Long time, no see

Hi all, I'm very well aware that it's been over a month since I last wrote anything, and I apologize. This has been mainly due to my laziness and my overall attitude towards my blog. What I thought would be something fun to do on the side to document my travels and experiences quickly became a chore. Something I dreaded doing. A trip meant a new blog entry...with pictures. Damn those pictures! Blogger is a great tool but it is the worst way to display pictures. It takes forever for them to upload and then I still have no idea how to embed them in my text. There is probably a quick fix if I were to take a few minutes to explore on Google, but again, laziness.

I'm also aware that hardly but myself and a handful of others will ever see this blog, so I've been more inclined to just pictures up on Facebook. However, that creates a problem because a series of pictures only tells part of the story. I can't always figure in the new inside jokes and cool things that happened outside of the pictures. And this makes me sad.

So, her is my compromise to myself: I will put up all my pictures on Facebook, and the story-telling will stay here on my blog. I will also post a few photos here so as not to go crazy waiting for 15 pictures to upload with the bonus of having a few pretty things to look at. Done.

I've been feeling a little low the last couple weeks. I have  a feeling it's a combo of the weather (temp has taken a nose-dive into the icy abyss) and the impending holidays and all the while knowing I will be away from the normal celebrations. And there is no telling when I'll make it back. It's made me feel very isolated. I feel like stuff is going on without me. Which is so weird because that's EXACTLY how I felt when I got back from Spain a few years ago. This is so bizarre. I think for now I need to stop worrying about everyone else and concentrate on myself. It doesn't matter what they are doing, as long as I feel ok with what I'm doing and where I'm at. I think if I just let that go I'll be a much happier person...and then I can get on with life.

Cari has coined it "city syndrome", when you are surrounded by people and yet feel connected to no one. It's probably made worse by being in a foreign city. I think that's a great way to describe how I'm feeling at the moment. I'm still trying to find a group that I fit in with. It was easy last time because I was in class everyday with American students who were all in the same situation. And Madrid was new and exciting! It was different than now. I spend most of my time with Spaniards who already have established networks of friends...or they have families. Even English-speakers that I meet seem to have their niche already cut out in this city. It's left me in no-man's land. I am a part of all these groups and yet I'm not really a vital part of any. And this is where my loneliness kicks in.

However, I started thinking about all the great people I do have here that I can count on:
1) My roommates: Never have I had such a great living situation. Who knew that living with 2 (completely undate-able) guys would be so easy and drama-free. I recommend it to anyone looking for a roommate...girl/boy mixture is the way to go.

2)Raelynne and Guillaume: they opened their home to me and made my transition in Spain as painless as possible. They also held one heck of a Thanksgiving!

3) Ester and Yolanda: the teachers I work with at school who have made my quality of life rise ten-fold. They, along with the students, are the reason I look forward to weekday mornings. I wish we could hang out more.

There are of course more, but these are the people who are always there. I'm so thankful for them :) I know this list will be longer before long.

Peace
~Caralyn

Día de la Biblioteca

Yesterday was Library Day here in Spain. To "celebrate" the occasion a few of the 6th graders prepared a little speech to encourage all the students of school to take advantage of their library, and any other library for that matter. They were all given a piece of paper with the cover of a popular Spanish children's book on one side and had to write their own story on the other side. The other auxiliars and myself pasted them all onto a wall outside of the library to display their work. It looks really cool! In exchange for their stories they were all given an apple to remember that books are to be enjoyed and savored. It also gave me a great opportunity to take some photos of my awesome students!

Apples!

Eva, Claudia, Paula, Cristina, Me, Andrea, Mateus, Nerea and Daniela

Los jardineros (gardeners): Fernando, Naiker and Pablo

Andrés, Naiker, Paula, Claudia, Nerea, Eva and Cristina

6th graders

The Auxiliares: Kyra, Ayan, Me and Johanna

Got a personalized bookmark!

Now go read a book! 

~Caralyn

Random Mumblings

The temperature has officially dropped here in Madrid and I'm not sure how long my jacket is going to be sufficient outerwear. I'm really really kicking myself for not trying to stuff my winter coat into my big duffle bag. It would've fit if I tried. For some reason I thought I could make it til Christmas with just layers underneath my medium-weighted jacket but that is not going to happen. Add to the fact that I will be in Belgium in less than 2 weeks and the quest for a winter coat becomes even more urgent! Lucky me.

Today a few of us met up in the wee morning hours (11am - and yeah, that's early in Spain on a Sunday) in the La Latina neighborhood to wind our way through El Rastro, a huge flea market held every Sunday in Madrid. It's the best place to buy scarves, leather goods and football gear....and just about anything else, but now you know my priorities. I've been before but this was the first time in 2012. It hasn't changed a bit: clogged streets of people running into one another without a care and vendors obnoxiously yelling their prices into the crowd. The crowd was a little much but the atmosphere was excellent. Alyson turned to me at one point and said, "Ya know, this is one of those moments where I feel really good about being here." I agree. Being surrounded by a montón of people and speaking Spanish with vendors makes me feel grounded in some way, more connected to where I'm living. It was also a good excuse to get out of the apartment, do some shopping and not drop a ton of money. Although, you have to be careful at El Rastro. If you bring 10euros, you spend 10euros. If you bring 50euros, your wallet will be 50euros lighter. Simple as that. No matter how much you tell yourself that you're only looking for a scarf, you invariably leave with more. I came away with 2 scarves and some thermal leggings, and those thermal leggings are going to be my new best friends.

Today also gave me a chance to unite all the people I know so far, and hopefully they become friends with each other too. It's made me realize I have a few networks to draw from, and that makes me feel even more connected. We weren't a huge group so that gave everyone a chance to chat and get to know one another. Each day they become more and more like a family. My family. I just needed to share that.

Demonstration against Cuts to Education

So, I don't know if you've heard, but Spain is in a bit of a financial problem right now. It's known here as "La Crisis" (kree-sees), which I don't think needs any translation. The small problem is that the country has no money and as such has to make cut backs somewhere. Of course, these cuts aren't going to come from outrageous political salaries, but from public services. Right now, they've targeted education which directly affects me and all the other permanent teachers at my school.

And, unlike Americans, when Europeans feel upset or threatened they do something about it. Or at least, they do something to show that they are upset and taking notice. I wish Americans were a little more vocal. At any rate, the parents organized a strike yesterday to voice their frustration. A lot of them chose not to send their kids to school. I'd say almost half the students at my school did not attend. Some schools closed completely. We still had class, but it was difficult to do any serious activities or work because so many students weren't there. I'm not sure what skipping school showed the government, but it was Spain's way of saying we don't agree with what the government is doing with public money.

Every Wednesday students and teachers alike wear green shirts that say "Educación Pública: de todas para todos", or "from all for all". As a product of the public education system of Missouri, I can relate to the importance of public funding for schools. Everyone should have the right to a decent education. And since now I am also part of the Madrid public school systems, I should probably stay informed about the cuts, or recortes.

I bring this up because while my friend Alyson and I were planning a trip to Brussels, Belgium last night at a café close to Sol, we heard all kinds of chanting and noise from the street. As it turns out, the strike also went with a demonstration (manifestación) in the city center. As the US embassy told us, don't get involved in demonstrations; park yourself in a café and watch from a distance. This is exactly what we unintentionally did. I took some video, but it doesn't really show just how many people were marching. I captured about 2 minutes worth of the half hour of parading through the street. It had to be one of the biggest demonstrations/protests that I've seen here in Madrid so far. And it was peaceful. No need for police with batons or tear gas. Something to be proud of.

Here's my short video from the doorway of the café. Notice their green shirts and signs that say NO with a scissors in the center. It's amazing how people can organize here.

*Video will go here*

On a more light-hearted note, I was in class yesterday and I took a few students out to work with them individually. The teachers have a Euro system where they give them fake Euros when they participate well in class and take away Euros when they speak in Spanish. The students I took aside were upset that I had no Euros to give them when they answered questions, but I took Euros from them when I heard Spanish. I told them I was only taking, not giving. One student perked up and said, "Just like in politics!" Couldn't have said it better myself.

Weekend Update: Salamanca and Valladolid

Wow, it's been awhile since I've written, mainly because nothing new has occurred on my side of the pond. But finally this weekend I was able to take advantage of my time off and see some new sites. And some old ones too. First off, school is going great. I have a better feel for what the teachers want me to do in the classroom and I'm slowly learning all my student's names. There's about 100 of them so it's taking longer than it ever did at SLU. Luckily the majority of them are Javier, Carlos, Alvaro, Alba, Paula and María. If I use one of those names, i've covered about 60% of the students. Just kidding. But seriously, a lot of them are named Javier...

Anyway, this past Friday was a holiday to celebrate Columbus Day, or as they say here: Día de la Hispanidad. Or as my roommate said to me: to celebrate the great empire we eventually lost. I think in South America they call it Día de la Raza (Race Day, as in ethnicity) because to celebrate Columbus coming to the new world and slaughtering all the indigenous people is a little offensive to them.  It's strange how one event can be seen in so many different ways by different cultures. Spain has decided to throw a military parade in its honor; a show of branch of the military, complete with jets, horses and a goat. Yup, I said goat. There is a goat (cabra) who is basically the star of the parade. This year people were worried he might not show because of the crisis and budget cuts, but he was most definitely there! Very happy I got to see the goat.

Waiting for the parade, with Alyson and Kristina

Jets! Notice the red and yellow

Some of the more elaborate uniforms

La Cabra! La Cabra! People went nuts...

Great view of Gran Vía

Plaza de Colón, after the parade

Plaza de Cibeles

On Saturday, my roommate Victor and I decided to take a trip to Salamanca for the day and Valladolid the next day. Both are cities in the province of Castilla y León, northwest of Madrid. Salamanca is about 2.5 hours away by train. It's mostly known for its architecture and for being a university town. The University of Salamanca was founded in the 12th century and is the oldest, continuously used university in Spain; third oldest in Europe. It's pretty fantastic. The buildings are made of a certain stone that looks yellowish during the day and at night glows gold in spotlights. I studied in Salamanca about 6 six years ago so I've been fortunate enough to see it lit up, but we didn't get to see the glowing buildings this trip...we were on our train to Valladolid instead.

Plaza Mayor

Art Nouveau Museum

Lazarillo de Tormes - famous Spanish literary figure

Cathedral from the Roman Bridge

Roman Bridge and Stone bull built by Celtiberians: old!

Archives of the Spanish Civil War

University Facade

Salamanca is also famous for its Jamón Ibérico, yum!

Valladolid is a nice city to visit for a day, but that's all it really needs. It's the capitol city of Castilla y León and is a bigger than Salamanca, but it just didn't have the same atmosphere. Salamanca is so alive with young people in the streets and most Salamandrinas take a lot of pride in their city. Valladolid had some beautiful architecture as well, but not quite on the same scale as Salamanca. Still, it was worth the visit.

Academia del Arma de Caballería - Military Academy

Plaza Mayor

Iglesia de Santa María - Romanesque

Cathedral - Renaissance

Iglesia de San Pablo

Río Pisuegra

Having fun with the statues

We got back late last night and were exhausted from walking all over. It felt good to curl up in my nice warm bed and be asleep before my head hit the pillow. Until the next adventure!

First Week of School and I'm Still Standing!

This week went by in a blur! I would've written sooner but I needed time to take it all in. Each day at school was a little different so I never knew what to expect. All in all things went smoothly and I now have a fixed schedule: I'm working Tuesday-Friday with the third cycle, aka the 5th and 6th graders (thank god!). There's two teachers in each grade, one of which is the English teacher. I'm working with Yolanda (5th) and Ester (6th) and thankfully they are some of the best teachers in the school. I totally lucked out.

Ok, to back up a little bit. On Monday I finally got to meet the rest of the Auxiliars at the school. There's 4 of us all together spread among 300 kids, give or take a few. Not too bad. They are Johanna from Puerto Rico, Ayan from Memphis and Kyra from Dallas. Good people. We get along great. The Assistant Principal, Mario, took us under his wing the first day and gave us a run-down of the school and introduced us in all the classes, English and Spanish. The we were sent off to rotate around. My first class on Monday was with Consuelo, the 4th grade English teacher...and I thought I was gonna die. Those kids were out of control. So loud! We all have 4th grade pegged as the Devil Children.

Tuesday was spent with the 5th and 6th grade. What a complete turn around. We've all decided that 5th grade is the nicest, quietest, smartest group. They're just wonderful. And Yolanda, their teacher, is very proactive in the classroom and seems to be the only English teacher who really sticks to English the entire time. She's a sweetheart too. I wish I had her for a teacher.

Wednesday was my first experience with the first cycle. I spent the morning working with the 2nd grade class...which was cute and frustrating. They were nice kids but their teacher, Rebeca, didn't really seem interested in making sure they did their work. It's funny how quickly you figure out who are the more involved teachers and who's going to support you the most in the classroom. Rebeca is not my favorite.

Yesterday I was back with the 6th graders talking about ecosystems and I got asked what a protist was. Hmm, how do you describe a protist? It's so sad because I learned about all this stuff in-depth in college but I don't remember most of it. I also now have a bunch of bizarre songs in my head, like one about the days of the week and one about how energy is passed through living things. It's so funny to hear all this stuff in a British accent! The students in 6th grade take a big test at the end of year that's carried out by an English university so it'll be interesting to see how they adapt to my accent.A few words they say that I think are very British are rubber (instead of eraser, not meaning condom) and clever (instead of smart).

I asked one boy to take out his notebook and another boy sitting next to said to me "Don't worry, he's not very clever". Hahaha. I also got confused when one of the 2nd graders asked me where to get a rubber...it took a second, but then I realized she was looking for an eraser. I had a girl call me over only to tell me her birthday is on Sunday. Another girl was constantly hugging me and hanging on my legs...I forgot what class she was in, and I have no idea what her name is! Ha! Almost all the kids say hello when they see the auxiliars in the hallway. It's pretty cool. They treat us like rockstars, which we are, of course.

First real day starts on Tuesday. I can't wait!

~Caralyn

Colegio Manuel Bartolomé Cossio

Today was my first visit to my school: Colegio Manuel Bartolomé Cossio. I always learned in Spanish class that "colegio" meant the equivalent of high school. In Spain it does not. It actually means primary school. That was kind of a shock for me. "Instituto" is the Spanish word for high school. The school system is divided up a bit differently here than back home. Instead of elementary, middle (junior high) and high (senior high) school they have just two schools. Colegios are basically 1st-6th grade and Institutos are 7th-12th grade. There are also escuelas infantiles for 3-5 year-olds.

Within the colegio there are 3 groupings (cíclos): 1st cíclo is 6-8 year-olds
                                                                          2nd cíclo is 8-10 year-olds
                                                                          3rd cíclo is 10-12 year-olds

I'm not sure what cíclo I'll be working with just yet, but I had a chance to see a classroom of each. They're all adorable!! And have so much energy! And a little over-zealous with their questions! They of course wanted to know my name and where I was from, but they repeatedly asked how old I was and if I had a boyfriend. Too funny! I also got asked what my favorite Spanish food is and if I spoke Spanish. I can never ever not even a little bit let them know I speak Spanish. They will pounce on that, and we'll never get anywhere. I am only allowed to speak English in the classroom and they are only allowed to speak to me in English. I even made them practice my name over and over until it sounded something like "Caralyn", because my name is NOT "Caroline". I will not answer to that.

No one in the entire school knew St. Louis, but they all recognized Missouri. Weird. I blame that on Mark Twain. One mention of Missouri and everyone immediately thought of Tom Sawyer...which is also weird because Mark Twain's most famous book is about Huckleberry Finn...
I honestly had no idea that the works of Mark Twain had made it to Spain. I hope they don't think I live on a raft in the Mississippi River!

The teachers were all very welcoming and eager to show me around. I was a little worried about this because at orientation they scared us into thinking that the teachers would be threatened by us and maybe not use us in the classroom as much as we hoped. They couldn't have been more wrong. They were thrilled to have a native speaker and made it a point to tell their students that they will learn better from us, the auxiliars, than the them, the teachers. I don't think that's necessarily true, but it was nice to know they supported us being there.

I also found out that there are 3 of us that are full-time auxiliars and 1 other who will split their time between our school and another. So we have one auxiliar per cíclo and we will be divided as such. I know this sounds irrelevant, but to me it means this school is organized and they know what they're doing. That is such a blessing!! I'm sure chaos will arise at times, but I'm glad to know that they've done this a time or two and seem to have found a system that works. I've heard the horror stories. I am thankful that will not be the case with me.

And one last thing...I get to take the train to school!! I didn't put 2&2 together before, but I just realized that both the metro station by my apartment and by the school are also cercanías stations. And there's actually another cercanías station much closer to school. How sweet is that?? I had no idea. And my monthly transportation pass works not only with the metro but the buses and cercanías trains as well. Another blessing.

I start on Monday. That's all for now.

~Caralyn

Aranjuez

Yesterday a few of my new Madrid friends and I decided to take a day trip to the city of Aranjuez. It's about 45 minutes outside of Madrid by the Cercanías trains, which meant I took my first train ride! The main train station in Madrid is Atocha, so we met there and off we were.

Cercanías ticket

Aranjuez is in the southern part of the Comunidad Autónoma of Madrid (there's the city of Madrid and the province of Madrid, kinda like New York, NY) where the Tajo and Jarama rivers meet (much like the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in St. Louis!) It's famous for it's Royal Palace (Palacio Real) and was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001. Construction began on the palace in the 16th century and wings were added on up until the 18th century. It was basically used as a summer

home for the Spanish royal family to escape the difficulties of city life. It's good to be king. Aranjuez is also famous for its strawberries, which aren't in season at the moment, so no strawberries for me on this trip. :(

Here are some pictures of our arrival into Aranjuez.

Yesenia, Me and Theresa

Train station of Aranjuez

Ayuntamiento

Pedestrian street

Having fun at the Tourism Office

Entering Plaza de San Antonio

Jump!

Fuente de la Mariblanca (fountain)

And here are some pictures of the Palace and surrounding areas. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside.

Can you see Theresa waving? Yup, that's how big this place is!

There was also a Plaza de Toros in Aranjuez:

And lots of beautiful gardens with more fountains around the Palace.

Black Swans!

And that was our trip in a nutshell!

~Caralyn