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Published: November 7th 2010
Palace - Madrid
Me and Dani at the palace in madridHey everyone, sorry it’s been two weeks since I added a blog but I have been pretty busy😊. So this entry will definitely be a long one.
Week Four:
Things started to fall back into their normal routines at school with all the teachers back from their trips. Unfortunately for me that means less teaching but I am sure I will get the chance to do it many more times this year, so I will just look forward to then. This week we started preparing for out thanksgiving lessons that we will be giving this month. It is pretty much basic plans right now but we will have a story for each grade and then a craft that relates to thanksgiving. Besides these preparations for Thanksgiving I have been working tediously on trying to prepare the 2nd graders for their English exam in the spring, but it has been very difficult. Their English abilities are so vast; some students are almost fluent while other have no ability besides a few phrases and colors. I am constantly trying to adapt my teaching techniques to meet the needs of all the abilities of my students. I did come up with one
Palace - Madrid
Me infront of the Palace idea to make an evaluation sheet. In which I have each category the children must know for the test and mark off what they know as we progress throughout the year. It helps me understand each student better but it is still hard to help those who don’t understand English. My director is shocked by the auxiliaries (that’s my job title) this year. We all want to see the children succeed and are putting in so much work to get the student prepared. Apparently it is not normal for the auxiliaries to put in any outside time. I suppose this is because most auxiliaries are just in Spain to see the country while all three of us who work at my school have the intention of going into the education systems when we return home. I think it is because we have actually worked in schools and know what we need to do and have our own expectations for the students.
Outside of school I began my tutoring. This week has been a bit slow, I only had two sessions but will have many more after all the details are squared away. The first boy I tutored is a
fourth grader named Nacho. We work mostly on science. He is really bright but would rather be outside playing futbol rather than inside studying. So I try really hard to make the lessons fun by adding experiments so that he can better grasp the concepts. The other boy is a 5th grader named Miguel. I absolutely love him. He is so smart and loves studying, which makes my job easy😉. He loves science and his English ability is amazing. He was so fun to work with and I can see his desire for knowledge every time I work with him. These two lessons were a great way to start my tutoring and helped me prepare for any others I will get for the rest of the year.
Finally it was Friday and the true entertainment began. Daniela, Nadine and Sara (two of her friends) came down from Switzerland to visit me. We had a great time! We started off on Friday by walking around the city until we got caught in a down pour, so we went to Gran Via which is a street full of stores. We browsed around there for a bit and then met Laura at
Calle Huertas - Madrid
Dani, Laura, Sara, Nadine and Me a bar for drinks and relaxing conversation.
On Saturday we headed to the royal palace. Upon arriving at the palace and taking pictures we learned it was actually open, and were able to go tour the palace. We walked through beautiful rooms, viewed the armory and stood in the court yard. It was so interesting to think about the history and how many people from years ago had been in the same rooms we were touring. It was very beautiful but unfortunately we were unable to take pictures inside. After seeing some sights we went to Gran Via again to do a bit more shopping and found a place to eat Paella, which is a very authentic Spanish meal with rice, vegetables and usually some seafood. It was pretty good, although the girls said it was by far not the best, but it was the first time I had it so I couldn’t complain too much😊. After a busy day of walking around I took the girls to La Latina for some of the places I had gone to the week before. We had a lot of fun visiting with the bartenders, relaxing and socializing. Again Laura came and
met us there and we went and got a Caipiroska Fresa, which is by far my favorite drink I have found in Spain. We headed back to the street our hostel was on for the rest of the night, walking around and going in and out of bars and cafes, pretty much doing what a local does.
Sunday we spent even more time out in the city. It was daylight savings in Spain so luckily we were able to get another hour of sleep, which we all loved 😊 and then went in search of the hop on hop off tour bus to see the city. Before going to the bus I took the girls to El Rastro (the big flea market) to see what the locals normally do. We spent a good hour there looking at jewelry and scarves. It was a very busy day at the market and we soon headed out to get on the bus. While trying to find the bus we came across a parade occurring on the streets in downtown Madrid. It was a parade with sheep, cows, bulls and horses being guided through the streets. It was so amazing to see all
Hop on Hop off - Madrid
Nadine, Sara, Dani and Me these animals in Madrid; it was such a contrast between the buildings and architecture with the Sheppard’s in their traditional clothing. It was really interesting. After finally being able to cross the street we headed to another location to get a bus. We eventually made it on the bus and took a tour of Madrid. It was really interesting for me, because although I had seen the places we went, I was able to learn the historic facts that I did not know about. After our bus tour Nadine and Sara decided to go their separate way so that Dani and I could visit a while and go see the Prado Museum. Dani and I stood in line for about an hour but finally made it into the Museum. It was really beautiful, but extremely religious, which surprised me. I figured there would be a larger variety of art but it surprised me how much of it was either baby Jesus or a crucifixition piece. It was really interested but we couldn’t stay there long so I will definitely need to go back again. BY the time we caught up with Nadine and Sara we were pretty tired. We were
all ready to crash but we headed to this amazing Spanish restaurant for our last meal together. It was really good. It was a nice way to end our busy weekend with delicious food, good wine and great friends. After dinner we headed back to our hostel, packed up all our stuff and got ready for bed. We had to leave by 630 in the morning so the girls could catch their flight. I had a great weekend with Dani, Nadine and Sara. I was so glad to see familiar faces and visit with my swister😊.
Week 5:
On Monday morning I took the girls to the airport and we said our goodbyes. I will be seeing them in about 2 months for Christmas and am already counting down the days to see Dani again. After dropping them off, I took all my stuff back to my house and took about an hour long walk to plaza de Espana to meet Laura and two of her friends for a late lunch. Laura knew this really nice Mexican restaurant and we spent the day eating, talking and walking around the city. IT was a pretty relaxing day off from
Madrid
Me and Dani work.
The rest of the week I spent working and tutoring. I was able to organize a few more sessions of tutoring. I am tutoring two 2nd graders and two 6th graders. With the second graders I spend most of time working on science and English but with the 6th graders the mother mostly wants the girls to be around more English so we pretty much play charades the whole time. It is really fun and relaxing and is my last session of the week so it is a great way to end my work days. This week Miguel (the fifth grade boy) decided to give me a ring. He is so sweet, he found a plastic ring in the playground and wanted me to have it; it only fits on my pinky finger. But it’s the thought that counts😊. I am glad the work days are starting to fill up more with tutoring. I love having three days off but getting off at two and having no plans afterwards was pretty hard. I could walk around the city a lot but I was at home alone most of the time. My roommates don’t usually get home from work
Lunch - Madrid
Sandra, Nacho and Ami discussing and making Meat pie until 9 so it was always pretty lonely around the apartment. Now I don’t get home until 9 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and about 7 on Mondays and Wednesdays so I like it so much better.
On Friday Laura and I met up to spend the day together. We walked around the city running errands, doing a little shopping and took the hour long walk from her house to mine. We stopped a few places on the way, had a great lunch and finally made it to my house. It was the first time Laura had been in my area so I was able to show her plaza de torros, my neighborhood and my apartment. We had a very relaxing day just hanging out in Madrid.
Yesterday my day, which I thought was going to be very relaxing, turned into a long event. I got up and headed to meet a group of people from work, their friends and their friend’s friends from work, for lunch. Lunch was planned for 11 in the morning. We meet near one of the metro stations and then ran to a few grocery stores and markets to get some fresh food to
cook with. We finally made it to the house where we were going to have lunch at and began cooking. After about two hours the food was finally ready and we were setting the table. We had a massive spread of food in front of us including bull balls, which surprisingly were pretty tasty. We spent the day at the house eating and visiting with the numerous people that kept coming and going. Around 9 at night we decided to leave the house and head towards plaza de torros for a festival they were having. Unfortunately the line was massive and we were unable to get in so we went to la Latina to hang out again. By the time I made it home it was actually today. It was a ton of fun, but I was not expecting my group lunch date to end up lasting all day. I guess that’s just Spain though 😊.
Today has been very relaxing. I spent the day sleeping in, working out and visiting with my roommates. I finished up this blog and will make sure to post every week. Writing an entry for two weeks was not a good idea,
it takes way to long 😊
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Steve n Bobbi
non-member comment
Nice to see you and Dani together!
How cool was that? You two look so happy together. Nacho reminds me of Jack, never afraid to be who he is and just have fun with you guys. The paela(?) looks yummy, but I don't know about those bull balls. Glad you are having more time to teach, and am sure you will get the chance to do more in the classrooms. They got the right auxilliaries this time around. You are spoiling them. They would do well to ask for students pursuing teaching for future years. Love you, Auntie Bobbi and Uncle Steve