The Little Things

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but I apologize if I have.  You just get to read about it twice!  When students in the USA have to go the bathroom during class, they politely ask, "May I use the bathroom, please?".  Here is Spain it is a little different.  First, since they learn British English they are taught the correct question is "Can I go to the toilet, please?".  I've heard a few Americans gripe about how this seems a little impolite, because we don't often use the word toilet (probably because we'd rather not think about what a person is actually doing in the bathroom, I'm not quite sure).  But what the kids say in Spanish is on a whole other level!  The way students ask to go to the bathroom is "Me hago pis, me hago caca?", which literally translates to "I make pee, I make poop?".  Every time I hear a child say this I still get a little thrown off.  In the USA, we generally save the phrases "I'm going to go pee/poop," for close friends and family.  And even then I often wouldn't use that phrase, unless I'm being slightly ironic.  It's a little crass.  But here, it's just the way it's done! 

On Wednesday, the entire school participated in a "lipdub."  Aka the principal ran around the school filming the students doing various activities and singing along to a song.  We had to rehearse it twice and do "the real thing" twice.  Hopefully, I'll be able to post the video soon.  But for now I'll just leave you with the song the school chose.  

A few mornings a week I start in a classroom that overlooks the patio the students enter through to get to school.  Sometimes I watch the late students come in.  Many times it is the same students that are late, which always makes me think, "Why don't their parents just try to leave 5 minutes earlier?".  (But I don't know their situation so I can't judge!)  It is interesting because the way certain students approach the school gives a little insight into their behavior at school.  Some are sprinting to try and make it to class before the music stops.  These are often students that try hard in school, whether or not their grades reflect it.  Others half jog/half speed walk.  These students tend to sometimes put in some effort, but often would rather talk to their fellow students.  Then we have the students who casually walk into the patio.  Most of these kids are older (the younger students still seem to have some desire to not disappoint the teachers) and tend to put in almost not effort in school.  I always try to watch out for the students in my class so I know not to shut the door, hoping they can sneak in without the teacher noticing!  

I have a few names students call me, mostly various ways of pronouncing Natalie.  These various pronunciations includes Natchalie/Naxtalie (actually I can't even really pronounce my name this way).  One of the girls in first grade does this often and some of the students say, "NOOO it's NaTalie."  I don't even notice, but the other students seem to!  Others will sometimes call me Natalia, aka the Spanish version of my name.  Recently, I noticed a student started calling me Nata.  I have been called Nata by one other class but it was a joke while they were chanting "Nata y Juli" because the professor and I were doing a silly activity.  Nata is a Spanish word (I'm not sure how often it is used as a nickname) that means cream, and it's basically the Spanish equivalent to whipped cream.  I think it started out as a little bit of teasing between him and another student and me.  But now that's the only way he addresses and I think he has forgotten my actual name! 

       


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On another note, one of the students has a fauxhawk and the other day it literally looked like dinosaur spikes.  It was pretty funny, but cute.

Also, I noticed a student was wearing a sweatshirt that said "University Nebraska."  I don't think it has anything to do with the actual University of Nebraska, but it was a nice little reminder of home.  I obviously had to take a photo of it!

Paris: The City of Love and Lines!

Last weekend, Clark and I flew to Paris!  It an amazing trip, packed with lots of beautiful sites and fabulous museums.  We arrived Friday evening and decided to get some rest so we could be ready for three days full of discovering Paris.  Clark has a friend who was going out of town that weekend so he lent us his apartment, which made our trip much cheaper since many hostels in France are not only expensive but also inconveniently located.  Saturday morning, we hoped on the metro and our first stop was Notre Dame.  It was raining so I had to buy an umbrella (again since the other umbrella I bought in France broke within hours).  The cathedral was beautiful and packed with people.  

After walking through Notre Dame, we headed over to Sainte Chapelle, which is a church that has a chapel surrounded by stain glass windows.  It was incredibly beautiful, unfortunately some of the windows were being renovated so they were covered by scaffolding.  

Then we walked back to Notre Dame to see it from a different angle, which featured the flying buttresses.  This lead us to a bridge covered in locks.  It is a fairly common tradition in Europe (and it's apparently gaining popularity in the USA) in which a couple writes their names on a lock, affix it to a bridge and throw the key into the water below.  Thus symbolizing their eternal bond to each other.  

We stopped at a falafel place for lunch that was delicious!  When we got on the train to head to the Sacre Coeur, we realized we hadn't paid for lunch!  We felt bad, but there was not much we could do at that point, so we decided to look at it as good luck! We ascended to the Sacre Coeur, a beautiful church on a hilltop that offers gorgeous views of the city.  Inside the church was beautiful and a group of nuns just happened to be singing, which made the atmosphere feel quite divine.  Outside the church a street performer was hanging from a light pole and tossing a soccer ball along to some music.  

Following our little nun concert, we went to Les Invalides.  According to wikipedia, "The National Residence of the Invalids, is a complex of buildings containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, the building's original purpose."  We quickly walked through the military museum which displayed armor and weapons.  While it was interesting, I did not need to spend much time in there.  Under the buildings huge gold dome is Napoleon's final resting place.  I was surprised how simple his tomb appeared, especially compared to some of the more ornate ones.  Personally I think it looked like a huge wooden box.

Since the Eiffel Tower was only a few blocks away, we decided to stop by on our way to our next destination.  It was amazing to see the structure, which is beautiful, but as well to see the symbol of France and a monument that millions of people travel the world to see.  The line to go up was incredibly long, so we decided not to attempt ascending.  

Next we made our way to the Centre Pompidou, which houses the modern art museum.  There were some interesting things in the museum, some of which I don't know why they're considered art.  But it was still fun to look at most of the "artwork"! 

We closed the night by going to a happy hour in the gay district of Paris.  Clark and I both got a pint of beer and enjoyed the pop music that was filling the bar!  Exhausted, we headed back to the apartment.  

Sunday, I woke up early to get in line for the Eiffel Tower by 8:30.  When I arrived, there was already a sizable line.  However, just a half hour later, the line was snaking around the plaza.  I was thankful I had arrived early!  After what seemed like hours in the cold, I finally bought my ticket and the elevator shot me to the top.  It was a breathtaking 360 degree view of Paris!  I think it was well worth the wait and the cold.  

I then went to meet Clark at the Musee d'Orsay.  The museum is housed in an old train station and has the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin and Van Gogh.  I was in love with this museum since impressionism is one of my favorite movements!  I could have spent all day there, but we had other places to be!  We ate lunch and then headed over to the catacombs entrance.  However, we were told it was too late for us to wait in line.  Unfortunately, most things close at either 5 or 6, which meant that we didn't really have time to get to another place and explore the it.  So instead we walked to the Louvre and walked through the gardens.  We caught the metro where the Champs-Élysées starts and headed back to the apartment to converse and drink wine with Clark's friend who arrived that afternoon.  We ate dinner and headed to bed since we wanted to wake up early to get in line for the Louvre.  

Monday morning we arrived at the Louvre around 8:30.  Thankfully the line wasn't long, but we weren't sure where to line up because the only line was clearly marked for people who already purchased tickets.  However, when Clark asked an employee where to line up, she rudely insisted it was the line we were in.  When the museum opened, we were able to walk in without purchasing tickets thanks to our Spanish identification cards and the fact that we are both under 26!  These cards actually came in handy at almost every place we went!  While most people were trying to get their bearings, I saw some people running through the museum.  I am assuming it was to get to the Mona Lisa before a huge crowd formed.  This was our first stop!  Thankfully I had been warned that the Mona Lisa was tiny so when my eyes first gazed upon the masterpiece, it was actually larger than I thought it would be. Of course I took a photo with it!  After seeing the most famous work of art in the Louvre, we made a game plan to ensure we saw everything we wanted to.  Clark and I wound our way through the museum seeing historical works of  art including: Liberty Leading the People, a sphinx, Napoleon III Apartments (which were unbelievably lavish, to imagine even half the palace was decorated like this was mind-blowing), and a medieval moat that exists under the museum!  

Exhausted from all the art, we left the museum in search of the famous French delicacy, macaroons.  This was my first experience with this treat and while I wasn't blown away by them, they were good.  We headed back to the apartment to eat lunch and gather our belongings to head back to Madrid.  

My first trip to Paris was wonderful!  While a large part of our time was spent waiting in lines, it was a trip of a lifetime!  And the whole time I kept thinking of the Mary-Kate and Ashley movie Passport to Paris and constantly mentioning scenes to Clark!  

Fire Drills and Lice Scares

Today we practiced for a fire drill.  And let me just say, it was a little different from the fire drills I used to have in my grade school.  Back in the day at St. Vincent de Paul, fire drills were a strict and very coordinated event.  First, they were generally a surprise.  The teachers may know the week in which they would be having a drill, but they would not know the day or time.  Once the alarms started ringing, students would quickly line up and file out of the building through a designated exit depending on the location of the class.  Once outside, the teachers and classes would go to designated spots and promptly begin role call to ensure everyone had been evacuated.  The school administrators would then go around checking that each teacher had every student account for, and then relayed this information via walkie-talkie to the principal and/or firemen.  Since this was a while ago, I could be incorrect, but I remember this entire process taking around 2 minutes.  Also, everyone was supposed to be completely silent, and for the most part everyone followed this rule.  

The fire drill I experienced today was a little different.  First, the teachers were told that a fire drill would be happening at 10:30.  Therefore, the teacher I was with had the students put on their jackets and line up a few minutes before.  He then told the children what was going to happen.  Once the alarms sounded, he told me I could lead the children and he would bring up the rear.  I then had to ask him where I was supposed to go, seeing as I had no clue how fire drills worked in this school.  He told me to just go out the gate where the parents stand in the morning.  So as I'm leading the students down the stairs, I am praying that there will be another class ahead of me so I can follow them.  Thankfully when I got outside, the gym class (which was conveniently already outside) was lining up.  However, they were not quite creating a very good line so I passed them up while they tried to figure out this "line" concept.  Then the teacher yelled to me, "Go right!".  And that's exactly what I did.  As I walked out the gate, one of the administrators asked me which class I had and I kind of stared at him blankly because I knew it was first graders but I could not remember if it was A, B, or C.  Thankfully, the professor had now moved up from the rear (I guess he figured the students in the back were capable of saving themselves...) and was able to relay this information, along with how many students were in the class (which I had no clue).  Eventually I stopped walking, hoping I had gone to an acceptable area.  Since I had chosen a place, the other first grade professors followed my lead and lined up next to me.  Turns out I had chosen the area that the infant education students were supposed to be (even though it seemed like a free-for-all and as if the teachers just decided to line their students up wherever).  So we just shuffled a little to the right.  All the kids were talking/shouting and moving about.  Once again, the whole "line" thing was not quite understood.  We waited several minutes because the infant education students (3-5 year olds) had to walk all the way around the school.  Then we were able to file back in, which essentially was just a herd of students since all hope of lines had vanished.  Overall, the school had improved their time from last year.  It took a total of four minutes.  I'm assuming that meant to literally just get everyone out of the building, not including making sure everyone was accounted for and in the correct location (but who knows), because the whole drill took over 15 minutes.  I'm hoping that during a real emergency we are able to evacuate as quickly/quicker.  But seeing as the teachers were warned, and some classes were already lined up at the door, I'm not sure how likely that is.  

Now on to lice.  In the U.S., if a student has lice, they are not allowed to come to school.  If it is discovered at school, while they are not sent home (to protect their identity as one of the infected), they are not allowed to return until they have been treated.  I also recall head checks for lice, but I don't remember if this was just a preemptive strike to protect against lice or if this was only done after lice was discovered.  Either way, lice infected children were not to return to school until the problem had been addressed.  Here in Spain, students are allowed to come to school when they have lice.  I do not even know if the parents have to inform the school their child is infected.  I believe I mentioned in a previous blog that one of the professors nonchalantly told me one of the students had lice.  Well this happened again today.  Since after finding out lice in students is commonplace here, the thought that I could have lice crosses my mind every time I itch my scalp at school.  I am not sure if it's coincidence or what, but I have actually been rather paranoid this week about lice.  It kept popping up in my head and I felt my head was itchier than normal.  I'm going to claim I was channeling my inner psychic and was predicting the future (rather than accepting there is a chance I have lice).  Ironically, this morning on the train ride the professor that rides with us had a newspaper article that had several things magnified (the reproductive parts of a plant, breast cancer cells, some kind of bacteria, etc.) including a nit, aka the egg of a louse.  So basically the theme of the week in my brain has been lice, which is not the most pleasant of thoughts.  Here's to hoping I don't have lice, which I shouldn't because I don't think I have much head-to-head contact with the students and I haven't used any of their clothing recently!

P.S. Either I am paranoid or I have lice, because my head is pretty itchy at the moment.  I'm going with paranoid.  But one of the teachers told me tea tree oil is good at preventing lice, so since I already have some, I am putting it in my shampoo as soon as this is posted!

Sevilla/Cadiz

This weekend Clark and I went down south to the city of Sevilla (or in English, Seville).  It was a great trip!  We left Friday morning by bus and got to Sevilla around 5pm.  After eating some delicious tapas of paella and potatoes we went to the Guadalquivir River and met up with Victoria and another teacher from our school.  We walked around and watched the sunset along the river.  The park was full of students relaxing and enjoying the fantastic weather.  Later that evening, we went to an international beer bar and I got a Belgian and a Czech beer.  

The next day we went on a walking tour of the city.  Our guide, Medi, was quite the character and made the tour incredibly interesting and fun!  It was my first walking tour (that wasn't a haunted walking tour), but it certainly won't be my last!  Clark and I actually want to do the walking tour in Madrid!  What's great about a lot of walking tours is that they are free (and you tip at the end), thus saving many euros!  The tour, and Medi, were so great that we went on another walking tour with him the next evening.  The second tour was about the Jewish neighborhood, and featured several interesting stories/legends.  On Saturday evening, we took a bus to Cadiz.  Apparently after Rio de Janeiro and Tenerife, Cadiz is the largest Carnaval celebration in the world.  I can believe it because the little peninsula/island was packed.  There were several stages which featured skits and dances.  Once these finished, people roamed the streets and plazas drinking/socializing with friends.   Everyone was dressed in costumes!  Here's Clark and Me! 

At 3am we caught our bus back to Sevilla and went straight to bed.  We got a late start on Sunday, seeing as we needed lots of rest after our Carnaval festivities.  We went up the Cathedral tower and went on the second walking tour.  Then we got a drink at the Alonso XIII Hotel which is above five stars!  Here's a picture of the 'grand luxe' hotel (as they rank it in Spanish).

The next morning we saw the castle and the inside of the cathedral.  Both were beautiful, especially the gardens of the castle.  And thankfully we got student discounts so it only cost 6€ total! 

Our last tourist activity before heading home was visiting the Archives of the Indies.  It houses thousands of documents that chronicle Spain's history in the Americas.  I found the exhibit very interesting, and since it was free, it was definitely worth the visit!  After the museum we grabbed a quick lunch at the restaurant we went to on Saturday which was recommended to us by Medi.  Both times were fantastic.  They have traditional Sevillian tapas and delicious sangria!  After this, we grabbed our bags and headed to the bus station to catch our ride back to Madrid!  Once again, I have fallen in love with another city in Spain!

(P.S. I'm so glad I can finally upload pictures again! Not sure why, but for a while it was impossible)

Carnaval!

On Thursday, San Fernando (the school I teach at) celebrated carnaval, which is essentially the Spanish version of Mardi Gras.  All the children dressed up in themed costumes.  The school's theme was puppets, so each class was dressed as some type of puppet.  There were animal hand puppets, skeleton marionettes, witches/wizards, magicians, fairies, devils, and many more.  It was similar to Halloween in the USA where everyone was in costumes.  Each grade also performed a dance (as they did at Christmas).  The event was so cute and the kids seemed to be having the time of their lives.  I dressed as a skeleton and Victoria dressed as a magician and even did a card trick for the students!

Salamanca!

First, I would like to apologize for the lack of posts recently (especially after I was doing so well).  I was a little busy and a little lazy! But alas, here is the first of three posts I will make today (hopefully I won't fall behind again soon).

A couple weekends ago, a group of six of us went to Salamanca for the weekend.  We used blablacar, which is a carpooling website where you pay a driver to take you to where they are heading.  It was a great experience!  I had forgotten how much I missed being in a car verses public transportation/buses.  We saw the Cathedral and climbed its tower, which offered fantastic sites of the city! There was also a convent/museum that was really interesting.

We went out on Saturday night to a famous street with several tapas bars.  The food was delicious and the drinks were great as well.  After getting tapas, we went to a bar and danced the night away.

Overall it was a nice chance to get away from the city and to enjoy another Spanish town.  I really liked Salamanca and can definitely see why so many students choose to study abroad there!