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