Segovia

It has been a very long time since my last blog post, and a lot of things have happened! I was sick for a while, and then very busy with work and private lessons, and recently my friend Charlene has been here visiting me from France. I'm going to try and make up for lost time, though, and cover the highlights of what has happened the past few weeks.

Last weekend, Natalie and I went to Segovia, a beautiful, small town not far from Madrid. Although it takes nearly two hours to reach by normal train, it is only twenty minutes away by high-speed train. I had been there last summer, but had a completely different experience visiting in autumn. The skies were darkened all day by ominous gray clouds that spread out over the rolling plains outside the city walls, and you could hear the sound of the wind roaring through the vast, deserted spaces. If anything, it was much more magical and mysterious than it had been in the middle of summer, with the sun blazing down and no shadows to escape its heat.

The main highlights of Segovia are its Roman aqueduct, medieval Cathedral, and castle. Plus, the city itself is the very definition of picturesque. Much of the original fortified town wall still stands, surrounding the historic center, which sits atop a hill that dramatically drops off on two sides into ravines. In the background loom the blue-green slopes of the Sierra de Guadarrama. It had been one of my favorite day-trips from Madrid the last time I was here, and it did not fail to enrapture me all over again the second time I visited.

Fiestas Cervantinas

Last weekend, Natalie and I went back to Alcalá de Henares for a festival that was allegedly supposed to be celebrating the baptism of Cervantes who, as I mentioned in my earlier post, grew up in this small town just outside Madrid.

There may have indeed been a few Don Quixote-themed events, but we didn't manage to find hardly any of them. Instead, the festival consisted mostly of an ENORMOUS street market that radiated out from the central plaza for blocks and blocks. 

It was a lot like a somewhat classier version of the Renaissance festivals I've been to in the U.S. Most of the people working the stalls were dressed in old-fashioned garb, and the town was decorated with lots of festive banners and statues.

There were donkey rides through the main plaza

And every now and then men would come around wielding strange animals

...or instruments 

Stalls were set up selling all kinds of things...

Bread cooked in a wood-fired oven

Some of the loaves were bigger than our heads!

So many artisanal cheeses

Giant stuffed olives

Sacks of spices, which smelled truly divine 

Beautiful plates and ceramics

And aaallll the different sweets, treats and desserts imaginable!

In spite of the lack of Don Quixote-themed activities, we still had a great time! The festival was bustling all day and we enjoyed being a part of the energy and excitement. As always, it was also nice to get out of Madrid for a bit and into a smaller town, where the buildings are not so high, the pace is not quite so quick, and the air is not quite so polluted. All-in-all, it was a great day trip and a fun experience!

A Taste of Ecuador in Madrid

Natalie and I found out about an Ecuadorian restaurant near where we live and decided to check it out. Even though I never felt like I was particularly in love with Ecuadorian food while I was there, it did make me surprisingly nostalgic to eat some of the "typical dishes" that I remembered my host mom making all the time. The food was good, and we definitely want to go back another time!

Batido de mora (blackberry milkshake) with tostada and chifles

Habas (the green peas), melloco (the potatoes), choclo (the corn) and queso fresco (the cheese)

On the Way to School

The other day I was walking to the metro at 8:15 in the morning and was suddenly struck by how different and lovely everything looked at that early hour. Until I started working, I obviously never saw Madrid so early in the morning, with the sun barely coloring the tops of buildings orange and the sky a faint pink in the distance. I realized that I have, to some extent, been taking the city's beauty for granted, and so I decided to deliberately pay attention to the pretty things I pass every day and take a picture of them, both to remind myself to be more appreciative, as well as to share with all of y'all a little part of my daily routine here.

My commute is really not as bad as I had suspected. It takes between 35 and 45 minutes door to door, the variation caused by whether or not you catch the metro at the right time. During commuting hours, you hardly ever have to wait more than 5 minutes for the next train, but as I change lines halfway, that could add another 10 minutes! Usually this does not happen, and I rarely spend more than 2 minutes waiting. The only downside to taking the metro in the morning is that it is always PACKED! Not only are there no seats, but sometimes there's hardly even room to stand.

Since sitting is rarely an option, reading is not really possible. However, the BBC has 30 minute podcasts that they release daily summing up 6 or 7 important events from that day. It's a great way to make productive use of this otherwise wasted time, and for once in my life I am actually keeping abreast of developments in world news!

So with that I will bring the description of my commute to a close and end this post with my pictures. Here are some of the things I see every day going to and from work. Enjoy!

This is my street, Calle de San Agustín (Saint Augustine, if you couldn't figure that out)

My street

I literally live only a few feet away from the street where Cervantes lived, as well as the monastery where he is still buried

Plaza de las Cortes, at the bottom of my street. That's a statue of Cervantes!

Congreso de los Diputados

I don't know what this is. I think just shops and offices

I'm pretty sure this is a church

Sevilla, the stop where I get on the metro

Arturo Soria, the stop where I get off the metro

Some of the houses in the neighborhood around my school

My school, Colegio Público Luís Cernuda

Parque del Capricho

Last Saturday, Natalie and I went to a park that is a good ways out from the city center called Parque del Capricho, or Park of Whimsies. It was once the private property of the Duchess of Alameda de Osuna, who constructed all sorts of fanciful and elaborate buildings, ponds and landscaping features.

I went to this park last time I was in Madrid and really enjoyed it. It is a nice place to go on a lazy Saturday or Sunday because it is an easy metro ride away, but you feel like you're getting out of the city. It's very peaceful and less crowded than most of the more centrally-located parks, and it is, as the name implies, quite whimsical.

The duchess' house

Striking a pose in front of the Dance Hall

Striking a pose in front of the Dance Hall

My Presentation

For the first day of school, I made a presentation about myself to show to the class. I didn't wind up giving it until the third or fourth day, but all of the kids loved it! When they saw my house, they asked if I was a millionaire; when they saw Wilson Library, they thought it was the White House. They were way more impressed than I expected them to be, and it was a lot of fun seeing all of their reactions.

Here's a link to the presentation. Enjoy!

Presentation of My Life

First Week of School

This Tuesday, I finally started my job teaching English at an elementary school just outside the Madrid city center. I was excited/nervous/unsure what to expect - all of the typical feelings one goes through before starting a new job. But I seriously did not know what was in store for me - I had heard horror stories about Auxiliares who arrived to find that their school had no idea they were coming, didn't have anything for them to do, or expected them to just jump in and run the class on their first day. So I was expecting the bare minimum, the worst possible scenario......and I was very pleasantly surprised!

I got this picture from the school's website, but these are some of the kids I worked with!

Most of the other teachers are fairly young and close to my age. The teacher who is the program coordinator - Lucía - is really supportive and organized. The school is not too big - about 30-40 students in each grade level, divided into two classes - and there are three primary English teachers. They are all Spaniards, but their English is very good and they are excited about working with us to help the kids as well as to help themselves improve. Everyone who works at the school has been very nice and welcoming, especially the children!

We haven't quite finalized our schedules yet, but I will most likely be floating between a few different classes and working with children from 7-12 years old. Although they are obviously unruly sometimes, they are still young enough to think you're cool and admire you just because you're older. In one of the classes, I introduced myself and all of the students asked me questions - the one thing they ALL wanted to know, of course, was what my favorite soccer team is. The teacher had them write a description of me and then the next day they read them out to the class. Almost all of them started with physical descriptions and then ended with something like, "Clark is very nice and fun and I'm glad he's going to help us with English." I didn't even feel like I had really done anything special but they were already fond of me anyway!

I also made a PowerPoint about my life, with pictures of my family, my house, Wilson Library from UNC, my favorite holidays, etc. and all of the kids loved it. They are convinced I'm a millionaire and that I live in a mansion because, like most city-dwellers throughout the world, the majority of them live in apartments.

All in all, I think it is going to be a fun and fulfilling experience! It's definitely going to be tough at times, but I can already tell that the relationships I'm going to build with the other teachers and the children will make it all worth it! It's still hard for me to believe that such an awesome program exists, where you get paid to do a fun job and get to live in an amazing city like Madrid!