The New Year in Graná

Hi friends and fam!

Well, I'm closing in on the half-way point of my stay in Spain this year and can't believe how quickly it's going by. I've been here for four months now and I can tell the next five months are going to fly. While I miss everyone a lot back home and I've definitely had my homesick moments, I'm not ready to move permanently back to the US to start my "big girl career". At this point, I'm trying to figure out what my options are for staying at least one more year in Spain. I love my job and the school where I work and if I can get through the renewal process (which is a bit complicated) then I would love to come back to this job. But I'm also looking into some other possibilities...we'll see what I can get figured out! 

New Years Eve in Spain is celebrated by eating twelve grapes at midnight. Everyone crowds around their tv with their cup of grapes to count down to midnight and watch the official clock in la Puerta del Sol in Madrid chime twelve times. Each time that the bell rings, you're supposed to eat a grape before the next bell rings. New Years Eve morning I got a call from Conchi inviting me over for dinner and to eat the twelve grapes that night. This time it was just the three Torres kids (Migue, Nacho, and Rocio), Conchi, and me. We had a lot of fun and Conchi had a great meal ready for us. Once we were done with dinner, Nacho poured the champagne and Rocio got the twelve grapes ready for each of us as we turned the tv on to the celebration going on in la Puerta del Sol. We made it through the grapes and said bye to Nacho and Migue as they went off to prep for the party that they were having in a bar just outside of town. Rocio and I hung out for a little while with Conchi and then around two or so headed out to meet up with some of her friends.

The 12 grapes

Rocio, Me, Nacho, and Conchi on NYE

The little Spanish kiddos are really lucky. They not only get to celebrate Christmas with Santa BUT they also have the holiday of the Three Kings (Los Reyes Magos) with los reyes being the big holiday. Before going on Christmas break, I asked one of my students to explain los reyes to me. The Three Kings are basically the three Wise Men who brought gifts to baby Jesus. What they do to celebrate in Spain, according to my students, the kids have to clean their shoes and leave them out at night ready for the Three Kings to fill them with presents. They also leave glass of Anise for the Three Kings to drink (kind of like a glass of milk and cookies for Santa) and then while the kids are asleep, the Three Kings enter through the window that is left open and leave their gifts in their clean shoes. 

The day before Los Reyes, there is a big parade through each Spanish city and another L/C assistant and I went to check it out. There are a bunch of floats and each one, we were told, tosses candy out to the crowd...toss is not the right word for it. They literally huck the candy as hard as they can at the crowd and if you're not paying attention you just might get your eye put out by a stray piece of candy flying by.  All in all it was a lot of fun, and a really cool experience to see pretty much all of Granada in the streets ready to fill up their bags with candy. 

In my first four months I haven't done a whole lot of traveling, but I'm heading to Morocco next weekend. When I studied abroad two years ago, Morocco was one of my favorite trips just because it was such a different culture and I knew I wanted to go back. I'm supposed to get paid (for the first time in 4 months - woo hoo- next Friday) so during the next 5 months my goal is to travel 2 weekends a month. Right now, I'm hoping to make it to Dublin (for St. Patty's Day), Prague, Germany, Switzerland in the Spring for Canyoning (check it out on youtube), San Sebastián, Bilbao, Santiago de Compostela, and Barcelona.

Hope everyone is doing well and that 2011 is treating you well!!

Besos!!

Megan

¡¡Feliz Navidad!!

Whoa...so much for updating more...a lot has happened in the month and a half since I last wrote on here. So I'll do my best to not be too long winded!

• I took the DELE (Diploma de Español como Lengua Extranjera) exam a couple days after my last post. This was a test that I had to take when I studied abroad here two years ago and I passed the upper-intermediate level last time. I figured I would give the next level a go this time around. The test is sponsored by the Institute of Cervantes in Madrid and if I pass the level that I took last month, I'll get a diploma saying that I'm recognized by Spain as having that level of Spanish. It was good because it forced me to practice my Spanish while studying. Also, I talked to Mark, my program director from study abroad, and he put me in contact with a student from GU here this past semester who was taking the same test as me and we got to be really good friends.
• I've started doing intercambios...I've met up with one of Rocio's good friends who recently got back from 7 months in England and wants to keep up with her English. Hoping to meet up with her some more.
• One thing that I really wanted to do here in Spain was learn how to cook like the Spaniards do. My friend Ali who I met with to study for the DELE told me that she was going to a cooking class every Monday so I started going along with her and a few more study abroad kids. It's in downtown Granada and is put on by a center for professional women who want to learn to cook Spanish cuisine. A lot of the women who come to this center have immigrated from South America - there are Ecuadorians, Bolivians, etc - This class has been a lot of fun and I've even made a few things at home afterwards. We had a little fiesta on our last day before break and I'm excited to get back to class in the new year.
• I joined a gym (necessary after a month and a half of Spanish Christmas treats and drinks!!). There is a gym right up the street about half a block from my apartment that I walk by everyday. I'd seen that they had spinning classes at night and decided to try it out...love it! It's funny because they play Madonna and other American songs during class and then you have the gal shouting what to do in Spanish. It's been fun, I'm hoping to get to some of the aerobics classes during break that they offer during the day when I'm normally at work.
• My 3rd grade kids at school put on a "Christmas"play on the last day of school before break. The teacher that I work with was the one who picked it out...that's why Christmas is in quotes...the only thing that had to do with Christmas was that he added in jingle bells at the end to make it festive! It was a funny story (the kids spoke in English and then two of the older students translated to Spanish for the parents) and they did a great job! We filmed it so hopefully I'll be able to put up a video of the show soon!
• The last day of school was also my birthday (big 2-3)...and in Spain the 22nd is the day of the National Christmas Lottery. Everyone buys a lottery ticket and waits to hear if they struck it big this year. Our school was no exception...all of us teachers put in 20 euros and bought 10 tickets with the same number. It paid off because we won!! Not the big winnings but two of the numbers at the end of our series matched the winning number so we each get 100 euros! Pumped! That was a great birthday surprise! After school all of the teachers met up (all 8 of us) in the city center for lunch together. We went to a really nice place and when they found out it was my birthday, the drinks started flowing. After lunch no one wanted to head home so we all went to a bar and had one more drink. Then I rushed back to my place to get ready and meet up with Conchi, Rocio and Nacho for tapas. It was a great birthday filled with a lot of laughs and great people.
• Christmas Eve is a big celebration here. Conchi and family had invited me over to celebrate with them and I gladly accepted. I was walking up to the apartment right as Nacho and their older brother Miguel (he lives in Málaga) were coming back from the center. Conchi had her house all decorated, tree and all! Definitely put me in the Christmas spirit. Her brother, his daughters and the grandmother all came for dinner as well. We had a great dinner filled with a lot of appetizers, soup, jamón, and treats. Towards the end of dinner Conchi asked me to tell everyone a little bit about some of my family's holiday traditions. I told them all that every Christmas Eve we open one gift and it is always pajamas, then we change into the new pjs and watch Home Alone. Literally two minutes after that Nacho decided to take a break from the food and turn on the tv...Home Alone in Spanish was on! It was perfect. He stopped everyone in the middle of their conversations to let us know. It was a great night and I'm so glad that I have my Spanish family here to celebrate with. If I can't be back home with my family, I'm glad I can be with my Spanish family!

I'm probably leaving a lot out but I think those were the big things from the last six weeks! Hope you all had a great Christmas with family and friends! Thinking about everyone often! 

More to come after the New Year! 

Besos a todos!!

Megan

"Lady Gaga, good price for you!"

Hello family and friends! I have been slacking on the blog...my first goal being here in Spain was to write more than one time (the grand total of updates I sent out while I studied abroad two years ago) and now that I have surpassed that by two, I have a new goal...update this thing more than every three weeks. I will do my best, but we'll see how that goes...;)

Well it's been a long, busy, but really fun day. My school has been organizing a field trip for our students for the past few weeks and today was the big day! I was invited to go along with the students and some of the teachers so that I could have the chance to see parts of the country that I normally wouldn't have the opportunity to see and experience parts of the culture that aren't typical tourist attractions. On this trip we went to a small town called Rute (in the Córdoba province) about a little over an hour outside of Granada. It was a really cool town with lots of museums, which was surprising considering how small it is (population was a few thousand).

Our first stop in Rute was a sugar museum...and here commenced the eating....that also manufactures a typical Christmas treat called Mantecado (one of my faves!). We were greeted with different chocolate and other sugary treats at the door and from there we got to see how the mantecado was made in the days before mass production. From there they gave us a tour through the sugar museum which was really cool. They had everything from a replica of the Disneyland Castle to Picasso's Guernica to a life-size model of Michael Jackson all made out of sugar and everything looked just like the real thing.

Sugar/Mantecado museum

Celia, Álvaro and Ariel excited for the candy

Good to know bunny ears in pics are universal

After the sugar museum, we took a mid-morning snack break and went to a local coffee shop. From there, we went to a chocolate museum filled with more yummy treats and life-sized chocolate models of the King and Queen of Spain. Next on the list (and this part was for sure scheduled for the adults) we went to an Anise museum/distillery where all of us teachers got to sample a few different Anise liquors and the kids got to try non-alcoholic beverages. From there went to a ham museum (Spain is all about jamón, jamón y más jamón), had some more samples as we quickly toured the place and then it was time for lunch; although non of us were really hungry at that point. The teachers all ate in one restaurant and took turns watching over the kiddos as they ate their bagged lunch. In Spain it's normal to have a beer or two in the middle of the day and the fact that we were on a field trip did not stop some of the teachers from ordering a round (or more) for the rest of the group. The rest of the trip went on without a hitch and we were back in Víznar as it was starting to get dark.

The first weekend in November I made my first big trip of the year. My friends Kerianne, Jessica, Kelly and I went to Paris to celebrate Jessica's birthday. I left Granada Thursday night for Málaga (where Kerianne and Jessica live and where we were flying out on Friday) and stayed with the girls before we left the next morning. We flew into a city about an hour outside of Paris called Beauvais and took a bus into the city.  We were a little lost trying to find our hotel but after a little searching, we found it, put our stuff down and made our way to a café for dinner. After that, we decided to head into the center of the city and find the Eiffel Tower. It was absolutely incredible all lit up at night. There were a ton of guys all around that were trying to sell cheap replicas the tower. Anyway, I guess they realized we were Americans and decided to make a sell with us by calling out "Lady Gaga, good price for you...once euro!" No thanks, bud! Needless to say, we weren't buying. But, Paris has always been some place I've wanted to go and being able to stand under the Eiffel Tower while it sparkled at night was breathtaking.

The next day we got up relatively early, grabbed some fruit from a market next to our hotel and headed back into the center of the city to start seeing the sights. We went back to the Eiffel Tower to take some pictures in the daytime. It was really beautiful since the trees in the parks next to the tower were all changing colors. After a short photo shoot at the tower, we made our way to the Lourve. Since Kerianne and Kelly had been to Paris before, they decided to pass on the museum but Jessica and I wanted to go in and find the Mona Lisa. She is so small! We were really surprised because all of the Mona Lisa posters around the museum were bigger than the actual painting. But it was still really cool and I wish we could've spent more time walking through the museum; however, we had many places to go and not much time in the city. After stopping at a crepe stand for lunch, we headed down the Champs Élyseés and took pics of the Arch of Triumph. Later that night, to celebrate Jessica's bday, we went to the Moulin Rouge and at a super cute restaurant close by.

Sadly, my flight back to Spain left early Sunday morning and I had to say goodbye to the girls while they didn't leave Paris til later Sunday afternoon. It was a quick trip but definitely worth it and a great place to celebrate a friend's birthday!

Hope things are going well for everyone back in the States! Thinking about everyone as the holidays are quickly approaching. I'm staying busy and trying to figure out if I can somehow find a turkey here (not super common) to cook for a makeshift Thanksgiving. Or there's always the option to celebrate with tapas...we'll see!

Besos,

Megan

The first five weeks

Hey fam and friends! Sorry it's been a while since my last post...five and half weeks into my time in Spain and the whirlwind hasn't stopped.

It's hard to believe I've been here for almost a month and a half but it's true. So far, life as a L/C Assistant is great. I love my job and am so lucky to be able to spend this year in Spain as a teacher. While there are a lot of similarities between the Spanish school system and American school system, there are many differences and I am learning a lot about myself as a teacher.

Since my school is in a small little town about four or five miles outside of Granada, I have to take the bus to get there. It's mainly me and the older men from the pueblo who ride the bus in the mornings when they're coming back to Víznar from doing some shopping in Granada. There is one man, Pepe, that I think just gets on to ride back and forth between Granada and Víznar and shoot the breeze with the driver and his buddies that are getting on and off throughout the day. The first day I rode out there, they all kind of smiled with a look on their faces like "isn't it nice this girl is coming out to visit our little town". Then for the next few weeks every time I got on the bus, I got looks that said "ok, what are you doing back on the bus?" There really isn't much to do in my town...there is one restaurant and I've yet to see it open...and that's about it. Finally, last week one of the older men got curious enough to ask me what the heck I was still doing going out to Víznar four days a week. So I told them about my job and everything I'm doing at the school. They asked me what my name is and I told them Megan, to which they said was too hard to pronounce, so the driver, two men named Pepe and a few others on the bus said they were just going to call me María from now on. Whenever I get to my stop, the driver now shouts, "OK, María, here you are! See you tomorrow!".

At our orientation in Sevilla we were told to only speak in English with our students, to not even let them know that we can speak Spanish; however, I found out very quickly that wasn't going to work. I did try the whole only talking in English gig for my first few classes but after many blank stares, puzzled looks, and several comments like "es que no sé qué dices" (I don't know what you're saying) I realized that we were going to have to take the whole English only thing slowly. Part of my job this year is going to be getting the students to the point where they will be able to understand more spoken English than they can at this point, but until then, I'm going to have to use as much English as possible and supplement/explain a lot in Spanish when needed.

My favorite part of my job is working with my students. While being at the Elementary level this year is way different than working with high schoolers, I'm loving it just the same. My students call me Maestra, Teacher, Megan or "seño" which is short for señorita. Since my school is so small, I have the chance to work with almost every class and I've been able to get to know the kids really well. For the most part I'm working in the English language classes but I have one class with my third graders where I teach Science in English. Now Science isn't really my best subject so when they first told me that's what I was going to be doing, I was a little nervous. But thank God third grade science is something I can handle. Right now they are learning body parts, so we've been singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" and playing Simon Says (Simon says touch you nose...). The hardest part about this science class is that the kids are just learning how to write in their own language let alone in English, which makes labeling pictures of the face and body tough.

This building is the whole school...

One of the perks to my job is the schedule. I work four days a week for twelve hours a week. Needless to say, I have a lot of free time. Most days I go home from work, have lunch, maybe take a short siesta, and head into the center of town. I look at the shops, get a café con leche and read the paper, sometimes go visit Conchi and Rocio. I'm hoping to find an intercambio (language exchange partner) soon so that I can start practicing my Spanish more and meet more Spaniards. There are a few L/C Assistants here in Granada that I hang out with but it's hard to go back to speaking Spanish when you've been speaking in English at work and with friends. One of the teachers at my school has a couple of daughters who are studying English in Ireland are getting back to Granada in November so I think we're going to meet up once they get here.

Homemade Sangria in Málaga 

Me, Kerianne, and Jessica in Málaga

I've also been able to get down to Málaga (a city off the Mediterranean about an hour and a half from Granada) to visit some friends I have down there and they've been able to come up here for a weekend. It's been a lot of fun! We've started planning some trips outside of Spain and we're off to Paris the first weekend of November to celebrate our friend Jessica's birthday.

Hope you are all doing well back home!

Besos,
Megan

España...Round Three!

Hello Family and Friends!

Well, where to begin? As many of you already know, I'm here in Granada, Spain for the year as a Language and Culture Assistant in a local Elementary school. These past two weeks have been a whirlwind, so I will do my best to try to remember everything that has gone on. I would have started writing this blog sooner, but since I am a rookie blogger, it's taken me a while to figure out how to get it up and running! :) Right now I'm sitting at one of my favorite cafés in Granada (Café Pícaro, close to the Centro de Lenguas Modernas where I studied two years ago) sipping on a café con leche and figured it would be a good place to update you all.

The flight to Spain was long but went very smoothly...no lost bags, which is huge when pretty much everything you're going to need for the next year is in two suitcases, a carry-on and purse! I first flew into Amsterdam from Seattle, then to Madrid, and finally landed in Granada about 22 hours after leaving home. I had decided to get to Granada the weekend before my teaching program's orientation in Sevilla so that I could get used to the time and start practicing my Spanish after a five month hiatus. 

Luckily, my host family that I lived with two years ago offered to let me stay with them for the weekend. It was so much fun to see them. When I got to their piso (apartment) Conchi my host mom was the only one there but it was like I had never left. We sat down at the kitchen table and caught up on everything that's been going on and then my host sister Rocio came back and we chatted for a while. It was so great. Later that night Rocio told me that she was going out for tapas (great in Granada -- tapas are little snacks/appetizers that come free when you order a drink) and invited me along. At about 2 am (an early night in Spain) I called it quits and headed back to Conchi's house since I hadn't slept at all on the plane, while Rocio and her friends went on to the next bar. 


The next night I joined up with them again. It happened to be one of Rocio's friends birthday and he took us to one of his favorite restaurants to celebrate. He grew up in the Albaycin neighborhood of Granada (it is the oldest neighborhood in the city and is on the other side of the valley from the Alhambra) and knew of a quiet little place with an amazing view of the Alhambra. We got there right as the sun was setting and were in awe of this amazing fortress on the hill across from where were sitting. 



Then the weekend was over and it was time to head to Sevilla for five days to meet a some of the other CIEE Teach in Spain participants. The first night at the hotel, CIEE had a welcome cocktail party for us with lots of tapas and good wine...my kind of night! The next day we started our orientation and took classes throughout the week about how to look for an apartment once we got to our cities, buy a cell phone,  what our role as Language and Culture Assistants would be, how to apply for our temporary residency cards, etc. They were long days but were filled with a lot of really helpful info. Then we spent our nights out in Sevilla and getting to know everyone in a group. I met some really great people, had a lot of fun, and am excited to start visiting everyone in their different cities!


Friday morning all of us Language and Culture Assistants left for our different cities throughout the southern region of Spain. There were three of us headed towards Granada on the train. My friend Kelly was supposed to get off two stops before we reached Granada but we had a little change of plans. Keep in mind that all of us CIEE people on the train were lugging around at least two 40-50 lb suitcases plus carry-ons and purses, so it took us a while to gather all of our stuff. As the train pulled up to Kelly's town we all got up to help her unload her things when the train started moving after only a brief pause at the station. So, we moved onto plan B and Kelly stayed in Granada for a night before going back to her town the next morning.  


CIEE was supposed to put us up in a hotel for five days while we looked for apartments in our placement cities. It turned out that my roommate for the five days in Granada already had an apartment, so that meant there was an extra bed for Kelly to spend the night. I was really glad to have her there because it turned out the hotel that CIEE had us in was, let's just say, not the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in. It was a small place that had an elevator that stopped in between the floors. So we had to lug our bags up half a flight of stairs and then back down another again once we got to our floor. It was 90 some odd degrees outside (and inside the room) in Granada that week as well and the fan in the room barely worked. But Kelly and I laughed it off and went out for a walk around Granada and spent the night getting tapas and hanging out at the Mirador that looks across to the Alhambra. However, later that night I stopped finding things in the hotel funny when I found a bug in my bed and more in the bathroom the next morning. Yuck!


Once again, I am lucky to have my host family here in Granada and Conchi told me I could stay with them while I looked for an apartment. So after Kelly left for her town I moved back into Conchi's temporarily. Rocio helped me find some good websites to look for apartments and told me what neighborhoods were good places to live and which ones I should avoid. I spent all of Sunday calling people who were renting rooms and found out that most were "ocupados" - already rented. But after a few days of calling and going to see some pisos I finally found one that I really liked. I'm living in a neighborhood that is on the other side of the city from Conchi's house, but she told me it is a great place for tapas and is really close to the University of Granada's campus. My neighborhood is called "los pajaritos", literally the little birds neighborhood, because all of the streets are named after a different kind of bird. My piso is on Turtledove Street. It is a little further out from the city center than I wanted to be but the girls I am living with are really nice, and the apartment is in really good shape, so I took it. 


I started work at my school last Friday and love it! I am assisting in an Elementary school in a little pueblo just outside of the city of Granada. There are about 700 people who live in the town and only 70 students in the whole school. My biggest class has 11 students in it. It's muy chiquitillo, as they say here in Granada! I'm going to be in charge of the Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and other major holiday units as well as helping students with their pronunciation. Since the students learn "British" English, they think my American accent is pretty funny. All of the kids have been really fun and curious and are excited to be learning a new language. My first three days I have been working with the older students (7-12 year olds) and tomorrow I am going to be with the really little ones (3-6 years).

I think that about covers all of what has been going on here in Spain. I'm going to do my best to keep this blog up-to-date so that you don't have a mini novel like this one to read through each time you get on here! 


Hope you are all doing well back at home!

Hasta luego,


Megan