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!

Race sign ups!

So not only did I finally open a bank account here in Spain (yay now I can get paid!) this morning, but I also registered for a 10K race! I was at my friends' apartment last night and their roommate seems pretty into running & biking, and then he mentioned something about a race Sunday. I asked him about races in Alcala (the suburb I live in) and he said there are 2, one is the annual 10K race this Sunday. 3 days is a mighty short period of time to train for a race, but a 10K (which is 6.2 miles) isn't too bad so I decided to give it a go! Won't be racing for a time or anything, but just to make my first international racing appearance :P One of the other auxiliares also signed up for the race, so I won't be the only foreigner. I've never actually raced a 10K before- went straight from 5Ks to 42.195Ks (aka marathons) so this distance will also be a first! The race entrance was free (awesome!) but there will be water about halfway through & water/energy products at the end so that's good. Now I'm off to make dinner & rest up, first day of work is tomorrow.

Oktoberfest

Munich has to be one of the best cities I've ever visited, I LOVE Munich!! My friend Sabrina lives there (we met on study abroad in Chile, yes the logical answer) so I got to stay with her and get shown around by a local! The big event was obviously Oktoberfest, which was celebrating it's 200th anniversary this year! Oktoberfest is basically a 2+ week long fair with rides, games, tasty food, and of course beer tents! It's also an excuse to wear lederhosen and drindls (traditional German outfits). Sabrina has 2 drindls so I got to wear one! In addition to the liter beers (they only serve one size) and giant pretzels, I also had roasted almonds- they were so good! They were coated with a sugar mixture and delicious! The entire place was packed, and unless you got there really early it was hard to get inside the beer tents. There were overflow beer gardens which were also packed, but the main party was inside the tent. There's a band that plays traditional music for the first part of the day and then plays more modern (generally American) songs, including Sweet Home Alabama! They also play this toasting song every 20minutes and everyone has to sing, toast, and drink. Someone there told me every time they play that song about 2,000 gallons of beer are consumed in Oktoberfest- crazy! Everyone stands/dances on the benches and tables, and only a few people actually sit down. The table we were at was full of really cool people. The people in the group next to us were Germans, but had all done a 6 month internship in New Bern, NC?! small world!! Another guy at our table was from Aix en Provence, France visiting his friend in Germany (also at our table) and neither of us spoke German, so we ended up speaking in French for awhile! There were also 2 girls from Madrid at our table who ended up being on the same flight back to Madrid with me! It really was a lot of fun!

Sabrina also took me around town, and we went for a traditional German dinner which was delicious! I got to walk through some of the markets and see the famous sites in Munich. On Monday Sabrina had to work, so I went to 2 of the famous parks in Munich- OlympiaPark and Englischer Garten. They are both gorgeous! It was perfect fall weather on Monday (a little cloudy/rainy during the weekend), crisp and sunny! OlympiaPark has a giant hill, and from the top you get a great view of the city! The picture above is looking from the top of the hill down to the Olympic stadium. The BMW facilities are also located right next to the park. From there I took the metro to Englischer Garten which is larger than Central Park and has a famous Chinese Tower. There's also a lake where you can rent boats, although I only saw 2 boats (one canoe & one row boat) out on the lake. There was also a ton of grassy space and lots of gravel trails winding throughout the trees. There were tons of people running in both parks which was really nice to see! All in all in was a great dose of fall, good to see friends, and I really love Munich!!

only in black pen and only in ALL CAPS

This morning's orientation was, well orientation- not good, not bad, just eh. We did get to turn in all our documents to get our NIEs (so we can be here legally) which was good. The process however was a bid ridiculous. They passed out the forms we needed to fill out and after about 15 minutes when all of us were individually walking up and asking questions they began to go through the form. The form has 3 sections. About halfway though explaining the first section they stopped and told us we needed to all be writing in only black ink, any other color would not work. About half the room had to get new forms to fill out. They painstakingly slowly explained how to fill out the rest of the form. As we went to turn them in they were like, oh no, this is unacceptable, it needs to be in all caps. So we proceeded to fill out the form again. Needless to say a lot of paper was wasted unnecessarily. We recommended that for future groups they state black ink only and all caps before handing out the papers and then explain how to fill them out as soon as people receive them, not waiting 15-20min to start. So hopefully the auxiliares next year will have it done more efficiently.

After orientation I returned to Alcala de Henares to help 2 others apartment hunt in Alcala. They'll be teaching at a different school, but still in Alcala. They found a great place about 5 minutes from where I live; it'll be nice to have friends living so close!