Felíz Turkey Day

This year yet another holiday season has arrived in Madrid. And when you're an American living abroad in a culture that doesn't understand a holiday based on stuffing your face with things like cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, you come to truly appreciate the presence of your Californian friends and East-Coast coworkers. I was fortunate to spend two Thanksgiving dinners- yes, two! - with some amazing people here in Spain. The first was spent on Thursday evening with my roommates and some other American friends. We cooked all of our dishes from scratch (which was somewhat of a stressful process, as we had no days off of work that week), said what we were thankful for, ate way too much, and cooked inventive dishes with our leftovers afterwards. Basically, in most sense it was a successful Thanksgiving meal.

Chicken (we had an excuse for no turkey, we're overseas!), stuffing, mashed potatoes,
dinner roll, and my mom's sweet potato-marshmallow casserole!

My second dinner was on Saturday night- which fortunately gave my stomach some time to recover- and was definitely a unique experience. My coworker from New York hosted a dinner for me and our Spanish friends, a group of 9 in total. And she went all out, making an oven-roasted turkey, green beans, gravy, cranberry sauce - the works. But we also had some Spanish touches to the meal: roasted chestnuts (a winter tradition here), amazing red wine, and turrón for dessert (which is like an almond brittle and is a typical winter holiday treat here). It was really neat being able to share one of our traditions with them and explain things like why the stuffing does not actually go inside of the turkey anymore (though I'm still not sure if they were content with my explanation or not!)

Earlier that evening, while we were waiting for the turkey to finish cooking, I took advantage of my friend's spacious wood floor and taught an impromptu salsa and bachata lesson! It was quite the cultural mix- dancing to latin music in Spain while waiting for our Thanksgiving dishes to finish cooking! Then during dinner I asked one of my Spanish friends about a Spanish saying I'd heard the other day. After we discussed that saying, he continued to teach me more phrases and sayings. The rest of the night he and others would remember another phrase to teach me, and would pause their conversation to take note of a phrase one of them had just used and yell "Kelsey, quick write that one down!". By the end of the night my brain was over-saturated with new Spanish sayings, but I appreciated their help! One friend used an expression he'd taught me to poke fun at me, and it adequately described the experience. "Estaba lloviendo a cántaros- y ahora está lloviendo frases a Kelsey!" (It was raining cats and dogs, and now it's raining phrases on Kelsey!) Needless to say, it was a great Spanish/American holiday, fit for an American living in Madrid- and a Felíz Turkey day indeed.

Dance lessons in the living room!

The Perks of Being an Assistant

I may not have the official title of teacher or professor. I don’t have the authority to discipline my students. I’m not in charge of the curriculum, lesson planning, or grading, and I don’t work or get paid full time.  But my students still call me “teacher”. I get to jump in when I want to help, and lesson plan if a certain unit interests me. I get to introduce my favorite games from my elementary school days– like “Heads Up 7 Up”- which are almost always instant hits. And, most importantly, I get to go on field trips with the students!

Our first field trip this year was Pino a Pino, a ropes course up in a forest at the base of the mountains. We took a bus up there, and I had a great time chatting with the bus driver in Spanish. We talked about places we’d both traveled in Spain, and I was impressed to hear all the places he'd been and seen. As I heard the students start to sing and chant behind me, I was taken back to the many bus rides I’d been on as a kid. It was fun to hear the Spanish versions of elementary school songs...but also similar to my elementary school experience, many chants were meant to embarrass or put other students on the spot ("Debajo de la mesa, hay una carta, escrito por tu novio, como se llama?...")

Once we got to the ropes course, we broke into groups and the staff explained how to do the course correctly. Each student had two clasps on their harness and had to have at least one clasp on a rope at all times (especially when moving from one course to the next). One of my students (originally from Britain) voluntarily translated the instructions for me, which was sweet but unnecessary (my students don’t know how much Spanish I understand). Then they did a quick practice round, and were set loose to do the courses up in the trees by them selves. I was shocked. This would never happen in the US with a public school - it would be too much of a liability! It was an awesome course though- full of many varied rope challenges, and even zip lines! There was one course however that was more advanced and required them to have a teacher up doing the course with them. The funny thing is that every time I was doing the course with them, one of the staff members would come over and ask where the teacher was that they were supposed to have climbing with them. The students would quickly say that they did have a teacher with them and point me out standing amongst the group of 6^th graders in line! When it’s pointed out to me it’s ridiculous how many of my students are as tall (or taller) than me!

This fieldtrip, as others I’ve been on, was a great way to bond with my students. It also gave me new topics to use back at school for our conversation activities. Plus, it reminded me of one of the many perks to my job as an assistant- getting paid for things like climbing trees all day with my students!

A Taste of America

Thanksgiving is coming, and for an American living in Madrid, that means one thing- time to start searching for canned pumpkin and marshmallows! There are not many stores that carry items you’ll need to make a traditional Thanksgiving meal, but with a little creativity- and the help of an expensive American store we found last November- you can have an enjoyable, turkey-less Thanksgiving away from home. This year we plan to get two chickens (cheaper and easier to find then turkey) and make green been casserole, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and sweet potatoes!

This year’s trip to Taste of America left me just as amused as it did the year before. There is such a variety of over-the-top “American” things that I may or may not have ever seen in the US. But for the products I do recognize, I’m reminded of the things that are commonplace back home but that I’ve gotten used to living here without- things such as salad dressings, boxed cake mix, and pretzels. Everything was also ridiculously overpriced so I wasn’t tempted to buy anything but the Thanksgiving essentials. This was fine with me, as I have the rest of my life to eat those things. It was still a fun experience!

Huh? Cheese Zip?

Here’s a list I compiled of some of the items they carry in the store. Some of them are interesting because they’re not commonplace here in Spain. Others are so odd or overpriced I had to include them!

Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup  4,95 €

Raisins, 2 oz box  3 €

Duncan’s Vanilla Cake mix 5,35 €

Cambell’s Tomato Soup 2,30 €

Snyder’s Peanut Butter Pretzels (8 oz bag) 5,35 €

Muffin tin 20 €  (baking is not really a big thing here in Spain)

Donut pan (to bake donuts- have you ever heard of that?)

Brownie pan (I didn’t know you needed a special pan for brownies!)

Corn tortillas! (Not the Spanish egg omellette, which they call “tortillas” here)

Apple Pie-flavored bubble gum?!

Jone’s Bubble gum soda

Giant marshmallows (“Bonfire-sized!”) 3 €

    

Eazee Squeese Cheddar  Cheese Sauce 2,95 €

Mini Rocky Mountain Marshmallows 1,85 €

Life in Madrid

 It´s been a crazy whirlwind these past few weeks as I´ve been settling back into life here in Spain. My first two weekends back were pretty crazy, as I was simultaneously unpacking my bags and showing CA visitors around the city! It was tiring but gave me an excuse to indulge in my favorite tapa joints and revisit the beautiful spots in the city right away. It was even more of a whirlwind considering I had just returned from a summer in CA full of trips to Davis and SF to visit college friends, a flight to Nebraska for a close friend´s wedding, and spending time in San Diego with friends and family. The summer seemed to fly by, as it was full of many hellos and goodbyes. As bittersweet as it was, it helped knowing I had a second year in Spain to look forward to. I'm truly excited to have one more year to enjoy Madrid and strengthen my ties here. Last year was all about getting used to how things work here, making connections, learning how to do my job, and traveling to as many European cities as possible... I made it to 13 countries in total and was so lucky to be able to visit friends in many of those places. I got to visit college friends living and working abroad, my sister who was studying in Italy, European friends I had made while traveling in South America 2 years ago, and even a Danish friend who studied at my high school in San Diego. As grateful as I am that I got to see so many places and connect with so many people, I'm hoping to see more of Spain itself this time around and focus my time on really living in Madrid and making it my own.

Claire and I visiting Sofie in Copenhagen! May 2012. It had been at least 3 years since we saw her in San Diego

Ally's Wedding in Nebraska, October 2012. A wonderful celebration and much-needed reunion! I was able to attend right before flying back to start work in Spain

   I´m living in the same apartment as last year, in the center of the city (Plaza de España). This has saved a lot of stress and, and has allowed me live with my two wonderful friends from Davis (Laura and Danielle) again. While we're not always speaking Spanish at home, we often have Spanish friends over, and there are many opportunities for us to speak Spanish daily. I especially like chatting with the consierge who lives next store. We talk about the weather, the best places to buy shampoo, or what she´s cooking or sewing that afternoon, all the while chatting through the glass window where she keeps watch of the building (think of Tim´s interaction with his neighbor in Home Improvement, but involving less philosophical conversations). Our land lady is also very nice, but she is quite the talker- we´ve learned to give ourselves plenty of time when we go to pay the rent. She is your typical old Spanish lady in the sense that she is very short, speaks in a low voice and often mumbles, and likes to repeat the same story or argue the same point over and over again but in slightly different ways each time so that by the time she´s explaining it for the fourth time you realize that indeed there exist five different ways to discuss the disadvantages to not going to bed on time on a Sunday night which her 30 year old daughter who still lives at home often does and... so on. Last year I had trouble following her at the beginning, but this time around I´ve been content to find that I fully understood her from the start :)

My beloved street- Calle Martín de los Heros. Complete with a Spanish cinema and cafes

   I´m also at the same school as last year- a bilingual elementary school 45 minutes outside of Madrid- where I had a great experience working as an English language assistant. Last year I worked with 5th grade, so this year I moved with them and their teacher up to 6th grade. It was so great to see them after the summer and see how much they´d grown! I´m also teamed up with a new teacher for 4th grade this year, and she´s wonderful. She really knows how to utilize me in the classroom, and I´m often up in front of the class team teaching with her. I help with Science and English- the two main subjects taught in English at the school- and also an art class twice a week. The science lessons give me a chance to share what I learned in my geology and biology classes at Davis, and I´ve become known as the ¨one who likes to teach science¨. Since a lot of the teachers have backgrounds in teaching English, and not science, they appreciate that. Since I'm technically a language assistant, the goal of my position is to help improve their English speaking skills. This sometimes means leading pronunciation exercises and activities in class. Other times it means working in pairs on conversation and speaking prompts to prepare for the Cambridge English exams. The great thing about this job is that while I´m not responsible for lesson planning or grading, I have the flexibility to jump in and plan an activity, lesson, or game whenever I have an idea or find a topic that interests me. Today, for example, I led an activity on overfishing that I thought was important (and which the book barely covered). I only work 20 hours a week, always have three day weekends (plus the plentiful Spanish holidays), and make enough money to live comfortably in the heart of the city- and even have extra cash to spend on tapas and traveling. As you can see, it's a pretty good deal for a job I really enjoy. I couldn't help but sign up for another year :)

Elisa, the 6th grade teacher I work with,
and Marina identifying bones

My 5th grade class from last year,
who I have again as 6th graders this year- they look tiny here!

  After school I also spend my weeknights doing English tutoring and babysitting. I watch a little 4 year old boy once a week and play with him in English (it ends up being a mix of languagees and lots of translation, which is also great practice for me). His name is Mateo, and although he's adorable, he's definitely a handful!! His family lives in one of my favorite neighborhoods in Madrid, Malasaña, which I Iove for its plentitude of smaller streets and unique cafes that fill its colorful buildings. Malasaña also houses my favorite Argentinian bakery, which I conveniently (and/or dangerously) pass by on my way to pick up Mateo from school. I also tutor a sly but lovable 9 year old and a shy 18 year old once a week. All of these side jobs not only help with extra money for traveling, but also allow me to experience what it´s like to be amongst a Spanish family in a Spanish household.

Mateo- aka 4-year-old Spanish ball of energy!

   Finally, when I'm not tutoring I use my extra time to read, work on my Spanish, and enjoy what the city has to offer. Whether it be taking dance classes (I tried a contemporary dance class last week!), spanish lessons, salsa dancing (there's a place ten minutes away from my house!) or going to the Spanish cinema (located right outside our door), Madrid has so much to offer. It also has an amazing metro system, many neighborhoods to explore, and so many bars and tapa joints that you could not visit them all even if you lived here your whole life! I could go on and on... but I'll save that for later posts. Hasta pronto!