Espana no celebran el dia de Santo Patricio

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Hey guys! I hope everyone is doing well. I am sooo ready for everyone at IU to come back from spring break so I can talk to yall more and hear about break! I miss yall a lot...especially my roomie...its kind of lonely at night sitting in my room. I'm not able to watch you do Kathy Smith 😞 When yall get back, I really want to hear from you!

I'm not going to write much now because I really need to get some sleep. It is 12:15 am here and I'm waking up at 6:30 to catch a train to Madrid for the weekend with Emily and Rachel. We are meeting Ryann at the airport on Sunday morning. This has been a very looong week...very exhausting and draining, but I love it all at the same time. I love the fact that I'm speaking another language and becoming more and more better at it each day. I was talking to the principal at my school today during our coffee break and he told me that my Spanish has improved a ton since Tuesday...it was pretty pathetic on my first day! I think that yesterday was a breakthrough day for me with my Spanish. I was able to practice it a lot-both hearing and talking. Rachel, Emily, and I ONLY talked to each other in Spanish yesterday...it was quite entertaining, but good practice! I really think that one day while I'm still here it's all just going to click! I'm looking forward to that day!

Emily, Rachel, Rafaela (a girl studying here from Germany), and I went to a flamenco show tonight. It was really cool. I've only seen a woman flamenco dance in the past, but tonight it was a man. He was very talented and it was just neat to see how passionate he gets when he is dancing. Flamenco dancing consists of "tap dancing," people playing the guitar, drumming, clapping, snapping, and singing. It's a very passionate dance...the people participating just feel the music and go with what they feel.

I got a talkin' to at dinner tonight by one of the cooks. Rafaela, Rachel, Emily and I had already gone out to dinner, but at 9pm, we went to see what was for dinner at the residencia. I wanted to see what the dessert was. Well, we all ended up eating some dinner, but not much. It was fish, salad, and soup. When the cook came to take up our dishes, she asked me why I didn't eat more. I told her that I had already eaten dinner, and she said "Necesitas mas, guapa." (You need to eat more, pretty girl). Ha, she wasn't too happy...not completely mean, but I had best be eating all my food on my plate from here on out...

School has been great this week. I am amazed at how well the students are behaved, how well they write, how well they read, how well they know English, etc. I am VERY impressed with the school. There is rarely any time spent on disciplining the students, they almost always have their homework, they are very organized, their writing is PERFECT...better than mine to be honest. My kids that are 6 know how to write beautifully in cursive...its nuts! My 6th graders could barely write in cursive (I barely can) and a lot of their writing was illegible. I put a few pics up of the little ones that I teach...they are precious. I'm in love with them!

I'll write more on Sunday and put up pictures of Madrid! I just wanted to let yall know as well that if you don't want to have to check this every day, you can "subscribe" to receive an email whenever I update. It doesn't mean you've joined Travel Blog, it just means that you will receive an email when I update! Hope this helps!

Hasta luego!

Amy

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Photos

Flamenco show
Rachel, Emily and I after the Flamenco show! Ole! And thank you guy in the back for joining in on the picture...

Flamenco show
Juan de Juan (you have to say it in a passionate, Spanish accent to get the full effect)!