Making a house a home.

By 4:00 in the afternoon yesterday (10 AM your time!) I had: gone to two banks (one to get the money, the other to deposit) to pay my rent, tried out a new pastelería for a napolitana chocolate (half of it was really good... the half that actually got the chocolate filling), explored IKEA, bought organization items galore for my room, put said items together, reorganized all of my belongings, gone shopping for fruits/vegetables for lunch, cooked lunch, and started writing this blog post. Then I took a break for a skype date with the bestie! But I'm back and here to continue updating you on my life...

Here are the promised photos of my room!

It feels so good to have decorated and picked up a few things to make it homier. The desk without a chair (¡9,99 €!) was rather problematic for using the desk, but the bedside table (¡7,99 €!) is just a homey touch made me excited to put my book down before bed last night.

From the doorway

Check out the PA map... don't worry Michiganders, I'm not that in love with PA. But since it was laying around I figured it could spice up my white box. Also note the beautiful quilt made by Brenda Sue herself!

My desk, complete with a Hope College water bottle, which luckily I have not lost yet. They don't use reusable water bottles here so I don't want to have to replace it. Also note all of my "presents" from the super awesome UB coaches on my bulletin board. UBelong here with me!

Hot pink boxes helped to organize my clothing better and make the room a bit brighter. My closet is also rather large considering not a single other apartment I looked at even had a closet built in to the room. (Yes, my hamper is full. No, I haven't done laundry in my new apartment yet.)

So yeah, basically Ikea is awesome. I got everything in one place and had quite the afternoon putting it all together. When I finally finished and started eating lunch at 3:15, my flatmate looked at me and said, "Comes muy tarde, ¿no? " (You eat really late, no?). Whooooooa, I'm eating late by a Spaniard's standards! I then had to explain that I would have eaten earlier, but I had gotten distracted by my Ikea purchases. Who wouldn't?


Now in regards to my job: this week's classes finished off well and I am really enjoying having the other auxiliares at school. I finally have friends to sit with during the break and swap stories about the funny questions kids ask. They also experienced the overwhelming questions of favorite color, number, band, etc. :)

However, I have also discovered a challenging situation in two of my classes. In both an English class and a history class, I have a student who is hearing impaired. The student has a hearing aid and a device that I wear around my neck in order for her to hear me. However, the focus of my classes with these students is to prepare them for a Model UN debate at the end of February/beginning of March. Thus we will be doing a great deal of debating in addition to the normal class discussion, group work, etc. My problem is what to do with the device that enables the student to hear. It seems it would be best for us to pass it around, but that could slow the process and might prohibit students from having fluid discussions or chiming in with questions/counter arguments. I'm not sure how the special education system works here, but none of the teachers here seem to recognize that the student is unable to fully participate because she can't hear; instead they've commented to me that she seems to be absent minded. My first priority is to educate the student, but this may be a tricky subject when I bring it up with teachers who I will be working with all year and who have more experience with the student than I. If anyone has any suggestions on this subject, I'd love to hear them!

Another challenge I had on Thursday was a teacher just not showing up to class. Teachers are often late since they are the ones to switch classrooms (instead of the students) and there is 0 minutes for passing time. Thus one class ends at the exact time that another class starts. Also, because I'm not recognized as a teacher here, I am not allowed to be in a room by myself with the students. Therefore, I am supposed to wait until the teacher gets there to start my lesson. For the beginning, I think this is helpful for the teacher too because they can see how my lessons flow. But on Thursday, after waiting for 15 minutes, I decided I would just start without the teacher and hope she came soon. After I got the students started in their discussion, I went up to one of the girls in the front row and asked, "Do you know when your teacher is coming?" to which she responded, "I don't know... she left class yesterday and didn't come back." Perfect.

I then sent the girl for a guardia, which is a teacher who is signed up to act as a substitute teacher for that given hour. The guardias will sometimes have a worksheet given to them by the teacher, but most times they just sit in the room with the students and make sure it doesn't get too rowdy. After about 10 minutes of the guardias running around trying to figure out where my teacher was and who was going to sit in my class, a teacher finally came in. She was a little confused when I told her that she just had to sit there because legally I couldn't be alone with the students, but by the end I think she was enjoying my discussion of prom, high school lunch, and reunions. Maybe she learned something new too! After class I talked with my coordinator and found out that apparently the teacher had a meeting with the Bachillerato students (11th and 12th grade) and didn't bother to tell anyone or account for her class. When in Spain....

Now onto food: I bought my first liter of fresh milk! Super exciting! I went to a bigger grocery store 20 minutes away and had great success. I even found chocolate syrup to make some chocolate milk :)

No, it's not Hershey's. But it will do.

And this afternoon, I went on a picnic in Retiro Park with Napala.  The weather was gorgeous (75°F), so we couldn't resist being outside!

 Queso, jamón, pan, and to make things slightly more balanced, fruits an vegetables!

After lunch we took a walk around the park and we saw...

 GIANT bubbles! Fun!

 And finally, we headed back to Napala's apartment to drop off the leftover food (aka leftover jamón... we ate everything else) and to check out an Italian gelato place by her apartment.

Hazelnut and coffee. AMAZING.

Houston, we have a problem. This gelatería is located right between Napala's apartment and my apartment (we are only a 15-20 minute walk from each other!). And this place is open every day. We spent forever trying to decide what flavors to get... we had to remind ourselves that we would (definitely) be coming back (regularly). Mmmmmmmmm... 

Go figure this is also located three stores down from the pandería that has the best napolitana chocolate (chocolate croissant) that I've had in the city so far. If I walk to Napala's flat, it's healthier than taking the metro. But if I walk to Napala's flat, I will probably consume something deliciously bad for me. Such is life.

Okay, one last story before I leave. Today on my way to Retiro park, I was on the Metro with a man who is blind. I noticed him because of the way he was stroking papers against his body, reading braille; the seeing eye dog was completely out of my range of vision with the craziness of the metro. While being jostled around by the people and turns of the metro ride, I began to consider all the challenges of being blind and trying to ride the metro, a seemingly simple task.

First off, it's a maze in there. It would take so much practice and guidance from others to learn which platform to even get on. Then, one would have to figure out where the doors opened up, not even taking into account which door was least crowded. And then I consider how I am constantly watching my purse and shifting myself around to take into account all of the other people on the train. I can't even imagine having to do that all without the sense of sight. So today, I just wanted to say that I am thankful for my sight. I'm thankful that I am able to see my friends and family via Skype this weekend. I am thankful I could see the flowers lining the fountains in Retiro park. I am thankful I can see my computer screen to upload my pictures and write to all of you. I take my sight for granted every single day. But at least for the rest of today, I will not. And now I challenge you, what have you seen today that you can be thankful for?

Much love,

Amber

Settling in.

I moved into my apartment. Wahooooooo! It feels good to have keys to an apartment and to be able to tell people where I live. Of course, it's not all rainbows and butterflies. Here are a few pros and cons of the current situation.

Pros.

• The mercado de Chamberí is about two blocks away from my house. I'm already making friends with one of the vendors, who told me the proper way to order a quarter kilogram of cheese. (I promptly realized that this was probably too much cheese for one person. Oops. But I bought some bread and ate it for dinner with a side of melon... all's well that ends well!) He also took his time explaining all the differences between the jamón options. I listened and nodded and then picked the one with the least amount of fat on it. The sure do love their fat on their jamón serrano...
• I'm right in between two great metro stations. They are each only connected to one line, but each is less than a five minute walk and the single line stations are less busy/less of a journey down under. (The grey line at Cuatro Caminos is about 8 escalator rides underground... every time I go there I am thankful I don't have to do that on a regular basis.)
• I can walk to school! It takes about 25 minutes. Let's just hope it doesn't rain.
• I unpacked all of my stuff! I found a few sweaters and shirts that I forgot I brought, which made it feel like Christmas. And if you are reading this then you are probably hung up on my wall in picture form. To cut down on the boring white walls I also hung up a map of PA that I currently have no use for. Maybe I'll study the geography of PA if I can't fall asleep some night.
• We share a lot of kitchen items so I don't have to worry about spices, pots, etc. Now I just have to get back into the habit of cooking for myself and accumulate all the random ingredients that I need to throw a meal together.
• I'm speaking Spanish at home! Two of my roommates are Spanish and the other is French. But the French girl has a Spanish boyfriend so she speaks Spanish very well. Right now I still don't have much to say to them but I'm sure over time I'll get used to chatting it up. I watched part of the Barcelona soccer game with one of the girls tonight and was delighted to tell her that I love watching soccer. I also managed to squeeze in a story about how my sister is on a National Championship soccer team, nbd.

Cons.

• The Día (grocery store) next to my house is sub-par. They do not sell refrigerated milk. I knew it was rare but I thought I would be able to find at least one bottle in the store.
• My current furniture situation consists of a desk (basically a personal size rectangular table, no drawers or anything), a bed, and a large open shelf (aka four wooden posts with five pieces of wood). This means that in my excitement to unpack everything, I was sorely disappointed with the fact that I had no where to put anything. I had no hangers to hang things up in the closet and the shelves quickly became messy with clothing stacks, despite my attempt to organize them by type. I went to Tiger to buy a few baskets for my socks and underwear and lots of hangers in an attempt to free up my shelf space. Nonetheless, I have never been so excited to go to Ikea (ee-kay-uh) on Friday. A bedside table, a simple chair, and minor form of desk organization will make me an extremely happy girl. I might even go big and buy a small rug so that I don't wake up to putting my feet on the freezing tile floor.
• My apartment is cold. And it's only October. I went on an unsuccessful search for a blanket today since my current bedding situation is sheets that I borrowed from Carol and a broken-in quilt made by my lovely mother that I brought from the states. Nice, but not too warm. I know I will be in desperate need of a down comforter for the winter. Now where does one go to buy such item? To be determined...
• I don't know how to work the shower. I woke up this morning to take a shower before work and the water was frigid. I let it run for a minute and a half and there was no change in temperature. I tried again this afternoon and the same thing happened. I'm sure there is some trick to turning on the hot water or something but I haven't figured it out yet. I'm waiting for one of my roommates to come home so I can ask them. (Update within an update! There is a switch in the kitchen to turn on for the hot water. I'll shower after this.)
• The water thing reflects on how, in general, this is turning out to be more challenging (on a personal level) than expected. While I was staying with the DeWitts, Carol was careful to tell me anything and everything that I needed to know. I got used to updating the white board with where I was going and coming home to have dinner with some company. Then, last night I felt a sudden sense of detachment from the rest of the world. There were other people wandering around the apartment, but in their own lives, which I am not yet a part of. To be honest, it made me feel a bit lonely. I'm used to living with friends (or family friends) who want to know my work schedule and help me get situated with all of my things. It's an odd feeling living with strangers. I know it will be great as soon as I get to know them bu for now I am recognizing that there will be an adjustment period.

 BEFORE photo. 

AFTER photo will be posted at a later date... aka after the Ikea trip on Friday.

I have a (somewhat) finalized schedule at school. Then again, this is my 5th schedule and Manuel thought it was almost finalized after the 3rd. Luckily the previous Fulbrighter gave me a heads-up that this would be the case.

So far, I am really enjoying the classes. I am teaching my first English classes (not counting the introductions/hour-long Q&A sessions) to the 1°ESO students (7th graders) and 3°ESO (9th graders) about the differences between high school in the United States and in Spain. This gave me the opportunity to tell the 1°ESO students that, by my standards, they weren't in high school :)

I am also teaching my first Global Classrooms history classes to 3°ESO students about the Millenium Development Goals of the UN. After discussing the MDGs, the students were challenged to identify which goal they considered to be most important and to convince (using a moderated caucas and a few of our "Honorable chair, Pepe has a point of information..." catch phrases) their classmates of their perspective. The MDGs are very simple to understand and I think this intro activity gave the students a simple understanding of what they are getting into for the year.

 UN Millennium Goals logo

BUT, of course, not every class has gone so smoothly. Today when I got my schedule change, I ended up in a class reading Beowulf (which I have never actually read) and discussing the ins and outs of the upcoming U.S. election. When the teachers announced to the classes that I would be leading these discussions, my heart dropped; I felt so helpless.

By the grace of God, however, I was able to skim through the (very) abridged version of the Beowulf poem and use context clues to understand enough to be of use to the students and teacher. I even learned a new word: garrulous. (If this is a word that you think everyone knows, don't tell me because I had no idea. Luckily, I guessed right.)

Then, in the 2° Bachillerato (12th grade), I was overwhelmed to hear students spouting off the population of the United States and the foreign policy of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama like it was their phone number (which I, in fact, still don't know). Having been outside of the U.S. for almost four weeks, I was terrified that they would end up correcting my comments. Thankfully, all of my NPR listening paid off and I could speak intelligently about the two parties and why different people from the U.S. support each one.

All in all, these classes were a great reminder that where I falter, God fills. In house church last night we talked about our weaknesses as Christians. I consider one of my greatest weaknesses to be my desire to be independent. I want to think that I can do things on my own and that I don't need help from others or God. Go figure, I am in a situation right now that forces me to recognize how dependent I am. Without God granting me clarity of mind, I surely would have made gross generalizations about the elections and misinterpreted a difficult piece of literature. Without God preparing a place before me, I might never have learned how to turn on the shower ;)

I signed up for a dance class! The first class was tonight, but I hadn't signed up yet so I will start Thursday. It's twice a week for an hour and a half each class. I'm super excited!

Here's a brief video showing off Bárbara Fritsche's style:

conTemporary class*clase de conTemporáneo (2012) from barbara on Vimeo.

I have checked off another city on my "to visit" list. This weekend Napala and I went to Santander to visit some other Fulbrighters living there. Santander is a 4 hour train ride but since the train hours weren't ideal, Napala and I decided to take the bus. Bad idea? NO! Great idea! We didn't take just any bus; we took the Asla Supra bus. It was probably one of the best travel decisions I've ever made. Though it was an hour longer each way, we traveled in style. The Asla Supra bus had leather seats and a bus attendent. We were fed with candies, two drinks, pastries, and a sandwich and were entertained with two movies per ride. Plus our seats had reclining feet rests. PLUS there were only 3 seats in each row instead of 4, making it quite spacious. PLUS PLUS they put luggage tags on our backpacks (slightly pointless but official looking). Did I mention we payed a euro less than the train for these fine accommodations?

This picture is stolen off the internet but check it out!

On Saturday morning in Santander, we headed off to take a walk along the beach. It was suprisingly warm as we sat and enjoyed our cafes con leche at a cafe along the beach.

 The beach just wasn't the same on Sepetember 29th without my newly non-teenage little sister, lil A-Rog!

The beach knew that it was Ali's birthday though and began to cry that she wasn't there... it rained all afternoon. But despite the rain, we ventured off to Puente Viesgo (35 min. outside of the city) to see some caves. No photos were allowed inside but I snagged a few off of the internet for you. These caves in particular are very well known because they include a broad range of techniques used in the artwork/messages.

General view of the inside, plus or minus a few stalactites and/or stalagmites. 

A prehistoric bull in the top right corner.

In order to get to the caves, we had to walk almost a mile uphill. I felt like I was on the Camino again...

 View of Puente Viesgo from halfway up

We had some time to kill before catching our bus back, so we decided to check out the church. Unfortunately, it was closed. Fortunately, the doors were pretty.

Cathedral in Puente Viesgo

 

The rain wasn't ideal, but the fog was beautiful. Check out the cross on top of the mountain.

Puente Viesgo was a fun afternoon trip, but problems arose when the bus arrived early on a one-lane each way winding street. Napala, Tim (an Aussie we befriended in the caves), and I were at the bus stop, but Eddie and Mike were still inside the restaurant across the street using the restroom. The bus driver denied my pleas to wait for them, drawing my attention to the massive line of cars that had backed up the hill behind him (all in a time span of 1 minute). 

Hoping he was going to be a little more forgiving than he was letting on, I jumped off the bus and ran across the street (totally forgetting to look both ways, I realized later) to go get them. Thankfully, they had just come out and we all ran back onto the bus, attempting to ignore the glare of this unpleasant bus driver. It was the last bus of the night, what did he expect us to do?

Apparently we pushed him over the edge though when we took too long to get off the bus. Mike stalled for 30 seconds in an attempt to tell Tim his address so that he could meet up with us later... I I almost suffered dearly for it. Why? Because the bus driver shut the door on me. Yes, shut it. This was no Metro door, where you put your shoulder in and it pops back open. I squeezed my arm out right before it shut and pulled my bag out of the door right before the bus drove off. I couldn't decide if it was a good thing or a bad thing that the solidness of my camera kept my bag from really getting stuck but since my camera is okay, I think it's better that my shoulder bag didn't keep me attached to a moving bus. 

So yep, just another last bus of the night story to add to my list. In case you forgot, you can read about the scare in Gibralatar or ask me about the time when Mom and I thought that there were no seats on the bus home from Ronda the night before her flight left to go back to the U.S.

Okay, enough for the drama. Back to the accounts of calm, leisurely walks along the beach, like the one that Napala and I took on Sunday.

Ferry heading out from Santander

Since everything is closed on Sunday and there was more rain, we spent the afternoon reading, talking, and relaxing. Then, before we got on our bus, Napala and I treated ourselves to a great seafood restaurant on the water. El Machi had some of the best croquetas I've ever had!

Croquetas filled with a mix of fish and some bits of red pepper

The food at El Machi was seriously good enough to negate the weekend of rain. If you're in Santander, I highly recommend it.

Alright, the end of the story is we took the bus back, took the metro home, and I moved into my apartment the next day. EL FIN. Now I'm off to take a much needed shower! I don't want my roommates to think I smell...

Love from Spain,

Amber

P.S. I read An Open Letter to Pumpkin Flavored Seaonal Treats today and thought it was hilarious. Worth 3 minutes of your time for sure.