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April 3rd – April 16th
I did not go on any trips during this two week span, but I still was able to have a really good time spending it with friends, relaxing in the glorious sun and exploring more of the city.
As far as work goes the weeks could not have been finished quickly enough. Everyone at school was more than ready for a break and it definitely showed. Our first trimester we hardly worked at all and had tons of holidays, however this semester, we had a very long 4 months with no real breaks. The staff did not want to be there and more and a few were rushing to get their grades turned in. Unfortunately that meant some of the auxiliares had to pick up the slack. I think the worst was Monica (again). She was trying to complete a video project with the students and thus had no time to do her own grading. So rather than take work home, Rodrigo, Sandy and I had to do a ton of her work at school. She wanted each and every journal read and graded for every class. That would be approximately 200 journals in
3 days. The only problem was she didn’t give us a grading chat, there were three of us grading at different times and we honestly did not know what she wanted. How is this fair to the students? The grades cannot be correct because there were too many different eyes judging them. What I thought was B quality someone else may view as a C or A. It was very frustrating. Tutoring on the other hand went very good. The first week was normal with both good classes and bad classes but the second week was super easy. A ton of the parents canceled classes because of Semana Santa and the lack of homework. I did end up with about half my classes for the second week, however only the first two days. One of them was Marco’s lesson. The week before he had a major attitude and I was really dreading this last lesson. However, it turned out so great. We drew pictures, ran around the back yard and when his mom told him I wouldn’t be coming during Semana Santa he pulled me down and gave a big wet kiss on the cheek. It was so sweet. He
totally erased all the bad times with that one kiss 😉.
Most of my time outside of work was spent with Sandy. She and I were together any chance we got. The weather has been so nice that we have been spending as much time as we can at the park near her house. I have mentioned this park in a previous blog but to reiterate it has a 1k running path that surrounds paddle courts, a golf course, a golf range, fountains and futbol courts. It also has numerous workout equipment and park for kids to play in. We had a great time walking around and trying out the different equipment at the park. I also talked Sandy into golfing with me. She had never golfed before so we headed to the range so I could show her the ropes. We had so much fun. It was so amusing to watch her, joke around and finally hit some balls again. I have really missed it. I was surprised how cheap the range was. We probably hit over 200 balls and rented a club and paid less than 10 euros. Talk about a great deal. Outside of golf and
the park we spent a lot of time at her house watching movies and relaxing. We also headed to Rastro a few times to pick up some souvenirs. We found a great ceramic booth and a new tapas bar in the process.
When I wasn’t with Sandy I spent a couple time with my normal auxiliare group. On Wednesdays we spent our time at Monty’s eating Spanish sandwiches and enjoying the weather on the now opened terraced seating. (As soon as the sun came out every restaurant started opening their outside seating.) We definitely took advantage every chance we got. On the first weekend I met up with Laura, Amy, Kyla, Katherine, Paige and Marisa for a traditional Spanish breakfast Pan con tomate, (bread with tomato) and cafe. We spent a few hours just visiting and relaxing before heading down to Gran Via to walk around a hit a few shops. It was a great girls day. As our 2nd term of work came to a close the group of auxiliares and I were more than ready to celebrate. So Thursday after work we headed to Si Senor, a Mexican restaurant. Since arriving in Spain I had yet to
find Mexican food. I have missed it so much. To make it even better the restaurant was fantastic. They had mariachi bands, traditional food and great margaritas. When we finished up there we headed to a bar to spend the evening relaxing with a game of pool and darts. Come to find out I am terrible at darts! I am surprised no one got injured. It was a great way to end the work week and begin our long Easter vacation.
Outside of spending time with friends I was either exercising or laying in the park. I ended up having to buy sunscreen, which was an enlightening experience. When most people think of Spain they think of the hot sun, right? Wouldn’t you think that sunscreen would be pretty common and inexpensive? NO! For a tiny bottle that would cost maybe 10 dollars (tops) in America, it ended up costing me over 30 American dollar. I don’t understand. Do they want people to get skin cancer here? So future reference if you ever come to Spain, bring a TON of sunscreen 😊.
All in all these two weeks were great but I was more than ready to get out of the city during Semana Santa.
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