The best Thanksgiving ever not in America

Queridos amigos,

I hope you all had a great day full of turkey, full tummies and good cheer this past Thursday. Although there was no turkey to be had here in Sevilla, there was plenty of cheer. We decided to have our fiestas de Gracias on Friday so some of our freinds could make it up here from Cadiz. So Thursday night Jennifer and I went to our friend Mati's to use her oven to make apple pie! I don't even really like apple pie but it was still exciting. We also created a batata (sweet potato more or less) pie/bake. While waiting for our creations to cool we ordered pizza and drank cruzcampo beer, a true celebreation of american culture. We explained to Mati that if you really want to be cheesy on thanksgiving, you can go around and everyone says what they are thankful for. Mati insisted that we do this tradition and some of mine included: being in Spain this year, of course my family and freinds at home, finding such a great apartment complete with great roommates and being able to come home for a christmas visit. :)

Friday afternoon our freinds Hayley and Jennifer arrived and we started to make ( in a true Grammy tradition) un MONTON de comida. Jennifer tried to send Maggie and I out to get more at the last minute because she was still somehow worried that there wouldnt be enough but we put our foot down and, behold, it is now Tuesday and we still have a few leftovers. The party went very well. We had basically every other tradtional thanksgiving food other than turkey because jennifer received a huge package of goodies from her aunt in the states. we also had a tradtional thanksgiving flan, made by Lydia, the german. 9 ladies total, lots of food,wine, laughs and estrogen. what could be better, haha. On Monday both Noelia and Lydia said that they had a great time and they love American thanksgiving! It was Noelia's first experience of the holiday and I think we definatly did it justice.

Saturday we continued our revelry and we 5 American ladies headed to Cordoba. We went to visit the Mezquita ( a large Cathedral was that originally constructed by the Moors, then took over by the Christians, then by the Moors....etc. For example, on one wall, completely carved in sancrit, they simply stuck a statue of St. Peter in front to make the Catholic presence known.) We also went to the Banos Arabes, which is basically a bath house. There are 3 pools of warm, hot and cold. Beleive it or not you are supposed to go from warm to hot to cold, because the cold water gives your body such a shock that when return to the warn water it is very relaxing for your muscles. Included in our visit was a short massage and tea in the tea house upstairs. It was lovely.

There is another Bano Arabe in Sevilla and I think I am going to buy a trip for Noelia and Lydia and I for a Christmas present to relax ourselves after a semester with our little gypsies. Yesterday for example, Noelia got completely fed up with them and had them copying for 2 hours. I got to play grocery item memory with a few of the good ones that had escaped punishment, but even that was difficult to maintain for 2 hours.

This week we intend to lay low and relax in Sevilla. I may buy myself a space heater though, it is SO COLD! It is always colder in our apartment than outside because we have cold floors and our building is blocked from the sun so it is liek an ice box. I may go and buy myself a little space heater, or at the very least another blankie.

Bueno pues, nada.
I hope all is well at home!
Beso,
MC

Rain, Rain, GO AWAY!

It hardly ever rains here in Andalucia. But when it does... watch out! I literally almost drown on the way to my carpool this morning. It is only about a 15-20 minute walk normally, but that was plenty of time for it to start POURING. MY umbrella blew out about half way there and by then there was no turnig back and I was SOAKED. By the time I got to Noelia´s car I was completely soaked, through to my socks... even my undies! We put on the heat full blast in the car but I was still soaked when we arrived at school (parts of the highway had flooded, we are lucky we made it). My sweatshirt was wet so hte lovely Noelia let me wear her jacket in the classroom and after I was done with my lesson she sent me to ask for una calefactor (a little tiny space heater). Tehy have enough for almost all the classrooms so while she was teaching I sat at her desk with my feet in front of the little heater. It managed to dry me, my shoes are still a little damp but at least i didnt have to be wet all day long. I normally leave at 1 on Tuesday but today I decided to stay until 3, eat lunch here at school with Noelia and then drive with her ( I am going to ask her to drop me off at my door if it is still raining). I won´t go if it is still like this at 5 when I have to go to one of my private lessons because without and umbrella, I wouldn´t make it. Go ahead, call me a whimp (dad... I can hear you now...) but seriously it was a freaking monsoon and there was thunder and lightning and yeah. I am not going anywhere once I get home!!!

Anyway, Jennifer and I made it Madrid Friday night. We met up with two of our freinds from orientation at our hostal, a charming place with a front door that looked like it could very possibly be either a whore house or a crack den. (Julia booked the hostal, I guess there were no pictures of it online???) But lucklily the inside was just fine, no whores, no crack. That evening we went to find soem tapas but we ended up in a restaurant that was expensive and then the food wasn't even very good. The next day we went to El Prado, to see the royal palace, and we had an amazing lunch at a delicious Indian restaurant. The highlight was though, at least for me, seeing, the broadway adapted play "JESU CHRISTO SUPER STAR".... thats right, jesus christ super star.... in Spanish. It was.... amazing. We didn´t get every word but we kind of are familair with the story, especially me after 17 years of Catholic school so it was easy enough to grasp what was going on. It was an experience. That night Julia and I tried to go out and check out the Madrid night life but when we went to go get a cab it was 2 degrees C· and all of the cabs were full! After a half an hour we just gave up because or else we would freeze. So that was a bummer, but we did hang out for a little while at one bar near our hostal and met some really strange Swedes. I usually like encountering interesting characters but these guys were even freaking ME out. The next day we went to El Rastro which is the biggest flea market that has ever been. Or at least that I have ever seen. I purchased a pair of delightful earrings for 3 euros. Then we headed to another art museum, La Reina Sofia de arte moderna. There we saw Guernica by Picasso. Quite impressive. Then Jennifer and I had to catch the train back to Sevilla around 5. Hayley and Julia stayed for another night and I imagine they will tell us what else they saw this Friday because they are coming to Sevilla from where they live in Cadiz for a Thanksgiving party! It will be at our apartment and wil consist of 5-7 Americans 2-4 Spaniards and 1 German (this girl Lydia that I work with at school). Should be fun! We are going to have Pollos Asados (a rotissery chicken place) instead of turkey because there are not turkies in Spain. Well, actaully, Jennifer and I found one in EL Corte Ingles ( a HUGE department store taht has EVERYTHING you could possibly ever dream of : car dealership, makeup cds, lawn mowers a grocery store, tailor, travel agency post office tvs microwaves.... etc etc) The turkey was in a box and was 70 euros. SO, pollos asado wil do just fine.

fotos!

I have finally have some pictures up!

http://picasaweb.google.com/mclauerman

Jennifer were supposed to head out to Madrid this morning but all trains were sold out until 8pm tonight, so we have just been waiting around all day. So i had time to finish the pictures!

The rest of my week turned out well. Wednesday I managed to have a 25 minute conversation with the PE teacher who has the thickest accent and speaks faster than any of the other teachers and I understood everything! Wednesday night I got a chance to relax. Thursday I just got a chance to catch up on errands and I have my private lesson at night. The 16 year old that I tutor (who has a band, hehe aw) said that his guitar teacher also wanted an American English teacher- sweet mas dinero para mi!


We are heading out in a little while to finally catch the train!
Hasta Ahora!
MC

take the good with the bad

I had kind of a rough day yesterday. At school the kids were a little extra awful. Noelia and I were both tired and keeping control of them is exhausting. I just couldn´t make myself understood to anyone, to the kids or adults. I eat lunch at school on Mondays and Wednesdays and I was trying to follow the conversation of the teachers I was sitting with but I couldn´t - they just speak SO FAST and with so much slang that is barely resembles standard spanish. After a while one of the teachers turned to me - after I had been polietly smiling and nodding throughout most of the lunch as if I had an idea what was going on - and asked me a question. I didn´t even know what the question meant much less the answer. Then they started explaining but their explanation was just as fast and impossible to understand as the conversation had been. Then they asked if I understood, I tried to lie and say yes to not be as embarressed but they saw that I didn´t and then they just laughed it off and stopped trying to explain. I have been in this situation before, I know that sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn´t... but that does not make it any less frustrating.



On the way home Noelia noticed I wasn´t as talkative as usual. She started trying to console me and tell me about how when she studied in England sometimes she just wanted to cry because it was so hard. Then she asked if I missed my family and freinds. I told her on good days all I can think about is how lucky I am to be here, how awesome Spain is, how exciting I am to be living in Europe this year. But on bad days I just want to be home where I feel like a competent human being, not to mention to be with people I love that actaully understand me.



Anyway thing turned around in the afternoon though. Since we live in Sevilla, where the main office of our program is, we get the benefit of the services that our organization provides. Sara, teh girl in charge of we English teachers has been sending out emails about people looking for private tutors. Yesterday I went to go meet with a familt that wanted 4 hours a week of private lessons for their two high school aged boys. And I am going toeb paid 15 euros an an hour! (This is great, I only make 12 with my other lessons. Nothing like the promise of income to turn one´s mood around. The boys are very nice, the older basically knows English already and just needs a conversation practice partner. The younger not so much but he knows some and I will be helping him with homework and studying for tests.

Today I had to go through another class without Noelia but today did not go as well as last week. Pepe (the director´s husband) had to leave when it was time for me to teach and the other teacher who came wasn´t very much help with getting the kids to listen. Luckily I had a hands-on activity for them to do which wasn´t too complicated so after I shouted my explination at them while no one was really listening, they managed to figure it out more or less.

One more day of school and two more lessons til the weekend! I am going to Madrid with some freinds. Another very good reason for the extra 80 or so euro a week!

Hasta ahora,
MC

The week and a weekend in Granada!

Let' see, quite a few things to report!

First of all, got the internet up and running in my house so I should be easy to get a hold of on skype if anyone should so desire! and i am posting pictures as we speak. ...although the process may take about 10 hours, the internet isn't what you would call speedy.

I had a good week at school with my little monsters. Monday was the first day of the second language assistant to arrive at Orippo, a German girl named Lydia. Yes, she is German but is here as an English teacher. She studied in the States for two years, so she basically speaks better English than I do. Unfortunately for Lydia, she was placed with the worst teacher in the whole school, a crazy woman who is always yelling and screaming at her students. By the end of the school day poor Lydia was in tears. My partner teacher Noelia (my only source of sanity at this school) told her that she would change her schedule so she would not have to be with this particular teacher anymore. Tuesday Noelia had a meeting in Sevilla so I had to teach my class with out her support and I was very nervous but it actually went very well. Her class had a sub, which was the husband of the principal who normally does one on one help with students that are behind. Luckily he is very good with the kids so since he was there they were more or less under control. He later told Noelia that after observing my class he was very impressed with all of the vocabulary my kids knew! I have been working on food vocabulary and "the supermarket". We have been working on the same vocab for about a week so that day I had them make posters of their own super markets and categorize all of the foods into their appropriate groups, ie apples with fruit carrots with vegetables chicken with meat etc. I think the teachers had kind of given up on these kids learning any English but during the project the kids were calling out questions like "Los apples son en el grupo de fruit no??" So i scored major points, yay. We have also been doing the parts of the body, so on Wednesday I taught then "The Hokey Pokey", also a great success haha.

Thursday we headed out for a weekend in Granada. We took the 4pm train right after Jennifer was done with school and by 8 we were settled in our hostal ready to go out and explore the city. I take credit for our hostal because I booked it online, it was so cool! We were on the top floor and it had a patio with the most amazing view of the city. We could see the cathedral and all of the rooftops of the city, que guay (how cool). We took the advice of the dueno of the hostal and headed to a nearby tapas bar. Best part about Granada: At the tapas bars, with every drink you buy, you get on tapa for FREE. It is amazing. After we had our fill of tapas, we headed to an Irish pub recommended in our beloved guidebook. There we met a group of Spaniards who offered to show us around and to take us to their favorite tapas place the next night. During the day on Friday we went to up to the Alambra which was the palace of the Moorish kings when they had control of Spain. There are huge gardens there and it is up on a hilltop so it has a great view. Tickets were sold out to take the tour of inside the palace so we just walked around the gardens (this was a big bummer for Jennifer but both Maggie and I had been inside before when we studied here). It was much colder in Granada than we had become used to in Sevilla so then later in the afternoon we headed to a typical tetaria (tea house). We sat on pillows on the floor and ordered several pots of tea and a peach hookah ( 831 peeps: a little different from Indian Summer haha). Then later we met new amigos for some very delicious tapas. The good/dangerous thing about tapas in Granada is in order to make a meal of the free tapas you need to drink about 7 beers. The beers are pretty small, but we were having fun by the end of dinner to say the least. We went to several other bars around town and by 3am we ended up at a very cool discoteca and danced the night away until about 7am. We managed to get ourselves up by noon but by 1:30 when we tried to go to the Cathedral but it was closed for seista as were all of the other tourist spots. But we saw the outside of them, very impressive haha. We caught the 5pm train back to Sevilla Saturday. Today I am resting!

Then next week it all begins again.
I hope all is going well at home. Send me emails!
Beso,
MC

fotos de halloween

paticia y los dados (dice)

time flies...

It is already November! I can´t beleive it!

Let´s see what has happened since my last post?

1. Halloween! I spent all week introducing vocabulary like :witch, candy, pumpkin, ghost and bat and then on wednesday we had a halloween party in which my students knocked on the door with masks that we made in class and said "TRICK OR TREAT!". a triumphant moment. Then that night some of our fellow American english teachers threw a halloween party. (I thought I had pictures on my flash drive to post now, but it turns out that i don´t so i will post them later) My roommates were dice and a was a popular talk show host here in Spain named Patricia. She is basically the Spanish version of Ricky Lake. She is amazing. oh! actually I do have a picture of her! I will post me AS her later.

Patirica, in all her glory

2. This weekend my roommates went to Cadiz which is a port town down in the very southern coast of Spain. We hit all the traditional tourist sights: the cathedral, the beach, a castle and explorded quiant little winding roads. We also went to a Flamenco show. We have started a tradtion of going to the author´s choice in our guidebook for dinner, and again he did not fail us! We went to the most amazing tapas place, it was delicious. The highlight of this meal for me was dessert: ( I was thinking of you Mom and GRAMMY) the most AMAZING dulce de leche crepe EVER! There were tears in my eyes it was so good. Unfortunatly, something from our delcious dinner must not have agreed with Maggie because she wasn´t feeling weel for the rest of the night so in the morning we decided to head back to sevilla early, which was fine because it isn´t that far and we can go back to Cadiz anytime.

Me, lookin fab in Cadiz :)

Sunday Jennifer I discovered a huge outdoor market. A true cultural experience. Vendors yelling their prices, haggling, the whole bit. Jennifer got olives and I got cheap shoes, a very successful venture. Then we walked around the Jardines de Maria Lucia in Sevilla.

This week I really want to pursue getting a few more extra teaching jobs and the job of getting internet for our casa has also been assigned to me so I need to make some phone calls. This weekend we are planning on going to Malaga and Granada. Once I get the internet set up I will make a webalbum with all of my pictures! I already have around 300 or more.

Now I need to go catch the train back to Sevilla!

Hasta pronto,

MC