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Published: August 1st 2009
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My First Week as a Madrileño
Aug 1, 2009 5:21 p.m.
The First Week:
Sitting here in the middle of el Parque de Buen Retiro (Retiro Park), I finally have some time to sit down, relax and collect my thoughts on what has to be one of the fastest passing weeks in my life.
My experience with transatlantic plane flights has been, in general, that you get what you pay for. In this case, the price was right: >$400 and no baggage fees (even for my enormous golf/fencing/oh-shit-I’m-spending-a-year-abroad-and-need-lots-of-clothes bag)! Could this really be true? To top it off, my “choice seat” of 19A was choice enough that no one even sat next to me so I could stretch my legs more than a few centimeters in front of me. Besides not sleeping much (who really does anyway?), the only hang up was the gaggle of giggling Spanish high school students returning to “la patria” from a study abroad trip. Since I will be teaching such students, the coming year flashed before my eyes as I watched the chaperone unsuccessfully try to keep rows 20-30 from reenacting scenes reminiscent of Animal House. The gentlemen in front of
me were headed to Portugal to buy a bed and breakfast there to simply “get out of Savanna” and so I helped them navigate through the Madrid-Bajaras airport, which is no easy task at 7:30 in the morning, even for a Spaniard.
My taxi ride from the airport to my host apartment was pleasant. The apartment is on a side street near the massive, fin de siecle grandeur of the Atocha train station in the south of the city. My landlady owns two apartments in the building;mine is the one on the the second floor (which in Spanish is called the first floor) and has a tiny kitchen, two bathrooms and four bedrooms. By sheer luck of the draw I ended up with the biggest bedroom, which I am told usually holds two students. However, according to my landlady, my golf/fencing bag counted as a student, so I got the room. My neighbors have rotated a bit because two of them just finished their Cambridge English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA) course. I am following in their footsteps. There’s a girl living next to me from Scotland named Clare. For the past two years, she has been teaching English
in Japan with a TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) certificate. In order to teaching in Europe though, most schools require the CELTA certification that is arguably more academic and professional-oriented. I have yet to meet my other roommates, but I do know they are not doing a CELTA course because we had our first class yesterday (Friday).
The CELTA course is run by a private language-learning and teaching institute called International House-Madrid (www.ihmadrid.com). It’s about 20 minutes away from my apartment by metro. The metro is the cleanest I’ve seen and is very accessible and user-friendly. Madrid’s transport authority combines metro and bus into one month-long pass that makes getting around a snap. But I digress. The International House school is very, very nice. There are upwards of 20 classrooms in a very modern setting complete with a small library, cafe and offices. I like the other student-teachers in my class, even though they are totally different than what I expected. I thought the class would be made up of 20-somethings just out of either college or grad school and looking for a little post-graduation adventure. The reality is quite different. Although there are 20-somethings, the majority
are 35 and over with some pushing past 60. Besides an active military man on leave, I am the only American in my class of 20. The UK is well represented (after all, it is a Cambridge-sponsored course) as well as Argentina, Hungary and Slovakia. Only about 2/3 of us are native English-speakers. Most are very cheerful and outgoing, though I do worry that the students we will be teaching will get entirely confused by all the different accents.
The first day was jam-packed with ice-breaking activities and planning for our first lesson (on Monday). For now, they gave us the lesson we will be teaching. I will start on Monday (which is scary) with introductions and name games so that we can get acquainted with the students. Hopefully there won’t be too many of them as I only have 20 minutes before handing it off the to the next teacher to teach another skill (reading, writing, spelling, listening, pronunciation, etc.). Then, on Tuesday, I have the class for 45 minutes and we’ll rotate subjects taught among the teachers. We also have an instructor from IH who will be in the room watching our performance (and helping if we
get hung up). I am glad to have something to do in Madrid during the weekdays because otherwise I would just wander around and spend money--a very easy thing to do in this city! Exhibit A: in the club “Dream” last night with my fellow teachers, my Cuba Libre was 6 Euros...more like a “Nightmare” than a dream! In fact, “Dream” was definitely my worst club experience ever (yes, even topping New Years Eve 2006 in Miami. The music was all reggaeton from Miami’s clubs circa three years ago, and the DJ repeated the same stuff over and over! I don’t care how many drinks you’ve had, “Gasolina” does not get any better the second time around.
The climate of Madrid reminds me a lot of Idaho--dry highlands with mountains in the distance (the Sierra de Guadarrama, I think). It is pretty hot in the afternoon, but thankfully the Spanish have a perfect coping mechanism: siesta. Most stores close from about 2 p.m. until 5 p.m. (except for a few large chains and the tourist-y areas) to have a long lunch and catch a few z’s.
The city itself is very friendly while being cosmopolitan; I don’t feel
as if I’m lost in the great unwashed sea of fast-paced New York, for example. I like the fact that everything is within walking distance, which makes running errands very easy. My first trip to the grocery store was successful despite being woefully serenaded for a block or two by a derelict gypsy. I haven’t been to many attractions, simply because their aren’t many “must-see” buildings, cemeteries or monuments here. There are plenty of fountains, plazas and museums, most of which I’m saving for later. However, as you can see in the pictures I am posting with this entry, I did stumble across a few very cool sites in Retiro Park. One of these is the Palacio de Cristal (Crystal Palace, not the brand of bubbly) that was patterned after the Paris World’s Fair exhibition hall of 1898. It’s made entirely of steel and plate glass and feels much like being inside a very large, ornate greenhouse. It holds rotating art shows and exhibits; the current one makes me question the talent of modern art because its title asks: “Are Animals People?” and the entire “exhibit” consists of two stuffed plush toys suspended from the ceiling with large speakers playing
animal noises mixed with those of the city. In the park there is also a small lake with paddle boats, another Palacio de Velazquez (unfortunately closed for the season) and rose gardens. Sitting in the park today has reminded me of the simple fact that the best things in life are free, green and have paddleboats.
Be sure to tune in next week for a report on Adam’s first teaching experience (yikes) and his attempt to navigate the bureaucracy of obtaining the dreaded “tarjeta de residencia” (residency card that allows me to stay here past 90 days). Hasta pronto!
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Nathan Pittman
non-member comment
Wow
When are we going to hear about the first teaching experience? Man, if I wasn't scared to death of teaching high school hellions I'd so be down for trading with you. I just finished my first day of law school and and I can tell you I would take Madrid-and its dry climate-any day of the week. You lucky bastard.