Beach in Autumn??

So just like in the good ol' USA we had a long weekend for Columbus Day. However, here it is for Día de la Hispanidad and Fiesta de la Virgen de Pilar.

Interesting little digression, I asked my students why they didn't have school on Monday, and one responded, "Because it was 'Pilar's Party'." I naturally laughed because it sounded like some girl (Pilar) was having a party at her house (complete with keg and Solo cups), and we were all invited. I had to explain the difference between a holiday and a party. Entertaining though.

So, Día de la Hispanidad is basically celebrating Spain conquering the New World, in essence, Columbus Day. Over that long weekend, a couple of friends and I decided to go to Lisbon, Portugal. We took an over-night bus from Madrid to Lisbon, which arrived at 5:30 am. So we set out exploring the city as the sun rose. It was so beautiful. For those of you that have never had the pleasure of visiting Lisbon, the sidewalks are mosaics with white tiles which are unbelievably clean. I think that its mandatory that people mop the sidewalk in front of the buildings because the sidewalks literally reflected the sun. Since it was so early, the bakeries started baking their delicious portuguese breads. From 6am-6pm the entire city smells like freshly baked goods, and from 6pm-6am the city smells like cigarette smoke. It's an interesting transition.

After a good day of taking in the sights of Lisbon, we took a day trip to Sintra on Sunday. Sintra is a small town outside of Lisbon with a couple of castles and a moorish fortress from medieval times. It's quite an impressive sight because the town is at the base of this mountain that just shoots up, and you have to take a bus from the town up these winding mountain roads. The whole time I was praying that I wouldn't plummet to my death because it was a very steep fall. After seeing the sights, we ate dinner at an Italian/Indian Restaurant in the town, and took the train back.

Monday, we went to the beach! It was mid-high 80s, and not a cloud in the sky. Perfect beach weather. The beach is called Estoril, which is a little town about a half hour from Lisbon. It was a very nice beach, and there is a castle on the beach. Not a sand castle, but a castle... on the beach...

We came back from the beach, showered, and got on our overnight bus back to Madrid. Overall a productive, interesting weekend. Nothing really interesting happened last week, or this past weekend, but the tongue twister for last week was:

• A skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump sunk, but the stump thunk the skunk stunk.

They had a rough time with that one. That's all for now. Until next time, Adios.

Bienvenidos a Madrid!

Hey everyone!

This is my first post from Spain. Yes, I have been here 3 weeks now, yet I haven't done any updates. The reason is that I haven't really done anything until recently. From now on I'm going to try to update more often. So here have been my first 3 weeks (prepare yourselves for a long-ish post):

I arrived on Thursday, September 17th completely jet lagged and tired. I barely slept on my red-eye, and I had 2 enormous suitcases and 2 carry-ons with me, AND I had to navigate the metro to my apartment. So I turned on my cell phone, which apparently did not have any battery. I promptly realized I needed to find an electrical outlet, yet for some reason the Madrid airport seems completely void of outlets. Believe it or not, "outlet" is not a word that you learn in Spanish class. Eventually I found one (and I still do not know how to say "outlet" in Spanish). I got to my apartment and unpacked and was still extremely jet-lagged.

The next exciting thing was the first Saturday I was here was "Noche en Blanco" which is a night when all the museums are open really really really late (like 1 or 2am) and the entire city of madrid comes out to party. I went out with my housemate Julia who is from NC and her friends. We went to the Thyssen Museum and then stood on the street corner making friends for a couple hours, then we went to a Sangria bar at 3:30 am and then I got home at 4:30 am, which apparently is an early night in Madrid. So that night was extremely fun and I met a lot of interesting people. For the next week or so I just sat in my room watching TV shows online, and I explored Madrid a little bit. But nothing too exciting transpired.

Eventually my friends from school arrived and then I had people to hang out with. But enough of that. On to School!!

So I first went to school last Wednesday to meet the teachers and the headmistress etc. The head of the English dept., Clara, drove me from a place near my house to school, which is extremely nice/convenient. She drives me on Wednesdays and Fridays because those are the days when I have class first period. The teachers at the school are so nice. They all were so excited to have me there because now they can practice english (although only a couple know any english at all). One teacher, Maria Jose, always yells to me in the morning "GOOD MORNING DEREK! HOW ARE YOU!?" in a thick Spanish accent. That is the only thing she knows in English. The English teachers that I am working with are very nice. A couple of them barely speak English at all, akin to the level of Spanish that my Cromwell Middle School Spanish teachers knew. However, a couple of them speak incredibly well. Marizell, who is one of my favorite teachers to work with, speaks perfectly and has taught Spanish in the USA before. She teaches the older students (equivalent to 7-9th grades). She is very organized and is very helpful to me when I am planning my classes. Other teachers just kind of say, "OK it's your hour, go for it and do whatever you like." That does not help me too much.

I spend 1 hour per week with each of the English classes from 2nd grade in the primary school to 3rd year in the secondary school (~9th grade). The young kids don't really know any english at all, so it is hard for me to plan activities for them, but they are adorable and LOVE speaking English, it's ok. The older kids know a decent amount of English, but they are afraid to speak, or don't know how to put the words together well. This week with most of my classes we listened to "Waiting on the World to Change" by John Mayer and talked about what it means, what words they don't know, and different activities for the different ages. One thing that I've been doing with most of my classes is a tongue twister. I think that they are good to help with pronunciation in English. These were this week's tongue twisters (see if you can say them):

1. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
2. She sells sea shells by the sea shore.
3. Sure, sir, the ship sure is ship-shape, sir.
4. A big black bug bit a big black bear; it made the big black bear bleed blood.

I've gotten really good at saying them fast. One kid thought I was just the teacher's friend from Spain and I was not really American, so I had to say them really fast in order for them to believe me. This brings me to my next point. Only the 2nd graders know that I speak Spanish. The 3rd-9th graders think that I do not understand a single word of Spanish. It's actually really difficult to pretend to not understand because they will ask me a question in Spanish, and without thinking, I will respond to the question in English. It's also very tempting to speak to them in Spanish if they don't understand something, but I know that it's better to speak in English to them. After showing them English tongue twisters, they showed me spanish ones (which I already knew and can say very well). When it was my time to say them for the class, I put on my best American accent and butchered the tongue twisters more than you can imagine. Marizell and I decided that in mid-April, I'm going to walk into class and say: "A ver, ¿Qué vamos a hacer hoy? Pienso que vamos a hablar en castellano para que yo pueda practicar... etc." The kids will be so thrown off and confused. I do get to practice Spanish in the teachers' room because otherwise I would not get to chat with the teachers at all.

In addition, I'm like a celebrity at school. I can't walk through the halls or schoolyard without at least 10 kids yelling "HELLO DERIK!!!" (which is how they pronounce my name, hence the title of the blog). They also love my NikeiD shoes because they say my name on the backs. Okay, I'm tired of typing now, but I will try to write again soon. Hasta luego!