La Vida es Buena

You know how randomly you have those days that are just awesome? Nothing in particular happens, no big events or anything, it's just a great day. Well today was one of those days! The weather was absolutely gorgeous! For the first time it actually felt like beginning of fall weather. Last week I saw my breath every morning on the way to school; this morning it was warm enough that I couldn't see my breath but cool enough that I needed a jacket. During the afternoon it warmed up a bit, but not a whole lot- aka perfect sweater weather :) It was perfectly sunny all day, with the occasional cloud in the sky and a slight breeze; it really made me wish I was in the mountains! School went well today- I gave out Halloween stick on earrings and Halloween stickers to one of the 6th grade classes, they were all very excited. After school I quickly grabbed lunch before heading to my private tutoring lesson. On the way back from the lesson I found another fruteria close to my house. This is definitely the cheapest one so far and it was really clean and everything looked really fresh! Definitely going back. I also stopped by the language institute to see what classes they offer, etc. When I got back to the apartment there was a box in front of my door- it was a care package from my mom! There was chips and salsa, chili & taco mix, and candy corn! I immediately opened the candy corn and had some, it would be a hit here, not sure why it hasn't crossed the Atlantic yet. I gave my roommate some to try and he kept asking for more lol! Since the sun sets just after 7 I didn't have much daylight left but the weather was so nice I had to go for a run. It was definitely the perfect fall weather for running :) My roommate and I made dinner together- fried rice with mixed veggies, eggs, and ham- so delicious! The care package & the weather definitely contributed to today being awesome!! Hope this weather sticks around!

Hot Water Conclusion (hopefully!)

After a week and a half without hot water the problem is supposedly fixed and I have enjoyed a nice long hot shower in my apartment. Once the new non-carbon monoxide producing water heater was installed we had hot water in the kitchen but not the bathroom. When the technician finally came back to inspect it he realized he hadn't opened/turned some valves all the way and that it somehow had a self timer or something so he just turned that off and the result was hot water in our apartment for long enough time to take a shower :) let's hope it continues and doesn't break again

Ultimate Frisbee

In my quest to escape boredom last week I came across a website for an ultimate frisbee team here in Madrid. They have open practices every Wednesday and Saturday so yesterday I decided to go check it out. It was awesome! There were about 25 people, most of whom are studying or teaching English. Not only did I get to meet a lot of people my age which was nice, I also met a few others who live in Alcala! I've only ever played pickup games before, so this was a bit more intense. They have a competitive team that practices outside of the open practices they hold, so even though this was called a pickup game they still ran a specific offense. It was a bit confusing to figure out at first (especially since people were telling me different things) but by the end of the 2 hours I figured it out more or less. They were all really nice and willing to explain different things and I'm going to improve a lot if I keep playing with them. They also have an open practice on Wednesday night, but it's in Madrid, so I wouldn't get back till around midnight, plus I wouldn't be able to attend the weekly intercambio meetings here in Alcala since they're also on Wednesday nights. I might go once in awhile to the Wednesday practices, but I'm definitely going to the Saturday practices when I can. After the practice a group went out for drinks, so that was nice to socialize outside of frisbee. It's amazing what you can find on the internet with a little research; I'm glad I found los quijotes!

Clases Particulares

Today I gave private lessons to two brothers- it's a very different experience than my private lessons with Paula. I spend an entire hour with Paula (5th grade) working on English. I spend 30minutes with each of the brothers individually (3rd grade and 5th grade), and the mother wants me to cover their science and English homework. So I spend 15minutes on each subject with each kid. Since she has me tutor them twice a week I think I should spend one day on science and one day on English, 15 minutes is not enough time to get anything done, let alone check their homework and see what they need to practice. We'll see how it goes next week, but I might have to talk to her about it. Another difference is that Paula's apartment is less than a 10min walk, where as Diego and Hugo live about a 10min drive away from the school. So the mother picks me up and drops me off in front of the school twice a week when we have lessons. It's actually weird riding in a car again. I mean, I've taken the bus a lot to/from Madrid, but apart from riding in Santos' car to the race on Sunday I really haven't been in a car in over a month...

Teaching Teachers

I've been teaching students for three weeks now, and I had my first experience teaching teachers yesterday. Every year one of the auxiliares teaches English to some of the teachers at the school. This year I have 4 teachers who know nothing about English, they just want to learn. We started with "hello" some of them asked me to pronounce it, they had no idea- this is literally a zero level English class. Since I only have them for one hour every Wednesday afternoon it's going to be slow going. Obviously I can't give homework or tests, so the pace of the class is really going to depend on how much time they put into it outside of class. The good thing is that they're only there because they want to learn, but the bad thing is they only want to learn certain things. It's hard to teach conversation sentences if I can't teach them verb conjugations. I'm going to teach them verb conjugations, they will have to deal, there's no way around it. This is going to be more difficult and take lots more preparation than any of my other classes or private lessons, but it should also be a fun class to teach. Plus I get to speak Spanish because otherwise they wouldn't understand anything. It is a bit comical though that I've only been a teacher (an assistant really) for 3 weeks and I'm teaching teachers, hopefully I can learn from them too!

Hot Water Saga

When the technician came Monday to fix the hot water heater he did fix it, but he also told us that ours was really old and emitting carbon monoxide. So although we had hot water Monday night/Tuesday morning we were slowly dieing by breathing (at least we had the windows open)! So Tuesday he came to install a brand new heater where we don't have to constantly lite a fire when we want hot water. It was spiffy and brand new so we didn't care that he left the dirty old one on the floor in our kitchen (it wasn't connected so it was no longer emitting carbon monoxide). Last night I washed the dishes with hot water and all was well. The morning when I went to shower there was no hot water. I went to the kitchen and saw there was also no fire. However, since this was a new hot water heater I couldn't lite the fire. There was only hot water in the kitchen sink when I turned it all the way up. This lead to about a minute of hot water in the shower- aka enough to fool me into shampooing my hair before returning to ice cold water. Needless to say I was freezing this morning in 30 degree weather having washed my hair in ice cold water. When I got back from school I asked my roommates about it. Ines turned on the shower and hot water came out when it was all the way turned up. She suggested that since I shower in the morning when everyone else is showering there isn't enough water pressure for the heater to automatically lite the fire. Therefore saying I simply can't shower before school in the morning if I want hot water. My other roommate Osvaldo said that he showered around lunchtime and he only had a minute of hot water also before it was ice cold again- therefore having nothing to do with other water pressure in the building. I briefly turned on the shower and it was hot, but obviously I only left it on for a minute or so. Hopefully I'll have time to run after my teachers' class tonight before it gets dark. So I'll shower at an off time (like Osvaldo did) and see if it's hot or ice cold water. Ines thinks it's the pressure, Osvaldo thinks it's the heater, so after I try to shower tonight I'll cast my final vote. Regardless I think we should the technician back b/c I should be able to shower in the morning with hot water if I want. I almost want the old heater back; even though it emits carbon monoxide we could leave the window open and at least have hot water...

That brings me to another point: there are no smoke detectors or air detectors of any kind in Spain, at least not that I've seen. None in my apartment, none in my friends apartments, none in the schools, nor restaurants, etc. So if I die here it will probably be from an odorless gas or a horrible cold I get from showering in ice cold water in the winter. Good thing I like to be outside and usually have a pretty strong immune system!

Hot Water is Back!

So the guy came today to fix the hot water :) This means we had hot water this evening and that I should be able to take a hot shower in the morning!!

10K Carrera de la Ciencia

Today I ran my second race here in Spain, another 10K. It was in the center of Madrid instead of here in Alcala. One of the Spanish people I work with also ran the race, so he gave me a ride so I didn't have to figure out the bus and metro really early in the morning. He and his brother and a few of their good friends have their own running club, so they were also running the race. Unfortunately the weather wasn't nearly as nice as it was for the 10K race here in Alcala. It was in the low 40s when I got up and the race started at 9am, less than 30minutes after the sunrise, so it wasn't much warmer during the race. I actually ran in a long sleeve shirt and felt good during the race but was freezing before and after, even though I had brought pants & a jacket to put on after the race. The race itself went pretty well considering the fact that I still really haven't been training at all, and that we got there with only a few min. to stretch quickly before heading to the start of the race. When we arrived we got our chip and race numbers. The race numbers were made out of a clothish type material which was interesting, and the others said it was also the first time they had seen race numbers in that material. There were 8000 runners signed up for the race, so it was really hard to get around everyone in the beginning. Everyone was spread out all across the road and it was really hard to weave around people because there were just so many. It was also really tight when we went through narrow streets or streets with construction, but after about 4 kilometers or so I was around people who were more or less my pace so it wasn't as bad as the start. There were a few hills, some up some down, but only about 4 and none were really steep or very long, so while it was a more challenging course than the previous 10K race, it wasn't a challenging course. They had a refreshment station just after the 5K mark. I grabbed a cup filled with a clear liquid, which I assumed was water, but to my surprise it was a sweet soda drink (like what they had handed out at the end of the last race). I was like woah, ok not what I was expecting and definitely not what I need. I don't really like drinking a really sweet carbonated drink halfway through a race. So beware- water is served in water bottles during a race, anything else is most likely a sugary beverage. I crossed the finish line with an official time of 51:10. So worse than my last 10K, but not terrible, in fact I came in 3380 out of 6169 runners who finished the race. After crossing the finish line you turned in your chip and received a dri-fit shirt and a drawstring bag with the race info on it. You also received poweraid (which was a nice surprise, by now I was expecting soda), and a white cake with chocolate snack which was cool. The shirt is pretty cool, except that everyone wears really tight clothes here in Europe. The first shirt they gave me was so small it wouldn't even fit over my head, and when I went to exchange it she said they were all out of shirts. I started to explain to her that I asked for medium and they gave me a small inside the bad, and while I was talking to her a guy came up with a medium who needed a large and she found a large shirt abandoned under the table so I convinced her to give me his men's medium. Well it's still a bit smaller than I prefer my shirts, especially my running shirts, but when I asked the others I was running with they told me no, it's not to small. So I have a true Spanish race shirt. After the race we all went to eat and had a famous Spanish dish that is a plate of fries covered in eggs which are covered in ham with peppers around the outside of the plate. It was really good! Right by the restaurant there was a smaller, medieval market similar to the market here in Alcala last weekend. We walked around for a bit, but it was pretty tiny. They did have donkey rides for kids, and a flock of geese with a geese herder walking around which was neat. We then came back to Alcala and luckily by then my friends were awake (since it was after 1:30 in the afternoon) so I could go over to their place and take a hot shower. All in all it was a good race and now I have an official Spanish dri-fit running shirt :)

Hot Water Update

So Thursday there was no hot water at all even though the flame was lit. My roommate tried putting it out & relighting it several times but still no hot water. We called our landlord to have the water company come out and look at it. It was 138 euros for them to come to the apartment, look at it, say "it's old and now broken and needs to be fixed." Seriously, that is not 138 euros worth of work. Anyways, they're hoping to have the stuff in on Monday to be able to come fix it then. So that's at least 5 days without hot water. Yesterday I was able to shower at my friends' apartment (they live like 2 blocks away so that's nice), so hopefully they don't mind me continuing to do that the next couple of days. Especially since I have a race on Sunday...

Hot Water

In the United States we generally take hot water for granted. We turn the red handle and hot water comes out, it's that simple. Well recently I've discovered how much I miss that. 2 days in a row now our gas water heater flame has gone out just as I'm about to take a shower. Since that means I discover the problem I have to fix it. Normally this is fine but when it happens twice in a row at 8am when it's already freezing cold, I get a bit annoyed. To solve the hot water dilemma one must walk to the kitchen (keep in mind I've already turned on the shower and only when ice cold water is still coming out after several minutes do I know the heater flame must be relit), find the extra long toothpicks we have just for this occasion, light the toothpick in one hand and turn the gas water heater knob with the other. You have to get the flaming toothpick in the right spot to relight the flame (I always hope I can do this before the fire on the toothpick reaches my fingers) and then continue holding the knob for a minute or so until your positive the flame has spread and then quickly switch back the knob before the flame goes out again. If you fail you must repeat the process until you get it right. Then about 5min later you get hot water. It's a process but it's a LOT better than taking an ice cold shower. So when you turn on your shower tomorrow morning and instantly get hot water, be thankful- I sure am!

Arab Ruins

Most people know the Arabs came across from Africa and occupied Spain for awhile, what most people don't know is that remains from one of their castles is right across the Henares river. Today a group of us crossed the river to go look at the ruins. The water was really cold, and actually moving quite quickly! Where we crossed was only about 6-10 inches deep, but right beside there it's deep enough to jump in- when it's warmer of course! The landscape is really gorgeous across the river, and we climbed to the top of the hill where the tower remains are. From the top you can see the river, the whole town of Alcala de Henares, the airport, Madrid center, and some other towns scattered nearby. We hung out for awhile and before we left Eric noticed a box hiding behind part of the tower- it was a geocaching box! There was all sorts of stuff in there, glitter, game cards, a few coins, a mini furby, etc. Kevin had a Chicago metro ticket that he left in the box, and the rest of us signed our names in the book. I've never actually been on the geocaching site but I know people who do it as a hobby, so I've seen several spots before. It was neat to just find it out of the blue though! After hanging out across the river for awhile we came back and went to the market again as today was the final day. So sad, I'm going to miss all those delicious desserts.

Calle 13 Concert

Plaza Cibeles is apparently THE place for things to happen in Madrid. It's where the Vuelta Espana ended a few weeks ago, and it's where we got to see a free Calle 13 concert last night! It was the culmination of the "America Vive en Madrid" celebration which included a parade leading up to the concert. The celebration was for all the immigrants in Madrid from Latin America & just celebrating Latin Americans in Spain. Calle 13 is a band from Puerto Rico which is why they were headlining. Before the concert we went for tapas at a bar. They served you an entire plate full of food with every drink you ordered- we ended up getting a lot of food! While we were at the bar we noticed some people also had liters of some drink, possibly mojitos. As we were trying to figure out what type of drink it was, I realized the guy holding the drink was my friend Laurens!?!!! We met at MENA (an AIESEC conference) in Tunisia in 2008! It is definitely a small world!

Medieval Festival

This weekend the Medieval Festival is here in Alcala! It's the largest medieval festival in Spain and runs all along the main square (Plaza Cervantes) and the side streets around the Plaza. Monday and Tuesday are holidays here in Spain, and the festival honors the baptism of Cervantes who lived here in Alcala. Yesterday I went and visited Cervantes' house. It's free to tour, and located right along the main pedestrian/shopping street, Calle Mayor. It's a pretty small house, but it was neat to see how things were set up during that time period. There was also a room filled with numerous copies of Don Quixote- from different time periods, in different languages, etc. After visiting the house we walked around the market (as the festival is called). During the day Friday they were still setting up, and the main festivities run Friday night-Tuesday. We decided it was kinda like going to the fair in the US, minus the rides. There was one makeshift merry-go-round for little kids, but other than that everyone was focused on the little shops/booths that were set up, the beer, and of course the food! There were lots of kebab stands, dried fruit stands, lots of spices, herbs, teas, and the infamous dessert stands! The dessert stands sold cakes/brownies/etc. by the kilo, they had doughnuts, giant chocolate croissants, etc, etc, etc. It was crazy and so delicious! Lots of the booths were selling leather items- such as journals, belts, bracelets. There were also several stone/metal jewelry stands, and lots of incense booths as well. There was also an area where they had animals- a giant turkey (which we decided we needed to take and then serve next month for Thanksgiving), goats, chickens, etc. and there was also an area that had owls and eagles which was really cool! The brewery stands also had tapas and were set up like old fashion bars where you were sitting on stools around wooden kegs. Most of the merchants were dressed up in costume- even the waiters, etc. at restaurants around where the festival was were dressed up. There was also a parade type thing which went through the festival where people were dressed up as an angry dead bride going after/attacking a man who was still alive. She was followed by a cart with skulls, etc. and then there was a man on stilts shooting off mini fireworks behind them. Following them was a percussion band helping to set the mood for the act. Unfortunately I couldn't get my camera out in time to get any good pictures. The festival was definitely a good reminder of the fair and helped it to feel more like fall. Also I know where I'm eating food and lots of desserts for the next 4 days :)

Intercambio

Every Wednesday a group meets here in Alcala at a bar and shares drinks and tapas while practicing English and Spanish. The coordinator at my school told us about it (as she's part of the intercambio group) and invited us to join. I went last night at it was really fun! There were about 15 people there last night, mostly Spanish but about 4 from the US. The group is bilingual and primarily meets to practice their language skills. So every 30min they switch languages. For example, the first 30min everyone speaks in English, then the next 30min everyone speaks in Spanish, & it continues like that throughout the night. Last night I primarily spoke with 3 Spaniards, 2 engineers and one guy in the military. The guy in the military is the one who's currently in charge/runs the group. He was also able to confirm that there is an air base near Alcala, in fact it's between Alcala and Madrid center and was originally built by the US. So I finally was able to confirm that the fighter jet planes that fly overhead extremely loudly everyday are indeed from a nearby airbase. (People tried to justify that we were close to the airport, which we are but those planes definitely aren't going to a commercial airport.) We talked about several topics, but did have a really good conversation about natural vs. unnatural vs. organic foods, so that was really cool! It was a good group and I'm sure that's how I'll spend several Wednesday nights throughout the year!

First Private Lesson

Today I gave my first private English lesson! One of the secretaries at my school came to me yesterday and said a woman was looking for a native speaker to tutor her 5th grader in English. Since I'm one of 2 auxiliares who live in Alcala (as opposed to Madrid center) they preferred to have someone who lives close, so that was good for me! I called her yesterday and she said she'd like me to start as soon as possible. I was a bit unsure of how it would go, but everything turned out great! She lives really close, between my apartment and the school so that's really convenient. For an hour we practiced the past tense of verbs, and it was a lot easier to review/quiz/help her than I expected. She has her first test next week though, so we'll see how that goes. She also has an older sister who takes English but doesn't need a tutor. She sat at the table with us just to hear a native speaker, etc while she worked on her English homework. At the end of the lesson I was paid in cash, so nice! I've heard private lessons is the way to go... now if only I could find more students... lol

I think I might tutor a couple others if I get the chance, but we'll see. I don't want to take on too many, after all I still have a teachers class in the afternoon and I still want to have time to run during daylight!

Field Trip!

So today 3 of the auxiliares (including myself) got to go on the field trip with the 5th graders. It was the same trip the 3rd and 4th graders did yesterday- a walking tour of Alcala de Henares (the city we're in) to learn about the history of Castellano (the Spanish language). It was a bit crazy walking around the streets with so many kids, something you definitely wouldn't see in the US, but it turned out alright. We went to 6 different locations around the city (all within a 10min walk) and at each location the kids were told a little about the history of the language and got to do an activity (such as coloring letters, creating definitions for new words, acting out a scene from Don Quixote). My favorite stop was where we got to listen to old Spanish. We heard a poem, 2 songs, and a rap! Apparently raps were popular back then. It was funny because I read the rap and it definitely flowed easily into a rap, and had a good rhythm. The guy in the class who was selected to act out the rap did a fantastic job so that was really entertaining. All of the guides/leaders were also dressed up in costume so that was a different twist. The trip also gave me a chance to get to know some of the students better. One of the boys is named Carlos and therefor in English class he sometimes goes by Charlie, so he thought it was cool that my name, Carleigh, is similar to Charlie (sounds familiar from when I was in elementary school...). He later gave me a note that said "Good luck! Charlie from Charlie" it was really cute! I also got to know 2 of the girls really well, they kept asking me questions (in both Spanish & English) and we talked between almost every stop. By the end the one girl was using me as a protection barrier to hide behind/save her when one of the boys was chasing her. Also some of the other students weren't in our group but would yell "hi Carleigh" as our groups went past each other which was also cool. There were also some guys named Alexandro and every time the teacher would say their name the rest of the class would burst into the Lady Gaga song "ale ale-xandro ale ale-xandro". One of the other auxiliares told me that while his group was going from one place to another all of a sudden one of the kids took off running & the others just followed, so he had to go chase them down! Luckily that didn't happen in my group! Other than that it was pretty uneventful, but it was nice to spend time outside!

Also today we were going through worksheets and came across one practicing "used to.... now..." and the sentence was "In the US marijuana and heroin used to be legal, but now they are not." haha wow, that worksheet definitely wouldn't make it into a US classroom...

2nd Day

So today the 3rd and 4th grade classes had a field trip. Cool right? Well yes, except for the fact that all of the auxiliares who had 3rd and 4th grade classes weren't told this until we showed up to a locked room and spent the class period in the teachers lounge wondering what to do with ourselves. Unfortunately for me, today that was all I had, so I spent the entire time in the teachers lounge reading the paper and talking with random teachers- aka getting paid for doing absolutely nothing. Most of the other auxiliares had a few classes with 3rd and 4th graders so they were also hanging out in the teachers lounge. They live in the center of Madrid though, so it would've been nice if they had told them yesterday so they could have slept in another 2 hours. Alas Spain, what are we going to do with you?

First Day in the Classroom

Today was my first day in the classroom, and overall it went pretty well. I had 6th grade classes, a break, a 3rd grade class, then a 5th grade class. I prefer working with older kids. Although I do have to say that I was shocked at how much they talked still! It was ridiculous! It's expected that the younger kids will talk, but I was really surprised at how much they all talked. The teachers could only get through 2ish exercises in an hour long class- absolutely crazy! I was talking about it with the other auxiliares and we all agreed that in the US (and the girl from Scotland also agreed) that at least by the 3rd grade there is a level of respect and things can get accomplished. Definitely something I'm going to have to get used to. In all the classes I introduced myself and had the kids ask me questions. (All of this is in English as I'm not allowed to let them know I speak Spanish, otherwise they'll just try to talk to me in Spanish the whole time.) In the first 6th grade class I had one kid ask me about basketball, and then he asked if I know Chris Paul?!! I was like holy shit that's one of the few NBA players I do actually know! (of course I didn't say that in class...) I told him that yes I do know Chris Paul and in fact he's from where I live in North Carolina and I saw him play basketball in college and in high school. He was pretty ecstatic. Other than that all the questions were the same: how old are you? have you got any brothers or sisters? (I hate "have you got"... that's what they're taught in their books, but it's so strange! I can bring myself to hear "mum" but I cringe every time I hear "have you got") what's your favorite color? are you single? do you have any pets? what's your favorite food? etc, etc.

In addition to the daily break (from 12-12:30 where we get coffee, oj, and a snack) I did have one free period during the day today. Luckily one of the other auxiliares in my school also had this period free so we sat in the teachers' lounge talking. There were also a few other teachers in there so we talked with them for a bit. During the break a salesman dressed in a suit came into the room and tried to sell us random things like a comforter. The other auxiliare and myself were stunned. After he left we asked one of the teachers about it and she said that it's not normal, but it does happen occasionally even though it shouldn't. Some of the teachers were also talking about how even though he claims to have discounts the items are usually cheaper & work better when you buy them elsewhere, so I'm not sure why he comes back if it's only very rarely that anyone buys anything. On a different note I'm really glad we get a snack at the break. Apparently we always get coffee & orange juice but the snack changes. Today it was mini grilled ham & cheese sandwiches which were delicious! I'm going to have to start bringing an apple or something for back-up because since school gets out at 2pm it's at least 2:30 before I can eat lunch. Breakfast around 8:20/8:30 and lunch not till at least 2:30- I can't go that long without eating?!

My third roommate moved in yesterday, so now we have a full apartment! He was born in Cuba, but has lived in the Canary Islands for the past 8 years. Luckily he doesn't have an accent from the Canary Islands because I've heard it's really hard to understand. He's studying here for the year and is really nice. It's nice to actually have someone in the apartment since Ines works all the time and is hardly around. Last night I had 2 of the other auxiliares over to watch NFL. Unfortunately none of the streaming sites were working (we found several) so we ended up just listening to music and watching gametracker... not nearly as exciting as the actual game. Hopefully for future games we can get the streams to work! At least I could watch video highlights of the Skins win over the Eagles :)

10K, first race in Spain

Today I ran in my first international race. It was a 10K here in Alcala de Henares, it was free to enter, and there were about 2,000 runners. You could tell it was a Spanish race because of two things: 1) it didn't start until 11:30am, whereas in the States races start at 6am or 8am. 2) along with water they handed out Coke at the finish line. The start of the race was also a bit strange as there was a speaker projecting Spanish pop songs (always interesting), but no one making announcements or telling people where to go, etc. About 5 min before the start of the race people started lining up behind the start line, so we joined them. Then there was no gun shot, no buzz, nothing to signify the start of the race, we just started running. We ran through Alcala, so it was good to get to see more of the city. The course was really flat except for the hill we had to go up/down to cross a bridge. While I was running across the bridge there were 2 fighter jets that flew overhead. They were really loud & everyone in the race turned and watched them head towards Madrid. Maybe there's an air force base around here or something? We do hear jets all the time as the airport's close, but in the morning every now & then we do hear really loud jets, so I bet these were the ones we hear all the time. There was a water station at about 5.3 K, where they were handing out water bottles (as opposed to plastic cups w/ water in the US) and I reached the station 23min into the run. The other main difference I noticed was that in the US there are ALL kinds/types/sizes/etc of people running races, no matter what the race and everyone settles into his/her pace after a bit & then there's not much passing. Well there is passing, but it's not herds of people like the beginning of the race. Here most everyone was really fit & intense. There were a few people who weren't quite so fit, but no one was out of shape/running with a little excess. Also they tended to speed up throughout the race. I passed people in the beginning, like the first 2 or 3 K, but then I got settled into my pace, but people kept passing me the entire way until about 150yrds from the finish! It was really bizarre and a bit depressing mentally. It was like everyone kept speeding up as the race went on, really strange. I of course sprinted the last part and therefore passed people at the end to come in with a time of 50minutes, not shabby at all considering the fact that I haven't trained at all for the race! It was also interesting that there was no official time clock- so the time I have I kept on my watch, but there wasn't anything at the start or finish to indicate the time. Because it's Europe there are lots of random clocks/temperature displays around the city so I would look at those as we ran, but there wasn't one at the finish. After the finish you could get water and then Coke if you so desired- something I've never seen before! We stayed to watch the podium presentations then headed out. Luckily the weather was almost perfect, and had cooled down a lot. Normally during mid-day here it's in the 80s, but today the high was in the low 70s and I think it was only in the 60s while we were running. It was also overcast/cloudy with a bit of wind, so no sun to heat things up. On the way back from the race there was a group of percussionists walking/playing in the street. I stopped to watch them for a bit as they were really good! All in all it wasn't what I was expecting, but it was still a really fun experience and motivation to train more! Plus now I can say I've run a race in Spain!!

First day of Work

Today was the first day of work, or rather the first day all of the auxiliares were at the school. We just had a mini-orientation with the school director, got our teaching schedules, and went on a tour of the school so we'd know where things were. I only ended up being there 2, 2.5 hours today so that was nice. Each week I'm teaching 2 third grade science classes, 4 fourth grade science classes, 2 fourth grade English classes, 2 fifth grade English classes, 2 sixth grade science classes, 2 sixth grade English classes, and a conversational English class for some of the teachers. Since it's only a total of 16 hours per week I work (with some breaks in the middle) from 9am-2pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, from 9-12 & 4-5 on Wednesday (the teachers' class is after school), and then I have Fridays off!! It'll be interesting teaching the teachers, as it's a from scratch conversational class, so she said I'd mostly be speaking Spanish- at least the first half of the year anyways. Other than that I'm glad to be teaching the older kids I think, more conversations and less "how do you say this", "what is this", etc. but we'll see!

For lunch a group of auxiliares who live in Alcala (and one who lives in Madrid but was here about half the time anyways last year apparently) went out to eat. It was nice to get to know some of the others that live in Alcala, especially since 4 of them were in the program last year so they know what's going on, how to get around, where to find stuff, etc. We had "el menu del dia" which is basically a set menu that restaurants have and it's usually the cheapest choice on the menu. I had Fabada (bean and blood sausage soup) which was very filling, chicken (an entire half basically) with potatoes (potato chunks "fries" drenched in olive oil), and melon for dessert. It was a very filling lunch! Luckily everyone in Alcala lives pretty close to each other, so we'll be hanging out often!