Waffles and chocolate....

Finally I am back to make another post! Nothing too exciting has been happening since my last post. Just continuing to enjoy my time here in Madrid. It's been a great couple of months! I am really, really loving it. School is going well. Getting to know the kids better and better every day and feeling that I am really a part of the school and teaching. A few weeks ago I got to go to the planetarium with the 3rd graders which was fun. I'm also getting to know all the teachers at the school. I mostly hang out with the other girls doing my program, as well as two Spanish girls who are my age and are working as full-time teachers at the school. They really help make the day go by quicker!

Thursday was of course Thanksgiving, so my roommates and I decided to cook a big dinner for a few friends that we invited over. We cooked stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, roasted chicken (instead of turkey since it's expensive and hard to find here), and pecan and pumpkin pie. It was interesting cooking because we had to improvise for some ingredients such corn syrup for the pecan pie which is impossible to find, as well as canned pumpkin for the other pie. Despite the obstacles, it turned out great!

I also went on my first trip outside of Spain last weekend with Leona, one of the British girls I work with. We found a super cheap flight to Brussels (46 euro...I don't know how airlines do it here) so we went for the weekend. We visited Bruges as well, which was only an hour away by train. I definitely enjoyed Bruges more because it was very picturesque with canals and cute little shops everywhere.

Entering Bruges

Leona and me in front of a canal

Belgian waffle!!

A convent

Although Brussels wasn't as quaint, there was still a lot to do although we were sad we missed their Christmas markets by 2 weeks! Here are some pictures of Brussels:

European Parliament

Royal Palace

A pretty park

The famous Manneken Pis

Market Square

The Atomium, a structure built for the 1958 World Fair which was held in Brussels. It's now a museum.

Inside the Atomium

So all in all, it was a great vacation and I am getting excited for my next vacation to Sevilla this Friday! We have 2 days off the following week, so we decided to go back to the place where it all began! I am so excited because it'll be our first time back since study abroad. Will update when I get back! Hope everyone is doing well!

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!

Lots of updates...

I haven't updated in awhile because the past week or so has been such a roller coaster. Basically all we did was search around the city for apartments which we discovered was much harder than we thought. First, it was hard to find many 3 bedroom apartments in neighborhoods we wanted to live in. Then, once we found something many landlords were unwilling to sign a 10 month lease instead of a year. Our work contracts only last until the end of June so we couldn't afford a whole year.

About a week ago we found a place we absolutely loved. It's in the city center, right next to the Plaza Mayor which is a big tourist site in Madrid. It's also close to a lot of nightlife which is good because we won't have to take as many taxis. It's also only a couple of minutes from a grocery store and the metro which is awesome. However, the landlord took awhile deciding if he wanted to lease it to us, but in the end he did and we're so excited to be here! I've been living out of suitcases in hostels for the past 12 days, so it's nice to have my own bed and to unpack everything.

Here are some pictures of the apartment before we moved in.

My 1/2 bath

Bathroom we all share

Corridor

My bedroom

Living room

Kitchen

Now we just have to get everything set up like internet, gas, electricity, etc. This has definitely been one of the harder things that we've had to do since we've been here, but it's been a learning experience and once we have everything figured out, we can relax.

Other than that, Jessica, Allison, Bethany and I have been having a lot of fun going out and getting to know Madrid. But we're all getting anxious to start working so we can start on some type of daily schedule.

Will have more soon!

La vida madrileña

I can't believe we've been here for 4 days now! Jessica and I have been keeping very busy waiting for Allison and Bethany to arrive. Yesterday we walked around some neighborhoods we're interested in living in and searched for "for rent" signs on apartment buildings to see if any fit our criteria. It can be difficult to find a 3 bedroom place here, so we didn't have too much luck and the one we saw wasn't a good fit. However, we met some really nice and helpful people in the process. I've definitely noticed that people in Madrid seem to be more friendly than in Sevilla. Not that they weren't nice in Sevilla, it's just that people here seem more open to foreigners and want to help us. Tomorrow we have 4 more places to see so I'm very excited about that. Spaniards don't really like to show their places on the weekend so we're having to wait till tomorrow to see the majority.

Last night Jessica and I enjoyed a night out in an area called La Latina which has a lot of bars and restaurants to just go sit and have a drink outside (I love that part of European culture). We finally got to sleep in today which was good because we had a very busy day visiting the schools we're going to be working in. Jessica's school is in a suburb south of the city and mine is far north. We took the commuter trains to our respective towns (each about 30 minutes from the Madrid center) and walked to our schools. My town is called Tres Cantos and is the newest municipality in Spain (according to wikipedia), incorporated in 1991, so it's very industrial and modern which is pretty uncommon here. It looks really nice though and my school looks huge! Hopefully I'll like it. I emailed the school and they told me I should be working with 6 to 8 year olds so that should be very interesting.

Tonight Jessica and I are going to go get some dinner with Elena and then we have a very busy day tomorrow between seeing apartments and picking up Bethany from the airport.

Hasta luego!

In the capital city

Welcome to my blog! This is my first time making one so hopefully I’ll be good at updating it on a regular basis, although no guarantees! I decided to create it so that I can stay in touch with friends and family back in the States while I am living and traveling around Europe for the next 9 months!

Although most people already know, I am going to be living and working in Madrid, Spain during the upcoming school year (school starts a little later here). My three friends and I were accepted into a program to become teaching assistants at elementary schools in the Madrid area. It’s sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Education, so we receive a monthly stipend and a work visa (something hard to come by as an American).

My friend Jessica and I arrived in Madrid yesterday. I had a nice flight from Philadelphia and my Spanish friend from UNC, Elena, and her mom picked me up from the airport which was so sweet of them and such a life saver. They took me to my hostel which is located right in the Times Square of Madrid, the Puerta del Sol. Unfortunately there is construction everywhere which Elena’s mom explained was due to la crisis as they call it here, and Spain’s high unemployment. Basically they’re starting tons of projects to create more jobs. Since all the construction made it impossible to drive up to my hostel, Elena and her mom helped me drag my HUGE suitcases from a parking deck and since I couldn’t check in immediately, we went to grab a breakfast of sorts called churros con chocolate which are like fried doughnuts dipped in chocolate. It was great seeing Elena again and getting to meet her mom who was so sweet and made me feel right at home in Madrid.

After a three hour nap, Jessica arrived. She had a long trip over but didn’t seem too tired so we went to go buy our cell phones which is a must when apartment hunting. We quickly found out we needed a passport to buy the phone (I don’t know why because we bought a prepaid phone) so we went back to the hostel to get ours and by the time we got back to the store it was closed so we went out for a tapas dinner instead.

Today basically consisted of calling and seeing apartments. This has been by far the most humbling experience. If I were at home it would be so easy to pick up the phone and call people to go check out their apartments, however it’s been super stressful here because I always find it harder to understand people over the phone in Spanish, especially since my ear isn’t quite used to it yet. However, we made it work and went to see three apartments today. We found two we liked but we have more appointments to go see others so I’ll post all that later.

Sorry for such a long post, but I’ll continue to update as I get settled in. Also, please keep in touch whether it’s via facebook or email tory.felle@gmail.com I love getting emails when I’m abroad so please send them my way! Also, if anyone is going to be in Europe in the next couple of months, please stop by and come visit. We’ll always have an open couch for anyone.