Our whole IES group went to Madrid for a day trip yesterday. It's kind of ridiculous to only spend one day in Madrid, so we saw very little and felt rushed, but it was still a fun day. In the morning we visited the Royal Palace. Although the royal family doesn't live there anymore, the palace is still used for state events.
with Jana and Liz
A bunch of the girls, plus Gabe
Roomies! My housemate, Nicki
We weren't allowed to take photos inside, so I snatched this one off the internet...
Grand Dining Hall
Liz and I went to Madrid's park, Parque de Buen retiro, and met up with my friend, Rachel, for a picnic! It was an absolutely GORGEOUS day - almost 70 degrees in February!! The park was filled with people enjoying the sun - lots of roller bladers, musicians, families. We had our picnic with Rachel and her other au pair friends right across from the lake!
After lunch we went to the Reina Sofía Museum to see some Dalí, Miró, and Picasso (and a bunch of really weird modern art...)
On a side note, kids are always dressed really nicely in Spain. Even when they're wearing casual clothes, everything matches perfectly. It's a little weird. For example, this boy:
Pinwheel boy - in tights! He's going to resent his parents when he
grows up!! Kizzann snapped this photo from the bus
Adorable little girl who's already way more fashionable
than I'll ever be...
Anyway, it's 1 AM and I'm watching the Oscars online, but I don't think I'll make it much longer before I fall asleep!
On Saturday I went to a Real Madrid game - BEST WEEKEND EVER (aside from all the work I had to once I got back on Sunday night...). What an amazing experience! I went with three other students from IES, Allie, Gavin, and Alejandro. Allie and I weren't willing to pay as much as the boys were, so the two of us were at the very top of the stadium - yay cheap seats!! (Well, actually, those seats were also really expensive, just cheap in comparison to everything else in the stadium.) It was kind of like watching ants or something, but we still got the crowd experience, with everyone singing, chanting, pounding drums, blowing horns - insanity!!! Listen to the Real Madrid "Hymn" in this Youtube video:
There's a saying in Madrid that says, roughly translated "Real Madrid is my religion, Estadio Santiago Bernabeu is my church, Iker Casillas (insert favorite player's name here) is my god." LOL!!!
Alejandro and Gavin's expensive seats - halftime visit!
Our cheap seats - check out the size of that stadium!!!
The Stadium
I was going to buy a jersey, but they cost like 60 euro,
so I got a scarf instead
Madrid was playing Levante, a really bad team (that's why we were able to get tickets), so they completely controlled the game. Although the final score was only 2-0 (last time they played Levante they won 8-0). I found a youtube video (with English commentary) of the first goal scored - this play is AMAZING! We were going crazy!!!!!
Since the last bus back to Salamanca left before the game ended, we stayed in a hostel Saturday night and explored the city center on Sunday morning. First stop: the Plaza Mayor. Very cool, but not nearly as pretty as Salamanca's. I think it was Alejandro who said "Our plaza can beat up your plaza."
The plaza was packed - we had to watch for pickpockets!
The gang with a statue of someone probably
very important....
Aside from being prettier than the Madrid plaza, Salamanca's plaza is also way less touristy - it's a place to meet friends, get coffee or ice cream, hang out... In Madrid, however, the plaza is like Disneyland and is full of characters like Mickey Mouse, Chewbacca, Spongebob (by far the most popular with all the little kids) that people pay to take pictures with. By far, the best character was Spiderman - check this guy out:
hehehe
When I posted that photo on Facebook, all my friends who have been to Madrid commented on it, "Oh, you saw chunky Spiderman, too!" This guy is famous...
We also went to the Puerta del Sol and saw many more characters, a spontaneous skating competition, and a political protest.
with Allie
In the Puerta del Sol I met up with RACHEL, a friend from high school whom I lhaven't seen for at least two years! She's an au pair in a town right outside of Madrid.
Oly High reunion in Madrid!!
Ridiculously enough, I'm going to Madrid again this coming weekend. IES has a day trip planned with a visit to the royal palace and the Reina Sofía museum on Saturday (when am I going to get all my work done????), so I'll be posting more Madrid photos soon. ¡Chao!
This week I started my teaching internship. I thought I was going to be working at an elementary school, but apparently when they told me grades 1-5, they meant the first four grades of "upper school," so I'm working with 11-16 year olds. That definitely had the potential to be disastrous, considering that I have way more experience working with younger kids and that middle school aged kids can be AWFUL, but I'm really enjoying it so far. Sure, some of the kids have a bit too much attitude, but the majority of them are really nice. I volunteer six hours a week, each hour with a different class. This week I was mostly observing Gonzalo, the supervising teacher, but he also had the classes ask me questions to practice their English. There were a few questions that were asked in every single class this week, such as:
"Do you like Justin Beiber?" (Yes, at least one student from each of the six classes asked me that. One boy sang part of "Baby" for the class - at least Beiber Fever is good for something - helping them learn English, lol)
"What do people do in the United States?" (So open-ended! I had no idea how to respond to that one... I was really tempted to just say, "Eat!")
"Do you like Real Madrid or Barcelona?" (I've learned that this is the great divider of Spanish society - when I respond that I'm a fan of Real Madrid, half the class cheers and the other half groans.)
Last weekend some friends and I went to Ávila, a small town about an hour away from Salamanca. It's famous in Spain for still having its complete medieval city walls. It was a really fun and low-key day trip. We got to climb up the walls for some great views! Photos:
Also, while we were shopping for postcards, we found this one which just says "Ávila por noche" or "Ávila at night." It's kind of hard to tell in this photo, but it's literally just a black postcard. I was so tempted to buy it, but I figured my sister would rather have something a bit more legit...
Other random notes:
I love how international Salamanca is. In my two university classes, there are students from China, Germany, Sweden, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Canada, France, Russia, the Netherlands, and Portugal (and, of course, lots of Spanish students). It's funny because the Spaniards always sit in the back of the class and all the international students sit in the front. The other Americans in my program joked that foreign students from Latin America are only "pseudo-foreign" because they (obviously) don't have all the language difficulties. The rest of us who only know Spanish as a second language (or third or fourth language, in some insane cases) all kind of cling to each other to try to figure out what is going on. I had to read a 30 page article on the International Monetary Fund for my econ class the other day, and it was such a comfort to find out that no one else understood a word of it either. Andre, from Portugal, was telling me that he fakes his way through class with "Portuñol," the Portuguese equivalent of Spanglish.
I just finished up my second week of classes (hooray for no Friday classes in Spain!!!).
I have the same Spanish professor as last semester, which is great because he's awesome! I've gotten emails from pretty much everybody from the program last semester asking how Emilio is and saying how much they miss him. I can't even count the number of times he's ranted about how much he hates Julio Iglesias and FC Barcelona. I'm also taking a gender class. It's been kind of boring so far, but it looks like we're going to get into more interesting topics in the coming weeks (I just don't care about Ancient Greek goddesses that much...). The biggest project we have is a big research paper, which has to include at least 10 interviews with Spaniards of various ages. I know lots of 20 something Spaniards, but I'm not sure how I'm supposed to suddenly make friends with the Salamanca elders... awkward!
I'm taking two classes at the University of Salamanca, Economic Development in Latin America and Contemporary Social Structure. Both of them will be very difficult - I have a 20 minute presentation at the end of the semester for Economics and lots of writing assignments for soc. It's really embarrassing participating in class discussions because I either say something relevant but grammatically incorrect, or I focus on grammar and say something really stupid. At least there are other foreigners in the class - I hang out mostly with two
I start my teaching internship next week! I'll be helping teach English at a local elementary school 6 hours a week. We'll see how this goes... I guess it all depends on whether or not the kids are well behaved or not. Also, I'm really not looking forward to waking up for 8:30 classes. I've literally slept in until 10 every day since I've been here. If you want to look at the cute pictures of the kids, go to http://www.sagradafamiliasiervas.es/galeria.asp
Other than classes, nothing too terribly exciting has happened - just lots of coffee and tapas with friends. This weekend I'm hoping to go to Ávila, a town relatively close to Salamanca. I don't know if we have the motivation to figure it all out, though. It might get put off a few weeks...
We've been eating midday meal a little earlier this semester, so instead watching the news, the Spanish equivalent of Entertainment Tonight. I'm all up to date on Spanish celebrity gossip. Shakira is dating Spanish soccer player Gerald Pique, causing much excitement. Also, Eva Longoria is dating Penelope Cruz's brother. I don't think anyone actually knows what his name is - he's literally referred to as "el hermano de Penelope Cruz." And, of course, everyone is still madly in love with Spanish power couple Penelope and Javier Bardem. However, lots of people are offended that they had their baby in the United States so that it would have American rather than Spanish citizenship.
Also, someone pointed out to me how much Prime Minister Zapatero reminded them of Mr. Bean. Apparently lots of people think so, but I found so many pictures like this when I did a Google Image search. The picture doesn't quite capture it - you need to see Zapatero's awkward mannerisms to really get it...
Well, back "home." It's been a relatively easy transition back to Spanish life. I'm meeting up with some of my Spanish friends this weekend, and I'm getting to know the other Americans in the program.
The biggest change in Salamanca, aside from the absence of all my IES friends from last semester, is that it's now illegal to smoke in the bars. This is a HUGE deal for a European country - I'm still shocked that it actually passed. Anyway, since the bars are kind of the heart of the social scene in Spain, this improves my quality of life immeasurably. No more secondhand smoke for me!
At the end of my England trip, I took a day trip to Bath. It's the site of the Roman baths and has been a popular tourist attraction and spa resort since the 1700s. I visited the Roman Baths Museum, the Fashion Museum, and went on a FREE tour. The mayor's office hires volunteer tour guides to show tourists all the sights - I was very impressed with the program. They had two guides so that the groups wouldn't be larger than 15 people (I can't imagine how many guides they must need in the summer!) and the tour lasted a good two hours. Our guide was hilarious
This was my first experience traveling alone. I met lots of American guys last semester that were traveling around Europe alone but, since I don't have the luxury of being a guy, I figured a day trip to a relatively small city would be the safest way to go. It was very liberating to travel alone, and very satisfying to successfully navigate a new city and public transportation without anyone's help. However, I definitely prefer traveling with companions. I really wanted to talk with someone about all the things I was seeing - I'm so glad I went on the tour because I was really craving some human interaction! Also, it's difficult to take photos without a travel companion - always a little awkward asking a stranger to take a photo of you... That said, I'm glad I experienced traveling solo - I just don't plan to do it again while I'm here.
