Cien Días

Tuesday made 100 days in Spain. It hardly feels like it- probably because I’ve accomplished far less in the past 100 days than I do in my normal life as a new yorker. It’s been a weird little lifestyle. I’m settling in but am never really settled, my tutoring schedule is always changing and I’m always planning some new trip.


Besides that, I decided I should start planning for when I’m home and have been scoping out my grad school…which I am rather dreading. I’m doing all I can to see if I can squeeze my bilingual education program at SUNY Brockport into a year or a year and a half. Tied down to another college for 2 years doesn’t exactly sound exciting to me, so we’ll try and make it quick. I’m thinking anything will see rather boring after having plans to live in Spain for the year, so perhaps I’ll just have to get used to that thought.

As for my 100th day it was more eventful than I would have liked. I ran back and forth to school three separate times, I made apple crisp for an entire class that didn’t show up, a boy asked if I’d walk him out because he was going to get “beat up” ,while I was walking with said boy, another came running past and smacked him in the head, I went back to school to meet with the principal about it but waited an hour listening to her meeting, I went to meet two girls for shopping who didn’t show up.

That was the worst of it at least. I then got to tutor my two favorite little ones and go to a Christmas dinner with the teachers from my school. Julie, my one teacher and I all walked together to the dinner. It was super fancy with like 10 courses, all very Spanish. The waiter tried to force the last of each appetizer on me saying, "But I made this one with extra love". The dinner started at 10 and didn’t end until 2 am…and the teachers were still begging us to go out dancing. It was a lot of fun, really good food, and I learned lots. It always feels good to survive a night speaking Spanish with a big group without embarrassing yourself…too much. I pulled out some of my idioms-always winners!

I called my Spanish momma to tell her I’d be in Oviedo this weekend and she said “Well it’s about time, I was wondering when you were going to call! I was telling everyone you must be busy or something because I never hear from you!” Aw, break my heart. But the phone works both ways. Anyways, meeting Meg tomorrow in my Spanish hometown and so so happy about it. Dear Buffalo-Oviedo friends, where are the rest of you? Will be thinking about you..xo

La Vida es una Caja de Bombas

Our lovely Spain has put up all of the Christmas lights...they did so about 2 weeks ago but they turned them on for the very first time the other day. I think they're skimping out due to the crisis and trying to save on electricity. Yet they still paid people to move these HUGE red potted plants to various parts of the city to be decorated. It took 6 men and a huge bobcat to do it. But that's worth the money, obviously.

This. Was a lovely surprise. I was awoken out of my bed by a knock at the door from my Spanish roomie telling me I had to sign for a package. I had literally just woken up and responded "Okay thanks". In English. Ah, oh well. I knew the handwriting all too well and was unbelievable happy to open the box and see this:

My loving friend, Katie, sent me a beautiful box with lots of little wrapped presents inside. I still haven't opened them all as I'm drawing out my little Christmas goodies. All I can say is: goldfish and brownie mix, where have you been all my life? In heaven.

Sarah and I went to the mall because word on Calle Campanillas was that Santa was going to be there. We showed up to his little bubble wonderland, but he was sadly missing.

Turns out Spanish Santa goes on Siesta just like the rest of Spain. Should have known better than to visit him between 2 and 4 pm. I'll be more prepared next time. Alsso his chair was too small for the kind of Santa that could support me sitting on his knee. Suspicious.

Finally. My roomate truly is crazy, I've decided. And it's hard to even be mad anymore because she truly has some kind of compulsive issues. I was furious initially so I decided to get her a Christmas card and after I wrote it to her wishing her good things for the holidays, I felt better. I also realized that she had taken the care with her hate note to write each point with a different color marker. How can you be mad at that? The elementary teacher in me melted just a little.

She is upset that we don't take down the recycling and that we "locked her boyfriend in the house". I personally find that highly entertaining. But if the door is locked and you don't have a key, you can't get out of the apartment. I didn't know she had left him here but he apparently was locked in and called her furious because he felt really "claustrophobic". Next time I'll lock him out instead of in.

I made her a lovely little chore chart complete with yellow paper and as many colored markers as I could. Maybe that will appease her for a while...at least until we can sneak out for the holidays. Also, my favorite line she wrote "Do I have to say it in Chinese?". Perhaps English would be the more practical language of translation...but I won't tell her that. Sometimes I'd rather NOT understand her.

So soon til I get to see my home friends. <3

A la Hora de la Siesta...

If you were to ask me the one thing I miss most about being home, it would be hard choose. If you ask me my favorite thing about Spain, it would be hard to choose. If you were to ask me what I dislike most about Spain….do it. Ask me.

It’s Siesta. I.Hate.Siesta. I think it’s Spain’s worst invention. At around 2 o’clock everything closes and everyone goes home to eat a big lunch, rest, etc. It sounds lovely in theory, I agree with that. But when you work 9-2 and then 5-9, think about your free time: 2pm-5pm. Siesta. Everything is closed. Oh you want to buy stamps you say? Well, you cannot. Or you wanted to run over to the store to pick up that purse you’ve had your eye on? Sorry, we are home for lunch. You need light bulbs, boots, a scarf, chocolate and churros at Valore? You will have to wait until the entire city comes back from their little mid-day standstill.

A serious question here though- how do people work 8 hour shifts? Honestly. Because even if they start at 8 am (though there are very few people on the street at this hour), they would have to work until 4pm, which is impossible as it would cut right through siesta time. I, personally would prefer to have all my work done in one chunk than to work in the morning, return home to rest, and go back to work. However, I tried my best to schedule some tutoring sessions earlier in the day and my lovely Spaniards just won’t have it. “Before 4 is impossible” they say. Well actually they say “Antes de las cuatro, sería imposible.”

The one thing I have learned from Siesta though is that it’s rather noble that the Spaniards work so hard to keep up the tradition. I suppose it’s how our American dinner time should be: sacred.  However, I am way too used to convenience and I think that if it is before 10pm on any given day (except for Sunday) I should be able to go get all of my errands done without question. I’ll never get used to it, I swear.

Also, as a side note, I was helping a teacher with her oral exams this week and met some new classes. One 18-year-old came up and my teacher asked him to “Describe Leigh”. If I didn’t know it before, then I know now: he’s a clever boy. His response, “She has long blonde hair, blue eyes, is thin, and is very pretty.” Smart boy. However, he then tried to say “She is average”. Don’t worry, I jumped in and quickly corrected him “You mean average height?”... I did my best to save him from himself.

My younger students are very excited to meet my friends coming to visit: Mike and Amy. Watch out. When Sam and I first got here they interrogated us. Do you have a boyfriend? Do you prefer the mountains or the beach? Have you seen snow? Do you speak Spanish? Do you have any friends that are famous? Do you eat at McDonalds every day?

We started pen pals with my lovely Meg's class back in Buffalo and my students were so excited to get their letters. All except this one boy I have who thinks all Americans are selfish, power hungry capitalists, who care only about material things. So when I received the letter for him in the mail, I couldn't help but laugh out loud. It was the only one which had been decorated entirely in marker by a high school girl with things like a drawing of an ice cream cone labeled "helado" and a beach labeled "playa" etc. As if he doesn't know what the words were in Spanish. So I happily handed it to him and the very first words he said "Jobar, she's a capitalist!"

Dear American capitalists, stop drawing pictures of ice cream cones, you're giving yourselves away.

I love baby Spaniards.

Naranjas Valencianas

Plaza de la Reina

Just got back from a long weekend in one of the loveliest Spanish cities I’ve seen: Valencia. We were lucky to have even arrived seeing as how an hour after we landed, airport workers began their strike and the entire Madrid airport shut down. Thankfully we made it.

Mediterranean with Kate and Sarah

I was unimpressed by the beach and more than impressed by the food, the people, and the vibe of the city. We arrived via the world’s slowest moving subway, representative of a fairly laid-back city. Though it’s the 3rd largest in Spain, you’d never guess by the homey feel and the friendly people. We ate our way up and down the streets, walking far enough in between to merit more food stops. Day one: dinner, gelato, see the main plaza. Day two: starbucks, park, shopping, asian food, cathedral, tower, picking oranges, paella, agua de valencia. Day three: starbucks, arts and science museums, aquarium, oranges, cooking. Day four: beach, pier, kebabs, clementines, old walls, American food, sangria.

The home of paella. Which came with "shots" of chicken stock...less delicious

The oranges in Valencia truly are bomb. No exaggeration. Sarah even stole one from a tree.

As you can see, much of day revolved around what foods we needed to try and what ones we needed to have because we missed them and can’t get them in León. Starbucks felt strangely like home- especially with the Christmas decorations and the names on the cups and the employees with red aprons. The hostel treated us well; we had a family style dinner that we cooked with an interesting new friend of ours, who we will call Ryan, though I’m not entirely convinced that’s his real name.

Mini model of the playground

Real size playground of Gulliver...see the slides in his hair?

Accidently ran across the coolest.playground.ever. In the shape of Gulliver from Gulliver’s travels. Definitely not kid safe or U.S. approved, but Spain embraces the slippery stairs and no-railing, elevated walkways. But it was safe enough for me! And I tested out Gulliver’s jacket lapel slide and nearly took out a small child.

The science and art buildings

We spent an entire day down by the arts and science museums. The buildings were the coolest part, the inside of the aquarium was actually underwhelming. Save your 25 euro and hold onto some of your idealistic ideas of lovely foreign Spanish families and skip going inside. There were lots of fish and lots of children banging on the tanks, lots of parents smoking and drinking beer and ignoring their children, and then there was me. Yelling at Spanish children who were wrestling on the floor in the middle of the museum. I hope their parents heard me.

 Jungle Book trees at the park

Christmas decorations plus palm trees minus snow 

Also, it’s become a super bad habit to talk about people who are around me because I assume they can’t understand English. But there goes that good plan as our little “Japanese” friend who “didn’t speak English” turned out to be a Japanese-American who speaks better English than I do. As for the Spanish people at the aquarium: yes, I was talking about you and your misbehaved children and your lazy attitudes towards parenting and the way you blow smoke in my face and walk into me or stand unnecessarily close to me in line. I feel quite blessed with my little Spanish friends, family, and students after seeing how bad it could be. Some of them are beyond lovely, and as with any culture and any country, you take the good with the bad.

La Primera Nevada

My prison-looking school covered in snow

Well I woke up yesterday, on the last day of November, to a lovely light snowfall. During the day it got pretty heavy but by now it’s all melted again. Oh León, can’t make up its mind.

       

Some things I noted about snow in Spain: It makes the tile sidewalks super slippery. Spaniards use umbrellas so the snow won’t fall on them. I saw a man raking the grass to get the snow away. I saw another using a broom to brush it off a sidewalk. Finally, I saw a third (woman, mind you, that’s where the smarts are at) using a shovel to clear the sidewalk. Well done, Spain.
                                         

Anyways, it made for a beautiful walk to school and the kids went out for recess and played with snowballs so it was good entertainment. I got the question from my 3rd years “have you ever seen snow?” Have I ever. Buffalo October storm anyone? These poor chaps have no idea…

I got invited by a student to go to the mall with her sometime. She wants me to help her pick out clothes. I would say I think that’s totally legal…I can teach her English and fashion. My two best talents. Besides she’s always wearing this brown nail polish that I’m dying to have…

Anyways, Friday I’m off with Kate and Sarah to Valencia, to try and escape some of the cold weather and see the Mediterranean in all its glory. We’ll see if it looks different in Valencia than it did in Barcelona. Should be a good start to my non-stop next month and a half. Nate, Megan, Jaime, Amy, Mike! Come play, Spain is ready for you. And we have cookies.