Holiday weekend

Hola! This weekend was what they call a "puente" here in Spain, which literally translates into "bridge" but basically means a three day weekend. We had Monday off, so I am only going to have a 2.5 day work week! Hooray!

Saturday, Jessica and I did a big shop at Ikea and it was fabulous. We bought a ton of stuff for the apartment. Most of it was practical stuff like more silverware and bowels, but we also bought some picture frames, vases, candles, and flowers to make the place feel a little more homey. It's awesome that it came fully furnished and they provided us with towels and sheets, but it still sometimes feels like it isn't fully ours since it's not all our stuff, so it is nice to finally hang up some pictures.

On Monday Jessica, Allison, and I took a day trip to a city called Aranjuez which is about an hour south of Madrid. Above is a picture of the royal palace which is the main tourist attraction, as well as beautiful gardens. The palace was really beautiful (they wouldn't let us take pictures inside!) and the best part was that we got to see the queen of Spain's wedding dress as well as her two daughter's and the current princess'.

The city itself is also really cute and is known for it's strawberries. They're so distinct they even have a different name in Spanish. "Fresas" are regular strawberries, and those from Aranjuez are called "fresones." We had to stop and get some "fresones y nata" or "strawberries and whipped cream" which they sell all over the city. The other food they're known for are frog legs...we decided to skip out on that one...

Below are some more pictures of the gardens and palace.

The old well in Spain!

The only picture I got in the palace.

Lots of fountains

Field trip time

I thought I'd go ahead and post a picture of my school. The school is basically composed of different buildings based on grade. This picture is of the main building which houses the library, the office, staff lounge, and cafeteria. As you can see, it's a relatively new school, maybe 20-25 years old.

On Tuesday, I went with the first graders on a field trip or an "excursion" as they're called here. We went to the Guadarrama Mountains which are north of Madrid, about 30 minutes away from my school. First, we took a charter bus to a nature museum where the kids watched a movie and went on a tour of the gardens and learned about the different plants and animals that live in the

mountains. Then we drove a little further to La Pedriza which is a mountain range that is known for its distinct, rocky surface as you can see in the picture. Hiking is really popular there, so we took the kids on a hike and ate lunch in the woods. It was surprisingly a pretty long hike, especially for 1st graders! Since the ground was really slippery and full of rocks, the kids were falling all over the place at the beginning, but luckily after awhile they got the hang of it! It was tough keeping them all together because they all wanted to walk over every rock and stop and play, but overall I had a really good time! I told the kids that when I am in the mountains I speak Spanish (so they wouldn't think it was going to be a common occurrence) so I felt like I really got a chance to get to know them. They're all so funny and sweet and I finally feel like I know all their names now! It's hard learning 42 different names, much less Spanish names, and there are tons of repeats!

As Javi said, I have a little fan club of a couple of girls who loved walking with me and holding my hand. During the hike, I'd always have 2 girls per hand which made it a little difficult to walk around! It's much more common here for students to hug their teachers and hold their hands, so now whenever they see me on the patio (the playground area where they line up for class) they love to come up to me and give me tons of hugs.

The 3rd graders are obviously a lot more grown up and their level of English is really high. They understand almost everything we say, but they still have a tendency to speak to us in Spanish. The teacher, Eva, doesn't seem to mind so maybe it's part of the learning process. Despite this, they still have a much higher level of fluency than most American kids.

This week I only have a three day week because tomorrow is a holiday here in Spain. It's basically like their Columbus day as well as a Saint's day. My roommates and I are planning on taking a day trip to a castle south of Madrid. Can't wait!

School...Spanish style

Hello! It's been ages since I've written anything, but I haven't had internet in my house for awhile but we finally got it installed this week and I finally have a free minute to write. Before I go on, I noticed that the pictures of my apartment weren't showing up on the last post. I just fixed it and they should be visible now.

The past two weeks have been busy to say the least. Last Monday we had orientation with all the other people who are doing this program. The orienation was a day and a half and was surprisngly very well organized. We had various workshops where we learned about different things such as the requirements of our position, how to get our residency card, what kind of insurance we have, what we should expect at the schools etc. It was actually very helpful and it was nice to get to meet some other people in the program.

On Thursday of last week I started my job. Like I said in a previous post, I am working in a small town outside of Madrid called Tres Cantos. I took the train to the school and was met by the principal and another girl, Amelia, who is doing this program as well, but through the British government. She's from London and is in her 3rd year of college there. I'm glad I am not the only assistant at the school because it's nice to have another English speaker around and we really get along well so it's nice having a friend to share the experience with.

We were given our schedules and I'll be working primarily with 1st graders and Amelia will be with 2nd graders. Occasionally we both have a couple of 3rd grade classes as well. The Spanish school schedule is also very different and a bit of a pain. The kids go to class between 9:30 and 1:00 and then they have a 2 hour break and come back at 3:00 until 4:30. Unfortunately, I have classes after the break which means I have to stay around the school for 2 hours which are unpaid hours. One of the hours we spend eating lunch and lunches here are serious business. The teachers don't eat with students, they eat in the staff lounge and there is tons and tons of food provided. The cafeterias here make home cooked food with multiple courses. And the best part is that the principal told us we could have free lunch if we agreed to teach English to the teachers for one hour a week. It's perfect because I have an additional free hour each day where I am doing nothing, so I can just fill it with that.

The best part about my schedule is that I work all day Monday through Wednesday and then Thursday I get off at 1:00 and I have all of Friday off!

I'm really enjoying teaching the 1st graders. Madrid has started an immersion program in their public schools so starting in 1st grade, the kids take all their classes except Math and Spanish in English. My school is pretty small and there are only 2 classes per grade so they switch out between the different English-only and Spanish-only classes. The teacher I work with is named Javi. He's super nice and young so he really lets me do a lot with the class and teach lessons. We'd been warned some teachers don't let you have much of a teaching role in class, rather they just let you read stories, etc., but Javi's been really great and I am thankful because I'd be really bored if not!

It's been interesting though because I have zero teaching experience so I am kind of making it up as I go, and I only try to speak in English which is hard because the kids know almost none. So there is a lot of pointing and repeating. Of course I could speak to them only in Spanish, but that would ruin the point of immersion. They always talk to me in Spanish of course and I just reply in English.

Overall, I've found the teaching style to be very different here than in the States. It's a lot of straight out of the book teaching and classrooms can be sterile with very little color and posters on the wall. Also, kids here are given a lot more freedom to run around and be louder than they are in the States. In general, discipline here is a little less strict, but the kids are really well behaved overall just a bit nosier than American kids.

This is a really long post, so I am going to write more later about my classes, the kids, and the field trip we took this week!

Hasta luego!