Semana Santa!

Spring break. Oh man I was I ready for it. Too long without a decent nights sleep can take a toll on you and I was pushing my limit, so when Friday finally rolled around and the last happy child finally headed off with their parents I booked it out the door and headed for a nice nap. Except I never quite got around to it. It's strange how tired you can be when you have something to do, yet how awake you are when you lift that weight free. My plans for spring break didn't exactly go as planned. Originally I was going to go to the UK and see almost all of it, but due to passport complications that I won't get into I was unable to leave Spain. I had a good time though anyway and got to see some really cool things and hang out with cool people!

Sunday I headed out with the Pathfinders group to a mountain about two hours from Zaragoza called Moncayo. We got their in the early afternoon and while the pathfinders set about learning how to distinguish plants and such things, I started up the mountain. I hiked until I couldn't hear the screaming kids anymore, found a nice sunny spot, built a rock chair with a reclined backrest, and took a nap. It was so nice to be out in nature again. I haven't seen a wilderness since I got here and it was amazing to sit on my rock with pine trees surrounding me and no noise to disturb my contemplations... or my sleep. I woke up an hour or so later and headed back down the hill just in time to meet up with the pathfinder group starting their hike. I got my exercise in. After lunch I rode with a fellow teacher and her husband around to the other side of the mountain and up to an old sanitarium. The sanitarium now serves as a cafe and lodge for the daring hikers who plan to go for the top. From the look of the mountain I think I could have been up and back down by supper time with a light jacket and a good pair of boots... but I didn't say anything, and we had coffee at the cafe.

Monday night was a little different. The festivities for Semana Santa had begun. I went downtown and met Anabel then we went to check out the parade. Anabel told me that Zaragoza focused on the drum during this event and I didn't really understand that until we got to there. There must have been 200+ people in the first parade all of them dressed in colorful outfits, that are eerily similar to ku klux clan uniforms, and every single one of them was beating on a drum. It was deafening, but I enjoyed it. The parade was long and each section represented a different part of Jesus's crucifixion. After that parade we caught two more before getting tapas at a cafe and heading home. I caught the next night too, but after that I had a headache and couldn't stand more drumming.

The rest of the week went pretty good. I got caught up on sleep, exercised, and planned for my weekend in Madrid. Saturday morning I headed to the bus station, hopped on my bus, and headed for Madrid. I was supposed to meet my friend Chelsea Rodgers at the hostel at around 10 p.m. I took the metro and the place was easy to find. I was a little scared to see where we would be staying, (we signed up to sleep in a 12 bed mixed dorm), but was pleasantly surprised when I got there. The place was clean and everyone spoke English, not something I was expecting on either front. The bedroom wasn't bad either, nice clean beds with lots of room and free lockers for your things. I had some time to kill so I headed to the common area and chatted it up with some of the Americans/English guests who were down there. Around 9:45 I headed out to wait by the metro stop for Chelsea, just to make sure she found the hostel and because there were a lot of drunks out and about when I had come in. There were two exits to the metro however and at some point as I was going between the two Chelsea arrived, checked into the hostel, and began waiting for me there. Comical I suppose, but man do I miss my cell phone... 

That night we got some food and saw what there was to see in that area of the city, then headed for bed. The next day we saw the Puerto del Sol (center of the city and old gate from the wall that once surrounded Madrid) and walked around the parks in the area. Around supper time we decided it was time for some taco bell! We hopped onto McDonald's free wifi and google mapped it. Only 3.5km away! Google maps won't lead us wrong right? Google maps took us down real streets making real turns. However it was leading us down a path of false hope and empty stomachs. After arriving at an empty apartment building we were depressed. We ended up eating Kebabs though so it was still okay. :)

The next day we got up and saw the Prado Museum, a big art gallery with lots and lots of famous paintings. I took one picture before I realized that photo's weren't allowed in there and had to put the camera away... We also saw the botanical gardens which are home to over 30,000 different kinds of plants! After that we decided to go see the river so after a long walk we found it right about sunset. The river was beautiful... Madrid is beautiful. I really was amazed by how pretty the city was, I walked around Paris and Rome and while those cities were cool they were not beautiful. Madrid has a good vibe to it. I recommend you at it to your travel plans if you ever head to Europe.

Overall my spring break was awesome... if a little to short. I had a great time and saw cool things that I wouldn't have seen if I had gone off somewhere else. It feels good to know Spain just a little bit better now.

A story from today and something I forgot.

Today the kids were learning about space, planets, and the like. When told that stars that we can see are suns just like ours one of the older boys asked, (this was translated to me) "If all the stars are suns then why do they not put off more light like our sun?"
The only way I could think to explain it to him was to turn off the lights and put a lit flashlight about two inches from his face. "This is our sun." Then I took the flashlight across the room and pointed it at him again, "And this is the closest star." He seemed to get it after that.


I have one more story from last weekend in Sagunto. On Monday before we were going to leave with the bus, I found Brittany and Terah cooking in the kitchen attached to the girls dorm. I walked in and closed the door. We talked for a little bit and then they decided that it was time to get ready to go and tried to leave. No luck. The door was locked from both sides. Don't ask me how that passes fire code but it happened. The only window in the room had a grate blocking the outside. Isn't that just great... ha. Well after flipping the circuit breaker for the dorm a few times and no one coming Tarah started working on the bolts holding the grate onto the window and I tried unsuccessfully to pick the door lock. Tarah had more luck, using the handle end of a corn butterer she managed to pull out one of the two remaining bolts holding the grate in place. I knocked the grate off, we jumped out, replaced the grate, and booked it out of there.

Fun times!

Viva La Fiesta!

For the 17th through the 20th I went to Valencia for their yearly fiesta Fallas. I stayed in the dorm in Sagunto so I got to hang out with other Americans and in general have a good time. I was supposed to go by train and arrive fairly early Friday afternoon, but I accidentally took the wrong bus and didn't end up at the train station on time. Instead I ended up on the wrong side of town at the end of the bus line. They kicked everyone (me...) off the bus and drove away leaving me with my bags and a long walk to the next stop. I ended up walking an hour home with my rather bulky bags...
But all was well, Anabel and Ruth (the lady I'm living with and the 4 and 5 year old teacher) made a last minute decision to go to Valencia as well so I got a free ride down.
Saturday I got up and met with the family I had visited earlier this year. The father used to live in Walla Walla and both of them speak English. We had lunch and I played with their little daughters and their dogs. Good times. Saturday night I met up with some friends and we all went out to see the town. We ended up staying out super late and got back to the dorm early the next morning. We got to see lots of statues and shops and people, but I forgot to take my camera. Sunday night I got ride to town to see the fireworks show from a Portuguese cop with three girls I know Brittany, Chelsea, and Tarah. There was a huge firework show that night that we got to see. The whole thing was better than any grand finale I have ever seen in the states and it lasted almost an hour. Monday night we went out again this time with the school bus and got to see a bunch of the statues burned. The crowds are so thick that you can barely move and then there are a series of explosions and suddenly the whole giant statue in front of you is burning. It didn't take long before we were pushing back into the crowd to try and escape the heat. It was really interesting to see the things burn though.

It was interesting spending so much time with English speakers. Although I am in no way fluent in Spanish I have begun to think in it a little bit. I've been speaking and hearing it for so long that my brain process has started to adapt to my vocal process. So I think in a mixture of Spanish and broken English, at least until I catch myself doing it and switch to real English in my head. Talking with people for long amounts of time brought this to my mind even more. I was stuttering over conjugations and having a hard time finding words quite often. It got better as the weekend went on, but it was very interesting to me. 

A Long Weekend by the Beach.

This last weekend I got to go with Loida, the first and second grade teacher, to stay with her family at their summer home in Peniscola. Peniscola is a beautiful little town along the Mediterranean coast north of Valencia. On the way we stopped in a town called Morella. It had a really old castle at the top of a mountain in it. We climbed all the way to the top and got to look around. A lot of it has eroded but it still fairly intact and it was awesome to see how defensible it was and where the rooms used to be. After we had a good look around we got back in the car and headed off to Peniscola.
Peniscola has a beautiful beach and a really cool old castle that was more put together then the castle in Morella. We spent a day seeing the castle and the town. I was happy to be able to explore two castles in so short a period of time.
On Monday we went to a zoo for Exotic birds and Kangaroo's. It was really cool, there were lots of parrots and other cool birds. I got to have five or six birds land on me at once. I enjoyed it a lot.
Over all it was a great weekend and it was amazing to see a different part of Spain and get away for a couple of days.

A Rock Star Super Hero.

Playing with kids makes you feel like a rock star super hero. They love you for playing with them they flock to you screaming for their turn, hands in the air. If they were just a little bit bigger you could start a mosh pit. It's overwhelming at times how much attention they give you, and then there's the super hero part. As an adult you're obviously bigger and stronger then the kids. You can lift more, run faster, jump higher then them. You're like the million dollar man without the million dollars.

It's exciting to play and have fun with the kids every day at recess. I really enjoy playing tag with them, teaching them new games to play with each other, and giving piggy back rides to the little kids. The kids also love it when I take them by the hands and swing around in circles so that they can "fly." I don't like how dizzy that one makes me, but it's one of their favorites.

I'm thankful that the kids all seem to like me, and I definitely like them! I'm extremely lucky and glad to be here.

Valentines Day

Today I passed out awesome valentines day card that my parents sent me. The kids loved them. :)
Also I got to help set up a table full of goodies to pass out to the parents. A remarkably unremarkable day, but it was fun.

I used to think I was an overly-warm person, but now I don't think so. I am cold every single day at school. I just can't get warm unless I'm pressed against a radiator. It's ridiculous. I'm soooo ready for warm spring weather.

Spring Break

While the details are not all settled yet it looks like I'll be touring the UK for spring break. Carrie, another american girl named Kasha, and I are going to try and hit London, Edinburgh, and Dublin.