MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I’m off to Norway until January 7th! I am so excited to see Anna & Oistein! (+ family and friends of Anna's too!)
I am feeling so thankful for my parents, family and friends who continue to inspire and support me. I miss and love you all so much!
Merry Christmas! And Happy New Year!

me & two of my favorite students: Carmen y Paula

im dreaming of a white christmas...

The past few weeks have been both emotional and exciting. I experienced my first Hanukkah which was educational and delicious. I have learned about Christmas traditions in Spain; for example, they generally do not receive gifts until the Three Wise Men come on January 6th. Kime and Zack came back to visit, which was lovely as usual despite their sick state (food poisoning at their previous farm). Oh, and the Christmas lights in the streets were finally turned on which makes Motril look somewhere in between tacky and beautiful.


(homemade manora, Latkes & applesauce! yum!)

However, what I have not had the past week is snow. Or skiing on the stuart trail. Or stollen made by my wonderful mother. Christmas carols playing while I eat breakfast. Or opening up a decoration to put on our advent-calendar-tree every day. Cafe Del Mundo coffee. Or snuggling with Tuuli in my warm bed while looking out into a winter wonderland. This is called: my 1st experience of being homesick in a long time.

^ Just to show a few images to express how much i miss home....

To distract me from this feeling of seriously missing my family and Alaska, I have my adorable students who are excited to do and make Christmas activities. I was remembering all of the things we did at Bowman and I was wishing I had the energy and materials to do these things; Gingerbread houses, ornaments for our parents, making snow men, etc. However, apparently next week the Three Wise Men come to the school to hand out candy to the kids...that should be fun to see. I arrived to the preschool classes with a Santa hat and said "Who am i??" and they answered confidently, "...Heidi..." No, sillys, "SANTA CLAUS!" It was too cute. I attempted at having my 1st graders send letters to Aunt Janet's class but it was a much more difficult task than I had anticipated. I have been playing Christmas Bingo with my private lesson -- that is a whole other story I have not elaborated on yet:

So, my new private lesson: three sisters, ages 5,6,8 named Reyes, Mar & Lola. They are a lot of work, but they make me happy. I teach them for an hour Monday - Thursday and I do my best to help them learn English despite their young age and different levels. They are SO adorable but they are still little girls -- SISTERS -- who compete with each other and whine a lot. I started teaching them because my friend Bernardo decided it was too much for him... however, I assume I am going to be paid as much as he was and it is not enough but I am okay with that because lets face it, I have the time and it is quite rewarding. Plus, they are just so cute!! take a look for yourself:



Kime is back again just 2 days after she left (after her last gig fell through in Cadiz) and it is great to have her. Last night we snuggled, made homemade Spanish hot chocolate, and watched Love Actually. It was a wonderful!

Me, Bernardo & Kime!

So although I am missing home, I have so much to be thankful for here in Motril and ALSO so much to look forward to: NORWAY!!! I am so excited to see Anna (of course) and Oistein -- who I havent seen in over a year and 1/2!! And of course Oisteins family, the Tronsleins, and Anna's friends! Only 5 more days.

In case you forgot how cute the Barnwell girls are: (this is hilarious, thanks for the idea jessi)
click below
http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/KGknL7de3Ek31uHx

scotland!

I cannot believe how fortunate I have been to have the chance to visit such beautiful places in the world...

I had an amazing trip to Scotland. My friend Jessi and I headed to Glasgow on a Thursday and we only had 3 full days there – so it was definitely too short but so worth it. We arrived in Glasgow and although it was much bigger than we had expected (who would have known, the biggest city in Scotland is BIG!), we immediately fell in love. It is a beautiful city full of character, great shopping, magical Christmas lights, and incredibly friendly people. While we were in Glasgow we spent our time exploring the streets, shopping, eating delicious food (sushi, German market food, burgers!) drinking coffee and hot chocolate, and of course seeing the pubs.

Jessi & me. The Christmas lights were so beautiful!

Our favorite street: Buchanan street.

One of the days we spent the entire day in the highlands. Or I should say, on a bus. We took a 10 hour bus tour through the highlands to see Loch Lomond, Glencoe, Loch Ness, Inverness, and more.

The map to show our tour, Tom our bus driver (notice the side of the road) and Jessi and me at Loch Lomond.

We were so lucky and had wonderful weather on our tour. It was definitely not the “green” Scotland that you might normally imagine but I loved the frost on the trees and the snow in the mountains. Our driver, Tom, was a funny character. His accent definitely made him more enjoyable to listen to. He had many good stories and historical facts to share with us through out the many hours we spent together. Tom was from a small island and Gaelic is his 1st language so he shared many words with us. Our 1st stop was Loch Lomond which was beautiful. Then we stopped in Glencoe which is famous for the massacre of the MacDonald clan but more recently has been a spot for filming scenes from Harry Potter. We stopped in Fort William for lunch, we passed through the largest mountains in the UK, and then up to see Urquart Castle. At this point we had the "option" to do a boat tour on Loch Ness. Although it was more than we had wanted to spend, it was really fun and amazing to see the sun set on the famous Loch Ness. We also would like to believe we saw Nessie...



sunset over Loch Ness, Urquart Castle, Jessi and me on Loch Ness.

We were surprised to find that the sun sets almost as early as in Alaska so almost a third of the tour was in the dark. However, we saw so many beautiful places in the light that we were not too disappointed. We passed through Inverness before the sun completely set and we enjoyed one last cute town. After seeing all of these small towns Jessi and I plan to return to Scotland and spend some time in little villages.

I kept thinking of our ancestors and family from Scotland... I loved the people in Scotland so much and I would like to think that is why we are good people!

After our tour we returned to Glasgow, walked around the square with Christmas festivities and then went out on the town with our new Australian friends.

out on the town with our aussie friends.

Our last day in Glasgow we went back to our favorite parts of the city, enjoyed some delicious meals and stayed out of the rain! We spent a uncomfortable and very chilly night in the Prestwick Airport and made our way back to Malaga.



We still had two more days of our long weekend so I spent a few nights in Granada with Jessi. As usual it was a wonderful stay in my favorite city -- although significantly colder. I was happy to be back in warmer Motril and start planning Christmas lessons and see my Motrileños again!

feeling thankful

This week in school I taught my kids about thanksgiving – or as much as I could. As I handed out coloring pages of Native Americans and Pilgrims the kids asked, “Who are these people?” Or they would constantly call their turkey a ^Some kids from the 3rd grade making their cards for their families.
chicken or dove; they don’t know what a turkey is. So, who knows how much they got out of my lesson about thanksgiving but that’s okay, I tried! And plus hopefully their moms, dads, or grandparents enjoyed the cards that they made despite whether they can understand them; “I am thankful for my family… “ etc.
So for our Thanksgiving we decided to each make a dish (4 of us Americans) and have a feast. We invited Bernardo (our friend from Motril), and Laura’s roommates from Austria and Russia. It was cool to share our traditions with them for the first time. We had scalloped potatoes (made by me), yams, green beans, stuffing, and a typical Spanish dish and Russian dish. ^ Laura, Bernardo, Me, Andrew and Natasha (from Russia). Oh, and unfortunately we didn’t have a turkey but we had a delicious roasted chicken! It was a great success! I really missed the east coast family since that is who I have spent thanksgiving with the past 4 years and of course I missed ALL of my wonderful family and friends on this day! But all of us at our dinner felt very thankful to have each other, this opportunity to teach & live in
Spain, and all of the new experiences we have to look forward to.

adventures in gibraltar

Imagine being in Spain for two months, constantly being surrounded by the Spanish language and culture and then walking 5ft across a border and all of a sudden you are in a mini-United Kingdom-esque place. This is the story of Gibraltar. We took a four-hour bus ride across the coast of Spain to get to this bizarre place that is a British territory with a population of 30,000. It is essentially a huge rock full of monkeys that the British brought there many years ago. There is a large port and beautiful views from the top of the rock. You can even see Africa from Gibraltar from the right spot. We had the day to explore this strange place so we went up to the top of “the” rock in a tram and explored the foggy place and played with the monkeys. The monkeys were much more interesting than I was expecting. It was incredible to see what they are like from so close. The babies were my favorite -- the way they interacted with their mothers and fellow monkeys. I thought a lot about my “Morality and Culture” seminar that I took this spring in which we learned a lot about chimpanzees and how they interact, etc. The monkeys were so accustomed to people it was scary. However, if you feed them you get fined a huge amount. Anyway we spent a few hours on the rock and then made our way down (after taking many, many pictures, almost getting attacked by a mean monkey, enjoying the views…) to the main town. We ate lunch in a park and then went to “punta de europa” where you can see Africa from a lighthouse. It was really beautiful. It was a very weird but great day in Great Britain. I mean, Gibraltar.

new beginnings.

It's been a while! I guess that just means ive been having fun, right? Well, the week after Barcelona went pretty slow because it took a while for me to feel healthy again. However it was also the start (well, the start for me) of some new wonderful friendships. My roommate Andrew started hanging out with a new group of guys via someone from his school and they are all pretty great. In particular there is Bernardo who you could say has “taken us under his wing.” At this point I feel like he is the best thing that has happened to us because he has really introduced us to Motril and made us feel welcome among people our age. He invites us everywhere, to meet his friends, to speak Spanish with him, etc. It has been really great getting to know him and his friends. He also speaks INCREDIBLE English so I suppose it is exciting for him to practice with us as well! But I just love him and what he has done for us.



That week we also had dinner over at Teresa’s – who is a student of Andrew’s – and who we have hung out with a couple times. She lives in a beautiful apartment in an amazing spot along the beach. She made us a very typical Spanish dinner and we chatted about life. It was fun and a good experience. We felt really welcomed. It truly is amazing how nice we have found “los Motrilenos” (people of Motril).

Last week Meg and I joined a women’s gym…it has been really great and also really entertaining. I feel really good about joining although it is another expense. I feel so much better since I have joined and it also gives me something to do with my afternoons. It has been hilarious to do step and aerobic classes in Spanish and see what kind of women are apart of a Spanish women’s gym (I’m guessing stay at home moms who love to gossip?). It is too funny.

Last week and this week went really well at school. After I was gone for a week from being sick, all of the kids asked where I had been and were concerned which made me feel good that they noticed I wasn’t there. I was happy to be back and (for the most part) I feel better with every class every week. In the preschool classes they had a “Fiesta de Castanas” – Chestnut party. It is really common here to roast chestnuts from November – January. It was really fun – a bunch of the mothers came and roasted chestnuts for the kids and we ate and ate! But I also have discovered how gross elementary schools can be. I have never washed my hands so much in my life! (And of course the kids LOVE to hold my hands and hug me…which is cute and flattering but also unsanitary). After being so miserably sick I want to avoid getting sick again but it just seems difficult with so many sick kids running around and teachers out with swine flu. Oh well, supposedly my immune system will get stronger.

I am still struggling with the 3 year olds – I had another rough day with them when the teacher decided to leave me alone without saying where she was going – or that she left at all and while I was singing along apparently some kids snuck out of the class. When the teacher returned and counted heads and realized some kids were missing, she yelled at me. I understand why she was upset but a) the number one rule of me being a “language and culture assistant” is that I am not supposed to be left alone in the classroom. b) she did not tell me where she was going or that she was leaving at all. c) it is hard enough entertaining three year olds but entertaining AND watching 25 three year olds at the same time is incredibly difficult. I was really upset. It was not okay for the teacher to leave me alone without saying anything to me first but of course I didn’t say that to her which I should have. Anyway, this past week was okay with the 3 year olds…I am trying to just laugh and accept the fact that i will never feel really great about what I am doing with them because when I sing to them I think they would rather have me read a story, and when I read a story, they would rather sing. Or 99% of the time they would rather be with their mommys. I am figuring out what to do with the 3 year olds tomorrow and with everyone next week for Thanksgiving… any thoughts?

Also -- quickly (this is getting long...) we were invited to a bbq at a friend of Bernardo's out at his family's "cottage." It was in an UNREAL location above Salobrena with an amazing view. It was such a wonderful few hours enjoying the view, weather, food and great, great people. That night Kime and Zack came back for round 2! it was so great to have them here again.

view from bbq!

This Friday a group of us Americans are going to Gibraltar for the day. One of the teachers at Andrew’s school was trying to organize a trip but needed more participants so he made it happen. I am really excited – I have heard it is a interesting/strange/cool place so it should be a good experience. Plus I think it will at least be cool to see Africa and some monkeys!


us americans (including kime & zach) and bernardo, alberto, irene, maria.

I’m off to attempt making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for Bernardo and the gang tonight! (trying to find brown sugar and vanilla was really hard by the way…)

i hope all is well with everyone. Lots of love from Spain.

i love BARCELONA.

To do in Barcelona:
1. see all of Gaudi’s amazingness: check √
2. wander through the beautiful streets and neighborhoods: check √
3. prove to a pick-pocket’er that no one can get in my slash proof bag: check √
4. enjoy some quality time with my fellow Clarkies: check √check √and check √
(photos from BARCA: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2049604&id=21502223&l=2b03afc72b )
Well, I had an amazing weekend in Barcelona. Despite the miserable, (and I am not exaggerating) miserable 12-hour train ride, the weekend went as great as it possibly good have. I arrived in Barcelona on Thursday morning and I had the day to spend alone (and unfortunately with my backpack) because Cassie was working that day. I got a map from the tourism office and was on my way to Park Güell – which I decided to go to first so that I could relax in the park and also because people talk non-stop about how great it is. I must mention that on the way to the park I was almost pick pocketed on my 1st metro ride in Barca (a sketchy looking man moved out of a seat to stand next to me while I noticed a nice older looking man trying to get my attention and pointing at my bag, and then the man. I was scared and then laughed because, well, I had my “slash proof bag” that is impossible to get inside – right Aunt Marcia? So no luck for the pick-pocketer.) I also enjoyed the best “café con leche” that I have had in Spain along the way. Park Güell is in fact very beautiful and special but the amount of tourists was a bit overwhelming. I spent quite some time there admiring Gaudi’s structures, tiles, ceilings – everything – while I also did a lot of people watching and relaxing in the park on a beautiful day. From there I went to “Mirador del Palau Nacional” in Mont Juic. This is where the Museum of National Art of Catalunya is and not only is the building beautiful but the view of Barcelona was incredible. The museum was great (I saw some very cool Roman art, Gaudi, Picasso, Mir) but honestly at this point the best part was being able to check my backpack and walk freely for a few hours. After enjoying the museum, the view, and the park I had heard from Cassie and met her close to here in Plaza Espanya. It was so great to see Cassie – if you haven’t figured out by now; she is a good friend from Clark that is teaching English outside of Barcelona. We walked back to her very-cute-modern apartment and from there we got Mexican (haha) food and walked through Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter/neighborhood) which was very cool.

Highlights from
DAY 2: (I could go on and on about each day…)
Sleeping well in Cassie’s roommate’s bed. Walking around “Las Ramblas” – the main street full of street performers and cool art. “El Mercat” the huge market full of delicious fruit, seafood, meat, and of course mushrooms. BAGELS: you cannot find bagels often in Spain so this was a treat. Visiting the beach and enjoying the Mediterranean. Walking up Paseig de Gracia – the street with two Gaudi sites: Casa Botllo and La Perdera. Casa Botllo is by far my favorite and was just beautiful – we wanted to go in but it cost 16 €! We cooked up some stir-fry and went out to a fun bar where you sit with other people so we made friends with Chileans, Germans, and other Spaniards! It was a very good day and night.

DAY 3: happy Halloween!
We started the day off in this cute Café Jardin (Garden Café) which was on a terrace full of plants – very cool. We went back to Park Güell because we wanted to go into Casa/Museu Gaudi and it was good we went back because we entered the park a different way and I saw a lot more that I hadn’t seen last time. It is really big. We went into Casa/Museu Gaudi and it was very cool to see where he lived and spent a lot of time designing everything. I would LOVE to have the furniture that he designed. From there we went to the famous La Sagrada Familia. Of course it was cool to see but I was more impressed with Casa Botllo, or even his furniture. That night we got pizzas (how American! But they were delicious) and another Clarkie, Maaian, who is from Barcelona came over with some of her friends. We got dressed up and went out for Halloween. We went to a very cool club that was decorated for Halloween and we had a really, really fun time (we stayed out until 7…).

DAY 4: last day.
The last day we spent some time in Plaza Real and then met with Maaian for coffee and walked through a very cool area (El Borne?) with neat stores and restaurants. We went into a beautiful church and also visited Palau de la Musica, which was beautiful, but unfortunately we couldn’t go inside because I had to catch my train – next time! I went back to Cassie’s apartment and made my way to the train station for the dreadful train ride back. I was sad to say bye to Cassie (and Maaian, too) who was such a good host to me – it was so cool to see her life in Barcelona and to catch up with her on everything post-Clark.

The whole trip was just wonderful. I felt so lucky to be there and I’m so happy that I finally made it! The city has so many great things to offer whether it is just wandering around the streets, Gaudi, the museums, the diversity of culture, and of course the night life. I loved it and I hope you all can make it there one day, too! Here I am back in Motril sick as un perro (a dog!). I have bronchitis and had a fever of 101, which was not fun, but I am getting better and got my 1st visit to a Spanish doctor over with (it went great, by the way).

I wont bore you anymore…this is getting long. So much love from Spain and I miss all of you every day. Here is the link to my Barcelona Facebook photo album – it is easier to post a link that upload photos on here -- PLEASE check them out!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2049604&id=21502223&l=2b03afc72b

(this album got deleted but it is meant to be below)

kime's visit + my school!

inch by inch life's a sinch.

I feel like I constantly have nursery rhymes, silly songs, or “finger plays” stuck in my head. Life of a preschool teacher?

Anyway…this past week has been both great and sad. As many of you know, my grandmother Audrey passed away. Of course we have been “preparing” (if there is such a thing) for this to happen….but it has been difficult to deal with being so removed and far away from my family. My close friend (from AK), Kime, was here and that was really helpful to have someone close to me here. My mom called with the news while we were sitting at the Mediterranean and of course this was a perfect spot to have a moment for Grandma considering how much she loved the water and especially the Mediterranean. I am very sad for my dad and his family. but I suppose we can also be relieved that Grandma is in a more comfortable place. I am going to miss her and her quirkiness so much.

On to a more positive note… as I mentioned, Kime was here and also her family friend Zack. It was really good to have them here and to show someone my life here. Kime was so excited to see that I knew people walking around town, to find me drinking coffee in the teachers lounge, and to see me really living life in Spain. She and Zack made me feel good about being here and assured me that Motril is not quite as ugly as I think it is. We didn’t get to do a whole lot because unfortunately it was our FIRST two days of cloudy/rainy weather but I showed them the beach, the town (not much to see), my school and some good tapas places. Then we were off to Granada for a couple of days, which of course is always great!

This past weekend was my roommate Meg’s birthday so we had a reunion here in Motril with some other teachers; we had a nice birthday dinner and then went out to celebrate. It was really fun. The rest of the weekend we laid low because we have all been sick with colds (are teachers EVER 100% healthy? This worries me….)

Last week and this week have been much better at school. This week I am doing Halloween activities (see pictures above – soo cute!!) which has been really fun. Most of the kids know about Halloween in the US from movies and apparently they also celebrate a bit here in Motril. We have been making haunted houses and masks, which they all love. With the little little ones I taught them a “pumpkin pumpkin on the ground” song… but I was happy to know that they all LOVED my “wheels on the bus go round and round” song and game last week! (I had them all put their chairs as if we were in a bus, I was the driver of course, and “only English” was allowed on the bus. They loved it -- I felt good about doing something right – for once.)

I am off to Barcelona tomorrow for the long weekend!! (Monday is some random holiday…) Since I bought a Eurail pass to get to Madrid from Paris I got my ticket for 10 euro and it usually costs about 100. I’m taking the night train so I will have four full days there! I am staying with a friend from Clark, Cassie, who is teaching there so I am really excited to see her and her life in Barcelona!

Love to everyone. I miss all of you muchisimo!

la bella ciudad de granada & more

This past weekend I went back to one of my favorite cities, Granada. It was soo good to be back but it was hard because I felt like I was constantly comparing it to Motril. Granada is beautiful with so much to do and many more young people… and of course the mountains are right there and beautiful, too. But I reminded myself of the positive things about being in Motril and fortunately I am close enough to visit often.

I stayed with a few CIEE boys the first night and mostly spent time with CIEE people who are teaching in Granada. It seems that everyone has had/is having a hard time meeting Spaniards, too. My friend Jessi that was staying with us found an apartment in Granada so we helped her move in – her apartment has a view of the Alhambra, its pretty unreal. I enjoyed talking to her roommate who is getting her Ph.D in psychology at the university there so that was interesting. I’ll hopefully be visiting Jessi lots so I can enjoy Granada more and also talk more with her roommate about the field of psychology in Spain.

A few things worth mentioning of the past 10ish days:
-I was sitting at a café and I saw one of my favorite students Eva walk by with her family so I yelled her name…she got SO excited and pointed me out to everyone in her family with a huge smile on her face. It made my week…and it was a moment where I was happy to be living in Motril.

-I went on a field trip to the southern side of the Sierra Nevadas by the Alpujarra villages. It was really cool – the landscape and mountains are so different from Alaska but it was really beautiful and fun to be in the mountains.

-Every Wednesday I meet with the English teachers at my school to talk and help them with English. The topic of Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize came up…it was interesting to see what they felt. They said they are confused as to why he got it so early on in his presidency and that they should have waited until he has actually done more. My roommate Andrew said a few of his students (which are adults) said they think the Spanish Army or Zapatero (president of Spain) should have gotten it instead. Interesting….

-I had my first breakdown at school. On Tuesdays I have the most time with the preschool classes – 6 classes total within 3 hours. I came prepared to teach them the itsy bitsy spider and I also brought a story to read. The first 3 classes went okay -- even though they looked at me very uninterested, at least I had something to do with them. Then at my 4th class I couldn’t find the kids… it turned out the teacher had joined my last 3 classes (about fifty 4 year olds) into one room for me to do a presentation with photos that I had forgotten to bring. When the teacher had asked me last week to bring photos I thought she meant printed photos to hand out or photos I could use from the books I have… but she meant on the computer. So I had nothing to do for the next 45 minutes with these fifty 4 year olds. Finally we decided to use photos from my facebook, which by the time I got to all of them the kids really didn’t care at all about what I was showing them. At the end, one teacher (who is very nice) started listing activities I could try doing for next time. I told her that I was prepared with a song, etc and that I have no problem searching for activities on my own but that I need to do know what I am expected to do that day (for ex, give a 45 minute presentation). So I left feeling pretty stupid and upset in general. I am really struggling with the preschool kids and feeling like my time (15 minutes per class, each week) with them is worthwhile... but the other classes are better and continue to get better so that keeps me going. I just wish I could use that time with the older kids who might benefit more.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Kime is coming tomorrow which I am really excited about to see a familiar face and show someone my life here…
FYI: we are receiving mail and packages just fine at our apartment so mail is always welcome! :)

Love to all and especially Grandma who I am thinking of every day and sending positive thoughts to everyone with her during these hard days…
I love you so much Grandma.

first week of school

It’s amazing that I have only been here (in Motril) for a little over 2 weeks – it feels like it has been forever. Last week I finally decided to go to my school and meet the professors and it made me really excited about starting work. I met with my coordinator, Antonio and he is really, really nice. He genuinely wants to make sure we are taken care of and are happy here in Motril. He showed me around the school and introduced me to many teachers that I would be working with. All of the teachers were really excited to have me and knew who I was. When we walked into Antonio’s English classroom the kids had outlined Alaska and North Carolina (where the other girl is from) on the map – it was very cute. The school also has a beautiful view of the mountains, which is nice. The next day was supposed to be our “first day” but Alisha and I showed up and just watched Antonio and some others figure out our schedules (of course they didn’t have those ready yet…this is Spain!) They asked if one of us would prefer to be with the little or older kids and I said I didn’t care and Alisha preferred the older kids so I was told I would be with 3-8 year olds!

Monday was my first “real” day. I showed up at 9 for my first class with 3rd graders. I was really nervous but the whole day went really well. The kids were excited to have me and were interested in my life. The hardest part: NOT speaking Spanish. The kids (even the 3rd graders and ESPECIALLY the 1st graders) hardly know ANY English. So what exactly is my role here? It’s really hard. Some of the teachers were really good at helping me and making it interesting to have me but some of the others didn’t know what to do with me there. Highlights of the day: getting a note from a 1st grader with my name on it and hearts surrounding it and then a little girl saying “teacher, teacher…you have beautiful eyes.” Yesterday I had the pre-school kids in the morning and I started to appreciate the 1st graders. I also gained some respect for Aunt Janet and anyone who has ever taught first graders. It was hard. It also made it hard because a few of the teachers just looked at me and waited for me to know what to do. What do you do with a group of 4 year olds who don’t speak English? On your first day and no experience doing this even with kids who speak English? Next time I am coming prepared with songs and books because even if they don’t understand at least it’s something, right? Ugh! But then I went to a first grade class and was excited to at least be able to converse (even if it’s in Spanish – oops). Of course every girl wants to know about Hannah Montana (a Disney show) and The Jonas Brothers. And then a boy told me “bye bye, te quiero mucho” (I love you so much). That made my day better… Today I had the three year olds. They came in to the class crying, running, screaming. What the heck am I supposed to do with three year olds and english? I DONT KNOW. its really hard because the teachers also have no idea and stare at me with a blank look and say, ¨well, are you going to teach them a song or something?¨ So I have to prepare for next class. which is ironic because I don´t have to prepare anything for the older kids because i am an assistant and not expected to do that. But i will do my best. And at least they are very, very cute.

Also – I am only working Monday – Wednesday. Welcome to la vida Española. I am hoping to get private classes very soon because I am going to get sick of all of my free time. One of my (young) teachers also asked me to meet with her for coffee every week to speak English and then also help me with Spanish so that’s exciting. I was trying to go to Barcelona this weekend because we have a long weekend (really long for me, Thursday – Monday) but I didn’t figure it out soon enough so I am going to have to go another weekend. We plan to spend some time in Granada, which will be really exciting to be back.

Just a short summary of my weekend: Friday we went out with our friend’s Russian (but Spanish) roommate who showed us a lot of fun bars in the area. It was good to go out with her and speak Spanish with people. Saturday: we went to the beach and had an early night out because of being so tired from Friday. Sunday: we went to a “festival” in Salobrena but I think we missed the main event because we only saw the tents set up with LOTS of nuts and dried fruit – Papa, you would have been in heaven! It was fun and beautiful.

I’m off to bed for another long day of work (ha, ha). I miss all of you and love you a lot. I hope you are all well and please keep me updated on your life.

Besos!

Are we in Spain, or Romania?

So far we have only met Romanians. Which is fine because we still speak in Spanish, which is the goal of living here, but sometimes we feel like we are in Romania and not Spain. It is very humorous. As I mentioned in the last blog, we were all looking very forward to going out with Pepe, our new Romanian friend. On Saturday the other CIEE girls arrived (they are great, by the way) and we prepared for the big night out with Pepe. We told him to come over with his Spanish friends for a drink and well, he brought Martin – our other 40-year-old Romanian friend. We enjoyed a few drinks with them and we went to a few other bars and eventually they asked if we wanted to go to a discoteca…we said sure! Where did we end up? Well, we still aren’t quite sure. At a Romanian discoteca in the woods of Calahonda (the town next door). It was fun, yes, but just very, very random and a bit crazy. We learned about dancing and music in Romania, which is very cool, but we are still anxious to make some Spanish friends and learn about the nightlife in Motril and with Spaniards. It was a night to remember, that’s for sure. (Oh, also, on Friday we went to a bar near our apartment and talked to the bartender – trying to make conversation and friends – and we found out is from, guess where? Romania!)

Tomorrow is the big day: I start school. I went there today to meet my “bilingual coordinator,” Antonio, and the whole experience made me so happy and excited for what’s to come. Antonio is so incredibly nice and helpful and he introduced me to almost all of the other teachers (a lot to remember) and showed me around the school. It is in a nice area with a nice view of the Sierra Nevadas. I saw some of the classrooms and all of the kids were excited to see me and said “Hello! Hello!” I also glanced at the map in the English room and Alaska and North Carolina were outlined…it was very cute. (There is another girl, Alisha, teaching there from North Carolina, so they are excited to have us). Tomorrow is our first official day but I think we are just going to talk about our schedule. I don’t know if I already mentioned this, but I am only working 12 hour days with Fridays off. Pretty nice huh? I am also going to put up signs for private classes tomorrow to make some extra money and have less free time.

Everything at the apartment is going well. I have discovered living with a guy is pretty nice but also very different seeing as he eats all the time. We are all getting along great and keeping a positive, lighthearted attitude about everything we have encountered so far.

I have been to a town called Almuñecar quite a bit this week trying to help Jessi (another CIEE girl who I immediately clicked with), find an apartment. It is a beautiful beach town that’s about 30 minutes from here. I would love to live there but Motril is growing on me more and more every day AND the good news is, it’s very close and I have people there to visit!

That’s all for now. Love to all and keep in touch.
Besos! (ps i finally put pictures on facebook...check them out!)

motril: my new home.

Im here! Im actually living in spain. Actually in my own apartment, in spain. WOW. Its all happened so fast. I feel like I have been here for weeks but it has only been 5 days. I will try to make this short – but so much has happened that its hard. I will go ahead and list the highlights of each day.

Day 1. The beautiful bus ride from Sevilla to Motril led to high expectations and being very let down. Motril is not that pretty, who knew? Meg and I walked through motril STARVING and no places to eat. Motril also completely shuts down from 2 – 4…no tourism, who knew? Oh, also we met up with Andrew – a fellow CIEE teacher who is great and now one of my roommates!

Day 2. Apartment searching begins. And more importantly, searching for the beach. On the way to the beach we met our Romanian friends who not only directed us to the beach but also ended up opening up their home to us, their homemade whiskey, and helping us search and call about apartments. It was a hilarious and great experience. One of them, Pepe, the closest to our age, plans to take us out on Saturday. We are all looking very forward to this and seeing what the nightlife of Motril has to offer.

Day 3. More apartment searching. We saw a place in the morning that we all felt very good about (now our apartment) but wanted to keep options open. We ventured to Salobrena which is a beach town ten minutes from Motril – it is beautiful. And not only a ten minute bus ride away but only 94 cents, to be exact. We all fell in love with Salobrena and plan to visit often. We saw more apartments and decided we would be stupid to pass the one from the morning up – we planned to meet Isabel (our new landlord) in the morning. The night ended by ordering WAY too much food at a bar – apparently waiters in Spain don’t feel the need to tell you when you order enough food for 9 and you only have 3 people. Live & learn.

Day 4. We signed a lease. In Spanish. In Spain. And handed over quite a bit of cash to our landlord. It was a very scary process but we made sure to look over everything in writing before. And here we are! In our apartment! It may look like an 80 year old lives here but in fact, Meg, Andrew and I live here! It’s a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment in the center of Motril…very close to all of our schools. It was a very good price and although our landlord is a little crazy we think that she will be good to us. We got our keys, moved in, bought sheets, groceries, got situated, etc. A huge weight has been lifted and now we only have a few more things to go to become official residents.

Day 5. Things start breaking. So our perfect apartment is not so perfect. We are discovering the stove is very, very slow. The thing that makes hot water isn’t working. And one toilet flushes very, very slowly. Our landlord is already planning a visit to fix things. We are still loving our apartment but are realizing it’s definitely not perfect. Next up: La playa. Now that we have moved in we can relax a little and enjoy where we are before school starts!
I miss all of you and love you so much.
Keep in touch and send me emails!
Mil besos

Also, cell phone number: country code (34) 655 090 580
My address:
Calle Alonso Terron Nº 1
3º D
Motril (Granada) 18600
Spain

sevilla!

Por fin I made it to Sevilla after 13 hours on the night train and lugging my luggage across Madrid and another 2 hour train ride. I was expecting a “bed” on the paris - madrid train but instead I got a reclining chair. I was really upset but I didn’t say anything because well, you all know me. I had such a nice time in Paris and then getting on the train was scary because Spain became so real….

I was really nervous by the time I was in the cab getting to my hotel in Sevilla but once I arrived there and walked around I felt huge relief. I was so happy the orientation was in Sevilla because it was so familiar and felt so good to be back. I was roomed with Meg who is also placed in Motril so we walked around before we had to be back for a “cocktail hour.” It felt like CIEE orientation last year, or freshman orientation, all over again. It was fun but it can be exhausting talking to all of these people and trying to make relationships with them even though you are leaving in three days. Anyway, the next few days were packed full with sessions led by various CIEE staff about the upcoming year. A lot of the information was really good and but a lot of it was pretty useless. We learned about stuff ranging from the health care system in Spain (which is amazing by the way) to what our responsibilities are as a language and cultural assistant. Most of the information made me really excited and anxious to get to my school! I am really happy that I am teaching younger kids (ages 3-12) just based on the information we were getting. By the way, to clarify, it sounds like I definitely will be floating around the school. For example, Monday I could be with the 4^th grade math class and the 5^th grade history class, and Tuesday I will be with the first grade math class, etc. We are almost positive that we won’t be working on Fridays. WOOHOO! They also gave us a lot of information about how to find another job (giving private lessons, translating, bar tending, etc) so I will definitely be trying to do that because I am going to have a lot of free time with only being at the school for 12 hours a week.

They fed us really great food the whole time and took us to a flamenco show and a tour around the Alcazar. Of course I had already seen these many times but it was still great. It was frustrating at night for me because I was used to my routine with my Sevilla friends of going out to certain places but when there is a group of 30 people who don’t know where to go it became frustrating. My last day in Sevilla was the best. We woke up (after 4 hours of sleep) and had our last orientation sessions and a great lunch. I went to the Alcazar and got to see one of my favorite professors, Carlos, from last year. I love listening to him talk; he has so much to teach! Afterwards I ran over to Eva’s to see her. She is back together with her Moroccan boyfriend -- whom Emily and I really loved talking to so it was good to see him. Eva and I drank coffee and caught up – it was really nice. It was also good to talk to her because she is a teacher so it was good to get some insight from her. I was happy I saw her and she told me I am welcome to stay there any time I come through Sevilla, which was really nice. After Eva’s I went to the beautiful river to get a break from all of the Americans and orientation and read my book until sunset. It was very peaceful and brought back a lot of good memories. That night we went to our “farewell dinner” and afterwards Annie (a girl I studied in Sevilla with) and I hung out with a CIEE guide from when we were here. He helped out with the art group I was with in and he also did a lot of our tours around Andalucía -- he is great. We had a really good time drinking cerveza and catching up with him. I went to the hotel very, very happy about my great day in Sevilla. Meg and I packed up our stuff and prepared for our journey to Motril….

I’m here! But more later… (to keep you in suspense!)