Quilmes

I got a position working with a language school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I am transported to Atlantic Copper where I teach English to a small group of four adults. Their English level is considered to be intermediate. I started yesterday and only two of the four showed up. Besides that, it was a nice meeting. It was basically a get to know you day and so we talked about where I had gone to school and discussed what a Bachelor´s degree is. Later I'll receive a teacher´s manual and we´ll use text books. I´m very glad I decided to take on the extra job. Working with adults in the evenings is a pleasant change from the crazy little kids in the mornings. I also have a private lesson on Fridays with a 10 year old girl and another lesson on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a 10 year old and 12 year old girl. I haven´t started these yet but I´m hoping it goes as well as it went with the adults. I don´t teach 10 or 12 year olds at my school, so at first I expect to be a little lost on what to teach. I'm not sure how this is going to work since I have no internet and no printer...because my first instinct is to go online and print off worksheets. I'm sure I'll think of something. While on a break at school yesterday I stared at my calendar and dreamt of all the european places I want to travel to. Consequently, later that night, I made a flyer advertising for more private lessons. Hopefully soon I´ll be able to fill up my Monday and Wednesday nights with many more private lessons.

If you know me at all, you know that I don´t like or eat much seafood. The only seafood I really eat is salmon. Since living here I´ve eaten mussels and squid and I´m surprised to report that I really enjoyed one of these things. The squid was not good. My roommate was told by her bilingual coordinator that she really needed to try them. So while at the beach this past weekend, we stopped in at a cafe and decided to follow the advice of her coordinator. We assumed that a cafe by the ocean was the perfect place to try some seafood and we ordered a half portion of fried squid. The fried part was ok, but the squid part wasnt. I found the flavor to be a little strange and the texture was hard and chewy. I even tried dipping it in ketchup. I think that´s the last time I´ll ever eat squid. Two weekends ago we had mussels and they, on the other hand, were delicious. It probably helps that when we had those we were eating at the #1 restaurant in Huelva and that I had had a few glasses of wine beforehand. The mussels were smothered in some sort of cheese sauce and spices. Amazing.
Seafood - 1 Jen - 1

This past weekend we went to Seville for the Festival of Nations. We took the hour long bus down Saturday afternoon, met up with some local friends of my roommates and spent the rest of the day at the festival. The festival was lots of fun. There were numerous stands each representing a different country and selling jewelry, clothing, canned food, collectibles, etc. I ended up finding two Argentina stands where I bought dulce de leche (kind of a caramel type sauce you dip things into - Amazing!) and a Quilmes (the main beer of Argentina). I was so happy to have found these things! They brought back great memories of my study abroad there :)
And then there were the food stands. Ahhh the food stands. They had any type of food you could think of...food from France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Argentina, Greece, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Brazil, Poland, England, and more. When we first arrived we got some food from the Greek stand. We got humus, tzatziki, and a gyro. It was all pretty good. Not the best I had ever eaten but it was good. Later we got a huge chocolate and nut crepe. And even later we got tacos and stromboli. We spent a lot of hours there and were there long enough for two meals. Great for my taste buds but not great for our wallets. Overpriced festival food. There was a bar there and we were with Spaniards so naturally nobody was in any hurry and we sat around the majority of the evening, chatting and watching flamenco on the main stage...in between eating sessions, that is.

The Fight

Sunday afternoon we went to what we thought was a mock bull fight. We were wrong. Super wrong.

The fight was supposed to start at 6 o'clock and, in true Spanish fashion, it didn't begin until 15 after. First, they introduced the matadors and some horses and some people and then.... some more people. Then the bull came out. The audience roared. This was followed by what you would likely picture being at a bull fight - some guys with pink and red capes tricking the bull into running at them. Good clean fun. Then, two horses with some strange armor, ridden by two knights, came out. The bull ran right into one of the horses, lifting it off its feet. The horse was blindfolded. Things were getting interesting. Still no big deal - the horses weren't,, or at least didn't appear to be, injured because of their big protective outfits. Then two other guys came out without capes. They had sticks instead. The sticks were decorated in a way that kind of resembled a pinata? I thought it was strange these men were taunting the men with sticks instead of capes. All of a sudden, and definitely not expecting it, one of the guys took the two sticks he was holding and jammed them right into the back of the bull and then ran away. What! Everyone in the crowd cheered and my roommates and I threw our hands up over our mouths and gasped. Then I saw lots of blood and gasped even more. I thought we had come to a mock fight! I thought these fights were recently outlawed! Even after that happened, I thought that maybe that was all they were going to do - that maybe they would just take the bull backstage and stitch him up to let him heal for the next mock show. Wrong. The show continued and the bull was conned into running into more sharp objects until he was dead. There were three matadors at the fight. And they each competed against two bulls. So we watched this process six times. Deep down I wanted to leave but I was so intrigued by the culture. Audience members were dressed up in outfits resembling those from bull fights way back in the day. Every time the bull received another stab they cheered like crazy - standing up, shouting, and waving Kleenexes in the air. People packed coolers and were drinking inside of the arena. Many different cameramen were right behind the walls of the ring, taping the entire thing. The matadors slowly strolled around the ring after they had killed their bull. They walked around accepting standing ovations, flowers and other gifts. The ladies threw their fans out the matador so that he could touch it and then throw it back to them. Men threw their hats at the matador so that he could touch it and throw it back.

Later, I heard that this bull fight was very tame compared to other fights. The matadors weren't the best and neither were the bulls. I don't think I ever want to see the best. I'm glad we've experienced this part of the culture and that it's over.

Speaking of culture. Everybody smokes. EVERYBODY. Teens when they leave school, the people sitting next to us at the cafe, the OTHER people sitting next to us at the cafe, the guy sitting at his desk at the realty office, the teachers that work at my school, the people at the bull fight, the people at the bus stop, everyone. It's hard to enjoy lunch, watch a bull fight, or read a book when the person next to you is constantly blowing smoke in your face. And people here don't just smoke some, they smoke a lot. If you're sitting next to a smoker during lunch, they won't have one or two cigarettes, they'll have the whole pack and then open another.
Nobody in Spain will get out of your way. People will walk right through you. Walking to work in the morning is amazing. The street is wide open and there is nobody to run into. Walking around in the evenings when everyone is out is really difficult. People don't walk on the right side of the road...they walk on whichever side of the road they feel like walking on. And they never ever say excuse me or sorry.
Everybody here has cute babies! There are so many cute babies in Spain it is unreal. Sorry America, but they really do. Maybe it is because so many people are always walking around the city and so I see more here than I normally would back in the US. There are always a lot of people out during the day. Cute little families take their kids out on roller blades and scooters, couples go for walks, friends go shopping. Speaking of couples - the older men always walk with their hands clasped behind their backs. Is this something cultural that I don't know about?
People here never dress down. Everyone in Spain is always dressed to impress. The guy cleaning the windows outside the restaurant has on slacks and a nicely pressed shirt. You won't see anyone wearing gym shorts unless they're out for a run. And no t-shirts.
Speaking of the guy cleaning the windows. This city is very clean. They wash the streets here every night. I also see them wash the main shopping street during the day - so I'm pretty sure that one gets cleaned twice. There isn't much trash lying around and the public trashcans are never overflowing - or even close to full. I often see people mopping and sweeping up trash. It's also a very safe city. I've never once felt scared and don't feel like my safety is ever threatened when I walk alone (don't worry mom and dad - I'm talking about during the day!)
If you have to use a restroom here that's not the one in your house, it probably doesn't have toilet paper. The teacher restroom at my school doesn't even have a functioning toilet paper holder. Public bathrooms almost always don't have toilet paper. If you're going out for the night, you should pack some.

That's all for now.

Teacher, Teacher!

I survived my first 'week' of school. I had a tour of the school on Wednesday and after that was finished I was sent off to sit in on a few classes. My first class was with 4 year olds and the one after that was with 5 and 6 year olds. I pretty much sat in a chair the whole time in the front of the room while the teachers conducted their classes. The next day I had 3 classes. This time I participated a little more. For the 4 year olds, I had to say parts of the body and they had to repeat them. Then we listened to and acted out a song similar to head, shoulders, knees and toes. During my class with the 5 and 6 year olds we attempted to teach them how to say "Hello" and ask someone's name. My final class was art class and I basically watched students cut pictures and was instructed to ask them to "please put their scissors and glue back in the box". Then I put a B on their pictures...for "Bueno". All of the students seem scared of me and never want to answer questions when I ask them. Also..they all call me teacher. Whenever they want something they yell "teeee-chair".

The whole situation is kind of frustrating in a way. I don't feel useful. Sure, I can say "fingers", "nose", "tummy", and "toes" a lot better than their teacher. And yes I knew how to tell the kids to put away their glue and scissors in English. But every time I speak, all of the little faces staring up at me clearly read "what the hell are you talking about?". And an art class? I know for a fact that there are other English classes going on during my "break". Why can't I be an assistant for those?

Last night we planned to go out to a bar. We had heard about a get together for all of the international students and language assistants living in Huelva. We thought we would hang out and drink at the apartment for a little bit and then head over to the bar. We left for the bar around midnight and didn't arrive to it until 1:30 in the morning. We walked around in circles and circles ALL over Huelva trying to find the bar. We know the city center very well but once we get outside of it we aren't very familiar with anything. The bars here stay open until 4 or 5am. We ended up leaving sometime around 3. Overall our night wasn't very successful but we did end up finding the hot spot in Huelva for night life.

The washer is all fixed up now and we bought some detergent. We started doing laundry yesterday. The clothesline that hangs into the courtyard of our apartment building is, and has been, broken since we moved in. We didn't really see this as a big problem. We just bought one of those portable drying racks and set it out on our little balcony. Our balcony hangs out to the front of the building. Yesterday we learned that our neighbors have been talking and apparently don't like that we dry our clothes on our balcony because it is feo. That's Spanish for ugly. So far, two of the neighbors have voiced their opinion. One lady told our maintenance man and the other lady told our roommate.

The maintenance man is coming next week to install a clothesline for us in the courtyard. To make our neighbors happy. Sorry you have to look at our ugly american clothes until Tuesday :)

Hola! My name is Jen [Hen]

Today I went to visit the school that I will be teaching at for the first time. Like all of the days I've had so far here in Spain, it was an adventure. The bus left at 11am. We planned to leave the house at 10:30am. It's about a 20-25 minute walk to the bus station. No problem. Wrong. Problem. The maintenance guy came to fix the washer at, yes, right at 10:30am. We let him in and he said that he needed to go to the store to buy another part for the washer. He said he would return at 4. Lies. He never returned at 4. But this is not part of the story. After he left, we left for the bus station around 10:40. The second we arrived to the bus station, our bus to Cartaya pulled away. When we thought all hope was lost and that we would have to wait another hour for the next bus, we saw another bus that said it was headed to Cartaya. Perfect! Not really. We walked up to the driver and asked him if he would be going to Cartaya. He rattled off something about beaches and Cartaya and said that we had already missed the bus. Naturally, we looked confused and I think he sensed that we had no idea what we were doing. He proceeded to tell us to get on the bus. Ok, sure, why not.
A short long 50 minutes and scenic bus ride by the many beaches (so thaaaat's what he meant) of Huelva province later, we arrived in Cartaya. (Cartaya is supposed to be only twenty minutes away.) The only reason we knew we had arrived was because the bus driver turned around and yelled directly at us two. "WE'RE IN THE CITY OF CARTAYA NOW - GET OFF!!"...ok ok!
My roommate and I proceeded to look for our schools one at a time, thinking it might be bad to abandon one another in this small foreign rural town we had never been to. The navigation on our phones said my roommate's school was a 12 minute walk. That's not bad. It wasn't bad... until we got lost. We asked for some directions and found the school 35 minutes after we had started looking for it. We really weren't off to a good start.
When we arrived at the school, we were a sweaty mess and a bit frustrated. We walked into the front door of the administration office and a man approached us. He started to ask us who we were and when he saw the frustration on our faces he said, in spanish, "ahhh ok! one second". He knew exactly who we were.
The bilingual coordinator at my roommate's school was SUPER nice...and so was everyone else there. She had studied abroad at Michigan State University and knew pretty good English. She was SO nice, actually, that after their meeting she drove us over to find my school. It's a good thing we didn't walk because it was pretty far. How I will get there everyday is still a mystery to me. She came in and helped my find my bilingual coordinator. Everybody was super nice and helpful. I found out that I will be teaching little kids ages 3 to 8, Monday through Thursday. I work Mondays and Thursdays from 9 to 2 and Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 9 to 11:45. Not bad at all. I'm so excited to meet my little kids and I hope they're excited to meet me! I have little 3 and 4 year olds in the morning and then in the afternoons I have 5,6,7 and 8 year olds for mostly English classes but also one Science and one Art class.
I think I'm going to try to find a teacher to carpool with so that I don't have to worry about making and finding the bus everyday. The bus stop in Cartaya is a pretty far walk from my school and the whole bus thing would add an hour to my commute. We're headed to the phone store to try to see about getting internet set up in our house. We fixed our microwave/fuse situation and the maintenance man is supposed to return later tonight to fix the washer so without any more appliance mishaps it might start getting pretty boring around the piso (apartment) in the evenings. Hopefully we can get internet and cable figured out tonight.
I know I've really been slacking on the picture taking lately. I plan to take and add some pictures soon. Hasta luego.

Oops

Sorry senora, I was late to school today because I was up late dealing with a washing machine problem.
Washing machine attempt #2:

Lazy weekend

My first weekend in Spain wasn't anything too crazy. Being on a strange sleep schedule has left me constantly tired. As a result we had a somewhat boring weekend but it was kind of nice to just do some casual exploring.
One of my roommates headed to Seville this weekend to run a 10k so there were only two of us here. Friday we went to Corte Ingles. I wish I knew what to compare this place to back in the states. It's like a huge department store but with more. It's 4 stories tall and has it's own separate grocery store. And a parking garage. The bottom floor has a book store and the second floor has an array of home goods such as sheets, lamps, etc. The third floor is the grocery store part of it and the fourth floor is pretty much a department store with clothes, makeup and even a restaurant. Basically anything that you could ever need is in this big building. Actually I take that back. We couldn't find any fans there. From what we can tell, Spaniards aren't big on fans. Anyways, we went to this massive store on Friday to buy some groceries and other odds and ends. It's right in our backyard pretty much. I'll post a picture of it sometime. So it's very convenient but it's also kind of expensive. Since Friday we've discovered a couple other grocery stores but they're all on the other side of town. Not too sure yet if the convenience is worth the price or not. After Corte Ingles we headed to the cafe across from the hotel we stayed at earlier this week to steal some internet on our computers. After that we headed to bed. Not a very exciting night.
Saturday morning we rushed over to the Orange cell phone store to get service restored to our phones because the night before, while sitting at the cafe, they decided to stop working. It was a really strange feeling not having any phone service or internet on either of our phones. Especially being in a foreign country. A few euros later and all was fixed. We spent many hours that day searching for a Chino so that we could buy a fan and hangers and some other things we needed. A Chino is what they call the stores here that are owned by, yes you guessed it, Asians. They are extremely inexpensive and have a lot of stuff you never even knew you needed. At Corte Ingles hangers were 4 euros for 5. At the Chino they were .75 for 5. What a deal! We stocked up on hangers, bought two fans, some picture frames and some candles...all for SUPER cheap. This is easily my new favorite store here and the people that work there are incredibly nice.
Saturday night we decided to go to the movies. We left the apartment a little before 8pm. The movie we went to see was called "The Skin I Live In" staring Antonio Banderas. We figured it was an American film because of Antonio Banderas. Please don't ask me our logic. We were obviously wrong. We googled the location of the movie theater and started walking. About 20 minutes into our walk we realized that google was sending us to burger king. Not seeing any burger king in sight, nor a giant movie theater, we knew we were a little lost. We walked around some more trying to find the theater but had no luck. Well after the movie had started we asked some kids playing basketball for directions. They pointed us in the right direction and we made it to the theater about 15 minutes later. The next showing started at 10:45 so we had an hour and a half to kill. The theater is actually part of a huge shopping center so we walked around that a little bit. We took the escalators to the top of the center and discovered that there were a few restaurants and bars on the roof. The view from the top overlooks the big river here and the port of Huelva. We could see the tops of huge boats, barges and nearby cities. We're going to go back sometime when it's light out so that we can truly experience the view and maybe catch a sunset. We sat and had a few beers up there at a cute little bar until it was time for the movie. The movie. The movie was strange. Very strange. Now I know my Spanish is still rusty, and there were no subtitles...and you might be thinking "well maybe you misunderstood it?" No. It was weird.
Today we went to the beach! We woke up late...again. By the time we were ready to leave for the beach it was around 2. We walked to the bus station and caught the 3 o'clock bus to Punta Umbria. If I had internet access on my computer I would attach a little map. But it's only 20 minutes outside of the city. The beach was really refreshing. There were LOTS of shells. We layed out for a little while and the weather was perfect. Not too hot and the breeze felt amazing. After a few hours of soaking up the sun we ate 'lunch' at a beachside cafe. I had a 'hamburger' and fries. And when I say hamburger I mean two little round pinkish looking patties served plain on a plate with fries. They kind of tasted like a breakfast sausage. Or a braut. (Is that how you spell braut? This lack of internet makes for rough blog posts.) Maybe a mix between the two meats. We tried to take the bus back at 6pm to Huelva but it was too packed so we had to wait for the 7 o'clock bus. Perfect opportunity for a few cervezas.
Overall a relaxing weekend but now we know where the movie theater is, where the Chino is and where the beach is! Success.

Ups and downs

These past few days have been a rollercoaster.
I got a my phone all set up and hooked up to the network here. The internet works on it and I have text messages. I have to pay for phone calls that i make to other spanish numbers but I don't really plan on making any. Texts will do. Two days after doing this, my phone stopped working. My phone claimed I had run out of credit and it needed to be activated and recharged. Phoneless for the night, I went in this morning and got it all fixed again. Hopefully it stays that way.
We're finally all moved into our new apartment. We went out and bought new sheets, hangers, mirrors, cleaning supplies, fans, etc. Today our landlord dropped by to give us all of our plates, glasses, silverware, pots and pans. The microwave and oven are now installed and appear functional. It's starting to look like a real home! The only thing missing is cable and internet. I know it's very american of me but I can't wait until we get it. I only brought one book to read and i'm getting dangerously close to the end of it.

Our excitement over our new appliances faded today when we tried to use the washer and the microwave. The washer quickly overflowed all over the kitchen floor, leaving a huge dirty puddle. We used our brand new bath towels in an attempt to soak up the mess. We called the landlord and I think he says he will contact some sort of maintenance guy? My Spanish is still too rusty for words like maintenance, pipes, leak, etc. Frustrated with the washer flood, we decided to make lunch. Last night we ate out at a chinese restaurant. Strange, I know. You would most likely laugh very hard if you had watched us two american girls and two asian servers trying to speak Spanish together. It was quite the site. My roommate tried to order a coke and got a beer. Anyways, I had sweet and sour chicken left over today and tried to heat it up in the microwave. Apparently using the microwave blows the fuse for the entire apartment. We turned off any and all appliances and lights in the apartment and tried again. Still didn't work. I don't even want to attempt to explain to our landlord our microwave problem. That phone call will have to wait until I am equipped with a dictionary. Besides these two minor setbacks, everything else is good and working and i'm extremely happy about it. Besides, I don't have any dirty clothes yet and the oven and stove will heat up things just fine.
In other news - Jet lag is getting the best of me. I still can't get into a normal routine. Back at home I was so good about going to bed at a decent time and waking up at a decent time. Here i've been going to bed at 3 in the morning and waking up at noon. My body is so confused by it's new surroundings and constantly fights me when I tell it to go to bed.
I'm excited for school to start on Monday. I can't wait to be forced into a routine. I can't wait to cook breakfast with our new pans and dishes. It's been nice eating out all the time but it's getting expensive. It's time for normal eating habits and normal sleep schedules. Good and/or bad, I can't wait to see what Monday brings. Let's hope it's good!
This post is coming from my phone because I don't have access to the internet from my computer today, so i'm not sure what format this post will take. However, the pictures I have attached are of my room, our washer, and our breakfast of churros and chocolate - delicious! Probably one of my favorite Spanish traditions so far :)