I got here, I just unpacked and slept! Everything here is closed on Sunday so I didn't do much then either. But since Monday I have been on the go! I have ventured out downtown in the center of the city, the south of the city, and my neighborhood (I live in the north of the city). I take the metro to go everywhere and I haven't got lost yet because it's so well labeled (they even have people perform on the metro just like NY). My first stop was Gran Via, a longgggg street with tons of stores on it. Just the architecture of the buildings are amazing. I also stopped off at the Puerta del Sol, which is like the Times Square of Madrid, but without all the flashing bright lights. There are tons of people, (tourists and locals alike), street vendors, stores, just everything. In addition to the center, I ventured off at other stops too as I had many errands to run this week (put money on my phone, stop off at the tourism office, get a monthly metro card, etc). I have had some speed bumps on the way though, but thankfully nothing major. So I already had a Spanish cell phone and I only needed to put money on it. So after waiting patiently in line for half an hour, I get to the front of the line only for the worker to tell me I need my passport to do that and of course I didn't have it. So I had to go all the way back uptown to get my passport to put money on phone. Also, I had to get my residency card. So I ask a police officer on the street where the closest police station is. A 10 minute walk later, the police station tells me to go to the Office of Foreigners. After waiting in line there for 40 minutes, they tell me I need to have an appointment and that I have to go to a different office for that. At that point I gave up (but it worked out, because at orientation for my job, they did everything for us!)

Other than that, everything has been going smoothly. I now have a friend who lives five minutes away from Real Madrid stadium, so of course I had to stop there. It's huge and amazing! It's also right next to a mall so of course I stopped in there as well. In the past week, I've been restraining myself to not buy all the great clothes, bags and anything else I see because there is just so much!

Some things that I have to get used to all over again: 1. eating lunch at 2pm and dinner at 10pm 2. not expecting to do anything on a Sunday since EVERYTHING is closed 3. the metric system: military time, degrees of weather, litres of milk instead of gallons, kilometers instead of miles, and the list goes on...

I also made some friends this week. A couple of people at my orienation and the cleaning lady of my apartment! She's actually from Peru but has been living in Spain for a while since her husband got a job here. I woke up on Monday to her in the apartment cleaning and was a bit shocked as I was not expecting anyone to be home, but by Tuesday we became friends, ate breakfast together and she's going to take me out to see the city, from a more local perspective.

So that kind of sums up my great first week. I love Madrid and the fact that it's so international and I can't wait to see the rest of it. I still have another entire week before I actually start teaching at the school, so I plan on seeing as much as I can before I become consumed with working!

I'm Hereeeee!!!!

Got here safe and sound and they didn't lose any of my luggage!!!! Thank God!!!

Three Days Left!!!

I am leaving for Spain in three days and it STILL hasn't hit me yet! I have piles of clothes and everything else surrounding me so much I can barely see the floor and the fact that I won't be back in NY for two years hasn't phased me yet. Given, I am so excited to leave, but it just doesn't feel like I'm actually leaving so soon. I predict it won't hit me until I actually board the plane, or maybe when I'm sitting around the airport for hours on end, because I absolutely refuse to miss my flight.

I do have to say it's an amazing feeling to cross [almost] everything off of my to-do list. I no longer need to buy anything, which is great. But how do I fit two years of clothes into two 50lb suitcases? That's what I'll be figuring out for the next three days...