Weekend

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Hi!!!!

Great weekend overall, even though I got no sleep!!!

Friday night I had a blast. For starters, I had had a great day at work. Had my first class all to myself & it went really well. Wow, I had no idea it would feel so good to assign homework! The kids are all really great & I tend to be a people person as it is, so I love that my main job is just to get them to speak. It's challenging because all of the students are at different levels, and some really dominate the class, but I am really focusing on encouraging conversation with each & every student. Now the trick is learning 300 Spanish names...

I actually have a lot more class preparation than I thought. I'm supposed to prepare conversation classes for every different level of English, but I don't quite know how to go about doing this...I think it's just one of those situations where you need to throw a couple of activities at them the first few weeks to kind of assess what level each class is at, etc. At least I get to be creative!

Friday night I thought was going to be boring since I was getting up early on Sat to go to Astorga. However, ´Angel ended up coming out with us & I hung out with him until almost 6 am. I had to get up at 8 am...I want to kick his butt...We had fun, though!

Sat we {Emma, Jo, Mari & I} went to Astorga with Maria Carmen & Josefina & their husbands...the 2 women work at my school. It was great! We toured around all day & ate churros con chocolate & tried Cocido {a 3 course meal that is kind of 'backwards' but very typical in Astorga: eat, then garbanzos, then a soup made of the 'leftovers' from the previous 2 courses, with some noodles.} Gross, I was NOT a huge fan.

We visited another small pueblo that does not allow cars to enter! You have to park outside of the town & walk in. On Sunday we did the COOLEST thing EVER!!!

We saw the ONLY Gimnasio Ecológico {ecological gym} that exists in the world! We met the creator, Manuel, of this gym. He basically built this huge outside gym. All of the weights & machines are made out of wood, old bicycle seats, etc. Everything is 'recycled.' I can't even tell you how cool it is! Here's a website that's in Spanish about the gym, but it has some good pics!

http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/mundoreal/gimnasio-ecologico.html

We then toured around León & I went inside their beautiful Cathedral. I have seen dozens of Cathedrals in Europe, but this one is particularly amazing because the stained glass is such high quality, is very intricate & this particular cathedral has more stained glass than any other cathedral that I can remember seeing. Absolutely breathtaking...

Back to work this week. Hope you are all doing well! Only a 3 day week this week! 'Puente' or vacation on Friday because it's the celebration of 'La Virgen del Pilar.'

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