Getting Caught Up To Speed

So a lot has happened since my parents left Spain after Reyes. So much that I haven't had time to squeeze it in here. So now I'll catch you all up to speed on the highlights of the last few weeks.

#1 - Drug Busted
One night, Jessica and I went out with some British friends, Emily and Dan, to a local Salsa club. This was after a few drinks at a "Jazz Bar" where they actually didn't play much Jazz music but, instead, had Jazz-related decorations on the walls. After spending about 15 minutes in the club drinking our free drink, we hopped onto the dance floor to strut our stuff. Literally (and here literally means that I'm, for once, not joking), we were on the dance floor for 2 minutes until the music cut out and the room was (magically) filled with police. Police of all types. It was like a menagerie of Police. There were policemen wearing berets, policemen wearing helmets, policemen that were undercover cops wearing normal street clothes and now had their badge showing, and the big shot detectives with trenchcoats and no badges because they are that important. Anyways, so I politely ask a nearby helmet-wearing policeman what the hell is going on. He responds "just an identity check". Oh, well, if thats the case, "I only have my ID from the United States, but here it is". Then this helmet-wearing man of mystery proceeded to walk off into the crowd with my ID. Basically, mistake number one was speaking spanish instead of playing the foreigner card. Jessica and the two brits got off without any trouble while I had to sit in the club and get grilled about why i wasnt carrying my passport. Long story short, they couldnt find my license for a long time and then shut down the club so we had to go home. Damn you Spanish police / parade-rainers.


#2 - Alicia Visits
Jessica's good friend from Kent visited us in the middle of January. I had never met her so obviously that was a lot of fun given her bubbly disposition but it was also great to have someone else around for a bit. Plus it got Jessica out of my hair (which she has been getting increasingly caught in as it gets longer...). The big highlight was that we went out to the biggest club in Madrid (7 floors) and had ourselves a get-up get-down good time. The theme was a "White Party" so we put on our recently bleached threads and made it happen. There was a giant fog machine in the middle of the main dance floor which sprayed fog straight down with quite force onto the crowd below. It was pretty much the most amazing thing I've ever seen and felt. Better than the touch, the feel of cotton, the fabric of our lives. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I have changed my entire wardrobe to consist exclusively of fog.


#3 - Como se llama? - O B A M A -
Inbetween now and the last post our country has managed to give Bush the boot and welcome in the big BHO. People over here are pretty excited about it. We watched the swearing in at a local Irish Pub and clinked some glasses to the hope of 4 years of change for the better.

Dia de Los Reyes

We allowed ourselves to spend American Christmas in Turkey, as far away from family as possible, with the knowledge that we would be spending the Spanish equivalent of Christmas with our Spanish family. My Mom and Dad (aka Miz and Rads) came from the states to spend some time with us and celebrate the holidays.

In Spain, some people celebrate Christmas on the 25th but most people celebrate "Christmas" on January 6th. This is known as "El dia de los reyes" or "The day of the kings". It celebrates the coming of the 3 Kings to give Jesus sweet presents. This places the big celebration after New Years Eve which is bizarre.

We passed the first part of New Years Eve with my family (from dinner until 12:30AM). We did the typical Spanish stuff such as eating the 12 grapes at the 12 chimes of midnight. After that we all went out to a private (ie VIP) party. We were invited to the party by the niece of my aunt's boss. We didnt know her or a single person there but we made do and made some friends and had some good times. Overall, not a highly eventful night.

The time with my parents was great. It was awesome to see their shining faces for a week and spend some time together. We did our own little Christmas away from the rest of the family where we cooked them a lunch and all that jazz.


We also went to a flamenco show which was pretty kick ass.


The big highlight of the break was, of course, "Dia de Los Reyes". It was the first time that my whole "direct" Spanish family (aunts/uncles and cousins) had all been together since I was 3.


We did what was called "Amigo Invisible" which is basically like a Spanish version of secret santa. Some people take it really seriously and nobody is supposed to know who gives who a gift. I ended up getting a whole slew of stuff for cooking - an apron, a cheese grater, a chefs hat, and a book to cook Spanish Tapas. Pretty flippin sweet.


Alas, after 3 weeks off of work, vacations have ended and its back to the grind. Stay tuned for a sweet story about our latest night out.

Turkey for Christmas

The irony of the title being that we spent the Christmas season in Turkey and didn't eat Turkey at all. Anyways, below is basically what I wrote down while we were traveling through Eastern Turkey.

Most of the good photos can be found on facebook here.

Day 1 - Culture Shock
Nothing here is familiar. It's positively and negatively amazing. I don't know a word of their language or a speck about their culture. I haven't the slightest idea of how to say thank you. In the first 24 hours there were a lot of feelings of helplessness and a lot of adventure but also feelings of guilt for not knowing more or at least wanting to know more until 8:27 AM the morning after a night bus to Selcuk. Eventually, the culture shock wore off after situating ourselves into touristy places and spending a little time by ourselves. The first real day was spent in Ephesus where we saw the purported house of the Virgin Mary where she fled after the crucifixion as well as a crap load of very well preserved ruins. The most impressive part about Turkey in general is the cheapness of the food (a sizeable lunch for 2 dollars if you know where to go).

(Chris and I in an ancient latrine)

Day 2 - "I'm from Spain"
The heckling done by Turkish people is quite unprecedented in my life. As you walk down the street in your culture-shocked-visibly-foreign clothes they pick you out and start yelling at you to gain your business - "My friend! Yes Please! Very Cheap!". Every store and every restaurant was the same. It came to the point that we began to say we were from Spain to deter the vociferous ferocious street vendors. The most absurd part of the whole thing is that, in Turkey, everyone uses the phrase "Yes please" to mean something like "hello", as if someone played a big joke on Turkey and purposely taught them all poor English. The most eventful part of the day was the night bus we took which involved us getting dropped off on the curb and told to get into a random taxi and not to pay him, then driving at 160 km/hr with a driver who spoke no English to a place where we had to transfer to another bus company who magically had reserved tickets for us. Yay for Turkish public transportation.

(Take note here that one bus company is called StarBatman and another Camel Cock)

Day 3 - A different Christmas
Today was Christmas but it wasnt quite like the ones past. We barely slept on the crazy night bus and arrived at 4:30 AM, checked into our hotel at 9 AM, wandered around, found food, and then went off to explore the ancient city of Troy. Troy, my friends, is no Brad-Pitt-Bad-Ass-Beautiful-Maiden Troy. Troy, my friends, is a pile of stones. Really haphazard excavations have left the sight unintelligible to the average tourist and totally not worth seeing. The only interesting parts are to see the geographical positioning of Troy (on a hill, next to the ocean, views of the valley all around) and get a feeling for its size. Anyways, the fact that the only historical reference to Troy comes from Homer makes the "purported existence" of the city of Troy seem like a little bit of bullshit. After Troy we had a nice dinner and opened our stockings since we had each brought some stuff to put in the others' stockings.

(Posing on some piece of history)

Day 4 - Foiled Plans and Beautiful Land
The plan for today was to go to Gallipoli, famous for the battles fought during WWI. Bad weather and the fact that we forgot that Friday was the Muslim holy day made for a difficult time. But we walked around for hours in the cold and then hitched a ride with a random trucker because we couldn't get in touch with any taxis. An uneventful day bled into an eventful night where Jess and I downed a few shots of Turkish liquor and then we all went out to a bar. The bad happened to have live Turkish music which was folled by traditional Turkish dancing after some of the other patrons had some beer. It may have been the beer talking but it felt really cool to be sitting in a Turkish bar with all Turkish people listening to Turkish music and watching / attempting to partake in traditional Turkish dancing.

Day 5 - Out in Istanbul

Most of the things we did in Istanbul were sight seeing minus a few select jewels. So I'm going to skip the litany of mosques and museums and get to the good stuff. First things first, I discovered this dish called Iskender which is normally some bread covered in mystery meat and a tomatoey sauce with a side of some type of Turkish yogurt to dip the stuff in. Its especially delicious when you get it with chicken instead of mystery meat. Get it if you go to Turkey. The best part about our first day in Istanbul was our first night in Istanbul. After a few more shots of Turkish Rakisi we went to a hooka bar that "had cheap beer". In reality, after we ordered the beers, the owner ran down the street and bought canned beer from the corner store, came back, and poured it into glasses for us. CLASSY. After fighting with a taxi driver who tried to rip us off and then threatened to call the police Jess and I found ourselves in the thick of the nightlife of Istanbul. We bar hopped a bunch to every free bar we could find, including a drag bar which we backpeddled out of after sitting down and realizing where we were. The night ended at Burger King which was delicious.

Day 6 - Turkish Delights
It poured on our last day in Istanbul. I had only brought one pair of shoes and they were soaking wet by lunch time and my feet were frozen. I swallowed my pride and bought a pair of used shoes in a sketchy alley for about $7. The absolute highlight of the day was the Turkish Baths that we all made reservations for. Aparently, the word "Bath" in Turkish translates to mean "large fat men splashing you with unnecessarily hot water, exfoliating you rather harshly, and then giving you an extremely unpleasantly forceful bubble massage accompanied by intermittent hitting". Jess and I also saw a Whirling Dervish ceremony but it wasnt nearly as memorable as getting the shit kicked out of you by a fat hairy Turk.

It is Christmas!

Man. Crazy how fast time goes by over here. It seems like just yesterday i was starting this blog and getting settled in. Now it's Christmas time. Thankfully (from what I remember) I've taken advantage of my time here. To start this one off I just want to wish everyone Happy Holidays and say that I miss you all.

So. This past Friday was the Christmas Festival at my school in Madrid. What this means is that the already adorable children dress up in even more adorable outfits and do adorable things in front of their parents all day. Then the teachers go out and have some drinks, eat lunch, and have some more drinks. Great time.

5 year olds (Natalia, Paula (so cute), and Irene)

I started the morning off bright and early with the Infantiles (age 3-5 years old) at 9 am, helping the teachers get the kids in costume and ready to go on stage at 9:15. It was the first time I had been with the 4 year olds which was a lot of fun. I instantly fell in love with a little girl named Denisa who wanted to hold my hand constantly and initiated the following conversation with me about 5 minutes after meeting me(in spanish though):
"How come you dont teach me?"
"Because I'm not allowed to!"
"Why arent you allowed to?"
"Because I have to teach the 5 year olds"
"Well I dont like the 5 year olds. You need to teach me!"
Denisa is the one on the right in this picture:


So the little kids did their thing and then it was time for the older kids and my third graders were getting ready to do this play about Rudolph. Its all in English and we had worked really hard to get everything right and they did REALLY well. A video excerpt from it is below:

(The video wouldn't upload. Its a damn shame. I'll try to upload it when we get back from our trip)

After that, all the stress was gone so we got to relax and hang out with the kids. It was and amazing day and a great way to end the semester because it reminds you of how rewarding it is to work with kids and how much fun they really are.
My 3rd Graders:

Alba and Georgina (adorable 3rd Graders):


In about an hour we are leaving for our week long trip to Turkey. So Happy Holidays everyone and hopefully talk to some of you over the vacation when I get back.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Life is finally slowing down in the big Spanish city. A few weeks ago we had a frisbee tournament in Girona (close to Barcelona on the east coast of Spain). The tournament was the Spanish Coed National Championship. A good time but definitely wore us out due to our absurd selection of travel times - a return flight at 6:30 am followed by working 9 am - 6 pm. Anyways, Los Quijotes (our team from Madrid) took third place which was ok but we were hoping for a little better. Third place sufficed because they gave us a trophy and free sweatshirts which was fun. Its really not a surprise that third place gets a trophy because in Spanish ultimate it is litterally like everybody is a winner. No player left behind. And all that jazz.

But, the main point of this post is to say that Christmas is coming and we are getting in the spirit. We have a Christmas tree and stockings and hearts full of joy, love, and Christmas spirit. In reality, we will be traveling throughout Turkey during the real Christmas holiday so we are getting ready early. This coming friday my school has its Christmas Festival and all of the classes are going to do plays, songs, or dances. The third grade class I teach is doing a play that I wrote about Rudolph and the 5 year olds are doing a dance in which I will hopefully participate.






My school is also having a Christmas Dinner tonight where a bunch of us are all meeting up at some restaurant. It's apparently a really popular thing to do in Spain. Everyone goes out to a dinner with their coworkers for Christmas celebrations before the holidays begin. Should cook up some good stories about inebriated primary school teachers. Stay tuned.

Little Kids and Littler Kids

A post solely dedicated to work...

For those of you that don't exactly know what I'm doing, (which is probably none of you because I think beyond my close circle of friends and my mom and dad, nobody reads this) I am working as an assistant to teachers in bilingual public primary schools in Madrid. I work in a school in the northeast of Madrid called Dionisio Ridruejo which is about a 35 minute commute from our apartment. The school has been bilingual for 2 years meaning that the 3rd graders are the oldest students in the bilingual program and that the 4th graders don't have bilingual classes. I work Monday-Thursday approximately 10 am to 4 pm (not bad eh?). The big role-players in my work-life are Carlos, the Bilingual Coordinator and 3rd grade teacher, Manuel, the physical education teacher, Laura, the infant education teacher, Mercedes and Inma, the 1st and 2nd grade teachers, and Susie and Andrew, the other two assistants in the school. I teach primarily with Carlos in 3rd grade and then 3 hours a week with Laura with the 5 year olds. I have the good fortune of having PE with the 3rd and 2nd graders as well.

In the Bilingual schools in Madrid, the kids have Science, English Language, Arts and Crafts, and Physical Education all taught in English. The rest of the subjects are taught in Spanish by different teachers.

So. My job is basically to support the teacher and help in whatever way I can. With Carlos, I do a lot because I know the kids and I know the topics that we are covering and I am in the class every day of the week. With Laura, I typically get to play with adorable little kids and tell them to keep coloring. Another big part of my job is giving oral exams to the kids because the vast majority of their education is oral up until grade 3 and 4 and the teachers cant just step outside and give a 1 on 1 oral exam to each child.

Anyways. My 3rd graders are absolutely brilliant and awesome. They are (typically) very well behaved and very motivated. They also only speak in English when in an English class which is extremely impressive. The big excitement of the month is the Winter Festival that we are having on December 19th. Each grade does a dance, song, or play related to Christmas and, for all of the bilingual kids (Ages 3 - 8), it has to be in English. The 3rd graders are doing a play about Rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer that I made up. Its pretty adorable.

The 5 year olds are also really smart. Some of them know all of the colors, all of the parts of the face and the body (arms, hands, fingers, legs, knees, feet, tummy, etc.), all of the school objects (scissors, book, school bag), family members, and rooms of a house. Phenomenal. Plus they are adorable and precious. See exhibit A (I'm in the middle of all of them)


I also give private English lessons to a very intelligent 13 year old girl named Andrea. She's super smart and speaks very well. We basically just read books and talk about them and about life since the class is supposed to be strictly conversation.

We get a few weeks off work starting December 20th and we are going on a week long trip to Turkey during the Christmas holiday and then returning to Madrid to spend Kings day with my Spanish family and my Mom and Dad who are coming over.

P.S. I think I'm going to be in the school newspaper pretty soon. I'll obviously keep you posted.

A M E R I C A

I havent posted in a while so there will be a flurry of posts this week. I wrote this last week but never got around to adding the pictures. But here it is, a bit late...

While I have very little attachment to my country of birth, I have recently been missing many of the people and the happenings of the good ol' United States. Joined in this longing for past times by Jessica, Chris, and many of the American frisbee players, we decided to host an "American Party" this weekend. While I realize that I only make posts about drinking extravaganzas, this will soon change with a post all about my job. But first, I give you "La Fiesta Americana", viewable in facebook.

The latter part of last week, Chris, Jessica and I slaved away to make the party happen as planned. We decked out our apartment with American pictures and American things and concocted ideas of stereotypical American foods that are also stereotypically delicious. This left us with an apartment ready and waiting to show Spain an American Party. The entryway was "Ellis Island" and had a sign in sheet for all foreigners to sign. The living room was decorated with a big "Welcome to America" banner (made by Jessica) and a bunch of pictures of American things - Barack Obama, Nascar, Landing on the moon. You get the point. An unfortunate twist of events led to the poor state of New Jersey being the bathroom. I would also like to note that the bathroom contained all of the beer in the bathtub - i.e. ok Jersey may smell but we at least hold down the party.


A big portion of the frisbee team attended so we had representatives from Mexico, Spain, Venezuela, Germany, and many others. Good times. We rocked beer pong, flip cup, a good list of american tunes, and a spanish game oddly similar to robo (I obviosuly dominated). All in all, a great success and a great time with new friends but also a great reminder of the good times had at home and of the people that we all miss.

On Sunday, Chris and I went and walked around this placed called "Lago" which, ironically, is a big lake on the outskirts of the city. It was really pretty and a great place to hang out.


A post about work to come later this week! Miss you guys! If you actually read my blog, send me an update or something!